Eight hours later, I was staring at a blank computer screen when there was a knock at my front door. Curious, I moved to the peephole, looked through…
Lennox was there, holding flowers.
I panicked. I was wearing dingy sweats; it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d actually fly up. “Just a minute,” I called through the door as I turned, unsure what to do first.
“You’ve got three minutes, then I bust this door down.”
I fled to the bedroom, plundered the closet, realized I didn’t have time to put on anything more serious than my best jeans and a plain pastel T-shirt with a V-neck that gave me the illusion of cleavage. I was checking myself in the mirror a final time when he knocked again, more insistent. “I swear, Ms. Peck, in ten seconds—”
I gave up on primping, ran to the door, took a deep breath, opened it.
For an instant we just stared at each other, smiling, not quite believing. Lennox broke the silence at last. “You know, I just lied to my sister and flew through a storm to be here—are you going to invite me in?”
“Of course. Please come in.”
I stepped back and gestured. He handed me the roses (yellow, my favorite—how did he know?) and came in, looking around. I was immediately self-conscious, seeing every frayed furniture corner and speck of dust, but he just nodded. “So this is how real people live.”
I was about to come back with some witty riposte when it occurred to me that Lennox probably really hadn’t been in many homes that weren’t mansions. Sitcoms were probably the closest he’d ever gotten to even upper-class suburbia.
I inhaled the heady scent of the bouquet. “These are lovely. Let me get them into some water.”
I walked to the kitchen, set the flowers down to reach up to a high cabinet for a vase, had just pulled it out and was turning to fill it with water when I saw Lennox in the kitchen doorway, gripping the sides as if holding himself up. “I’m not very good with social skills, so I’m just going to say it: I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” His eyes locked onto mine, and I couldn’t suppress a small tremor. I had to look away just to keep any ounce of composure.
“Lennox, I…”
He stepped closer. “If you want me to leave, I will. If you want to sit and talk for a while, I’ll try. But what I’d really like to do right now is kiss you.”
I couldn’t speak. I leaned back against the sink, breathless, as he pressed himself against me. His lips found mine, his hands were on my waist, my fingers twined around his neck, in his hair, pulling him down to me.
“Sara,” he whispered, moving his tongue to circle an ear, then trace a delirious path down my jaw.
I said nothing because I was lost. I was lost in arousal, lost in my desire, my need, for Lennox Wilmont. I nearly sobbed because it annihilated me. I’d never felt this before—not even with my husband, when we’d been first married and still genuinely in love. When Lennox moved his hands down to my hips and pulled me to him until I could feel how hard he was, I groaned as my own lust broke my inner censors.
He moved his mouth down to my breast, seeking it through the thin fabric of my clothes, and I arched, wanting him to find it. He said my name again—
Something was wrong. His voice sounded strange, too coarse even though roughened by sex. Some part of me tucked safely away heard and sounded an alarm, but the other ninety-nine percent chose not to listen, not to stop—
The front door burst open. I gasped and pushed Lennox away so I could turn.
The driver who’d met me at the airport stood there, his massive frame barely squeezed in. He was staring at us, and even from across the living room I could hear his breathing.
“Lennox, what—” I turned to look at him—and froze, staring.
The skin on his face had changed color, going so pink it was almost fiery. His hair seemed longer, shaggy, his ears slightly pointed. But it was his eyes that really paralyzed me: They’d lost all color, including white, and were depthless black pools. He released me and started toward the driver. “Why can’t she just leave me alone?”
It took me a second to realize the “she” wasn’t referring to me, but probably to his sister, Madelyn. Lennox was making sounds now like something between a whipped puppy and a banshee wail, his frustration so overwhelming that he didn’t even react as the driver gripped him by one shoulder and steered him out of my house. The driver said only one word as he led Lennox to the car:
“Father.”
At least it sounded like “Father,” but that made no sense—Lennox’s father was dead, so the driver wouldn’t be taking him to see Daddy Dearest. A priest, perhaps?
Whoever it was, I hated them for taking Lennox from me. I watched the car drive away, then went to my bathroom, turned on the shower, and cried as I stood under the water, still dressed.
I got an email from Lennox an hour later. It didn’t say where he was—on a plane going home? Still in the car? In some other house owned by the Wilmonts?
Dearest Sara:
There’s a story I’d like you to hear. You read part of it in the Beltane Room, but of course my sister wasn’t about to allow you to read all of it. Well, in honor of Madelyn, here’s the story for you:
Once, long ago, in a land on the far edge of the world, there lived a poor shepherd. The shepherd, his wife, and their two children barely existed on goat’s milk and a few rabbits the shepherd was able to snare. They weren’t happy—they were hungry and cold.
Things got worse after the shepherd’s wife died, leaving him alone with two small children. His wife had made the goat’s milk into cheese; without her, they had only milk to drink. They were alone in the wild countryside, with no one to help them.
One day, as hunger gnawed at their insides, the shepherd cursed the gods for his ill fate… and lo, the very deity he’d blasphemed appeared before him. The shepherd began to shake with fear—for the god was fearsome in appearance—but the god smiled upon him. “You have called me, shepherd, and I’ve come to relieve your suffering… if you are willing to pay the price.”
The shepherd fell to his knees, lowering his eyes. “Anything! Just give us food.”
“I will give you more than food: You and yours shall always have good fortune. You will never again starve, or want for anything material. Your children will be as gods.”
“Yes,” the shepherd said, sobbing in gratitude, “yes, yes!”
“But the price is this: Your children will appear human until they feel lust, and then their desire will make them into my children, divine in appearance and strength. Should they seek to satiate themselves with a mortal, they will create a victim, not a lover. They will have only each other to fulfill their needs and continue your line.”
The shepherd quaked in horror at this terrible offer, but then he saw his children’s gaunt faces and bloated bellies. “Is there no other way?”
“There’s painful, empty death.”
The shepherd accepted the offer.
Instantly he found himself before the door of a fine house; stepping inside, he discovered tables piled high with delicious food. His children appeared and they all began to eat, marveling at this sudden wealth.
For some years they were happy, and the shepherd began to believe that he’d earned this good fortune with his own hard work. But then his children came of age, and he saw the signs. When his son tore a local maiden apart, he hid the act and told his children the horrid truth. They saw what they must do, and so they coupled only with each other, in the form of gods, and their divine progeny continued down through the centuries, walking in secret among mortals.