His blackmailer demanded performance.
Palming his cock, like he could protect it from what it was going to have to do later tonight, he went over and tested the water. Even though steam was thickening the air until he felt like he was breathing cream, the shit wasn’t hot enough. It never was.
He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. The red in his vision persisted, but it was a good thing. Better to meet his blackmailer on like terms. Evil to evil. Symphath to symphath.
Rehv stepped under the spray, the blood that he’d spilled washing away. As he soaped up his skin, he felt dirty already, totally unclean. The feeling was just going to be worse by the time dawn came.
Yeah…he knew precisely why his working girls steamed up their locker room at the end of their shifts. Whores loved hot water. Soap and hot water. Sometimes that and a wash-cloth were all that got you through the night.
Chapter Six
John tracked cormia with his eyes as she raced and twirled over the grass, her white robing flowing behind her, part flag, part wing. He didn’t know that ing behind her, part flag, part wing. He didn’t know that Chosen were allowed to run around all willy-nilly in their bare feet, and had the feeling that she was breaking rules.
Well, good for her. And beautiful for him to watch. With her joy, she was in the night but not part of the darkness, a firefly, a brilliant dancing spot against the forest’s dense horizon.
Phury should see this, John thought.
His phone went off with a beep and he took it out of his pocket. The text from Qhuinn read: can u gt fritz 2 t8 u 2 blays now? wr redy. He hit his buddy back: yup.
He put the BlackBerry away and wished like hell he could dematerialize. You were supposed to try it for the first time a couple weeks after your transition, and Blay and Qhuinn had had no problem with the up and disappearing. Him? It was like when he’d started training and was always slowest and weakest and worst. All you had to do was concentrate on where you wanted to go and will yourself there. At least in theory. Him? He’d just spent a lot of time with his eyes shut and his face twisted up like a shar-pei’s, trying to force his molecules across his room, staying exactly where he was. He’d heard it could sometimes take up to a year after your transition before you could pull it off, but maybe it was something he’d never be able to do.
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.”