“That’s right. And?” I prompted.
“And I can’t lick you when he’s looking because it makes you squirm.”
Kristoff eyed me.
“No,” I said hastily. “You can’t lick me at any time because it’s wrong.”
He sighed. “I can’t lick sweet, adorable Pia because it’s wrong. How about him?” He pointed at Kristoff.
“He can lick me if he wants. But that’s neither here nor there.”
“Can I lick her?”
I looked over to my shoulder to where an employee of the portal company we’d used to transport ourselves from Berlin to Reykjavik stood waiting for us. “Judging by the expression on her face, I don’t think she’d enjoy that, no.”
“I want to lick someone,” he said forlornly.
“I know you do,” I said, taking his arm and propelling him toward the door. “I’ll get you an ice-cream cone or a puppy or something lickable later. Right now we have to get going before certain vampires figure out we’re not with Magda and Raymond.”
“They should follow them to Rome before they realize we aren’t with them,” Kristoff said as a form of reassurance as we exited the tiny office that was the portal service in Reykjavik. “You can stop worrying, Pia. I know my brother’s mind.”
“I just hope so. I’m not going to underestimate him again, though. Not after he was waiting for us in Frankfurt. We barely made that train to Berlin. You’re sure he didn’t read your mind to know what we were doing?”
“I’m sure. We do not have a sympathetic connection like that.”
“Hmm. How’s your nose?”
Kristoff’s shoulder twitched. I took his hand, enjoying once again the feeling of his fingers twining through mine. “I told you it wasn’t broken. Andreas wasn’t trying to hurt me, just stop us.”
Mattias, walking behind us on the narrow sidewalk, nudged the back of my shoulder. I ignored him. “I don’t care. I think that was pretty underhanded of him to sock you on the nose just because I roasted his toes a bit.”
Mattias nudged me again, making an unhappy, lost-puppy noise. Exasperated, I stopped.
He held out his hand.
“Oh, for God’s . . . Fine.” I took his hand as well. He beamed at me. “Just so you know, I feel like I’m three years old and being escorted across the road.”
Kristoff, who had been glaring across me to Mattias, donned a familiar martyred expression. “I can’t decide if I would rather have him as he normally is, or this human version of a puppy demanding constant petting.”
“Hugs?” Mattias asked.
“No!” I said quickly, ignoring the looks we were getting as we strolled through town to a nearby car rental agency. “Behave yourself, or you’ll have to take another long nap like you did on the plane.”
“I will behave,” he promised solemnly.
Are you absolutely certain the reapers want him back? Kristoff asked as we entered the car rental place. We could just drop him off somewhere and make our escape.
Kristoff! We can’t do that! He’s like a child in this state, very suggestible and clueless. Anyone could take advantage of him and make him do the most heinous acts without him being aware of it. They could even make him throw himself off the top of one of the fjords.
Only if we’re very lucky.
I gave him a mental glare. He actually smiled into my mind, a warm, tickling sensation that left me silently bemused, watching him as he arranged for a car.
“Ulfur first,” I told him once he had possession of the keys.
“Reaper first, then your spirit.”
“Ulfur has been left alone, and is probably bored out of his mind-”
“And the Dark Ones guarding the reaper could be alerted at any moment that we are in the vicinity.”
I made a little face. He had a point. “All right, but if Ulfur yells at me because we got Kristjana first, I’m totally blaming you.”
Fifteen minutes later we were beetling out of Reykjavik to a town about half an hour away, where the Brotherhood folk had said Kristjana was being held. I looked up from the GPS unit and over to the man who sat beside me, and decided the time had come to get to know him better.
How come you know terms like “blow job”? “Turn left at the next cross street, then a right onto the highway.”
Kristoff shot me a quick glance before returning his gaze to the road. Why shouldn’t I know what a blow job is?
“Pia, Pia, Pia,” Mattias said happily from the backseat.
I sighed. “Nap time, Mattias! You’re tired. Very tired. Go to sleep until I wake you up.”
“All right. I will sleep. You will wake me up. Smoochie?”
Because you were born during the Renaissance, weren’t you? “I’m going to give Magda hell for ever using that word in front of you. No, you do not need a good-night smooch. Go to sleep.”
Yes. Kristoff smiled . That doesn’t mean I hadn’t had a blow job before I met you.
No, of course not, I answered, pushing down a nasty sting of jealousy at the thought of him being so pleasured by any other woman.
The smile deepened.
But it’s an awfully modern term for you to be bandying about. I mean, didn’t you have some other name for it back then? Something euphemistic and romantic?
A soft “Pia, Pia, Pia,” drifted up from the backseat, where Mattias, still firmly in the grip of the mind-altering light-binding, lay with his eyes closed. I felt a momentary pang of guilt at keeping the spell on him, but a memory of his antagonistic tendencies had me brushing away the concern.
Well, there was one phrase I recall being used.
Oh, good. What was it?
The whore’s kiss.
I shot him a glare.
His lips curled a smidgen more. Why did you want to know?
If we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, I thought it would be nice if we got to know each other better. I’m boring, but you’ve lived centuries. I can only imagine the sorts of things you must have seen.
All I remember is death, disease, and lots of fleas.
I sat back in my seat, disgruntled.
Oh, and one exceptionally talented prostitute in Rome. She had the most amazing muscle control. You would not believe what she could do with a hard-boiled egg.
You know, I’m willing to bet I can guess.
Silence filled the car as we drove through the night. It was starting to get dark now in Iceland during the nights, the endless sun of summer beginning its journey into early fall. I looked out into the darkness, wondering at how much my life had changed since I had first been here.
What is the mortal expression-“penny for your thoughts”?
Oh, come, now-you may be immortal, but you’ve been around us lesser folk long enough to pick up phrases like “blow job.” I couldn’t help but smile a little at his attempt at mental coyness.
I guarantee you that every male, no matter what form he takes, knows every colloquial phrase for oral sex. Some of us, however, have little to do with the mortal world.
I slid him a glance. “That must make it a bit difficult. Surely you had to interact with humans in order to eat.”
“I seldom fed from mortals. They complicated things too much.”
My heart, as usual, contracted at the oblique reference to his deceased love.
“When I did, I tried to keep the contact at a minimum. It was better for everyone’s sake.”
“Did you . . . er . . . did you . . . you know . . . have sex with everyone you drank from?” I asked, driven by a horrible spurt of jealousy I badly wanted to pretend wasn’t there.
His lips softened into a slight curve. “I told you once before that feeding, to a Dark One, is an intimate act that sometimes involves other aspects of intimacy. It is seldom planned, but sometimes happens.”
Damn him. I ground my teeth a little as we approached the town, trying to cope with my unreasonable need to demand to know just how many times he’d given in to that particular impulse.
You’re jealous, he said with a hint of surprise.
Shut up, I muttered, glaring out of the window at the blackness . I’ve had boyfriends, too, you know.