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7
SHE KISSED ME, and this time I didn't fight her. I let my body melt into hers, let her feed at my mouth. There is a moment in a kiss, especially an open-mouth kiss, where the caress of lips and tongue spills over some line, and beyond that line, you kiss back. I kissed her, kissed her as she was meant to be kissed, full and complete, tasting her.
I drew back enough to whisper, "You taste salty."
She breathed her answer in my mouth, as she drew me back into the kiss, "You taste of blood." Her breath filled my mouth, caressed the back of my throat. Her breath tasted fresh and clean like the wind off the ocean.
Her lips tasted like she had just that second taken a sip of the ocean. I licked her lip, and found that there was a whitish film on the fullness of her mouth. It wasn't illusion. It was real.
I swallowed the salty taste of her lips, staring up at her, feeling the surprise on my face. "How..." But I never finished the question, because I didn't just swallow the taste of salt, I swallowed her power.
I heard the ocean whispering against the shore. I could hear it like music. I looked around the room. I wanted to ask someone else if they could hear it. I meant to look for Micah, or Nathaniel, but that wasn't who caught my gaze. Thomas was staring at me with wide eager eyes. His brother had collapsed to the love seat, and was covering his ears with his hands, rocking back and forth. Cristos was fighting it, whatever it was, but Thomas wasn't. Sampson had a death grip on the love seat, but his eyes had drowned to black so that he looked blind. The other man and woman they'd brought with them turned black eyes to me. The woman was hugging herself, as if cold, or afraid. The man had a death grip on his own wrist, the typical jock pose turned into something harsh and struggling, as if, if he let go of his wrist, he would do something unfortunate. Last I found Samuel's eyes. His eyes had bled to vampire fire, the glowing brown with flecks of green flame in their depths. They all could hear it, that whispering, seductive sound. The ocean was calling, and I didn't know how to answer.
I was still staring into Samuel's eyes when I felt a hand glide down my shoulder. I turned, and found Thomas standing next to us. Thea began to pull out of my arms, giving me to Thomas's arms as she moved, so that it was as if the embrace never stopped, only the arms holding me had changed.
There was movement around us. I saw Micah's face, his lips moving, but I couldn't hear him. All I could hear was the sigh and echo of the sea. Thomas touched my face, turned me back to look at him. He spoke, and his words held the growling echo of surf over rocks. "You hear my voice though, don't you?"
I nodded, my face pressed against his hand. His hand was large enough to cup the entire side of my face. He leaned down, and I went up on tiptoe to help him finish the kiss. I wasn't thinking that he was seventeen. I wasn't thinking we had an audience that included his parents. I wasn't thinking that men I loved were watching. I saw nothing but his face, felt nothing but the strength of his hands on my face, his arm trailing down my back, his hand gliding down my body. The inside of my head was peaceful, full of a soft, rushing sound, like water as it spills along some peaceful shore. I wasn't the one who fought free of the mind games, it was Thomas who spoiled it. His hand slid down, down, and found the gun at the small of my back. It made him hesitate. Made him stumble as if his magic had legs to be tripped by a misplaced stone.
I pulled back from him, saw the uncertainty on his face. He was still handsome, and the compulsion to touch him was still there whispering through my head, but his eyes were wide, his face uncertain. He looked fresh and new and untried, like someone who had never hugged someone and found her wearing a gun.
The sound of the surf pulled away, and I could hear the murmuring in the room. People wondering what to do, whether they should interfere.
"That's a gun," he said, in a voice as uncertain as his face.
I nodded. I had gone back to being flat-footed on my heels, no more tiptoe, no more helping him seduce me with his mother's magic, or his own.
He'd actually missed the big knife down my spine, because he hadn't come to the midline of my body until low on my back. But it was a big weapon to miss. Baby, he was a baby. And I'd have said that if he'd been twenty-seven instead of seventeen. Baby not in years, but in my world. You don't miss a knife as long as a forearm, not and live, not for long. Not in my world.
I gazed up into his face. The black was beginning to drain away, showing the hazel of his human eyes. He was the son of a master vampire and a siren, but where he lived was a gentler, kinder place than my life. I would leave him to that gentleness.
I drew out of his arms, completely. "Go back and sit down, Thomas."
He hesitated and looked at his mother. She was watching me, not him. Watching me with those black eyes. There was a considering look on her face, as if she wasn't sure what she thought of the show.
"Do as Anita says, Thomas," she said, at last.
He went back to the love seat, to sit beside his brother. It left Thea and me staring at each other.
"He hesitated only for a moment," she said, "yet, it was enough."
"It's not his power," I said, "not yet. It's yours. You loaned him enough power to roll me."
She made a gesture that was almost a shrug, but her hands went out in a wide gesture. I think it meant, Perhaps, or, You caught me. I wasn't sure which, and wasn't sure I cared.
"You have greeted Thomas, but we have two other sons," she said.
Micah came up beside me. He took my hand. "In fairness to our other guests, I think we need to greet more of Auggie's people."
"They are only his henchmen, and his mistress. We have brought you our flesh and blood, the fruit of our lives."
