Phoenix Fallen (8 page)

Benny swallowed visibly.

"Fuck, man," he said, before his gaze dropped to the floor and his voice went soft and high. "It's call, Rissa."

"Yeah, we got that.
Knock
next time."

Benny slunk for the door at Jules' rumble, then turned at the threshold, a bit of his swagger coming back.

"There is a lock, you know. For
next
time." Benny smirked and Jules growled loudly.

Benny disappeared. Fast.

It was a long moment before Jules turned. "Do I have to start with him, Rissa?"

She laughed. "
Benny?
No, darling. I'm not his type, though you might be."

"What? Oh.
Oh.
Really? I didn't get that vibe from him at all." Jules' face was a study in amused surprise.

"Our Benny can be subtle when he wants to be." Rissa was dressing in short, fast movements. Garter belt. Stockings, lined. Heels, very high. "Hand me that dress, will you?"

His fingers closed over the crimson satin confection hanging on the wardrobe door. He stared as he passed it over. "Red?"

"It
is
my color." She tossed her luscious waves and gave him a wink as she shimmied into it. Snug from throat to hips, with just a slight flair at mid-thigh, the dress was sinful as hell, just the thing for her current mood.

She was almost at the door before Jules seemed to realize something.

"Hey, did you put panties on? Rissa?
Rissa?"

Her satisfied laugh floated back over the click of the door.

The next evening Jules pulled up to Rissa's hotel to pick her up for Fannie's dinner party, feeling better than he had in weeks.

Better than he had since before Paris, actually.

He'd waited for Rissa after her show and they'd gone to Crave together. It had been uncomfortable at first, but to make it easier on him, Rissa had decided they would feed together. Three times she made him drink; short sessions, about an hour between each, switching out the bleeders each time.

One of them had been the woman, Caroline, from before. She had given him the fish eye at first, but obviously her trust of Rissa was greater than her fear of him. In the end, she had even smiled at him. It had been weird, for sure. He didn't think it would ever
not
be weird. But at least it hadn't been degrading. For anyone. What it had been was almost…comfortable. Conventional even. Fulfilling a need.

The hardest thing had actually been to leave Rissa at the end of the night. She'd been edgy when they left the club, looking around like the darkness itself made her nervous. A ridiculous thought for his poised little vampire. So he'd accepted her brush-off when he'd teased her about it, but Jules had still found himself reluctant to leave her.

Of course, he'd had
this
to look forward to.

Seeing Fannie and Rissa together was bound to be…interesting. There was no predicting Fannie, but then he suspected Rissa could hold her own.

Jules was smirking when Rissa slipped in beside him. Her eyebrows shot up.

"What's so amusing there, big guy?"

"Nothing." But his lips quirked as he shifted the XTS and pulled into traffic.

She put on her belt, giving him a suspicious look. "So tell me about your friends."

He shrugged. "They're a married couple, Fannie and Scott. Two kids, twins, boy and a girl. Toby and Tish are four and they will wind you up if you let them. Don't let them. Please."

The twinge of a headache pinched his temples as he recalled some of the things Tish and Toby had pulled on other women he'd brought to the house.

"Sure. I think I can handle two preschoolers."

Jules almost choked at this but shrugged again. She'd learn.

"So, who have you known longer? Scott or Fannie."

From the tone of her voice, she'd already guessed. He answered anyway.

"Fan. I've known her almost since the day I moved to Chicago. She's helped me through some rough times."

It was slight, but he felt Rissa's body stiffen even though they weren't touching.

"Not like that," he shook his head. "You
are
a jealous little thing, aren't you? With a dirty fucking mind."

She huffed. "Not at all. I just like to know where I stand. And
yes,
by the way. I
do
have an extremely dirty, fucking mind." Her sidelong look made him squirm a little. He hastily got back to the safe part of their conversation.

"Well, you know where you stand with Fan, alright? She's not a former girlfriend, or anything like that. She's a friend, more than, really. She's like family."

Great. More from what he wasn't saying than what he was, Rissa inferred she was being introduced to what amounted to a mixture of mother and sister and best friend.
Yay.

She'd been a bundle of damn nerves since last night. Taking him to Crave after what had happened last time was a risk.

