He chuckled. It was a warm, intimate sound that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. “My owies are quite healed, thank you. And even if they weren’t, I’d be capable of carrying you to a bedroom. I can feel how tired you are, Francesca. You’ve given me a lot of blood, and you need rest.”
I protested only long enough to use the bathroom before allowing him to put us both to bed. “If you’re going to want to—”
“We will not make love,” he interrupted, pulling me over to him so I was half draped across him. “I wish for you to rest.”
I slid my hand down his belly, encountering warm, hot skin that belied that statement. “You do, huh? What’s this, then?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to, I said we would not indulge ourselves. Although I would greatly enjoy bringing you pleasure as many times as you could stand, you are tired, and it’s better you rest.”
“Now I know why Dark Ones and their Beloveds are immortal. Any man who can make love three times a day has to be.”
A deep rumble of laughter formed in his chest as he kissed the top of my head, one hand caressing my back. “I admit that I was a bit enthusiastic earlier today, but I have waited for you for five years. It’s going to take me a while to work through all that anticipation.”
“You’ll hear no complaints from me,” I said, snuggling into his side. My eyes were drawn to the still faintly visible marks on his chest. I traced a claw mark. “Is this what happened to you in Sweden?”
“No. Your mother would have murdered me.”
I pinched his nipple as he laughed in my head. “Were you attacked by a therion that time in Sweden when you were almost killed?”
“Yes.” The laughter in him died, replaced by a great sadness. “The woman who attacked us was, for lack of a better word, feral. I suspect she was also under some sort of a compulsion placed on her by de Marco, although what kind I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with the experiments Naomi mentioned. He may have found a way to bind therions to his will.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” I asked, my mind on the events in the past.
“Because it was one of David’s pride who attacked me. I had to kill him, and notify David. There were many disappearances at the time, and all therions were suspicious, so I sent him word of what happened with a sign to know it was really from me.”
“Your cross,” I said, sitting up to examine the beautiful Celtic knot cross he wore.
“Yes. David recognized it, and knew the note was from me. He came to Sweden immediately afterward. We searched for two months for the person who had turned his pride member feral, but were unsuccessful.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a religious vampire,” I said.
“I’m not religious. The cross was my mother’s. It has many good memories attached to it.”
I touched the cross with one finger, allowing it to speak to me. Mostly it carried Ben’s emotions—pain, frustration, and patience—but there was also a faint image of a woman, filled with happiness and love for her son. “Your mom loved you very much. She was proud of you. She was happy you weren’t—” I stopped.
“Like my father?”
I frowned at his chest, trying to sort out the emotions. “Yes. But at the same time she loved him, too. But he didn’t love her.”
“No. My father is not a loving man.”
“Is?” I sat up and looked at him. “He’s still alive?”
Ben’s eyes opened, surprised. “Yes, of course he is. I told you that Dark Ones are hard to kill.”
“Oh. I just thought . . . accidents and such. Surely sometimes you guys are killed?”
“We are, both accidentally and intentionally. But both take some doing.”
“Good. Where is your father?”
“South America. He prefers young, nubile women and has no problem finding them there.”
I wanted to ask Ben a gazillion questions about his dad, but decided that would have to wait for another time. There was another, more pressing matter I was concerned with. “My mother. We don’t seem to be getting any closer to figuring out what’s going on with her. Who is she in love with? Why hasn’t she called me to tell me she’s so gaga about this guy? And just where the Hottentots is she?”
He pulled me tight, both arms around me. “You torment yourself needlessly. She is as strong as you are, Beloved. We will work together to uncover the truth.”
I fell asleep with that thought easing my worry, and Ben’s comforting presence surrounding me.
Chapter 18
“Good afternoon, sleepy head. Can I just say how much good it does my ego to know that although you might be Mr. Three Times, such devotion to your duty caused you to sleep like a rock for seven solid hours?”
Ben, looking wonderfully sleepy with mussed hair and manly stubble upon his cheeks, blinked bleary-eyed at me and sat down across from me at the tiny table where I was having lunch. “I woke up and you weren’t there.”
“I woke up about an hour ago. Unlike you, I have to use the bathroom. And I’ve been thinking.”
He ran a hand over his face, blinking at me. “Oh?”
“It’s about Naomi.”
He grimaced.
“Yeah, I feel the same way, but I think we need to talk about her.”
“If it’s about the tyro—”
“No, I told you that I thought you did everything you could to keep that situation under control. It’s about Sweden. Or rather, the attack on you there five years ago. Was Naomi’s group a part of that?”
Ben rubbed his stubbly chin thoughtfully. The sound of his fingers rasping against his whiskers sent little skitters of electricity down my back. “I assume they were. It is a chilling thought to imagine two such groups preying on the therion population of Europe.”
“Right. And since de Marco is . . . Well, I don’t know what he is, other than nasty and badass and he had sex with my mother thirty years ago. But since he’s all that, I say we tackle Naomi.”
Ben shot me a look that said I had orangutans in purple tutus dancing on my head. “Who had sex with your mother?”
“De Marco. Oh! I never told you about that, did I?” I got to my feet and hurried to the bedroom, filling him in on how Peter and I had found the birth certificate. “And you can see right there that his name is Alphonse de Marco.”
Ben examined the birth certificate. “It appears genuine. But your mother?”
“I know. It means I have a half sister, too. Look at the dates, Ben. Mom was sixteen at the time, and this Petra person is nine years older than me, and yet I’ve never heard of her. My grandparents never mentioned her, and there’re no family pictures or anything. Just this.”
“Odd.” Ben stared sightlessly at the paper, his fingers tapping absently on it as he thought. “I wonder if there’s a connection between it and your mother’s disappearance.”
“I thought of that this morning, too,” I said, leaning into him when he wrapped an arm around me. “But I don’t see why he’d want to seduce her. Why now? She’s been kicking around Europe for the last five years, so if he was just waiting for her to come around the area, that doesn’t make sense. And she’s been divorced from my dad for eight years, so if he was waiting for that, it doesn’t fly, either. Not to mention the fact that Mom doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and if she broke up with him once, she probably wants nothing more to do with him.”
“I think we should consider the possibility that perhaps your mother has simply found a man she loves,” Ben said gently, kissing my arm.
Instantly, a dull red throb woke up inside him.
“Hungry?” I asked in my best sex kitten voice.
“For you? Always.”
I slid sideways onto his lap. “I had my breakfast, so I guess it’s only fair you have yours.”
The look in his eyes could have melted cement. “You know what will happen if I feed off you now.”
“Lovemaking so incredibly hot, it’ll banish further references to my toys?”
“Lovemaking so incredibly hot, it’ll make you forget you ever had toys.”