Since she had rarely felt less happy in herself, Rian was struggling to see her own best course. But there was something logical and obvious, and the fact that she very much didn’t want to do it should make no difference. Especially when whatever had driven Lyle had apparently attempted to kill her out of pure spite.
“You weren’t strong enough to hold it before,” she said.
“That’s one of the reasons we’ve involved Hildy. It’s a rare creature that is resistant to both the Night Breezes and the triskelion.”
“I thought she was going to be dealing with a lap full of Huntresses.” Rian took a slow breath, then made herself say: “You’re injured and my blood and ka, by all accounts, will make you stronger.”
He shot her an annoyed glance. “Oh, very noble, Wednesday. Yes, I so want a meal of the terror and revulsion radiating off you right now. Marvellous thought.”
“Isn’t that what vampiric trance is for?”
“I can do all sorts of entertaining things with you, Wednesday, but I can’t keep you in trance and eat you. No vampire can keep their Bound in feeding trance.”
She hadn’t realised that. She really wished it wasn’t so.
“Then we can be mutually revolted. It’s still by far the best sense.”
“Spare me.”
Rian started to point out that the sphinxes were still an unknown factor, and the Huntresses apparently entirely disinterested in diplomacy, but stopped herself. At the moment, arguing Makepeace into doing something she would really rather he didn’t was beyond her. She had seen someone she’d liked die, and almost been murdered by him, and then forgotten her place in relation to Prytennia’s Crown Princess and been swiftly made to remember it. That was surely the meaning behind that ‘out of her depth’. Rian could hardly claim to be surprised: the usual result of any blazing pyre of attraction was a failure to spark even a flicker in response.
But she’d thought—just for a moment she’d absolutely believed that Aerinndís‘ response had been positive. And that had crashed through common sense, left Rian off-balance and reeling, as stung by the Crown Princess’ subsequent dismissal as if she’d been slapped in the face. Walking in a straight line felt like an achievement.
Ridiculous over-reaction. Looking seventeen had evidently erased the twenty-odd years of growing up she’d done since then.
When they reached Hurlstone, Rian hesitated, searching the blue shadows. “What do we do about the automaton?” she said. “It’s grown increasingly responsive, and now we know what’s haunting it.”
Makepeace clicked his tongue, but shook his head, continuing on to the gate. “We’ll hand it over to the Huntresses tomorrow,” he said. “You’re right that they’re not in a diplomatic mood. Don’t be irritatingly right too often, Wednesday. It will make you intolerable.”
It wasn’t until he came through the gate with her that she was sure that this meant he’d conceded a larger point. It took sheer force of will to stop her hand from creeping up to her throat, and intense concentration to regain enough control of herself to greet two tense girls alert for any development.
“However did you manage to get Griff back to bed?” she asked, guessing from their exchanged glances that she had failed to produce a reassuring appearance. Though Makepeace, even with his wounds erased, rather announced that.
“He’s starting to feel better,” Eluned said briefly. “It always makes him sleep a lot. What happened?”
Rian explained in the briefest of terms, still circumspect in case of interested listeners lurking on roofs. The whole world would know the largest of secrets, all too soon, but she still didn’t quite dare to let her guard down.
“I held it in my hand,” Eluned said, even so. “Someone’s eye.”
That was very likely, and not what Rian wanted to discuss at that moment.
“Would you two find Dem Makepeace a new shirt, please?” she said. “And wait in the kitchen?”
The only way Rian could face what came next was to get it done as quickly as possible, so she turned and walked briskly across Forest House’s large central hall to the receiving room, seating herself at one end of a faded chaise lounge. When Makepeace came through the door, she met his eyes and coolly held out her wrist.
“This will only reinforce the link,” he said, shutting the door.
“It was fading?”
“Marginally. But what will happen with you is that the weaker my command over you, the more likely your colony will rouse and finish bringing you across.”
Rian’s resolution was failing her over and over today. Although she managed to keep her wrist held out, she had to turn her face away as Makepeace reached the lounge and sat down. He at least was not interested in drawing anything out, taking hold of her hand immediately. The touch brought Evelyn’s tour through ‘antiseptic, watered-down domestication’ to the surface of Rian’s thoughts.
He will lick your wrist, which will numb the physical sensation somewhat, but not enough for your skin to not know it has been pierced.
The muscles of her arm and shoulder knotted at the prospect, but she did not flinch away at the brief, moist contact. And of course Evelyn had been describing the experience as a Shu, not an Amon-Re Bound, and so had no reason to mention the sharp intrusion of her vampire’s emotions with that touch. Reluctance, irritation, pity. Hunger.
The numbing did seem to distance her to the entry of teeth, but Rian was keenly aware of the following moment, of Makepeace’s mouth sealed to her wrist.
It’s not the drawing of blood, but the ka that is the challenge to face.
Rian’s breath hissed between her teeth.
First because it hurts—it always hurts…
A vice had clamped around her chest, and her lungs felt as if they were being squeezed.
It is a sweet pain.
It was sex.
There was no other word for it. An entirely physical response, jarring in the moment, startling a gasp out of her. Makepeace hesitated—she could feel his surprise as a clear note like a bell—then drank again, leaving her shuddering and twisting, crashing onto summits of physical pleasure without any of the climb.
He dropped her hand, shifted so fast that memories of that first night at Sheerside barely had a chance to rise before he was straddling her lap, teeth in her throat, and the result was back-spasming pleasure, and a fierce hunger, as much Makepeace’s as her own, the Amon-Re ability to sense emotion taking the very real gratification a vampire experiences when feeding, and adding the physical sensation it produces in the Bound, magnifying it back and forth between them. It was confusing, shattering, engulfing thought and leaving only the urge to continue. One of her arms was wrapped around his back, another gripped his hair, and she twisted so that she was biting him, drinking as he drank, hot blood burning her mouth.
They stopped. Rian felt the effort of will Makepeace mustered to achieve this, a sledgehammer decision that moved him back a necessary inch, and broke the loop that made her want to drink from him. She coughed, shuddered, and fought an urge to spit as Makepeace’s blood, smeared around her mouth, slowly crept across her lips, found soft tissue, and sank.
“Too much of that and nothing will stop you crossing over, Wednesday,” he said, sitting back as soon as she loosed her grip on his hair.
In aftermath, beyond simple emotion, they looked at each other, dishevelled, breathing deeply, exposed. She could feel his heart racing, almost as quickly as her own, an ancient monster energised.