But it had gone well, even very well. It had only been when they left the club that she'd started to get tense again. There had been a familiar feel to the night, oily and heavy. Just the August heat, she had told herself. But Rissa hadn't slept well and now this…party. Meeting Jules' people.
Fannie.
She felt the love in his voice every time he mentioned the woman's name.

This was just bound to be a gas. But Rissa straightened her shoulders and soldiered on.

"And Scott?"

Jules snorted. "Scott's a friend, I guess. I have to claim him as he's Fannie's. He's also a co-worker, of sorts." He tipped his head at her curious look. "Free-lancer. He's ex-military."

"And a para, I would guess?"

"Yup. Plant elemental. An extremely strong one."

Her eyebrows shot up again. That was fairly rare, elementals of any nature were. And usually their power was weak. "Is Fannie, too? A para, I mean."

"Yeah. She's an empath. But she's never worked for us. She prefers to stay away from all that. She had enough of being labeled a para after the Reveal. You know how it was."

Sure she did. Life had definitely sucked for the paras for a long time after the Reveal. Plenty of them that could hide their powers did so gratefully. Rissa couldn't blame Fannie. Especially as she was an
empath.

People were always bugging empaths, wanting to know the answers to all those insecure, nagging human questions;
does he love me? Is she lying? Cheating?

Etcetera, etcetera.

It was probably enough to drive anyone mad. Despite herself, curiosity sparked.

"And your para talent? It's psychometry, right?" She'd gotten that from her initial Googling of Jules that day of the press conference.

He pulled down an innocuous suburban street, one lined with a pleasant combination of two-story and ranch-style houses. The sky was deepening from purple velvet to black pierced with faded stars. Lawns, some scattered with colorful jumbles of toys and bikes, others with haphazard gardens or well-tended rose bushes screamed normality.

Rissa looked around, feeling out of place. This was
so
not her scene. She'd gone straight from the monied elegance of 1940s New Orleans society to the dark back roads of the night. She startled when Jules cut the engine and turned to stare at her.

"Yeah. That's my 'gift'. I can read objects. Preferably ones that have been with their owners at least some time. I can get emotions, thoughts, memories within a few minutes. I can also track and seek pretty well that way. Both find someone's current location and see it in my head." He clarified at her questioning look.

"I have a bit of the empath going on, too. Not a lot." Laughing, Jules read her alarmed look easily. "Just enough to be a pain in the ass, really. I've also been told it makes me somewhat hard to read, so there's some shielding in there somewhere. I'm a bit of a mutt."

That wasn't surprising. She knew a lot of paras had co-morbid conditions, their own unique blend of powers. A lot of one, a little of one or two others. Or dual powers fairly equal in strength. Para gifts were as limitless and varied as any other genetic traits. Rissa had none of that herself. She was just a shade. A naïve woman who'd blundered into the path of a charming monster long ago.

But she wasn't a wuss, either. Rissa lifted her chin.

"Are we going in or what?"

“Mister Julie! Pick me up, pick me up!”

Jules scooped up the tiny girl with the explosion of golden brown curls just inside the front door, hanging her upside down by her heels until she squealed. The second he set her back on her feet, she streaked off leaving a trail of giggles and crumbs in her wake.

“Did she just call you Mister Julie?” Rissa’s lips were twitching as she stepped through the door.

Jules shot her a glare.

“When she and Toby were learning to talk he had this lisp, couldn’t say ‘s’ for nothing. All he could manage then was Mitter Julie for like a year. He still had a problem with 'Jules' for a long while after that. So, it kinda of stuck. So now I’m Mister Julie to them, okay?”

“Oh my god, that is precious as hell.” Jules rolled his eyes at her delighted tone and headed off through the living room. It was a comfortable, open space full of furniture that was stylish but still invited one to sit down and stay awhile. Green and blue, with bright touches of yellow abounded.

As easy as if he were in his own home, Jules went to straight to the kitchen and pulled a beer from the fridge. Rissa leaned against a sparkling clean counter and watched him take a long swig.

It was awful cute to watch him squirm. And even cuter that this enormous macho man let two preschoolers go around calling him such a ridiculous name. With a smirk, Rissa stretched her arm over the gleaming black and white tiles to pull him closer, her lips almost touching his ear.

"You're very sexy,
Mister Julie."

