Arcane Circle

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Just inside my front door I was trapped in a bear hug from Nana that I didn’t think was ever going to end. Zhan was in the living room, and came to her feet. “Welcome home, my lady.”

I saw Beverley sneak to the top of the stairs in her pajamas, and I called out to her. Nana released me and Beverley rushed down the steps, throwing herself at me before she’d reached the bottom. With her arms and legs wrapped around me, she buried her face in my neck. “I was so scared,” she whispered.

“Me, too.” I wondered what she’d been told and what she’d overheard while in stealth mode.

Nana gave me a nod that indicated I should take Beverley back to bed. Easy for her to say; she hadn’t gone two rounds with the Rege.

Atop the stairs, winded, I said, “You sure are growing, kiddo. In a month or two I won’t be able to carry you up here.”

She didn’t answer. Instead she sniffled into my hair.

I carried her into her room and lay her in her bed. After rearranging the covers and tucking beside her the teddy bear that wore one of her mother’s sweatshirts, I sat and smoothed her dark hair back.

“I’m trying, Seph. Trying to do what you said, to accept the good and the bad. But this was really bad. Everyone was so scared.”

Several statements crossed my mind. I settled on, “When I said it wouldn’t be easy, I didn’t anticipate days like this.” I gripped her hands. “They knocked me unconscious, but when I woke up, the first thing I thought of was you and I fought with everything I had. I fought to get back home to you.”

She noticed my cheek. “Looks like it hurt.”

“It did. But Johnny took care of it.” I shifted to something more reassuring. “Did you get to see the unicorns this evening?”

A sneaky grin appeared. “Errol let me put ribbons in his mane and tail.”

“Did he?”

She told me about Mountain letting her ride outside the barn, and that the young colt had been very careful with her and didn’t go too fast. On that happy note, though I was exhausted, I asked if it would help her sleep if I read her a story.

“No. I’ll sleep now that you’re home.” She sat up and hugged me, pausing to study my bruised cheek. “You need an ice pack,” she declared as she lay back down, arm encircling her bear.

I leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Love you, kiddo.”

“I love you, too.”

Nana told me Mountain had said only some odds and ends remained to do at the barns. Her room’s roof was finished and the interior was nearly ready for paint. She also informed me he’d called Geoff because Thunderbird was still asleep. They decided that since the griffon was breathing deep and his pulse was strong, that was okay. Geoff promised he’d come out tomorrow after work. I knew Nana was running on nervous adrenaline because only after telling me all that did she offer to feed me.

She dropped some bread in the toaster and started making scrambled eggs. While she cooked with shaky hands, she updated me on some of the decor choices she’d made for the room addition. Evidently Mountain had presented her with paint swatches and her choice of bath and lighting fixtures.

Presenting me the egg sandwich, she said, “That cheek of yours. Everybody’s taking a whack at it this week.”

I snorted. Vilna had slapped it, too.

“You want some ice?”

“Just ibuprofen.”

She got up and retrieved the medicine for me. Nana then listened to the abridged version of my story, after which I headed to my room where I peeled off my jeans, pulled my arms through my T-shirt’s sleeves, and performed a feat of female dexterity that allowed my bra to drop to the floor as my arms were jammed back into my sleeves.

I crawled into bed and tugged the covers up around my ears. Sleep had almost claimed me when the satellite phone rang.

I groaned and answered.

“And how did the world fare under the sun today, dear Persephone?”

Menessos was calling to chitchat? Not likely. “Dandy,” I lied. I didn’t want to tell the tale of the day again. “And yours?”

“I’m feeling rather low.” His pouting tone transformed accusingly. “As if I’m missing the life essence of one of my twice-marked Offerlings.”

Maxine. Anguished, I repeated all their names to myself. Aquula, Xerxadrea, Ig, Ross, Robert, Brian. Countless fairies and elementals. All dead. Now Maxine. In an instant, I recalled everything she’d told me about her life and her mother. No fading.

The growing list of those who’d died as I climbed toward the Lustrata’s destiny hurt my heart. I must not fail.

“Maxine is dead,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you kill her?”

I sat up quickly. “No!”

“Then what are you sorry for?”

“For your loss. But it doesn’t sound as if you’re worried about her, just the decline in your life essence.”

“It is something to worry about.”

“How? What does the damn life essence do for you anyway?”

“I meant to concede that the loss of her is something to worry about.”

“Oh.”

