"Would you prefer to have rebirth?" I had a twisted sense of courage here. This was a touchy subject—asking people if they wanted to die.
Leo smiled at me deviously and raised his eyebrows in a taunting manner, "No, I would prefer to see how this life plays out. Especially now."
Picking up my glass of wine I leaned over and ran my finger along the rim.
Hmmm, someone painted my nails blood red
. "And why would that be?" I stared at him over the glass through my long eyelashes.
"Because, I find myself incredibly attracted to you, my dear. Because you, above all, could give me the future that I have never dared to dream of."
My heart sped up. Was he talking about what I thought he was talking about?
Crap, crap, crap!
In the back of my head I began to hear a low growl. I blew it off because I figured that my subconscious was going on the defensive.
"I'm afraid that I am unaware of what you are referring to." I tried not to make eye contact because I was a pretty bad liar. I heard a snicker from my subconscious mind again.
That's odd.
The eerie silence was what made me glance over at Leo. He was staring me down, a hint of frustration flared at the edges. After that I couldn't turn away—it was like he was bewitching my mind. Another growl sounded in my head, this time it was a tiny bit louder.
"Hmmm, that is quite interesting. I was under the impression that you understood what I was talking about completely." He leaned forward on his elbows that were pressing into the table. His eyes glared red and flickered back to dazzling rubies as he tried to read me like a book.
I shuddered in response.
"Ahh, the eyes. Please forgive me my dear, I forget that you are unaccustomed to my demon eyes. Please, let me show you my true color… " With that, Leo's eyes blacked out completely and faded out until they were an ice-blue that could stop hearts.
"That doesn't seem to be a very Italian eye color." I shook my head slightly; glad to get my composure back.
"No?!" Leo leaned back with his hand against his heart, "Do you believe that I am not Italian because my eyes are blue?" He sounded disappointed.
"No, I just mean to say… " My eyes flicked to Solomon, "I just thought that brown was the more customary eye color for Italian men. Maybe even green… but extremely light blue? It doesn't seem as likely."
Leo smiled broadly as he reached for his wine once again—it turns out that the wine never emptied. There must have been a charm on the glasses to ensure that they never decreased in volume which would be dangerous if you were trying to gauge just how much you were trying to drink. "I see," he smiled under his long lashes, the blue of his eyes winking at me as he looked at me from an angle. "So you are very much attracted to my eyes. That would be the reason that you would have brought it up at all."
"I never said that!" It would be true but I never said it.
Leo chuckled and my subconscious growled louder this time. Actually, it was almost a snarl. I shrugged, "Whatever you say, Leo." My eyes darted around the room trying to pick out the exits. When Solomon was finally awake we would have to find a way out.
"My dear, there are no true exits in this castle." Leo smiled up at me, "It's actually quite mystical—no entrance, no exit. The only way out is through true magic." He smiled at me.
My heart stuttered at what he was saying. I could get out with magic? Well, let me at it! But then I made the mistake of looking at Leo—he looked excited too.
"I sense there is more to it than that." My excitement fell.
"Ahh, you are so very perceptive… and beautiful! Ravishing should be the word. Maybe delicious… "
"Enough!" My voice rang down the dining room, chiming off of the crystal glasses lined up on a sideboard. Shaking my head I let out a huff of air, "What more is there to it?"
Leo scooted his chair a fraction closer to me as he leaned in as if to whisper to me. He motioned with his hand as if he wanted to tell me in my ear. Rolling my eyes I leaned closer to him and allowed him to brush my hair back with his hand as he moved his lips ever closer to my ear, "You cannot leave or enter unless you are demon. That is, unless you have the permission of the king." And he leaned back with a winning smile, "And that would be me." He didn't whisper that last part.
The growl in my head actually made a snapping noise.
Wow, I must be on PMS big time.
I pushed back from the table to stand and began to walk down the length of the room, my heels clicking on the rich wood as I thought out loud, "So, what you are saying is that I can only leave with your
permission
?"
"Yes."
Well, that was good to know.