"Shut it," he warned, just as two voices rose from the backyard.

"Don't leave that there, young man! Somebody will fall and put their dang eye out."

"Yes, mama."

An amused male voice slipped in through the open doorway. "Your mama may change her mind about that once she meets this vamp chick."

"I haven't even met the woman yet. She could be lovely…or knowing Jules, an absolute witch." A long-suffering sigh had Rissa raising her eyebrows at Jules, who just took another drink of his beer, his eyes hooded. "But until we know one way or the other, we'll leave her eyes alone. So watch your mouth, mister."

"You watch my mouth enough for both of us." This last was whispered low and slow, just as two figures tumbled through the doorway at the same moment. A pair of wildly curly heads, one dark brown and one golden blond, looked up at the same time. The blonde had a firm arm around the waist of the brunette, his lips on her neck as she giggled. A noise that ceased as soon as they noticed Jules and Rissa against the counter. Two mouths fell open in tandem.

Jules sighed. He gestured with his beer.

"Rissa, met Fannie and Scott. Fannie and Scott, Clarissa Styles." He took another long drink of beer in the ensuing silence.

It really went surprisingly well after that, Jules thought an hour or so later. Fannie had blushed a bit, not that it was visible on her smooth dark skin, but he could tell. Scott could too, of course. He was the first to recover. He'd laughed in that easy way of his, and stepped forward to grasp Rissa's hand before getting a beer of his own.

Fannie had shaken her head, giving Rissa a long once-over before smiling sheepishly. "Hey, Rissa. Want to help with cutting up the veggies?" She had gone to the fridge herself, pulling out several plastic bags of various leafy greens.

"Sure," Rissa had said slowly. "Anything to keep you away from sharp instruments. I like my eyes, thanks. And I plan on keeping them." She'd smiled as Fannie's head had emerged from the stainless steel fridge door. Chocolate brown eyes met icy blue and both Scott and Jules held their breath. Then the two woman laughed.

Thank god.

Now they were all outside, tiki torches lighting up the rolling backyard with its two Chinese maples and the big willow that weeped green trails down the back corner of the house.

Toby, who had taken an immediate liking to Rissa, was in her lap, playing with her hair.

"What's the matter with you, boy?" Jules growled in mock irritation. "Haven't you ever seen a redhead before?"

The preschooler's eyes were enormous as he turned to Jules solemnly. "Not like this one."

All the adults choked as Rissa's face burned. Tish frowned at her brother, but Scott grinned. "Sounds like you got some competition there, J."

"What about it, Rissa? You gonna throw me over for some squirt in short pants?"

She tickled Toby under his chin while he laughed, before she turned to look up at Jules, her cheeks still stained pink. "Possibly. I got the time to wait for him to grow up, after all…and he's much nicer than you."

"Ha!" Fannie snorted in approval. "She's got your number, Jules."

"Hey, I'm nice." Jules reached for another beer from the cooler Scott had dragged out to the patio earlier.

"Hmm." Fannie murmured non-committedly as she arranged hot dog buns on paper plates for the twins. "You’re a lot of things, Jules Gentry, but nice…I don't know."

"Welcome to my family," Jules said to Rissa, "can't you feel the love?"

She smiled at him as Toby scrambled down off her lap, running to join Tish as his mama set their food on a small cardboard table. "Actually, yes I can. You're a lucky man."

"Damn straight he is. You gotta smart woman this time. You might think about keeping this one."

Jules cursed as Rissa's face flushed again. "Goddamnit, Fan. Ease your match-making ass up."

Tish and Toby's eyes went wide as their mother's gaze flashed. Jules gulped. Fannie walked over to him slowly, while Scott turned from the grill, spatula in hand, an expectant grin on his face.

"What was that came out of your mouth in front of my babies just now?"

"Jesus, Fan," Jules said weakly, standing up and pulling out his wallet. "Sorry." He pulled out a crisp $100 bill and handed it to her with a sigh.

She smiled at once and tucked it away, laughing at the baffled look on Rissa's face. "He has to pay big whenever he uses that language in front of the kids," she explained. "I warned him over and over, but nothing took. So I decided I had to aim for his pocketbook. He's learning to be a proper godfather and helping to pay for their college fund."