Micah nodded, still smiling. "We appreciate that, but--"
I cut him off, and said, "Enough, Micah, thanks for trying to be all polite and hosty, but I've had enough of games for the night."
He squeezed my hand, as if saying, Be nice.
I squeezed back, but I was done being nice. I wouldn't be rude, but... "I'm going to greet Auggie and his people now, because they didn't try to roll me. Until Jean-Claude joins us, you and your sons are just going to have to wait to be greeted."
"So Augustine's whore is higher in rank than my sons?" Thea sounded genuinely angry.
There was a sound of outrage from the other side of the room--a woman's voice protesting and Auggie trying to calm her. I glanced to find him talking to a statuesque brunette in a very tiny dress. She was mad, and I didn't blame her.
I turned back to Samuel. "You talk to her, Samuel. You explain that your wife damn near abused our hospitality tonight."
"If we have truly abused your hospitality, then Jean-Claude could revoke our safe conduct," he said, voice deep, but strangely soft.
"I understand that."
"Did we frighten you that badly?" he asked.
"I agreed to Thea tasting my power, not Thomas. It wasn't what we negotiated for. I was told you were an honorable man; bait and switch isn't very honorable."
"Could you hear anything we said while Thomas touched you?" Micah asked.
I glanced at him, and shook my head. "I could hear his voice and the sound of the sea, that was it."
"I pointed out to Samuel that you hadn't bargained for Thomas."
"What did he say?"
"He said that for a siren to truly taste your power it needed to have a sexual flavor to it, and since you were not a lover of women, one of the boys would be helpful."
I shook my head. "I'm going to greet Auggie and his people now. Whether I let any of your other children touch me, or not, is up for a very serious debate." I put my gaze on Thea. "I don't like to be forced, or played, Thea. If you really want your sons to have a chance at my bed, or body, or power, you need to remember that."
"I saw into your mind when I embraced you," she said. "I saw what you think of my sons. You are disinclined toward them. Without magic to persuade you, I do not think they have any chance at your bed, your body, or your power."
My pulse was suddenly in my throat. I fought to keep a blank face, but wasn't sure I succeeded. How much had she read while she was playing inside my head? Did she know about the pregnancy scare?
Thea was watching me very narrowly. She saw the fear on me, but didn't understand why. Which meant either she'd only read things about her sons in my head, or she didn't understand why being pregnant would scare me. If the former, yea; if the latter, she was too odd for me to talk to.
I turned to Auggie and his angry girlfriend. She was the only woman on his side of the room. Standing in the spike heels she was over six feet tall. But whereas with Claudia it was all muscle, and menace, this woman was thin. There was no play of muscle to her arms and legs. She was making angry gestures with large hands, darkly painted nails, a diamond flashing on her right hand. Her dress was red with silver sequins. It fit her like a tiny, glittery second skin. The dress was so short that when she flounced around the couch, taking too long a step, she flashed enough flesh that I knew she wasn't wearing anything under the dress. Oh, my.
Auggie coaxed her back to me. Her face was perfect in a high-cheekboned, almost stark way. She wore enough makeup, artfully applied, that stark should not have been a word you used for her face. Her hair was long, and teased too high on the top, as if she'd never quite left the eighties, but it was brunette. It might even have been her natural color. The spaghetti straps of her dress and the thin material should not have been able to support her breasts. Breasts that large do not stay perky without more help than the dress could give. Her breasts sat under the dress in a way that real breasts just don't. She flounced toward me, holding Auggie's hand. The walk was good, bouncy, but her breasts didn't bounce with her. They were big, and even shapely, but they rode under her dress like they were way more solid than breasts are meant to be.
It took Micah tugging on my hand to let me know I'd missed something, staring at her chest. I shook my head and gave Auggie eye contact. "Sorry, what did you say?"
"This is Bunny; she is my mistress."
Bunny. I thought, was it her real name? I hoped so--who would choose to be Bunny? I nodded. "Hi, Bunny."
Auggie gave her a little pull, and a nod.
She gave an angry sullen face to me. "At least I'm only whoring for one man, not a dozen."
Micah actually pulled me away from her. I let him do it. I was so astounded at the rudeness of it that I was speechless. I wasn't even angry yet; it was too unexpected. Too rude.
Auggie ordered her to kneel, and when she didn't do it fast enough, he forced her. "Apologize, now!" His power filled the room like cold water, shivering along my skin.
"Why am I a whore, when his wife is pimping out her own sons, and this one is fucking everything and everyone that will stand still?"
"Benny," he said in a very quiet voice. I knew that tone of voice. It's the careful, controlled one you use when you're afraid of what you'll do if you yell.
The only vampire he'd brought with him moved around the couch to stand beside him. "Yeah, boss."
"Take her out of here. Get on a plane, take her back to Chicago, help her pack. Make sure she takes only what belongs to her."
Bunny's eyes went wide. "No, Auggie, no, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."
He moved away, so she couldn't touch him. She tried to crawl after him, but Benny grabbed her arm. "Come on, Bunny, we gotta plane to catch."
She was human, and in five-inch heels, but she put up a fight. Benny was having trouble getting her to the door without hurting her. She'd proven to the entire room that she was naked under the tiny dress.
