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He kisses me, and I let him. There's no connection between us and I enjoy the feel of his lips against mine, his tongue touching mine, his arms around me – a separate being experiencing my own emotions and senses. I can almost feel him trying to get in and I know that unlike me, he feels that lack of connection as a painful reminder of his loneliness rather than a sweet pleasure. I want to delay the connection so I can just enjoy as my own desire grows.
He needs to feel my response to his touch – his own desire isn't enough. For him, it feels empty, disconnected. Incomplete. So I let him in.
He trembles as our senses join and for a moment, the wave of desire from him overwhelms me. He pulls his lips away from mine and, with his eyes still closed, he tilts his head to the side and runs his fingernail along the skin beneath his ear, opening up a seam from which his blood flows. I lean down and cover it with my mouth, sucking, his response so strong that my body convulses with pleasure. Coupled with the rush from his blood, I barely needed his touch between my thighs to climax, my body shuddering as he bites my neck and drinks from me.
He lies me back on the sofa and this time, he pulls his mouth away, no longer drinking, having taken only a mouthful. Just enough for the connection between us to deepen, growing stronger as his desire builds until the world falls away and there's only pleasure too sweet to endure.
Michel agrees to let me meet with someone from the Council a few days later. He isn't happy that we're leaving the warehouse and it's only using an armed escort that I'm allowed out. He spends a very long time with me that night after I feed, our arms and legs entwined.
"I hate this," he says, running his fingers over my lips. "To find you, to claim you, and then to have you leave me."
"I'm not leaving you," I say and kiss his neck. "I'm going to kill Soren. It has nothing to do with leaving you. When this is all over, I'll come back."
"With Soren dead, there'll be big changes here. There'll be a turf war over who'll replace him among his coven. I'm thinking of relocating. Maybe leave this place. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?"
I sigh, thinking of the places I've been before in my life.
"Somewhere by the ocean," I say without hesitation. "Maybe it's just in my blood. The sea."
He studies my face for a moment with an expression of resignation.
"Things are going to happen that will shock you," he says and strokes my cheek. "Since I agreed to let you try to fight Soren, I've been planning with my remaining contacts in the Council, trying to arrange things, letting certain information slip. Just follow your instincts. You and I will have to part for a time, but Soren won't deny you when he takes you. Just don't fight him and he'll be only too glad to keep you as his pet."
"Can't you tell me what the plan is?"
He shakes his head.
"Just know that you'll be taken from me. It will look like an ambush. You'll become Soren's possession – there's no way that he won't take you as his own given the chance. When the time comes you'll be given what you need to kill him."
"Why didn't he take me before?"
"Don't worry about that," he says. "He'll take you now. The less you know about this, the better, so that's all I can say."
I nod, the solemnity of his voice making me fearful. The prospect of killing Soren doesn't seem so appealing all of a sudden. I pull Michel closer, emotion choking me at the thought I'll be taken away from him soon.
"You agree that this is the way to proceed? Your friends in the Council do as well?"
"There'll be someone to replace him when he's destroyed, but this way we'll have an advantage. He's the most powerful of us now, and as leader of this gambit, without him, there's no one strong enough among his coven to take over and follow through. Just me and Julien. No one strong enough to challenge us. But the plan won't involve your death," he says, and brushes my hair away from my face. "I'll only agree to this if it means you're to survive and come back to me."
I kiss him, my arms tightening around him. There's no bliss for us that evening. Only sadness at the prospect we'd soon part.
Despite my growing ambivalence about leaving on this mission, I'm happy to walk the streets of my old neighborhood, past the bakery directly beneath my apartment where I buy black rye and crusty Italian loaf and the butcher a few rows down where I purchase pickles and ripe olives when I lived there. I bought most of my groceries at a small fruit and vegetable shop that sells fresh flowers.
Seeing the familiar landmarks drives home how much my life has changed in such a short period of time. We stop at my apartment so I can run in and check on my cats. Vasily arranged for someone to come by and feed them but they've been alone all this time. Michel comes in with me and walks around the room, and it reminds me of that day back in time when all this was brand new. Such a short time, but it seems a lifetime ago. He does the same visual tour of the apartment, picking up my possessions and smiling. He holds up a plastic Nemo fish I keep by my kitchen sink.
"A toy?"
I laugh and pour fresh kibble in the cat bowls. "I had a clownfish once and was very fond of it. When the movie came out I had to get one as a reminder." I spend a few moments giving the cats attention while Michel inspects my bookshelf, picking up my texts and flipping through the pages. I wash out the water dishes and fill them, then look around the tiny apartment. What a difference from the warehouse or mansion. The kitchenette in my apartment is the size of that in an RV. The shower isn't much bigger. But it was home once and I feel a sense of melancholia for my past life. The world seemed so full of promise to me then. I thought I'd actually have a normal life once upon a time, despite my horrible adolescence. Now? I'm not sure how long I'll even live. This is war. My mother died in the cause.
I lock the apartment up, sad that I won't be staying there with the cats.
"Tell me how I’ll know what to do."
"You will just know. Someone will contact you and you’ll know.”
"Is that all you can tell me or all you will tell me?"
Michel places his hand behind my back and ushers me into the vehicle, then sits beside me, one arm around me on the back of the seat.
