Lover Enshrined

In which case, he needed to get a fricking driver’s license. He felt twelve with all the can-you-take-me-theres. Fritz was a great chauffeur, but come on. John wanted to be a man, not doggen cargo.

Cormia circled around and came back toward the house. As she stopped in front of him, her robe looked as if it wanted to keep going, the folds swaying forward before settling on her body. She was breathing fast and her cheeks were cherry red and her smile was bigger than the full moon.

God, with her blond hair all loose and her pretty flush, she was the perfect summer girl. He could so picture her in a field on a gingham blanket, eating apple pie next to a dewy pitcher of lemonade… wearing a red-and-white bikini.

Okay, that felt wrong.

“I like it outside,” she said.

The outside likes you, he wrote, then showed her.

“I wish I had come here sooner.” She looked over the roses that were growing around the terrace. As her hand crept onto her neck, he had a feeling that she wanted to touch them, but her bridle of reserve was returning.

He cleared his throat so she would glance over. You can pick one if you like, he wrote.

“I… I believe I would.”

She approached the roses like they were deer that might spook, her hands by her sides, her bare feet slow over the slate. She went right for the pale lavender ones, bypassing the bolder red and yellow buds.

He was writing, Be careful of thorns, when she reached forward, yelped, and yanked back her hand. A drop of blood formed on the tip of her finger, the dim glow of the night making it look black on her white skin.

Before he knew what he was doing, John leaned down and put his mouth to work. He sucked quick and licked quicker, stunned by what he was doing as well as how delicious it was.

In the back of his mind, he realized he needed to feed.

Shit.

As he straightened, she stared at him wide-eyed and frozen. Double shit.

I’m sorry, he scribbled. I didn’t want it to get on your robe.

Liar. He’d wanted to know what she tasted like.

“I…”

Pick your rose, just be careful of the thorns.

She nodded and gave it another shot, partially, he suspected, because she wanted to get her flower and partially to fill the awkward silence he’d created.

The rose she chose was a perfect specimen, just on the verge of blooming, a silver-purple spear with the potential of being the size of a grapefruit.

“Thank you,” she said. He was about to you’re-welcome her when he realized she was talking to the mother plant, not him.

Cormia turned to him. “The other flowers were in glass houses with water.”

Let’s go get you a vase, he wrote. That’s what they’re called here.

She nodded and started for the French doors that led into the billiards room. Just as she stepped through, she looked back outside. Her eyes held on to the garden as if it were a lover she would never see again.

We can do more of this sometime, he wrote on his pad. If you’d like?

Her quick nod was a relief, considering what he’d just done. “I would like that.”

Maybe we could watch a movie, too. Upstairs in the theater.

“Theater?”

He shut the doors behind them. It’s a room that’s specially made for watching stuff.

“Can we see the movie now?”

The strong tone to her voice made him recalibrate his impression of her a little. The soft-spoken reserve might just be training, he decided, and not personality.

I have to go out. But we could tomorrow night?

“Good. We will do that after First Meal.”

Okay, the meekness was definitely not personality. Which made him wonder how she handled the whole Chosen thing. I have class, but we could do it after that?

“Yes. And I should like to learn more about everything here.” Her smile lit up the billiards room sure as a roaring fire, and as she pivoted around on one foot he thought of those pretty pop-up ballerinas in jewelry boxes.

Well, I’m up for teaching you, he wrote.

She came to a stop, her loosened hair swinging. “Thank you, John Matthew. You shall be a fine teacher.”

As she looked up at him, he saw her colors more than her face or her body: that red in her cheeks and lips, the lavender of the flower in her hand, the brilliant pale green of her eyes, the buttercup yellow of her hair.

For no good reason, he thought of Xhex. Xhex was a thunderstorm, made up of hues of black and iron gray, power leashed but no less lethal for its control. Cormia was a sunny day cast in a rainbow of brightness, warmth realized.

He put his hand over his heart and bowed to her, then left. As he started up for his room, he wondered whether he liked the storm or the sunshine better.

Then realized neither was his for the taking, so what did it matter.

Standing in the alley with his nine pressed into the liver of a Brother, Mr. D was barn-cat alert. He would have much rather put the business end of his weapon to the vampire’s temple, but that would have required a stepladder. Honest to heaven, the bastards were huge.

Made big ol’ cousin Tommy seem no taller than a can of Bud. And just as crushable.

“You got hair like a girl,” Mr. D said.

“And you smell like bubble bath. At least I can get a trim.”

“I’m wearing Old Spice.”

“Next time try something stronger. Like horse manure.”

Mr. D pressed the muzzle in harder. “I want you on your knees. Hands behind your back, head down.”

He stayed right where he was while the Brother complied, making no move to get out his steel cuffs. Sissy shit on his silo notwithstanding, this vampire was not the kind of thing you wanted getting away from you, and not just because a Brother captured was a feat for the history books. Mr. D had a rattler by the tail, and well he knew it.

Reaching into his belt to get his wristies, he-

The tide turned quick as a twitch.

The Brother spun around on one knee and punched a palm up into the muzzle of the gun. Mr. D pulled the trigger on reflex and the bullet kicked out to the sky, flying uselessly to heaven.

Before the popping sound stopped echoing, Mr. D was on his back on the ground, doing the dazed and confused, his cowboy hat once again off his head as he was overcome.

The Brother’s eyes were dead as he stared down, lifeless in a way that their bright yellow color couldn’t change. But then it made sense. No one in his right mind would pull a spin deflection when he was on his knees like that. Unless he was already flat lined.

The Brother lifted his fist over his head.

Sure ’nuff, this was going to hurt.

Mr. D moved fast, slipping free of the hold on his shoulder and twisting to the side. In a quick jab, he kicked both feet into the right calve of the Brother.

There was a snapping sound and… holy shit, a part of a leg went flying. The Brother teetered, his leathers going loose from the knee down on that side, but there was no time to do a lot of what-the-fuck- ing. The big bastard fell over, crumbling like a building.