Entwined With the Dark (26 page)

He lifted his head and watched me, his eyes a blaze of magenta and blue. I held his gaze as long as I could then closed my eyelids as a delicious urgency rose within. Taking me swiftly higher and higher.

"Open your eyes," he instructed, his voice husky and low. "I want to see you." He didn't stop his movements or the pursuit of my pleasure, but with my eyes open, held by his own, I felt vulnerable, exposed and so turned on.

He smiled knowingly, licked his lips and continued to rock into and against me. His arms cradling me tenderly, ensuring he wasn't gripping an injury too tightly, but holding me exactly where he wanted me to be. He was completely in control.

"Come for me," he murmured, and I was thrilled to hear the strain in the words. He was close to the edge too and I wanted him to topple over it with me.

"You too," I said breathlessly, still holding his gaze.

"That won't be difficult," he panted, sweat starting to trickle down the side of his face. Then with a groan, he added, "Whenever you're ready,
ma douce
. Now would be good."

Our eyes still locked on each other, more than words being conveyed in our looks, I fell over that delightful wave of ecstasy. Unable to keep my eyes open any longer, I felt and heard his own release. He pulled me close against his chest, lay a kiss in the curve of my neck and let out a slow, long breath of air.

"
Mon Dieu, ma douce!
" he said huskily. "You are incredible."

Right back at ya!
I thought lazily, exhaustion catching up with me finally as I rested my head on his shoulder and began to drift off to sleep. He held me closely for several seconds, the world a warm and welcome place. Not only did I feel safe in this house, but also at home in the arms of this man. Through the blanket of slumber I felt him untangle us, he lay me down on the couch and straightened my clothes, putting himself back in order as well. Then found a rug to place over me, tucking the edges in with infinite care.

I started to shake off sleepiness, knowing he was about to leave, but he hushed me, placed a hand on my cheek and whispered, "Sleep, my love." I knew he'd used a little
Sanguis Vitam
to send the command home. But I didn't have it in me to be angry. He was protecting himself as much as me.

When I awoke, some time later, feeling better than I had in days, I knew he had gone. Back to the
Palais
, back to the machinations of the Champion and Council. But not away from me. The connection to his mind was wide open and he sent me a jolt of pure love down the line as soon as he knew I was awake. I sighed and stretched, rolling over to spot Nataliya. She was sitting in the armchair opposite the sofa, drinking a cup of something hot.

"Hey!" I said and then had to clear my throat. It had sounded way too post coital husky. Shame on me!

She smiled and started laughing. "At least you two were quiet this time."

I groaned.

"Do you mind?" I said stiffly, sitting up and checking I was all in order and not flashing my friend.

"Not at all," she said, voice filled with amusement. I gave her a glare, but it was half-hearted. Vampires of a line fed off the mood of their master or mistress. All of the vampires in the house, except the Nothus, would have felt a sense of rightness and complete happiness through their connections to Michel and me. It was a little creepy, but I had learned to accept this part of the deal. To be involved with the Master of a line and to have vampires of my own, meant we were connected in an unbelievably personal way.

Even Samson would be feeling happy right now, but not able to tell why. Thank the Goddess.

"So, what's the plan?" I asked, deciding a distraction was in order.

"The fairy would like to talk to you, before he and Gigi leave."

"Why is she with him?" I asked, absent-mindedly. My vampires all knew what Gigi was, I could ensure their secrecy. Michel could ensure Marcus and Matthias's too, but I had not felt right letting them know. I conceded with Marcus's attitude right now, that maybe I needed to rethink that strategy. Although, part of me believed, if he knew for certain what she was, he would be even more aggressive than he already is toward the girl. There were some vampires who believed all Nothus should be killed, regardless of who or what they are.

I shook my head to clear that unwanted thought away. Marcus was a good guy, I just hoped he wasn't too prejudiced in this regard.

"I have no idea," Nataliya answered my question. "She won't talk to any of us."

With everything that was happening in my life right now, I really didn't have time for this. But Nut had made me promise and I couldn't help feel that getting to the bottom of this was essential if I was to know how to protect my charge properly.