“How did she die?”

“Protecting me.”

“Are you all right? What happened?”

“I’m fine.” I didn’t want to demean her death. I also didn’t want to implicate any wærewolves. I did want to flop back on the pillows, but even the softest pillow would put pressure on the goose egg I was still sporting. Instead, I reclined slowly, twisting to the side and letting my weary eyes shut again. “I really don’t want to go through it all again. Can it suffice for now to say she died doing her duty?”

“Yes. If that is your wish, Persephone …”

As if the Sandman had cast his dream dust over me while I was yet awake, the vampire’s voice stirred imagery into the darkness. A warm summer sun shone in a cloudless sky. The bed under me became a blanket upon the ground in a field of wildflowers. He whispered my name again and I could feel his fingertips gliding up my arm like champagne bubbles up the side of a glass.

“I need to see you. Tonight.”

The image fluttered, losing vibrancy as I almost sassed, “Can’t Eva satisfy you?” but I held my tongue. After a moment the scene was restored. Still, I didn’t answer him. I wanted nothing else to happen today. Except dreamless, restful sleep, that is.

Menessos pressed, “To compensate, my master.”

Damn it. “Then you have to come to me,” I grumped.

“As you wish.”

He wasn’t deterred by my demand, but the way he worded it made me feel like I should explain this wasn’t a command from his master. “I’ve had a full day. You just got up.”

“Indeed,” he whispered low and breathy. “I just did.”

Hours later, I awoke to the ward alarming in my head. The clock read eleven-eleven.

The house was silent around me. I left the mental alarm alone, though it aggravated my still-achy head, and rose from my bed. I was expecting Menessos to show up, but he didn’t trip my wards. He carried my hex, and it granted him an all-access pass.

Tiptoeing across the room and jerking my robe on, I opened the door slowly and silently. The house was dark and—if things were normal—Nana and Beverley were in their rooms asleep. From Beverley’s room I heard Ares emit a low growl.

I tiptoed to her door. “Easy, boy,” I whispered.

He growled again.

I opened the door a crack. “Ares! Shhh.”

The dog lay down in his crate, wagged his tail twice.

I shut her door and proceeded down my stairs, weaving the odd path I knew would keep squeaking boards from announcing me. Midway down, I could see into the living room. Nana had left candles burning. Or Zhan is setting a mood.

I remembered how Mountain had reacted when he looked at her. I considered returning to my room, but Mountain wouldn’t set off the wards either.

A few more steps, and Menessos came into view. Well, his unmistakable backside did, anyway. He was admiring the Waterhouse painting he’d given me. He wore his usual flattering trousers and a businesslike white-on-white striped shirt. His jacket was draped over the arm of the couch.

I lingered there on the staircase. He stood in the room that, once upon a time when I lived here alone, had been my sanctuary. It held my Pre-Raphaelite posters and my bookshelves full of everything on the king of Camelot. Lit by wick flames, the room held an ambiance redolent of ages past. And, moreover, he simply fit. Admittedly, I was projecting what I knew of him into the mix, but one thing I wasn’t embellishing: despite his modern clothes, there was a majestic quality to his posture and aura. He was innately regal and no one in his presence could deny it.

Especially me.

My mind flashed on the moment before I staked him, before I kissed him, on the moment when I knew the sacrifice he was about to make and saw not the meddling vampire, but the Arthur I dreamed of so often.

I remembered how in the memory we now shared, Menessos was alive, his skin sun-kissed, shoulders thick from hard labor. His hair curled to his shoulders now, but then, in the memory, it was much longer—the kind of hair a woman could run her fingers through just before she passionately raked her nails across his back… .

Surely this adoration is a side effect created by the bonds. All masters must struggle with this.

No need for surprising an intruder now; I released the ward alarm. Menessos strode toward me.

“You tripped the wards on purpose?” I asked quietly.

“Would you prefer I enter your bedroom and wake you personally?”

“No. Where’s Zhan?”

“I sent her to get a report from Mountain. I told her to take her time.”

He gave me his hand over the rail as I took the last few stairs. It was ceremonious and unnecessary, but as soon as he touched me, the power of the hex awakened and again lit my spine like a fuse. My mouth opened to protest, but when my feet hit the floor I found myself eye-to-eye with him, witnessing the mixed need and danger in the blackness of his pupils, swirling like a thing alive. And I didn’t really want to scold him. He gave his life for victory.

