Chapter Thirty-Three
Nial settled himself into the perilous chair, while Winter and Sebastian sat side by side on the bench. Cyneric was missing.
Khurshid tapped on the glass separating them from the driver with the back of her knuckles. The limousine smoothly pulled away from the curb.
She glanced at Sebastian. “Do you know how to make a dry martini?”
“Not in the least, madam,” Sebastian confessed thankfully.
“I do,” Winter told her. “If you don’t mind a non-vampire waiting upon you?”
Khurshid considered her. “Thank you, child. I appreciate your courtesy, especially as I have disturbed your natural sleep hours.” She waved toward the hidden bar.
Winter eased past Sebastian’s knees, raising her brow at him as she went by. She sat next to the bar and lifted the lid, examined the contents, then set about making the drink.
Khurshid settled her hands in her lap once more and considered Nial. “I am returning to England in the morning.”
“I regret I will not be able to spend more time in your company, madam,” Nial replied.
She waved the comment away with an impatient flick of her fingers.
Nial lifted his own hand as if he wanted to halt her cynicism. “I have a feeling I will be in need of your experience and memories before this has all played out.”
Khurshid pursed her lips. “You may well indeed. I had thought of that. So has Cyneric. I’m leaving him behind.”
Winter paused, the bottle of Vermouth in mid-air, to look at Khurshid, her face blank.
“That is generous of you, madam,” Nial replied without hesitation. He sounded utterly sincere.
Khurshid smiled. “That is one way of putting it. Your wife would phrase it another way, I suspect.” She glanced at Winter.
Winter pressed her lips together and returned to making the cocktail.
“You have no opinion, Sebastian?” Khurshid asked, looking at him.
“None I choose to utter here, madam,” Sebastian replied.
“You have discreet partners, Nathaniel,” Khurshid told him. She gave a small smile. “Cyneric tends to generate more volatile reactions than yours.”
Nial shrugged. “They have experience in this, madam. I, too, am known to stir strong emotions in others.”
Khurshid’s smile broadened. “Which you are doing, right now. You are ever a trouble-maker, Nathaniel. Perhaps that is your way of getting along. But you have chosen to stir this pot, and so I am returning to England and leaving it all in your hands. I’ve learned that you’re more than capable.”
Nial inclined his head forward, in a nod of acceptance. “Thank you.”
She lifted a finger. “You do not get to play your chessgame with complete liberty, Nathaniel.”
He raised a brow, but remained silent.
Khurshid lowered her hand. “You simply cannot force this matter upon us all, willy-nilly. I understand, now that Cyneric has explained it to me more clearly, that exposure of the blood is unavoidable. I agree with your general theory, Nathanial. It is better to pick the time and style of our exposure and manage such a delicate matter than let the chips fall as they will. But exposure of the blood and revelation of each individual’s identity are two different matters.”
Nial frowned. “You want everyone to chose for themselves?”
She gave a nod that was regal in its stiffness. “You live in a country that prides itself on its love of democracy, do you not? Should not each of us get to choose? Is that not the democratic way?”
Nial remained silent for a few moments. “You can attempt to remain hidden, madam, but the humans, once they know of vampires, may unearth your real nature sooner than you would like.”
“That is a chance those of us who chose to stay hidden will have to risk,” Khurshid replied. She gave Nial a small smile. “We will be watching you and your liberators, Nial. And we will watch your new lifestyle among the humans. After a few years, more will see the freedom you are offering and choose to join you, I am sure. But while the human technology is still new and developing, those of us who have no desire to change things will have a brief sunset to enjoy things as they were. Let us have that time, Nathaniel. We will be forced to join you eventually…or not.”
Nial nodded. “Of course, madam. I understand. We can do it your way.”
“Thank you.” She placed her hands together in her lap once more. “Cyneric has all the information you will need to deal with the unspoken ones that will rise because of your meddling, especially The Deadly Moon. Do not hesitate to use him.”
“Thank you, madam,” Nial replied, and there was no hesitation in his reply, no hint in his voice of reservation.
