to your first,” Preston said. I glanced up at him, startled.
“You don’t want them fighting or competing with one another in ways that make the rest of you miserable. Each must find a way to accept the other. Each must find a way to accept the other’s relationship with you. You must help them do this.”
I sighed.
The young man came up to me, towering over me, smiling down.
“Shori Matthews, this is Joel Harrison,” Preston said. “I believe the two of you will be very good for one another.”
“Thank you,” I said to him. And to Joel, “Welcome.”
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” Joel said. Slowly, deliberately, he extended his arm, wrist up, clearly not so that we could shake hands.
I laughed, took the hand, kissed his wrist, and said to him, “Later.” “Date,” he said. “Is there room for me over here?”
“There’s room.” “I’ll get my stuff.”
I watched him walk away, then said to Preston, “He smells wonderful.”
Preston crooked his mouth in something less than a smile. “Yes. He’s been told that, I’m afraid. Be good to each other.”
He had started to walk away from me when I stopped him. “Preston, do you know whether I had my own family of symbionts before . . . before the fire?”
He looked back. “Of course you did. You can’t remember them at all?” “Not at all.”
“Good.”
I stared at him.
“Child ... you have no idea how much it hurts when they die. And you’ve lost all of yours. All seven. If you remembered them, the pain would be overwhelming . . . unbearable.”
“But they were mine, and I don’t recall their scents or their tastes or the sounds of their voices or even their names.”
“Good,” Preston repeated softly. “Let them rest in peace, Shori. Actually, that’s all you can do.” He walked slowly away to the house Joel had gone into. I watched him go, wondering how many symbionts he had lost over the years, over the centuries.
The sun was rising now and growing bright enough to be uncomfortable even through the low clouds. I
went back inside and found Celia frying frozen sausages from the refrigerator. “How are you?” I asked.
“I’m good,” she said. “How about you? You didn’t hurt me, but you filled up on me, didn’t you?”
“I did.” I looked at the sausages. “Do you need more food? You can get things from one of the other houses.” That felt right. No one here would wonder why a symbiont needed to eat well.
“Some butter?” she asked. “There are frozen waffles in the refrigerator, and there’s syrup in the cupboard—good maple syrup—but no butter.”
“Go to the house next door and tell whoever answers that you’re with me. If they don’t have what you want, they’ll tell you who does.”
She nodded. “Okay. Don’t let my sausages burn.” And she ran off to the nearest house, introduced herself, and asked not only for butter, but for fresh fruit and milk as well. I listened while turning her sausages. Wright hadn’t managed to teach me to cook, but he had cooked food around me often enough for me to be able to keep pork sausage from burning. The symbiont who answered Celia just said sure, introduced herself as Jill Renner, put the things Celia wanted into a bag, and told her to have a good breakfast. Celia thanked her and brought them back to the guest-house kitchen. Brook came in just then, and she dove right into the bag, took out a banana, and began to peel and eat it.
“A new symbiont will be coming in sometime soon,” I told her. “Offer him breakfast, would you?” “Ooh,” Brook said. “
“Damn,” Celia said and sighed. “See, now here’s where I don’t envy you guys. You’re going to go upstairs and kick that nice hairy man of yours right in his balls, aren’t you? A new man already! Damn.”
“Keep the new guy down here until I come back,” I said. I left them and went up to talk to Wright.
Wright had showered and was shaving. There was another sink in the bathroom—one that had a chair in front of it and a large low mirror with lights around it. I sat down in the chair and watched him shave before a similar, higher mirror. He had collected his electric razor from his cabin when we stopped there and was using it now to sweep his whiskers away quickly and easily.
Then he looked at me. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“Not wrong,” I said. “But perhaps something that will be hard for you.” I frowned. “Hard on you. And I
don’t want it to be.” “Tell me.”
I thought about how to do that and decided that directness was best. “Preston has offered me another symbiont, one whose mother, when she was alive, was one of Preston’s symbionts. The new one’s name is Joel Harrison.”
He turned his shaver off and put it on the sink. “I see. Is Preston the father?” I stared at him in surprise. “Wright, that’s not possible.”