“I waited until your grandmother and the child would be at rest.”

“I thank you for that.”

His arm snaked around my waist, drawing me to him, inspecting my bruise.

“I’m fine,” I said before he could ask anything.

He backed across the hall, guiding me as if we were dancing, and the fuse continued to smolder, its flame caressing me as he guided us to the couch. What I felt wasn’t heat like the other times he’d employed his supernal seduction on me. This was different; my second hex was on him now, making him not unlike an Offerling to me. And this blazing fuse felt like … a promise … a promise that the warm slow burn could detonate with earth-shattering force.

When he sat on the couch there was no resisting the strong arms clinging to me. I sank onto his lap, straddling him. His shirt, I realized, was mostly unbuttoned and when we were seated he tugged it free from his pants and finished unbuttoning it. Deftly maneuvering his knuckles, he stroked my aura and sent sensations rippling over me.

Goddess, he knows what he’s doing.

After removing the shirt, he flung it atop the jacket then reached for the belt of my robe.

My hands stopped him. “I’m not comfortable with the sexuality of this.”

“The nature of my feeding imitates intimacy.”

“But you don’t need to remove your shirt to feed from your master. It’s not like bloodstains are uncommon in your laundry.” Besides, this was where, and very much how, Johnny and I had first made love.

“You do not like this, my master?”

Apprehension buoyed me above the blissful euphoria to speak my objection more firmly. “Menessos.”

His touch on my legs sent sparks through me. Fingers splayed, he guided his caress toward my hips, thumbs on my inner thighs and just millimeters from touching my—

“Let me warm you, Persephone … it is cold in here.”

He went on, making it all sound so reasonable. For a moment, I was lost, submerged in desire as he kindled my flesh, engulfed in ecstasy as he draped me with adoration the color of candlelight. I sighed over the stimulating tone of his voice and marveled at the melodic quality of his words and how I could feel them seize me tighter in the seconds after he invoked my name. When he finished speaking, I realized the belt was untied and my robe was on the floor. But I wasn’t cold. His fingers rounded my arms, and brought me nearer.

Tilting his head, Menessos put his mouth to my throat. He knew better than to kiss my lips, but he eagerly kissed from my jaw to my collarbone. If his touch wrapped me in the blanket of his seduction, if his voice was an irresistible siren song calling to my soul, then his kisses were a web of mystery and flaming exultation. Every time his lips touched my flesh, it was a tender and reverent exploration. And each time my pulse answered, growing stronger, faster.

His lips pressed over the vein. He lingered there, just breathing. His touch trailed down my arms until he could thread his fingers between mine.

Motionless, caught in the glow of the burning marks I’d placed on him, I waited, testing, feeling, trying to break through the surface of this hex haze. This was new, a glorious arousal of body and soul—I wanted to know more, but I was also afraid.

Since it seemed he was giving me a chance to dictate how this would go, I dared not move to respond; it would only encourage him. Giving in to this feverish desire would end with my love and my world in ashes. So I remained stock-still.

When the moment peaked, threatening to become the most arduous exercise of my self-restraint, Menessos ended his immobility. He stroked the backs of my arms. When he reached my shoulders, his touch rounded forward, fondling downward, gliding, caressing my breasts, slowly, reverently—

“No,” I whispered, denying him.

“But you kissed me,” he whispered back. He tantalized every part of me he touched, and his breathing so warmly on my neck all the while only enhanced the torture.

It was all so sensual, so careful, so delicate. I was being charmed. I nuzzled into his walnut-colored waves. His hands strayed low to rest on my hip bones. Again, I said, “No.”

And the seduction ended. With quick ferocity, he struck—jerking my body against his as his fangs stabbed into my flesh.

My instinct was to fight, to throw this attacker off and to struggle against giving him blood, so I had to convince my instinctual self this was not an attack. Not like that.

He was rock hard beneath me, and as he drew my blood, he used his grip on my hips to rock me as if we were engaged in much more. But I knew what he was doing—baby-stepping me into an affair that robbed me of my loyalty to Johnny.

“Stop,” I whispered.

He didn’t.

“Stop,” I said more firmly. I weighed my options about which to try removing first: his viselike grip or his razor-sharp teeth. Though he’d drank from me before, this was the first time he’d done so as a truly undead vampire. “Menessos.”