"Then I ask for your permission for my guard and me to leave here unscathed and with swift transportation back to the safety of Portland, Oregon." What I had learned in my lifetime was that you had to be very specific with men. Give them too little detail and they would ride it to heck and back.
"No. No, I believe that you will stay." He ran his hand across his smooth chin, "Yes, you will stay and be my queen." He smiled again.
"Your
queen
?"
"Si, my queen," he smiled again. Or had that smile ever left his face?
"I don't think that's a very good idea, Leo. I already
have
a husband." Playing the husband card here might actually help.
Leo chuckled deeply in his chest and his eyes flashed just the faintest hint of ruby red. "But he is not here and there is nothing to stop us." He pushed up from his chair and began to walk to me. Actually, stalk me was more like it.
Celeste, don't give him what he wants.
That was NOT my subconscious! It immediately hit me that I was hearing Solomon. My brain reeled at the possibilities. Could he read my mind? Did he always know what I was thinking?
Celeste, can you hear me?
My body stiffened as I watched Leo approach.
Yes
, I thought.
Thank God!
Don't give him what he wants. He's a demon.
No duh, Sherlock.
My eyes rolled in my head. Leo stopped walking towards me as if I were rolling my eyes at him.
Quick, distract him
.
"Tell me your terms, Leo." I propped my hands on my hip, balling my toes into the tips of my shoes. That was a fight or flight reaction—getting ready to run for it in three inch heels.
Really bright, Celeste.
That voice was mine this time.
Leo made a sour face and turned away from me to return to his spot at the table. He sat down with a sigh and waved his hand towards my chair, basically directing me to where he wanted me to be.
I considered it for a minute, weighing my options. Anywhere to run? No. Anywhere to hide? No. Any idea of how to escape? No.
Defeated, my shoulders sagged a tiny bit as I walked back to my chair in a sharp tap of my ridiculous shoes. Giving him an evil look, I sat down in my chair and crossed my legs again, pumping my foot up and down with my nervous energy.
Leo was distracted by the motion but didn't let it keep him from talking, "Why make things seem so… trivial, my dear? You are a queen, I am a king. We were made to be together." He shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay… " My eyes flicked over to the wall where the door was. Oddly enough there were no sounds from Solomon.
"So you will consider it!" Leo smiled broadly to me as he clapped his hands together in excitement.
Shaking my head I looked back at him. Hopefully my eyes were easy to read because I was basically sending him some very harsh and unacceptable thoughts, "I'm afraid not."
Leo's grin slipped from his face.
"Let me get this right. You wreck my truck—my favorite truck of all time, by the way. You kidnap me, torture my guard, hold me hostage, dress me up like a barbie doll, proposition me and I'm supposed to jump all over that?!" Oooh, I needed to tone it down a bit.
Leo kept his eyes on me, wary of what I might do next.
"And I'm supposed to 'be your queen'?" I used a deep gravelly voice for the 'be your queen' part to accentuate the testosterone I blamed for the offer. Men were all just so stupid to me right now.
Leo stared at me as if he were trying to read me. His eyes flicked from his ice-blue to the fiery red that I was accustomed to.
I think I prefer the red
. He stared for another long second and then threw his head back and laughed in a rich, deep ringing tone. He laughed so deeply that I wasn't sure if I was supposed to laugh as well. My hands clasped the arm rests on the chair as tightly as they could, almost in a death grip. I was trying not to jump out of my skin.
Leo looked down at me with laughing eyes, "Oh, my dear, you are quite the card." He wiped away a tear that wasn't there as if I had made him laugh so hard that he had cried, "Ahhhhh… " He almost hummed with the sigh.
"What the
hell
do you
want
from me?" My voice shook with anger. My skin began to burn with energy and I heard a distinct crackle in the air just to the right of my head. I kept my eyes trained on the demon.
Leo straightened his collar in response, pulling his suit down and then sitting straighter in his chair. He let his eyes sweep over me as if it were for the first time and then he nodded, "Yes, you are quite strong. Strong enough."
"Strong enough for what may I ask?"
Don't ask the questions that you don't want to hear the answers to, Celeste.