"All right then," I said with renewed determination. "As we're not going anywhere during the daylight hours, you'd better send them in." Nataliya stood and headed toward the door. "Just Aliath and Gigi, Nataliya." I could do without Marcus breathing down our necks.

The fairy and Nothus walked in and took seats around the room. I was relieved to see Gigi looked a million times better. Fed and dressed in replacement clothes. I gathered Yves had provided those. Which made me realise he would have recognised what Gigi is. To any other supernatural she looks for all intents and purposes, Nosferatu. But to us, Nosferatin, she is kin. And she is vampire too. I added ensuring the French Nosferatin's secrecy to my list of things to do.

"Princess," Aliath said his green eyes running over the length of body. Once again checking to make sure I was unharmed. Did he think Michel would injure me? I frowned at that thought and the fact that the fairy wished for my safety at all. I was still having trouble being 'in' with the Dark Fey. At least I was 'in' with Aliath, I couldn't say the same of his evil aunt, the Queen.

"Before we get started, I'd like an answer to one question, please," I said, turning my attention to Gigi. She held my gaze with an emotionless one in return. "What are you doing with Aliath?"

If looks could kill, I'd be dead. It broke my heart that she didn't trust me. That she didn't feel I could be a friend. I had tried so hard to be there for her, to offer guidance and support. But she had spurned me at every opportunity, until just before we left New Zealand for good. She had turned up on my doorstep seeking... what? A comforting shoulder to cry on? I wasn't sure. But whatever she had been seeking, she hadn't got it. When I had thought it had gone so well.

I was the first to lower my eyes, breaking contact. I still felt enormously guilty for what had transpired. She was dead when I had reached her, but because of Samson's pleas and with my Goddesses help, she survived. To be this. A Nothus, a creature shunned by the vampires we hunt. The vampires we must live with. I condemned her to a life of hiding who she really is. She was hiding in plain sight, albeit in the Antipodes, but still alongside those vampires who could turn on her in a flash. I didn't envy her life, but I felt responsible for it.

I'd told her it was a mixed blessing, to be alive but to have to work so hard for it. I felt like a fool for suggesting that, empty words that really didn't change a thing.

"Georgia is assisting me on the hunt," Aliath offered, having taken the exchange in and clearly aware Gigi would not talk to me at all.

"How?" I asked, raising my eyes to his. Nataliya was still in the room, so if he wanted to magic me, he was shit out of luck. He frowned slightly and then shifted his gaze to Gigi. She resolutely didn't look back. "I am not used to being placed in such a position. Georgia, it is your choice to tell the Princess, but I trust her and believe you should too." He stood up then and walked away from us, effectively washing his hands of the conversation.

Gigi didn't look at me or say a word. Nataliya stared at her with ill concealed dislike. I just felt sad. I wasn't doing a very good job of helping this girl, I wondered if Nut was getting as frustrated as me.

"OK," I said finally, running a hand through my hair. "You don't have to tell me, but I want you to know I only ask so I can help. I want to make sure you're not being forced into something you don't want." Aliath turned slowly to look at me, one eyebrow raised incredulously. Hmm, well, I could have been more diplomatic, but I needed Gigi to know.

"Help?" Gigi said slowly. "Like how you helped when I died?"

I didn't see Aliath move, but he was between us in a flash. I was about to yell at him to stop being so dramatic, when Nataliya forced a silver stake from the Nothus's hand. She cursed as the silver burned her fingers, but managed to throw it across the room. Silence descended, mixed in with my alarm, and echoed by Michel's in my head. I stood slowly and took a shaky step to face my charge.

"I think you should both leave," I said and heard Michel's growl of agreement through my mind. "This is a place of safety for Nosferatin, that includes you. To come against me here is unconscionable." I had no idea where that had come from, but I felt it in my bones. The door opened behind us, the raised voices of Sergei and Matthias wafting in. Yves entered the room ignoring their protests, a flash of silver only barely hidden by his sleeve.