Khurshid tilted her head to look at him. “You’re lying,” she said flatly.
Nial stared back at her. “Madam?”
She was frowning, and brought her hand up to her chest, over her heart, to press against it. “You’re angry…” she whispered. “Betrayed.” Then she shook her head and looked at Winter. “Where is that drink?” she demanded, her voice a whiplash.
“I had to open another bottle of gin and the seal is stuck. A few minutes,” Winter promised.
“Hurry up!” Khurshid shrieked, pressing her fingers to her temple.
Winter lowered the bottle she was struggling with, staring at Khurshid curiously. She swivelled and held the bottle out to Sebastian. “Sebastian, finish the drink,” she said, her voice remote.
Sebastian slid along the seat.
“What are you doing?” Khurshid screamed, both hands at her temples, now.
“Shh…” Winter said, her voice warm and smooth. “I can help.” She transferred her weight over to the seat Khurshid was on. “Let me help.” She touched her shoulder.
Nial sat forward. “You’re telepathic, Khurshid?”
“Empath,” Winter amended. “She reads emotions. But I’m going to make all those go away for a while,” she added, looking into Khurshid’s eyes and speaking gently and softly, “Without the need for you to drink it away. Just for a while, to give you a rest.” She kept her hand on Khurshid’s shoulder, maintaining contact.
Khurshid drew in a shuddering breath and her hands dropped to her lap and lay there, twitching. Until, finally, they grew still. Khurshid sighed.
Winter sat back, studying her. “Better?” she asked.
Khurshid laughed. “Better? My child, there is no word in English or any other language I know to describe the difference you have just made inside my head.” She pressed two fingers delicately against her temple and whispered a few words in a language that was not English. “Unbelievable,” she added, still speaking softly.
“It will not last,” Winter warned her. “What I did was the equivalent of putting your leg or arm to sleep, or like a dentist would numb a tooth before drilling it. The effect will wear off.”
Khurshid turned her head toward Winter, her eyes wide. “How long?”
Winter pursed her lips. “I don’t know. A few hours, perhaps.”
Khurshid sighed. “Is there—”
Winter shook her head. “I won’t make it permanent, madam. I’m not certain I could make it permanent and not maim you in the process. Besides, it’s who you are. In a few hours without the noise in your head, you will notice the lack and start to miss it and want it back, because it’s a part of you.”
Khurshid put her hands together in her lap, her gaze steady upon Winter. “You have far too much wisdom for one your age. I will consider your words once I have settled the debt between us.”
She looked to Nial. “You were angry and felt betrayed. Why is that?”
Nial shook his head. “A private thought, madam. Surely I am entitled to keep it private?”
Khurshid’s smile was small. “Perhaps I can guess, anyway. You resent being foisted with Cyneric because you believe he is Menes Heru’s man.”
No one reacted, but Khurshid smiled anyway.
“Your lack of reaction gives you away. Great poker faces say as much as shock on an innocent face. You knew this already.”
Nial leaned forward once more. “You’re saying he’s not with The Deadly Moon?”
“He has been Heru’s confidant for nearly twenty years, because I wanted someone inside The Deadly Moon’s household,” Khurshid replied.
“How many spies did you send in before Cyneric?” Sebastian asked.
“Seven,” Khurshid replied.
“They all failed?” Winter asked.
“They all died,” Nial guessed.
“It took nearly ten years for Cyneric to earn Heru’s trust and work his way into the household,” Khurshid said. “Now he is Heru’s advisor.”
Nial sat back, considering. “There is an inbuilt weakness with spies,” he pointed out.
“They can always be turned against you. Yes, I’ve considered that,” Khurshid agreed. “You’ll just have to keep your eyes open, won’t you? Cyneric is too sharp a tool to discard because the blade might slip. You’re aware of his talents? His knowledge?”
“I’ve glimpsed them, yes,” Nial agreed.
“Cyneric is a strategic advantage that could win your battle for you. Use him well.”
Nial hesitated. Then he nodded. “Again, I thank you, madam.”
Khurshid turned to face Winter. “Now I must settle the debt between us, child. What is it you would ask of me?”
