“No, of course, not.” Stephanie flushed with embarrassment.
“Then why so horrified at the thought of the nanos replacing the hymen?” she asked, eyeing her narrowly.
Stephanie snorted. “I read. It’s not supposed to be fun to lose your virginity.”
Drina relaxed and shrugged. “It’s different for different people. For some it’s painful, for others not so much, for some there’s blood and others not. It may be all right for you,” she said reassuringly, and then frowned and added, “But. . you know. . you shouldn’t rush out there to find out which it will be in your case. You have plenty of time to try stuff like that.
“Now you sound like my mother,” Stephanie said with amusement.
Drina grimaced. She kind of felt like her parent in that moment. Certainly, she suddenly had a lot more sympathy for parents having to give the sex talk. Dear God, she couldn’t even imagine that conversation.
“Fortunately for you, my mother already gave me that talk,” Stephanie said with a grin.
“You’re reading me again,” Drina complained.
“I told you, I’m not reading you. You’re kind of pushing your thoughts at me.”
Drina frowned and turned to ask her to explain what she meant, but paused to glance toward the garage as one of the doors began to whir upward.
“Harper must be ready to go,” Stephanie commented. “You should let me take the front seat.”
“I should, should I?” Drina asked with amusement.
“Definitely,” Stephanie assured her. “We don’t want him to think you like him or start worrying about life mates and stuff. Wave me that way as we approach the car. That way Harper will think you didn’t care to sit in the front with him.”
Drina smiled faintly but just nodded. It couldn’t hurt, and she didn’t care if she was in the front or not anyway.
“And you should sit right behind him, not behind the passenger seat,” Stephanie whispered as the garage door finished opening, and they saw Harper waving to them from the driver’s seat of a silver BMW.
“Why?” Drina whispered back, using the excuse of closing the still-open door of the SUV to delay approaching the car.
“That way, every time he looks in the rearview mirror, he’ll see you,” she pointed out.
Drina peered at her with surprise. The kid was smart, she thought, and knew by the way that Stephanie smiled widely that she’d heard the compliment. Chuckling, she slid her arm around the girl and used it to steer her toward the car.
“You can sit in the front if you like,” she said with amusement, steering her that way, and then breaking off to move up the driver’s side of the car herself.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Stephanie asked with feigned concern, pausing beside the passenger door.
“Not at all,” Drina said dryly and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing when the girl grinned at her over the roof of the car, out of Harper’s view. Shaking her head, Drina opened the back door and slid in behind him.
“Thank you, Harper. This is really sweet of you,” Stephanie said as she slid into the front seat. “Isn’t it sweet, Drina?”
“Very,” she agreed mildly.
“It’s no problem,” Harper assured them, smiling at Stephanie, and then meeting Drina’s gaze in the rearview mirror and smiling at her as well. “Just tell me where you want to go, and we’re there.”
“Well, Drina insisted we had to stay in town because she doesn’t know her way around, so we were just going to go to Wal-Mart. But with you driving, maybe we could go into London,” Stephanie said in a rush.
“I don’t think so, Stephanie,” Drina said firmly when Harper hesitated. “It isn’t just that I don’t know the area. I think it’s better that we stay in town until we’re sure no one trailed you guys from New York. Here we at least have the house relatively close and can call Teddy Brunswick if we need help.”
“But there are so many cool stores in London,” Stephanie protested. “We could go to Garage or the Gap or-”
“I’ll tell you what,” Harper interrupted. “How about we try Wal-Mart today for the necessities, and then maybe later in the week we can venture out to London if you don’t find everything you need here in town?”
Stephanie heaved out a sigh. “Oh, all right.”
“Good. So, do up your seat belts, and we’ll be on our way.”
Drina smiled wryly at Harper’s relieved tones and did up her seat belt, then sat silently in the backseat as he maneuvered the car out of the garage and past the SUV.
“If you’re the daughter of Lucian and Victor’s brother, how come your name is Argenis and not Argeneau?”
Drina blinked at the sudden question from Stephanie, caught a bit by surprise, but it was Harper who answered.
“Argenis is just basically the Spanish version of Argeneau. They’re derivatives of the same root name,” Harper said, sounding like a schoolteacher. “As each branch of the family spread out to different areas of the world, the name changed to fit the language of that area. Argenis in Spain, Argeneau in France, Argent in England, and so on.”
Stephanie peered at Harper curiously. “So what’s the root name?”
“I believe it was Argentum, which means silver in Latin,” Harper said solemnly. “It was because their eyes are silver-blue.”
“They named people for their eye color?” Stephanie asked with disbelief.
Harper chuckled at her expression. “Back then they didn’t really have last names. They were mostly first names and then descriptors, like John the barber, or Jack the butcher, or Harold the brave and so on.”
“So it was Lucian the silver?” she asked dubiously.
“Something like that,” Harper said with a shrug.
“Hmm.” Stephanie swung around to peer at Drina. “And you’re a rogue hunter in Spain?”
Drina nodded.
“Is it different than being a rogue hunter here?”
Drina raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know. It doesn’t appear to be so far.”
“They have different laws in Europe,” Harper put in quietly.
“Like what?” Stephanie asked, turning back to him.
“Biting mortals is not outlawed there,” Drina answered stiffly when Harper hesitated. She knew that was the reason for the hesitation. It was a bit of an issue between the North American council and the European one.
“You can bite people over there?” Stephanie frowned. “So Leonius wouldn’t be rogue in Europe?”
“I said bite, not kill or turn. Trust me, Leonius would be rogue anywhere,” she said dryly, and then sighed. “So long as they are discreet and don’t unduly harm the mortal, immortals can bite mortals in Europe. Although,” she added firmly, “while they haven’t yet outlawed it, it is somewhat frowned upon by most, and the majority of immortals stick mainly to bagged blood.”
“Have you bitten mortals?” Stephanie asked curiously.
“Of course,” she said stiffly. “I was born long before there were blood banks.”
“But since blood banks, have you bitten them?” Stephanie persisted.
Drina grimaced, but reluctantly admitted, “Only consenting adults.”
Stephanie’s eyes widened, and she squealed, “She means during sex.”
Drina blinked. That hadn’t been what she’d meant at all. She’d been thinking of the occasional formal dinners at the homes of council higher-ups, which sometimes included willing bitees for the guests to feed on. It was something she wasn’t very comfortable with anymore but was expected to participate in when forced to attend. . and Stephanie should know that. She could read her mind. And she’d read it earlier, so knew it had been eons since she’d bothered with sex. Drina eyed Stephanie quizzically, wondering what the girl was up to.
“I don’t know why everyone thinks it’s so hot to get naked and sweaty and sink their teeth into each other,” Stephanie was saying with disgust, and then she glanced at Harper, and said, “I mean, imagine you were alone with Drina getting busy. You’re both naked and hot and she crawls onto your lap, her naked boobs jiggling in your face. . Would you really want to plunge your fangs into them?”
“Er. .”