"Is everything all right?" he asked in a low and steady voice. "The house is upset." The house is upset? How about the Nosferatin facing a stake from the girl whose life she saved. And ruined, my inner monologue decided to add.

I let a breath of air out in defeat. "We don't have time for this. Whatever you can do to find Lutin I would appreciate, Aliath."

"Be careful how you phrase your requests, Princess. There is only so much debt I can ignore."

"That's it! Get out!" I said throwing my hands up in the air. "I am sick and tired of pussy footing around fairy customs and dealing with attacks from
enemies
I shouldn't have to battle right now." I turned to the Nothus. "I get it, all right! Now
you
get the fuck over it."

I turned away from them both and stormed from the room. I needed fresh air and the garden was calling. Nataliya followed me to the front door and placed a hand on my arm.

"It's daylight, mistress. We can not aid you if Lutin appears under the sun."

I hesitated, not wanting to place my guards - or me - in that situation, but Yves appeared at my side. "I will protect her. You have my word."

I didn't wait for an answer from my vampires, just opened the vestibule door and headed into the daylight for what felt like the first time in weeks.

Two harrowing good-byes in one night. And right now, I couldn't tell which one was worse.

"I miss it, you know," I said softly. Yves and I were sitting on a bench seat, taking in the Parisian sun and view. Both were spectacular.

"The sun?" he asked, not opening his eyes or moving from his semi reclined position soaking up the rays' warmth.

"Yeah. I seem to be on a completely nocturnal schedule now and when I am awake during the day, I'm confined to the house, so my guards can keep me safe." I sighed. "It never used to be like that." I sounded more than just a little disgruntled.

"It will pass," he said sagely, but flashed me a grin. "This level of threat cannot possibly last forever. It is merely a hurdle our Goddess requires us to face."

"Why?" I hadn't meant to question Nut. It's just not something you're supposed to do. But Yves didn't baulk like I thought he would.

"I don't know, Lucinda. But it helps me sometimes to believe there is a reason for all we must endure. She would not make us walk these difficult and often dangerous paths, unless it was important."

I thought about it for a moment and then added, "She told a friend of mine once, that we all have choices in our lives, which paths to take. The choices are ours, but the destination has been decided before we were born. We get to choose how we get there, but not how it all ends."

"Sounds like something she would say," the Frenchman murmured.

"Have you met Her?" I asked, turning to look at him to gauge his reply.

"Once," he said and finally opened his eyes to look into mine. "She told me you would return. That you would change our world and I should be prepared to lend a hand." He smiled, a disarming smile and added, "Or something like that."

I wasn't sure what to make of that. "You said the house had been waiting for my return too. But, I've never been here before, Yves."

"
Non
, but the
Sanguis Vitam Cupitor
has."

I sat forward in my seat. "You mean there's been a Prophesied before me?"

"Of course," he said with a shrug. "The Prophesy is always activated when a need arises. When the Dark threatens to overshadow the Light. When imbalance is prevalent in the world. It is designed to perpetually repeat itself when needed."

Huh. So a
Sanguis Vitam Cupitor
had been in this Nosferatin house before and the
house
remembered.

"Are all prophesies like that?" I asked, leaning back to take advantage of the sun again.

"I shouldn't think so, but there would certainly be more than just one. I mean, we can't be
that
unique."

I laughed at his light tone, but in my mind I was thinking,
or that lucky
.

We stayed in the sun for a couple of hours, Michel constantly checking on me, but not admonishing my lack of safety. He obviously felt that Yves and I were capable of holding our own, or he realised we were within feet of the door to the house and Sergei and Nataliya were both on the other side of said door. Finally, after I felt like I had revitalised months and months worth of lack of vitamin D, we decided to head in for sustenance of a different kind.

Yves threw together a salad, with a selection of cold meats and crusty bread. He insisted we drink chilled white wine with our meal, but didn't suggest we eat outside under the sun - much to the relief of the vampires in the room. The conversation was light while we ate and only when the last morsel of food was consumed did he turn our attention back to the tasks ahead.