“I didn’t think it was, but I thought I’d ask, since you didn’t mention the father.”
“I don’t know who Joel’s father is, but he’s here. He’s one of William’s symbionts. Joel’s mother was killed in a traffic accident ten years ago.”
“What does the father think about his son coming to you?”
“He wanted his son to come to me. He asked Preston to introduce us.” “So he’s pimping his own son.”
I hesitated. “I don’t know what that means, but your voice says it’s something disgusting. Joel’s father hasn’t done anything disgusting, Wright. He and Joel both looked at me and decided I would be good for Joel. He’s been away at school. He could have stayed away, could have come back now and then to
visit his father. But he chose a life with the Ina, with us. I’m glad of it. I need him.” “For what? You need him for what?”
I looked at him, wanting to touch him, knowing that at that moment he did not want to be touched. “Three of you aren’t enough to sustain me for long without harm to you. I’m going to try to have Theodora brought here, too.”
He shook his head angrily. “I don’t mind the women so much I guess. I kind of like the two downstairs. I
was hoping you’d get all women—except me. I think I could deal with that.” He turned around, filled with energy and violence, and punched the wall, breaking it, leaving a fist-sized hole. And he had hurt his hand. I could smell the blood. But he did not seem to notice. “Hell,” he said, “you don’t even know Harrison. Maybe you’ll hate him.”
I shrugged. “If I don’t like him, I’ll have to find someone else and soon.” He looked at me sadly. “My little vampire.”
“Still,” I said.
He stepped over to me, picked me up with a hand under one arm, sat down, and sat me on his lap. I took his injured hand and looked at it, licked away the blood, saw that he hadn’t done himself much damage. It would heal overnight like a shallow bite.
“I could get a lot more pissed with you if you were bigger,” he said softly. “I hope not,” I said.
He wrapped both arms around me, held me against him. “I don’t think I can do this, Shori. I can’t share you.”
I leaned back against him. “You can,” I said softly. “You will. It will be all right. Not now, perhaps, but eventually, it
“Just like that.” The bitterness and sorrow in his voice was terrible. I turned on his lap, straddled him, and looked up at him.
After a moment, he said, “I want you for myself. It scares me how much I love you, Shori.”
I pulled his head down and kissed him, then rested my forehead against his chest, savoring his scent, his
wonderful furry body, the beat of his heart. “Preston says our symbionts never know how much we treasure them,” I said.
“You treasure me?” “You know I do.”
He held me away from him and looked at me. “You’ve taken over my life,” he said. “And now you want me to share you with another man.”
“I do,” I said. “Share me. Don’t fight with him. Don’t hurt the family by fighting with him. Accept him.” He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“You can,” I repeated. “You will. He’s part of the family that we must form. He’s one of us.”
When I left him and went down to the kitchen, I found Joel sitting at the table drinking coffee with Brook and Celia.
“Hey,” he said when I came in. He had two large rolling suitcases parked near his chair.
“Hey,” I said reflexively. “Come talk to me.” I took his hand and led him to the other end of the house to what I had been told was the “family room.”
“Don’t you mean that
“First things first,” I said and took the wrist he had offered earlier. He watched me raise it to my mouth and kiss it a second time, and he smiled. I bit him.
He was delicious. I had intended only to taste him and get a little of my venom into him, but he was such a treat that I took a little more that a taste. And I lingered over his wrist longer than was necessary.
Finally, I looked up at him and found him leaning back bonelessly in the chair. “God,” he said. “I hit the jackpot.”
“How have you managed to stay unattached?” I asked. “Didn’t anyone here want you?”
He smiled. “Everyone wanted me. Everyone except Preston and Hayden. They said I was too young to join with them. The others ... they left me alone when I asked them to, but before that, they were all after me. And I didn’t want to join with a man. There’s too much sexual feeling involved when you guys feed. I wanted that from a woman. Preston said he would check with nearby female families after I finished college, and he’s taken me to see a couple of them, but I wasn’t interested. You are the only Ina I’ve
ever been attracted to.” “After seeing me only once?”
“Yeah. I didn’t even see you when you were here before ... before your parents