Winter smiled. “Nothing, madam. I did not do it to run up a debt. It was simply something I could do for you. A kindness.”
“Nevertheless, such an overwhelming kindness requires acknowledgment. Tell me. You must want for something that I can supply.”
“I have everything I need, thank you, madam. You are most kind for offering.”
Khurshid frowned. “For your husbands, then?”
Winter’s smile broadened. “I would do anything for them, it is true, but I would rather be the one to do the acquiring for them. It has more meaning that way.”
The limousine came to a gentle halt and the interior lights began to glow softly. The vehicle shifted slightly as the driver got out. The door would open in a few seconds. They had been returned to their hotel, where Khurshid had picked them up.
Khurshid caught at Winter’s wrist as she slid along the seat toward Sebastian, closer to the rear door.
“Wait,” Khurshid said.
Winter looked back. Nial and Sebastian remained seated.
“I will return the debt with information. There’s something you should know about your director friend, Kate Lindenstream. Cyneric unearthed it.”
“We already know,” Nial replied. “Sebastian found it. He’s no slouch at research, either.”
“I doubt you reached as far as Cyneric, Sebastian,” Khurshid replied. “Or none of you would be calmly sitting here now.”
Sebastian glanced at Nial. Then he turned to face Khurshid squarely once more, his features tight. Braced. “Tell me,” he demanded.
* * * * *
Kate woke disoriented, but it lasted for perhaps three heartbeats. She woke to the feel of lips on her forehead, another pair on her shoulder and two bodies on either side of her. Both Garrett and Roman were holding her. It was Garrett behind her, his long length propping her on her side, his arm over her waist and his long fingers cupping her breast. Roman’s legs tangled with hers and his biceps pillowed her head.
“She wakes,” Garrett murmured.
Kate smiled. “I guess we know what it takes to make me pass out now, Roman.” She opened her eyes and looked at him.
His mouth quirked in a grin. “This was not what I had in mind when I said it.” He glanced at Garrett, letting his gaze flicker over her head. “But it’s a fair substitute.”
She felt Garrett’s short exhalation against her back. Silent laughter or a gusty snort of disbelief.
Roman stroked her cheek, his thumb leaving what felt like a trail of sparks in its wake. Her skin actually tingled.
“Wow,” she murmured. “That feels…”
“You’ve been marked, Kate. You’ll feel the effects for a while.” Garrett’s lips pressed against the skin behind her ear.
“Every time you bite me?” she asked.
“Not as strongly as this first time,” Roman replied.
“And being marked means what, exactly?” she asked.
“You’re ours,” Roman said flatly.
Kate licked her lips, staring into his eyes from a few inches away. She could almost feel the power lying dormant inside him. Both of them were far stronger than she, just on their own. Together, they could hold her captive forever, if they chose and she could do nothing to stop them.
Or she could surge from the bed now. Try to break away. See if she could escape.
“He doesn’t mean it like that, of course,” Garrett finally spoke, in a voice that sounded much more sane and reasonable. “We must mark you, Kate. If we don’t, then vampires will sense you have been amongst us, even that you have been…well, intimate. And they’ll feel that they are free to use you as they need to.”
“So now I’m your property, instead?”
Roman turned her chin to face him, so he was looking into her eyes. “It might have meant that once, a long time ago. But do you think I would think that way? Me? Remember where I came from.”
She bit her lip. Of course. Of course. How could a former slave possibly consider another person their property? Roman was as sensitive about personal freedom as she was right now.
Kate tried to smile. “Does this mean I owe you a hundred dollars?”
Roman laughed and pushed at her shoulder, so she was pressed against Garrett’s body more firmly. But Garrett moved out of the way so that she rolled onto her back. The pair of them lay on either side of her. Roman’s hand settled on her hip.
Roman and Garrett looked at each other for a moment and Kate realized she was holding her breath again, waiting. These moments when she watched the two of them together were very special. It was erotic, yes, but at the same time she knew she was glimpsing something very old, too. And they had included her in their world.