I smirked at Leo even though I wanted to smirk at Solomon.
"To have my child, of course." He smiled at me wickedly, wagging his eyebrows at me like a vaudeville villain.
Dammit!
My body screamed with the power of the word. But I sat still, not giving anything away. My eyes flicked quickly to Solomon. Not a hair had moved, not a breath had passed his lips.
"You know, Leo." I ran one of my hands through my hair and flicked it behind my shoulder for effect. Another weapon that I liked to use, "I don't appreciate being treated like this much less having my own guard mistreated. Why would I accept any offer that you make when you are clearly treating it as a business transaction?" I leaned towards him, allowing the table to support the girls to accentuate their size.
Leo's eyes popped a tiny bit as he tried not to look at my bustline. I wanted to laugh at him until I heard that growl in the back of my head.
Shut up, Solomon. I'm trying to get us out of here.
Silence.
"My dear, you are a monarch. All of your dealings are business transactions." Leo kept his eyes trained on mine—the ice-blue of his eyes glinting in the candlelight.
"Well, that doesn't mean that is how I run my kingdom." I stared at him, with a straight face—no emotion. I was staring him down and he was going to feel the brunt of some serious estrogen.
Releasing his gaze I leaned back into the chair, relieving the table of my 'weapons'.
Leo cleared his throat as he glanced down at the table where I had been leaning, "What would you prefer?"
I stood up on the spot, towering over him in my heels and walked over to Solomon, placing my hand on his chin and lifting it as if I were assessing the total damage done. Turning his head from side to side I finally returned his chin to his chest. His head remained heavy and limp.
"I would prefer to leave." I said simply, "With my guard." Details, details.
Leo leaned back in his chair and scanned me again but this time as if I were a piece of meat and not the woman in red that he had pictured before. "But then what would happen to my offer?"
"I cannot take your offer seriously, you know. You cannot take me by force or without my free will. I think that you know that better than I do. This is the modern age and women are not just flung over your shoulder and stolen to a cave these days. People have free choice." I actually sounded like I believed it.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, my dear. You are not aware of what truly happens in this world. There are many that have no freedom and are not at liberty to make their own choices. Much like you… in this situation." He picked up his wine again but made no motion to drink it. His eyes were looking through the red of the wine instead.
Still standing by Solomon I rested my hand on his shoulder, gripping it as if I was holding him down. I could feel his muscles underneath my hand but they did not react to me—he was still playing the part. At least I hoped that he was.
"I have free choice." I said simply.
Leo looked up at me as if I were a child making ridiculous demands from an adult. That made me angry.
"You will be my queen." Leo shrugged, "And you will give me a child."
"You know it doesn't work that way, Leo. You can take and take and take from a normal human, but not me. Without my free will I will never conceive. Or didn't you know that?" I laughed at him to push his buttons.
"You will want to," was his dry reply.
"And why is that?" I snapped at him. My blood pressure was beginning to build and I could begin to hear the beating of my heart in my ears.
"Because I will kill your guard if you do not." He glared at me.
Staring at him was like looking at a flaming light at the end of a very long tunnel. I could hear my heartbeat pick up and I could feel the warmth rushing over me. My vision began to cloud and everything turned into a reversed image where the dark is white and the white is black—a kind of x-ray view.
"Don't push me, Leo. You do not want to be on my bad side." I growled on my own this time.
Leo leaned over in his chair and tilted his head over to the side a bit, "What is that, my love? You have an aura about you… different… powerful." His voice was a whisper.
"Yes, and I will use my power to protect my own." I shook from head to foot, feeling the satin flutter against my skin. The room was suddenly extremely hot for me.
"I like this… "Leo began to stand as I edged even closer to Solomon, "You seem to have a fire within you, a passion that is unquenchable." He smiled broadly at me. "Are you sure that you are not part demon?"
My eyes flared in purple flames. I lifted the hand that wasn't touching Solomon and watched as the pulsing lights ran back and forth underneath the skin. My body quaked with the energy. It was like it was answering the question for me. I definitely felt a little demonic but what woman didn't when there wasn't enough chocolate in the house?