CARNAL, The Beast Who Loved Me (30 page)

“It doesn’t sound dumb,” she said softly.

He looked at her with a mixture of embarrassment and hope. “No?”

“No.”

“So then tell me.”

“About…”

“Your family. Start at the beginning.”

She smiled. “Okay, you asked for it.”

Rosie began with the fact that she had inherited her parents’ memories up to the time of conception, which meant that, intellectually at least, she had a lot of combined experience. She talked about her “aunt”, who was an interdimensional pilgrim, about her father, who was a decorated knight of The Order of the Black Swan, about her mother, who was half demon, half witch, and about her unique upbringing around figures who were legendary in their esoteric world.

The occasional shouts or laughter from the field below had gradually quieted as the trainees and instructors drifted away. The moon had already risen in the fading light by the time she’d finished and there were no young athletes left on the field below.

“I guess I don’t understand why you’d give all that up to stay here,” he said. “But I hope you will.”

Rosie looked down at her hands that had become pale gray in the dusk. “I can’t make any promises right now, Carnal. All I can tell you is that I’m not leaving today. Or tomorrow, so far as I know.”

“You could promise that you’ll keep an open mind and give me a chance to persuade you to stay. With me.”

“A deal?” She smiled. “I love a good negotiation. So how about this? You get a chance to persuade me to stay, but with a handicap.”

His eyes narrowed. “What kind of handicap?”

“No kissing.”

“Fucking?” He looked as hopeful as a child at Yuletide.

She laughed. “No hands or,” she waved at his crotch, “other body parts. You have to convince me without touching.”

“That’s a very hard bargain, little demon.”

“You’d better stop calling me that or you’re going to slip and say it in front of somebody else.”

“Wouldn’t matter. Nobody would guess it was true in a thousand years.”

“Hmmm. Well, if you want me to stay, you need to get used to ‘hard bargains’. Demons are all about the deal.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Noted. Just one more question before we go. What could you do with your, um, abilities? I mean, I know you can fix wrecks. What else?”

“Just ask what you want to know.”

“Could you make somebody disappear?”

“Yes.” Rosie started to feel wary about the direction of the questions.

“Could you make a group of people disappear?”

“Like the Rautt?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve made promises to Kellareal. The bike thing was a broken promise. As it turned out, it didn’t hurt anybody, but these things… they can easily take unforeseen turns and render unfortunate consequences. I can’t be responsible for that. I have to be hands off and leave Fate to Fate.”

“And Charming’s leg?”

Rosie looked away. “I wasn’t supposed to do that and it worries me that somehow it might have changed something important. It was an impulse, the kind I
have
to learn how to control.”

Carnal picked up a blade of grass and stared at it as he said, “Could you bring my brother back?”

Rosie didn’t answer verbally, but she put a hand on his knee hoping to communicate that she would if she could.

Carnal nodded. “I get it. It’d be hard to be you. To know you could do stuff like that and not do it. I think I feel better knowing you feel that way though.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And it’s also comforting. In a way.”

“It is.”

He nodded. “I don’t want to live in fear of making you mad and being turned into a toadstool.” She laughed. “Give me tomorrow afternoon.”

She slanted a look sideways. “Okay.”

He got to his feet grinning and reached out to help her up.

When she took his hand, she said, “Oops. You touched. Deal’s off.”

Even in the failing light Rosie could see that Carnal’s face had fallen. “You joke.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I joke. I can’t get down this hill without leaning on you. Only cats can see in the dark.”

He swooped her up into his arms and ran down the hill so fast that she alternated between shrieking and giggling. She buried her nose in his neck and breathed in, loving the scent of leather, musk, and Carnal. Feeling the way her body reacted to him, she was thinking that making touch off limits was arguably the stupidest condition she’d ever put on a deal.

He carried her all the way to the porch of the Extant’s house ignoring the double takes, stares, whoops, and hollers they got along the way. By the time he set her down in front of the door, she was very much into the idea of being persuaded. A little delicious anticipation never hurt anyone.

“I’ve decided I’m amending the terms of our deal. No touching
without permission
.”

A slow and cocky smile began to lift his beautiful mouth. “Permission to touch, ma’am?”

Rosie blushed. She hadn’t realized how titillating potential requests to touch could be. She nodded, but didn’t wait for him to make a move. She took two fistfuls of rough-woven Henley shirt and pulled him down so she could have another sample of Carnal’s kissing mastery along with more of his smell, his taste, his warmth, and the spikes of desire that made her body tingle stem to stern.

At dinner Carnal sat directly across from Rosie and never looked away. The twinkle in his gaze was so compelling she could barely remember that she was supposed to be eating. She was beginning to wonder just which of them had been bewitched.

“Serene,” Free said, “I’d like you to go into the city with Carnal tomorrow. Red has some options for housing. I told him it’s up to you.”