“Your adrenaline just surged,” Roman said, his gaze sliding to her face. “What’s wrong?”
Garrett smoothed his hand along her body, to rest it over her heart. “Elevated heart rate, body temperature and skin flush. He’s right.”
She tried to smile. “I’m with you. Both of you. Just for a moment it was…overwhelming.”
Garrett’s expression softened as his concern fled. “Aye, if you stop and let it be.”
“But you won’t stop to let it run you over, will you?” Roman asked. There was a hard note, underneath the bantering tone.
Garrett lifted his gaze back up to Roman once more. He smiled as he curled his hand around the back of his neck. “Even a year ago, I would have fought it, yes. But not now. The only reason I’m not stopping to let it all sink in is because I know it will overwhelm me just as it has Kate. And I want to enjoy this, Roman. I want to finish this night with my arms about you both and still be able to feel and hear and think.”
He kissed him.
Roman caught his head in his hands and drew the kiss out into a wordless expression of the emotions that had suddenly filled the room.
Kate realized she was breathing heavily, like she had run a race and that she was ridiculously close to tears. She sat up, sliding herself out from between the two men and bringing herself up so that her head was level with theirs.
Roman let Garrett go and turned to her. He stroked her cheek with his thumb once more. “You haven’t run screaming from the fact of who we are. In more centuries than I can count, you are the first human to see my real face. And you accept it. I’ve been more—” He took a breath. “I’ve been more happy in the last few days than I…” He shook his head. “I don’t remember happy,” he finished.
“Oh, Roman…” she breathed.
“I love you, Kate,” he finished. “I thought I loved you before you knew who I was. Now I know it in my bones.”
“I think you’re supposed to kiss her now,” Garrett murmured. “But wipe her tears first.”
“Highlander.”
“Snob.”
Roman kissed her and Kate clung to him, trying hard not to sob and spoil the moment. But when Garrett soothed her, his hand on the back of her shoulder, it was too much. She cried and laughed and kissed Roman at the same time and slowly the kisses and the tears morphed into caresses and sighs and the three of them made love again.
It was different this time. It wasn’t an athletic ballet of bodies and outrageous eroticism. This time the lust mixed with love and tenderness and the caresses were mutual. Hands followed lips and the silence was broken only by moans and sighs as the tension built.
Until finally, Roman settled over Kate and pulled her thigh high up against his hip. He slid into her and she moaned at the wholesome satisfaction it gave her to have his cock inside her.
Garrett’s hand curled over Roman’s shoulder and Roman closed his eyes, his breath shallowing out.
Kate saw movement above her and looked up at the mirror on the ceiling and saw Garrett was behind Roman, his cock driving into him. Her heart seemed to stutter to a stop at the sight. It was far more erotic than anything her imagination had painted. And it was real.
Roman gave a small thrust inside her. It was involuntary, she knew. Garrett was riding him, making him respond.
“Fuck me, too,” she whispered. “Make me come as well.”
Roman groaned and his thrusting deepened. “I won’t last,” he warned.
“Neither will I,” Kate replied, truthfully, for her climax was already blooming and roiling, threatening to take all her attention.
“Come, both of you,” Garrett growled.
She gave up on trying to control the pleasure and let the climax take her. It flowered like an iridescent display in her mind and nerve endings. Roman kissed her as she shuddered through the exquisite tremors and she felt his teeth just behind his upper lip, although he didn’t bite her this time.
He shuddered and grew still, a hard groan breaking from his lips, just as Garrett gave a similar sound.
Roman murmured something. Ancient Greek, Kate assumed.
Garrett whispered back. “But you can see well enough now,” he added in English as he settled back beside them. “A fool would still be blind.”
Roman shook his head. “How many years, wasted?”
Garrett pressed his finger to Roman’s mouth. “You had to go through it to get here, where Kate was waiting. It wasn’t wasted.”
Roman looked down at her and smiled. “No, it wasn’t.”
* * * * *
Kate woke with a start, and tried to figure out what had woken her.
The clock next to the bed told her she had only been asleep a few minutes. But she had woken to find herself alone in the bed.