"I can get you out of the city as soon as the sun sets, I have access to a private landing strip on the outskirts of Paris, and have called several Nosferatins and their kindred in to help in the ruse. We'll have six different vehicles leaving the premises right on sunset, travelling to six different airstrips. With luck, your
Nathair-Sgiathach
will be unable to follow us all and we'll slip you through."

"It seems a lot of effort for such a short amount of time," I said finishing off my sweet wine. "I mean, once we're back at Michel or Samson's house they'll find us there."

"We're not going to either place," Matthias offered.

"Oh?" I said and could tell they all cringed at my tone. Yet again left out of the loop.

"Yeah, um..." Matthias rubbed a beefy hand over the back of his neck, not looking directly at me at all. "Michel has arranged for us to stay in accommodation provided by Amun Nadeem."

"What?" I said, unable to hide my surprise. Why would Michel trust the Egyptian Master of the City, when we had only just met the guy and he seemed a little cracked in the head?

The accord. I bit my lip, unhappy at the thought. The accord was binding, but it required our open presence and support of the London Master, staying with him in hiding didn't seem to fit that description at all. So, what else had Michel promised in return?

My stomach churned at those unpleasant thoughts. Nothing was simple anymore. Everything had consequences and it seemed we were only getting deeper and deeper into the shit those consequences were. Would my life ever be easy again? I'd had no choice in what I became, it's not as though I had to sign a contract and agree to what life now was. But then, I had in a way. I'd chosen to join with a vampire and become part of this world, to avoid death.

And even now, I had choices. But it seemed to me they were always the same ones. Do this or that, to avoid death.

I let a long breath out and flicked my gaze towards the kitchen clock. A few hours sleep wouldn't go astray. Yves helped get me settled in a spare room that was light and airy and so very pretty I felt like a little girl again. And with Nataliya curled up on the sofa in the corner we both got some rest. What felt like minutes later, but was in fact more like four hours, we were roused by her brother.

"The sun sets," he said without apology.

And my night of consequences began again.

Surprisingly, or not - Yves did seem to have access to quite an arsenal resources - we made it out of Paris without a dragon to be seen. Oh, I was sure they were still there, but if Sebastian had only the two other shifters with him that we had initially met outside the
Palais
, we'd had a fifty percent chance of not being followed. Luck seemed to be, for once, on our side. We left France at an old infrequently used landing strip and arrived in London only three hours after leaving the Nosferatin home. I call it a home, not a house, because for some reason, that's what it had become to me. I couldn't quite explain it, but I knew I'd be back. And not just for the odd visit every few years either.

London was vibrantly alive and well in the middle of the night, the unseasonably good weather bringing people out in droves. My little break away had lifted my spirits, despite all that had happened in the
Palais
. London didn't seem as forbidding anymore, but then I wasn't about to go pounding the streets. Matthias drove us directly to Amun's house, a well tended white five story building on the end of a row in Mayfair. The upper story windows were completely concreted over, the lower level had plant boxes and pretty little red flowers. It was enormous, but it wasn't entirely all for us. The rooms downstairs were his line's offices, where he ran his businesses from. The Vibe was just one of many and not where the real wheeling and dealing was done.

Our group was greeted on the steps in front of the imposing structure's doors by an elderly gentleman, the epitome of British refinement. He bowed upon greeting us, an entirely human movement - no fist clenched above heart, he was no doubt aware of what we were, but acted as though it didn't matter in the slightest - then ushered us into the foyer.

The moment I stepped over the threshold I felt it. A ward of some description. Not an uncommon thing for a vampire's house, but the reaction of my
Tego Texi Tectum
was. Both Sergei and Nataliya shuddered, a fine tremor racing down their backs and making them both draw in unnecessary breaths. I glanced sideways at them and then at M&M, noting Michel's vampires didn't show a reaction to the ward at all. The very reserved... butler - for want of a better a name - proceeded to encourage us to climb the stairs to the uppermost floor. He opened up the various rooms and gave us a brief tour, showing my vampires the several 'safe' exits and the panic room as well. He left as quietly as a vampire, on swift and silent feet. The door was shut behind him and Sergei proceeded to close the multiple deadlocks with repetitive clicks.

