In the Company of Vampires

“Get her!” I shrieked to the Vikings.



They did, and with such efficiency that it was only a few seconds later that the bloodied corpse of a wolf lay crumpled next to Ben. I was on him in an instant, pulling back the remains of his tattered shirt to see how bad his injuries were.



The claw marks on his chest had a strangely familiar appearance, but it was the mangled and bloody flesh of his neck that kept my attention. I ripped off a piece of his shirt and held it to the arcing blood. By the love of the goddess, Ben! You’re hurt bad.



No. I’ve lost some blood, but I’m all right. You can stop thinking all those morbid thoughts of spending the rest of your life mourning me, because it would take more than a therion in wolf form to kill me.



Do you want me to call Imogen?



No, but if you don’t mind feeding me as soon as I’m done healing up the worst of these wounds, I would greatly appreciate it.



It took him almost a half hour to recover to the point where he could sit up. The wounds had long since closed, although he was weak from loss of blood.



“I’m sorry, Ben,” I apologized as I sat on the ground with him, allowing him to lean on me as he fed from my upper arm. “If I hadn’t tried summoning Loki, it wouldn’t have gone all wrong, and we wouldn’t have gotten de Marco again. It’s my fault you were attacked.”



“Mayhap you’re cursed,” Eirik said. The three Vikings had hauled off the corpse of Renata—who remained in wolf form, contrary to popular movie lore regarding shape-shifters—and returned to clean their weapons with handfuls of grass.



“Cursed? Me?”



“Aye. Why else would Loki refuse to come when you summoned him?”



I thought about that for a minute. “Could I be cursed?” I asked Ben.



He lifted his head from my arm, his tongue swirling across the bite mark. “I doubt it. I don’t see a curse on you, and it would take a first-level demon or a demon lord to curse you and not leave some sign. Loki may have a grudge against you, but I doubt if a demon lord is after your blood as well.”



“That’s a relief, at least,” I said, getting to my feet and holding on to him as he did the same. He had lost a lot of blood, but he didn’t wobble at all.



Of course not. I’m a Dark One. We don’t wobble.



I laughed at the outraged tone in the words.



“What the goddess needs to do is appease Loki,” Isleif said.



“Get on his good side, you mean?” I shook my head. “He doesn’t have a good side.”



“He likes sacrifices,” Eirik said as he replaced his sword in the baldric on his back. “He always has. A good sacrifice would bring him to you.”



“What sort of a sacrifice?” I asked, thinking about the vast amounts of fast food the Vikings had once used to lure Loki into being summoned.



You can’t seriously be considering that.



I wouldn’t, but Ben, it worked before, when we were in Sweden, remember? The Vikings pillaged a McDonald’s and brought all the stuff back and sacrificed it to Loki. Who knows, the man may have a fast-food addiction! It seemed to work before, so it can’t hurt us to try it again.



“Let us think of people we would like to see sacrificed,” Isleif suggested.



All three Vikings turned to look at Ben.



“Hey!” I glared at all of them. “Stop looking at him like that!”



Ben rolled his eyes.



“She’s right,” Isleif admitted. “Dark Ones are not easily sacrificed. It would take a decapitation at best, and the goddess would not be happy with us when we were done.”



“The goddess isn’t hideously happy right now, so if I were you, I’d think of something that isn’t a living being to sacrifice. Maybe some of Isleif’s squashed sandwiches would do the trick.”



They perked up at that thought, and after asking for, and being denied, the keys to David’s rental car, they trooped off, making plans to find several packhorses so they could bring back enough sacrifices for both Loki and their own needs.



Ben and I walked slowly back to the trailer. He paused at the stairs, glancing across the common area to where Naomi’s trailer sat. “I should get my things, but I believe I’ll leave them until later.”



“Good idea.” Wearily, I unlocked the door and plodded my way up the three steps. “I know you don’t want any, but I desperately need some coffee.”



“You desperately need some sleep,” he said, scooping me up effortlessly.



“Ben! I’m not a lightweight. Put me down before you hurt your owies.”



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.”