The shower was running in the bathroom and she remembered Roman saying he was taking a shower, as she drifted off. That was Roman, then.
Where was Garrett? Why had he left the room? It wasn’t like he would be hungry.
She rose and looked around for something to put on and found a silk robe hanging on a hook behind the bedroom door. She threw it on and tied the sash. It trailed the ground and was far too big for her, but she didn’t want to wander around a strange house naked.
Then she went downstairs.
Garrett was standing at the front window, fully dressed – except for his shirt. It was close to dawn. The first signs of daylight were showing in the night sky. He was holding the blinds back, looking out toward the road.
“Are you leaving, or something?” Kate asked.
He glanced at her briefly before turning his attention back to the road once more. “Yes.”
For nearly fifteen seconds, she couldn’t draw breath. Her lungs were paralyzed. Then, when she finally could suck in air, the sickening gut drop kicked in. She stared at him, willing her mind to work, to encompass what had happened in the last few minutes to make him want to leave.
Nothing came.
“Michael…” But nothing else emerged. Just that helpless plea, hanging there.
He turned to face her and thrust his hands into his pockets. “You don’t call me that in front of him.”
She clutched at her chest. “You’re leaving because I won’t use your name in front of Roman?”
He shook his head.
“I need to turn the lights on,” Kate said. “You may be able to see everything without them, but I have to see, too. I need to see this.” She looked around and spotted the switches and flicked them one at a time, until the overheads came on.
Garrett hadn’t moved. Now she could see his face and the details that made up his expression, she saw that it was surprisingly haggard.
The cold gripped her heart and gut even tighter and twisted. “Why are you leaving?” she demanded, trying to sound reasonable. It emerged higher and more strident than she wanted.
“Roman is the domesticated one, Kate. He loves you. You love him. I can see it all over your face.”
But I love you, too. The words were right there, right on her lips. She couldn’t say them. Not now. He would assume she was trying to bargain with him. And he would be right, regardless of how true the words were.
She pressed her lips together briefly to hold the words in. “I told the world that you were both my lovers.”
“And we were,” Garrett agreed.
Were.
He pushed a hand through his hair and pulled at the back of his neck, stretching it. “I don’t want to go. And right up until a short while ago, I didn’t think it would end this way. But I’d forgotten Roman’s true nature, Kate.” He gave a tiny shrug. “He doesn’t want me. Not really.”
“Of course he does! You’ve known each other for centuries—”
“He doesn’t love me.” Garrett’s expression was wretched.
She halted, flummoxed, her mind whirling. Then she caught hold of the first response she could grip. “What, are you three years old, Michael? Blind, deaf and dumb? Roman loves you! He said it once. It’s just for some stupid, macho, Byzantine repressed reason he hasn’t said it this time, now, in this century. But you have to know he loves you. He kept coming back, time after time, even when you guys aren’t supposed to.”
Garrett shook his head. “Maybe he loves me a little, but not enough to want to stay, or to ask me to stay. Women, he marries. You, he will commit to wholeheartedly. He’ll give his life to you, Kate, now you know him for what he is.” And he grimaced.
There was a muffled sound of a car horn. Garrett headed for the door.
Kate inserted herself between him and the doorway. “No, Michael, please.”
He brushed her hair back. “I love ye, Kate Lindenstream. I probably shouldn’t tell ye that, under the circumstances, but there have been too many secrets and they’ve done enough damage, so I can’t see how a slip of the truth could do any great harm.” He smiled. “I love ye and have since I kissed ye in that god awful beer garden. Ye’ve turned my life upside down.”
“I was going to destroy it,” she whispered. “As payback.”
Garrett’s smile broadened. “You did destroy it. Just not the way you thought. I can’t go back to what I was. Not now.”
She clutched at the lapel of his jacket in a convulsive last ditch attempt as Garrett opened the door. “Neither can I,” she said. “I can’t go back to what I was. Not now.”
He detached her hand. “You have Roman, now.”
“But I won’t have you.”
He kissed her hand. “No,” he agreed. “You won’t.” He let her hand go and shut the door behind him.