His body stilled under me, his teeth slid out of me, and his suckling decreased, fading to gentle licking in seconds. The fuse, once full of potency, tapered off. A sense of self-control resumed. My thoughts were clearer.

Finally, with his head thrown back against the couch, the vampire sighed up at me with deep satisfaction. “That was better than sex … almost.” He licked his lips and gave a little thrust with his hips. “I really need more from you to make that comparison.”

I leaned back. “You’re wasting your time.”

He rubbed my thighs again. “I think you enjoy being a cock tease to me.”

At that, I stood, though it wasn’t exactly a graceful dismount. “I’m not a cock tease. You’re the one who insists on making our situation sexual. You do it to yourself.” I headed for the stairs.

He called after me conversationally, “I’ve heard that the Rege is in town.”

I turned and rolled my eyes for emphasis. “What’s that? Some new band?” He was fishing but I wasn’t taking the bait.

“No.” His tone, and the silence afterward, were patient.

“Okay then, don’t tell me. Lock up before you leave.”

He let me get three steps away. “Persephone.”

I stared straight ahead. He’d said my name and I felt weaker. The warmth of his presence faded more as I moved farther away.

I care deeply for him, but I can’t love him. I love Johnny.

And I can’t even seem to tell Johnny that.

Over my shoulder, I said, “Go back to the haven, Menessos.”

“I will. But I’m going to sit here for a while,” he mumbled.

At that, I faced him again. “Why?”

With a gracious gesture like a maître d’ presenting a succulent dish, he drew my gaze down to the bulge in his pants. “Until I can walk normally.”

I pursed my lips. “Well, if you’re just going to be sitting for a moment, I have more questions about the moon amplification spell.”

“How did that go?”

“It didn’t. Something else came up and we rescheduled.” I shrugged as if it was no big deal. “What if I had to do this spell for more than twenty wæres?”

“How many?”

Throwing caution to the wind, I firmly said, “All of them.”

“And you said you weren’t ambitious.” He rubbed at his temple. “What are you asking?”

“Is it possible to do this all at once? Say, if I did it during a full moon as they changed anyway?”

“I doubt it. Why would you want to give them all their man-minds?”

“It could eliminate rogue attacks, keep their numbers stable. Kenneling wouldn’t be necessary.”

“Very practical.” He stood, adjusted his pants, and muttered, “Your eager willingness to perform for the wæres certainly dwindles an erection.” In normal tones, he said, “You wouldn’t be going to such extremes to impress the Domn Lup, for he’s already enamored with you. So how long is the Rege staying?”

My mouth stayed shut. I hadn’t meant to confirm his earlier suspicion. Aggravated with myself, I ran a hand through my hair and discovered my goose egg was gone. So I got a perk out of feeding him. Yay.

“I’m not only the Quarter Lord here,” he said, donning the shirt though he didn’t bother to button it. “I’m now the lord of this area with Heldridge gone. Matters under his jurisdiction are things of which I must stay apprised.” He donned his jacket and sauntered closer, radiating every ounce of masculinity he possessed. “And my court witch must not be plotting to aid the wærewolves globally.”

“But the Lustrata must.” I wasn’t letting him name-drop his titles and roles as if they were exclusively meaningful. “I guess you have reason to renounce me after all.”

“We’ve already discussed that without the vampires or WEC all you have are the wæres. I understand why you would seek to sway them to your side, pacifying them with your excellence, but this is supercilious, especially for you.” He caressed my cheek, then let his touch drop away. “Why would you even want to do this?”

“I told you, to—”

“You told me the practical side, yes. But …” He sighed. “Have you even met the Rege?”

“You could say that, yes.” I wasn’t telling him more than that.

“Would you truly remove his weakness if you could? He is not like Johnny. The Zvonul are bigots who cling to antiquated dogma—no pun intended. The Rege is the worst of them. To give them what you suggest would not dull their arrogance.”

He was probably right. “I’m supposed to bring balance.”

Softly, he asked, “And would you give my kind back their days?”

“If I could, of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Then would you give us the means to enter places where there are wards? Would you give the undead the freedom to roam unchecked as wærewolves do?”

Those were tougher questions. Ones with a myriad of other questions waiting in the wings, no matter which way I answered.

He reached up again, this time grasping my shoulders. “Your motive is noble and your reasoning is close, but it is not perfect. You’re striving for equality, to level the playing field, as they say. But equality is not balance.”

“Why not?”

“Because no matter what you do, you cannot make us human again.”