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Marco
By the time the event ended around one in the morning, I’d made a promise to spend the evening with seven different groups I hadn’t even realized existed before this event. The powerful beings in this city were friends, not merely social acquaintances or political allies. Cora had been right to pull me to the table with the Drake geeks, because in this century, the geeks’ rule of cyberspace has extended far into the real world, and it would be good for me to be seen as a friend by them. Likewise, a group of white-collar wolves with high-profile jobs — a mix of all three local packs — had a standing tee time every week, and I’d invited them to a round of night golf at the quarter moon, with glow-in-the-dark balls, complete with a full steak dinner after the eighteenth hole.
Sometimes, one leads from a pedestal, and the separation between leader and followers is a tangible thing. Other times, it’s important the leader be seen as part of society. Always, the leader has to keep enough emotional distance to see the big picture, but I could do that while making friends.
One of the stumbling blocks of being long-lived comes in seeing people as chess pieces. I’ve watched others do so, and I’ve endeavored not to become like them. This city was going to be good for me, requiring me to become a part of the living, breathing fabric of its people.
With this in mind, I’d driven Cora to the event, rather than taking a limo. Sometimes, one wants to arrive with that particular statement, but it didn’t seem the right choice for this occasion. In the car on the way back to Homewood, I thought Cora was close to falling asleep beside me until she said, “Gabby intrigued you.”
Her scent and voice were both even, but I knew my wolf better than that. The human didn’t want to be jealous or possessive, but the wolf had other ideas. It wasn’t possible for me to offer monogamy, and Cora had understood that from the beginning. The wolf did, too, but she was less pleased about it than the woman.
“There are so many rumors around rabbit shifters,” I told her. “I’ve never had an opportunity to feed from one — blood or lust.” As far as I knew, Gabby was the only rabbit shifter living in this realm instead of Faerie.
“She has sex with a variety of shifters. Taking on only bear energy isn’t good for her, apparently, so her bear makes certain she has safe partners she can have sex and exchange energy with. If you want to negotiate for a feed-and-fuck, you’ll probably want to do so with both present. She won’t do anything without Horse’s stamp of approval, and Horse won’t negotiate on her behalf without her there to speak up.”
“I don’t even know for certain if it would be safe to drink from her. A lust feeding would be fulfilling, I believe, but again, I don’t know for certain.”
“Someone who needs lust energy to stay sane, having sex with someone who feeds off of lust energy and can increase it while he’s feeding? Sounds like something you need to at least talk about.” In my peripheral vision, I could see her eyes open, as alert as always, and she looked around before turning to me. “I told you in New York that I don’t want you crippling yourself in order to give my wolf the monogamy she thinks we need. The human parts of me get it, and I know you sense the wolf’s disapproval when we know you’ve had sex with someone, but I need you to trust me to handle my wolf. She knows we need you strong. She doesn’t want you crippled, either.”
“And I promised to make certain my energy levels are as high as I can get them. What I’m telling you is that while you are absolutely correct that Gabby intrigued me, I don’t know if it would be safe to feed from her — blood or lust — so I won’t chance it.”
“Before Horse and Gabby got together, in fact, possibly the reason they’re together, Abbott was walking Gabby from Aaron’s house to his, and by their scent, I’m pretty sure they were about to fuck. Horse interceded, grabbed Gabby, threw her on his motorcycle, and they’ve been an item ever since, but the point is, Abbott seemed to think she was safe.”
When I didn’t say anything, she pulled her phone from her pocket and made a call.
Kendra answered, and Cora said, “I’m in the car with Marco and I have you on speaker. Is it safe for ya’ll to drink from rabbits? I’m pretty sure Abbott was planning something with Gabby just before she and Horse got together, so I’m thinking it is?”
“Oh yeah, it’s safe. There’s a captive rabbit, a slave of the Concilio, and I’ve had an opportunity to drink from him while I was torturing him. I didn’t have sex with him, but others did, and all of us drank from him. He’s fucking expensive to rent, so a group of four paid for an overnight session with him — an hour each solo, and his keepers changed him between, and then two hours of us all in the same room using him and feeding from him gang-bang style, so I got three hours with him for a shitload of money, but it was completely worth it.”
“You are a font of knowledge, as always. Everything going okay in Alaska?”
“I miss Chattanooga, but it’s good to be by Zander’s side again. I’d missed him, too. I know I’m not here permanently yet, but it feels good. How did the gathering go?”
“Without incident, so I’m calling it a success.”
“No incidents at all? Three packs of wolves, at least one of every kind of big cat on the planet, and multiple species of birds of prey, plus the menagerie the bikers have turned into, and not a single incident?”
“Everyone was on their best behavior,” I said. “It probably helps that I told most of the group leaders if their people behaved, the leader would get a substantial gift certificate good at either the biker’s mechanic shop, or to purchase beef from the bikers. The amounts ranged from one thousand to ten thousand dollars, depending on the size of the group.”
“And the bikers agreed to sell the gift certificates to you for, what, eighty cents on the dollar? If that was the carrot, what was the stick?”
“I chose something different for every leader. At any rate, the evening went off without a hitch, and the next time we do this, it won’t be on neutral ground, and the rules will include consequences for bad behavior without offering a reward for good behavior.”
When she’d disconnected from Kendra, Cora asked me, “Which groups do you believe have the most political clout? Top five, in descending order.”
“I don’t believe isolating political clout is beneficial. Clout in general, though, where political clout is one aspect, would be a useful discussion. The vampires are on top in just about every city because of our might. When you can rip into your enemy’s mind and control him or her like a marionette, the other arguments aren’t as important.”
“And when a Master Vampire can’t control the other supernaturals in his or her city, the Concilio replaces them with someone who can,” Cora noted.
I nodded. “If you and I can successfully pull off the ruling couple thing, then people won’t be able to decide if it’s the vampires and then the Homewood pack, or whether it’s the two groups ruling as a unit.”
“The problem with that,” Cora told him, “is that I’m seen as stronger because of my connection to Kirsten and the relevant metaphysical links with Mordecai and Nathan, since Kirsten is bound to them. It’s possible the city won’t be absolutely certain whether Homewood is stronger, or the coterie.”
I’d come to the same conclusion, and while that could be dangerous under normal circumstances, I couldn’t imagine who the Concilio might replace me with who could successfully battle with Homewood either politically or on a field of battle.
“In this case, I believe it’ll be okay for them to wonder. So long as the Concilio doesn’t have a reason to deem Homewood stronger than the coterie, I think we’ll be fine.”