“Yes,” she said. “I’d like that. When can you go, Carnal?”

“Has to be in the morning.” Looking back at Rosie, he said, “My afternoon is taken.”

Serene looked at Rosie and back at Carnal. “I see.” She looked concerned by what she saw pass between them, but said nothing about it. “Morning is fine.”

“I talked to some humans today,” Charming said, sounding mildly excited about it.

Free looked at his youngest. “And?”

“They were alright. Not that different.” He shrugged. “Slower, I guess.”

“Yes. They’re slower and more fragile. We have to be careful around them,” cautioned Free.

“I’d hate to think what would happen if one of them was injured by one of us,” Serene said.

“We just have to make sure that Exiled understand the stakes of contact,” Free offered and Serene nodded that she agreed.

“Of course Carnal knows all there is to know about humans.” Charming laughed. “Human
females
, I mean.”

Carnal kicked his brother under the table and gave him a warning glare.

“Ow. What’s that about? Like there’s somebody here who doesn’t already know that you’ve…”

“Enough!” Free interrupted Charming’s train of thought. Carnal wasn’t usually pleased about paternal intervention in sibling disputes, but flaunting his history in front of Rosie was an exception to the rule.

“Whatever,” Charming grumbled under his breath.

Carnal looked at Free. “I think it’s time for me to set up my own household.”

Serene couldn’t have looked more shocked if he’d said he was giving up war and going into show business. “You’re settling down? With a female?”

He glanced at Rosie before smiling at his mother. “Hope to.”

Serene looked at Rosie, then Free, who smiled reassuringly. Rosie wondered if Carnal was suggesting what she thought he might be suggesting. She really hadn’t planned for an innocent flirtation to blaze into a wildfire, but she could pinpoint the moment when she’d made a decision to see where things would go with Carnal. It was when she’d blurted out to Carnal that she wouldn’t share.

Apparently, her heart could override her brain when there was a conflict about what would and would not be said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

As Rosie was finishing up the next afternoon, Dandy said, “You’ve been extra chirpy today.”

“Chirpy?” She laughed. “Really?”

“Uh-huh. And extra fast getting through your checklist.”

“My. You’re observant.”

“Yes. I am. Does it have anything to do with the spectacle that I hear occurred yesterday?”

“What spectacle?”

“Carnal carrying you down the main way like a bride?
That
spectacle.”

Rosie threw her apron in the bin, smoothed back her hair, and smiled at Dandelion. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said as she practically danced away.

“Be careful, Roses.”

“Not a child, Dandy,” she said as she went through the door, wondering if that was the truth or not.

Carnal didn’t disappoint her. He was waiting, just as she’d expected. As he ambled over, she said, “What’s the plan?”

He grinned. “It’s a surprise.”

“A good surprise?”

“Would I be likely to persuade you to stay if I sprung
bad
surprises on you?”

“Good point. Okay. I’m in.”

“On.”

“On?”

“You’re on the back of my bike. You’ll need the riding clothes I gave you. How long will it take you to change?”

“Um. Ten minutes. Give or take.”

While she was changing, he’d pulled the bike to the front of the house and sat waiting while it quietly vibrated underneath him. She climbed on and put her arms around his waist. He took her hands and changed their position so that she was holding on tighter.

“No touching without permission. Deal violation,” she said.

“When we’re on my bike, there’s no deal and there’s no negotiating. I rule absolutely.”

She didn’t have to see his face to know that he was wearing an arrogant grin. She smiled, resting her cheek against his back, and left that proclamation without rebuttal as the machine lunged forward toward Farsuitwail.

They didn’t enter the city proper, but swung to the south when they reached the outskirts. On mainly dirt roads they sped past flat fields newly planted and flat fields ready to be harvested. The day was cool, but not unpleasant. Both Carnal and Rosie were completely content in the moment, enjoying the ride and scenery, wanting nothing more than to be in each other’s company.

In time the flat land began to roll. Low growing crops became vineyards and orchards. Intermixed were green fields where livestock grazed. The patchwork was exquisite enough to be an oil painting.

Carnal pulled to the side of the dirt road and stopped.

“Where are we?” Rosie asked.

“Cider break.”

“Good choice,” she said, looking around. “It’s beautiful here.”

“Yeah. Come on.”

He took a skin of cider out of one of the bike’s saddlebags and helped her over the fence.

“Watch where you step.”

“What? Why? Oh,” she said, sidestepping a pile of large poop balls. “What made that?”

“Sheep.”

“Noooooo. Sheep are not big enough for that.”

“You know you’re strange, right?” He chuckled. “This way.”

On the other side of a small rise a flock of pretty, but monster-sized, black-faced sheep with white fluffy wool were grazing in an idyllic meadow of winter rye and tiny yellow and purple flowers.