I stood in the middle of the main room, becoming more and more aware of just what Michel's plan was. He would be the one in danger, negotiating alliances in amongst the cut-throat politicians of the
Iunctio
Council. And I would be locked up tightly and securely until it was all done. I was a prisoner in my own family and as much as I understood his reasons for doing it, I did not feel one bit happy at all. The vampires pretended not to notice my change of mood, all familiarising themselves with the layout, logging on to laptops and flicking through radio channels in search of some background music to hide the tension accumulating in the air.

I shook my head, trying to unclench the fists at my sides and then proceeded to lock myself in a room. Nataliya knocked on the door as soon as I'd slipped the lock closed, but I ignored her pleas, knowing she'd camp outside the room and that was close enough for me. I sat down on the bed and took in my new
cell
. It was beautifully decorated, had everything a prisoner could want and more. And I would be stuck here for two days. Until the Champion was won over, or Michel was dead.

This was not how you worked in a partnership. I could have been helping. I didn't quite know how, but this... imprisonment had not been on the agenda as far as I was concerned.

You know, I'll go crazy stuck in here with nothing to do!
I shouted in my head, directing my thoughts through the open connection to Michel. I felt him metaphysically cringe. He didn't reply though and I felt instant gut churning dread. A natural reaction to his non-communication, built upon the months of having him shut me out while he did the Champion's bidding.

Of course the connection was still open, so maybe he was just busy. I didn't know and I tried to tell myself that there'd be a reason he didn't reply. If I had phoned his cellphone, he may not have answered that either. Sometimes - I was sure - he
really
was waylaid and unable to respond.

I told myself that, but it still hurt.

My distraction at those thoughts and once familiar emotions is why I didn't notice the change in the air. Why, perhaps, I didn't even hear a rip in space open for him to step through unannounced. And why it took much longer than it should have for me to smell his scent.

I don't know how long he watched me sitting on that bed, all forlorn and despondent at Michel's decision to lock me away and his inability to answer my mental challenge. But eventually the smell of slightly burnt peaches invaded my morose thoughts and I scrambled to my feet, stake in hand in an instant.

I was too late. He may have been enjoying a moment to take me all in, but he was close and prepared for my fight or flight response.

One hand wrapped around my upper arm, the other gripping the wrist on the hand that held my stake.

And then we were stepping through a rip in space and we were suddenly somewhere else.

"Calm yourself,
elska
." The Prince of
Ljósálfar's
words in my ear did absolutely nothing to allay my fears right then. Only heightened them.

My gaze searched the room we were in for any signs of where he had taken me to. Goddess help me if it was
Álfheimr.
The fear ratcheted up a degree or two and with it my ability to think clearly for that moment. No one and nothing has that bone chilling, sweat inducing effect on me like Lutin and the fairy realm do.

"How.." I swallowed and tried to say the words again past my suddenly dry throat. "How did you get in the house?" Nataliya was right outside the door, close enough to nullify his magic. He shouldn't have been able to get to me so easily, even if I locked my personal guard outside of the room.

"The house is under my control," he whispered in my ear, his arms bands of steel around my upper torso, pinning my hands to my sides.

His explanation made no sense. The Master of London City would not collude with a fairy against Michel, would he? Just what was Amun playing at? They had an accord.

"You still shouldn't have been able to appear like that," I persisted, trying with all my might to contain my fear and open up communication again with Michel. It was difficult. I felt naked and entirely too exposed without Sergei and Nataliya at my side. I'd come to rely on their protection and in the process lost my ability to think on my feet when under duress. Well, when in the presence of a fairy I despised and feared in equal measure, that is.

I clung to my hatred of what Lutin had made me suffer and used it to still my turbulent thoughts and reach for Michel, while Lutin babbled about some sort of fairy blanket that surrounded Amun's safe house and cut my
Tego Texi Tectum
duo off from their nullifying magic.