scenting the air and casting a pool of ruddy flickers around the hearth. The full moon washed the crags outside with silver and darkness, its light falling on the sofas and settees and bookcases.
Ellen sank down cross-legged on the sheepskins that were heaped before the fire; Adrian joined her, and they leaned against each other in companionable silence.
This is like how it was when things were good with us, she thought. Only better. How to Save Your Relationship: Get Abducted by His Monster Relatives.
After minutes he asked again: “Where are you?”
“Still in San Francisco,” she said.
“Adrienne?”
“Mostly she’s been… shopping today. Shopping with me, of all things. Clothes and accessories and lingerie and perfume and jewelry and getting my hair done. Even books and some pictures, all bundled up and sent back to the ranch, to the place she put me in on Lucy Lane. It’s… weird; she knows I hate her, and she even likes that, she doesn’t expect to change it. It’s all like I was a room she was decorating, or a doll or something.”
Adrian sighed into her hair. “She had quite a few dolls, as a little girl. She’d dress them and talk with them and have parties… sometimes I’d help her. She liked my hobbies too, the piano, watercolors. We were both passionate about horses, and swimming.”
“But sometimes a doll would disappear?” Ellen said.
She hugged him closer; the solid lean muscularity was infinitely comforting, and the familiar clean but slightly acrid smell of his body. Even the fact that it was like his sister’s didn’t make it less so. It wasn’t exactly the same; deeper and heavier somehow. It must be the scent of Shadowspawn, subtly different from her kind.
“She’d say Francine was bad, or Isabelle wouldn’t do what she was told.”
“Eerrrk!”
He nodded. “And that would be the last of that one. Once she cried because a doll was gone, and our mother- we thought she was our aunt-said, Let that be a lesson to you. They don’t grow back.”
“It’s hard to imagine you as kids. Either of you.”
“Oh, we were,” he said softly. “It gives you a… different perspective. There was always a rivalry, but sometimes… yes, there was love. Love as puppies or kittens love, straightforward, there like sunlight or rain. It is easier for love to curdle into hate than become indifference. Both link you tightly. We have become utterly different, but we both started out on the same road. What else?”
“And we had lunch with Michiko and… this other Shadowspawn. An Indian-he looked like an Indian, maybe a Hopi, maybe Apache or Navaho-named Dale.”
She could feel him stiffen for an instant. “Dale Shadowblade?” he said.
“That’s what they called him. You know him?”
“Know of him. We’ve only… briefly been in proximity. Otherwise one of us would be dead, the true death.”
“He’s bad?”
“An enforcer who works for the Council as a whole, freelance. Mostly he’s famous for being unseeable.”
Ellen nodded. “That must be what Adrienne meant when she said your special talents to him. She’s planning this get-together-”
“Now what could that be?” he asked when she’d finished. “An assassination? But she saved Hajime yesterday. Or could she really want a reconciliation, hoping to persuade him to change his stance on Operation Trimback?”
He shook his head and then looked down at her where she rested one cheek on his shoulder.
“You have kept your head about you, my darling Ellie. This is the break we need.”
“You’re sure?” Ellen said; she fought to keep her hands from turning into claws and digging painfully.
“There will be many, many Shadowspawn there, crowded together. And their guards. Frictions, jockeying for position, cross-purposes. Not a one-on-one duel between defender and attacker. Everything will be… confused.”
“It will? Adrienne… is smart.”
“We don’t do organization well, not on a large scale. Yes! This will be the opportunity we need! And I will get you out of there!”
The kiss turned heated. After a moment, she took his hand and slid it onto her breast.
“You are sure?” he said, looking down into her eyes.
The hand moved, sliding up over the curve, touching the stiffened nipple through the cloth of her robe. She gasped slightly at the jolt of sensation, and the way her skin seemed to glow all over. The golden flecks in his irises glittered like mica seen in the depths of a cave, catching the firelight.
The Power, she thought. That’s what they’re a sign of. This is the man the Shadowspawn themselves fear.
“Adrian, when a woman does that, she’s generally sure!” Softly: “I want to do this because I want to, with someone I really like. Someone I love.”
The hand turned insistent, and his mouth came down on hers. She scrabbled at the buttons on his shirt…
Minutes later she linked her fingers behind his neck.
“Adrian?” she said breathlessly.
“Yes?”
“I haven’t suddenly become made of porcelain. I like to feel how strong you are. Come on!”
He snarled then; she felt a brief surge of fear, and then it turned to a savage excitement. Her long legs wrapped around him as he drove forward, lifting her in an arch off the sheepskins until only her neck and shoulders touched…
“So,” she said much later.
He lay against her; one hard arm was across her stomach, and his breath tickled on her collarbone, like butterflies in the golden glow. There was still a little tension in him; she could feel it in the muscles of his back as she stroked it, like hard living rubber under the sweat-slick skin.
OK, she thought, with a catch in her breath and a flutter beneath the breastbone. Here goes.
She slid down a little more and slipped an arm behind his head; he stirred and murmured drowsily. Then she arched her neck up and began to pull him down towards the base of her throat.
He growled, a low rippling sound in his chest. Her heart beat faster as his hand gripped her shoulder, hard almost to the point of pain. The lips touched the taut skin“No!” It was half a shout as he came fully awake. “What are you doing?”
She caught his face in her hands to keep him from scrabbling too far away.
“Well, that’s an invitation too, lover,” she said firmly.
He reared back. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Yes, I do. I’m talking about helping you with what you need. I’m your lover, right? That’s what lovers do. And, buster, I expect to enjoy it too. That’s part of the package as well.”
“You want me to drink your blood?”
“Yeah. Exactly. I want you to drink my blood. Not more than I can spare, of course!”
He quivered. “I’ve spent my life fighting not to-”
“You’ve been fighting not to take blood. That’s wrong. That’s like rape. Now that I know about it, the way you fought it makes me love you more.”
He panted, then seemed to come to self-control. “Then how can you ask me to give up the fight?”
“I’m not. I would never try to sabotage what you’ve done.”
She took a deep breath herself. “I’m… a little scared here, myself, Adrian. But… I’m asking you to drink some of my blood. It’ll make me feel very good too. That’s like making love, as far as I can see.”
“You’re… addicted-”
“Not right now. I got a fix night before this as far as the goddamned drug in Shadowspawn spit goes. This is about you and me.”
Softly. “Come on, Adrian. This is your mind. I’m not physically here. We’re safe, right? I’ve thought about this.”
“I don’t want to hurt you! If I drink here, it’ll feel exactly the same as reality for both of us… until we wake up, at least. How could I stop myself when we’re back together in the real world?”
