There was a sigh on the other end of the phone, then
Citysider's
surprisingly soft voice came down the line. “Kiwi, you need to consider not going yourself.”
What the? “Are you joking? Of course I'll have to go, the call to arms is because of me!”
“I understand the desire to fight, believe me, but I am only saying what Nero would have said if he were still here. You are too important to risk.”
“Bullshit!” came my strident reply.
Another sigh. “Kiwi. If we lose these Nosferatin, then we have already made our job damn near impossible. But, if we lose you too, we have lost the war.”
I didn't know what to say to that. My heart was shouting
no!
But, my mind was reeling at his logic. I wanted to believe I was strong enough, capable enough, to fight all the Americans, to get to Jonathan and end this once and for all. But I also knew, I was weaker than I once was and I also knew, reluctantly I might add, that
Citysider
was right.
Without me the Dark
would
prevail.
“Fuck,” I muttered with dawning comprehension. “I'll think about it.” I was shaking my head, but my jaw had stubbornly set. I wouldn't go into hiding quietly.
“All right,”
Citysider
replied with a hint of compassion. “We'll talk soon.”
He rang off and I just sat there and stared at the phone in my hand.
“I suppose you heard all of that?” I asked into the oppressive silence that had suddenly engulfed the room, knowing damn well that Amisi next to me had heard the entire conversation, her ear practically glued against the other side of the phone, but also knowing Michel, who had stood silently behind us, had heard it all too.
“He has a point,
ma douce,
” he said softly.
I rounded on him, ready to blast his bloody over protection to hell and back, but he just spread his hands and cocked his head to the side, a look of resignation on his face and spoke before I got a chance.
“I will support whatever decision you make, Lucinda, as I know you will make the right one.” He didn't wait for a reply, just simply turned from the room and vanished.
Well, that was a novel approach. Michel and I had run the gamut from controlling, to over protection and now it seemed, to open and accepting trust.
He'd
let me make the decision. I suddenly felt suspicious.
“What's he playing at?” I muttered to Amisi.
She shrugged but said, “He is perhaps afraid that if he tells you what to do, you will rebel, but if he lets you come to the right conclusion by yourself, you will be easier to handle.”
“What if my conclusion is not his conclusion?”
“Well, that is the risk, isn't it? But, he is right about one thing, Luce, you
will
make the right decision. This is more than just Michel or
Citysider
trying to boss you about, this is about the Prophesy and Dark versus Light.”
She quietly stood, threw her uneaten portion of sandwich out and placed her plate in the dishwasher, then exited out the other door of the kitchen towards the hall.
I was left wondering if all my friends and loved-ones were playing me or not.
Shit. I hated to be backed into a corner. This was feeling decidedly like a corner to me.
Ah shit.
I sat in the kitchen on my own for a good hour, not moving, not really thinking, just sinking into myself. It's not a healthy place to be, it's depressive and addictive, the longer you allow yourself to wallow, the harder it is to claw your way out of the pit.
The whirring of the shutters rising for the night broke the spell and watching the blurry shadows of Michel's guards moving through the back yard to position themselves around the property sent cognitive thought tumbling back in. This wasn't all about me. It was high time I stopped acting so precious and started putting the Prophesy ahead of my feelings, started acting like a saviour of the world should.
I laughed a little to myself then. I'd always had tremendous trouble accepting the saviour of the world thing. I mean, I was raised on a farm in rural New Zealand, I am a bank teller by profession, an unclaimed Nosferatin who never knew her parents and now I was meant to save the world from the Dark.
I'd met the Queen of Darkness once, she's impressive. It's not like you can honestly believe you can come up against a goddess and win, it takes an enormous leap of faith, or a huge ego. Neither of which I have in abundance. But, I do believe in Nut. Maybe not at first, but having met her, having had her interfere and guide me, having seen the staunch belief in Nero's eyes, I have come to trust that Nut must know more than me. I have come to trust Nut, my goddess.
Nero was the one to introduce me to the story of my goddess. He told me of the fact that we Nosferatin, are the
Children of Nut
. It goes something like this:
Thoth, the God of Wisdom and Knowledge once prophesied a child would be born to Nut who would become Pharaoh after Ra. It was told that she had five children, Osiris was the first born and it was proclaimed to the heavens on his birth, 'The Lord of All comes forth into the Light!' We are descended from Osiris, Nut's first born son. We are the
Children of Light
.
It all sounded pretty much hokey nonsense to me when I first heard it, then I met Nut herself. It's hard to disbelieve something when you are presented with them in person.
But, who the Queen of Darkness is, I don't know. I have always just assumed she was another goddess. She looked pretty similar to Nut and part of me wonders now if she is the descendant of another of Nut's children. If Osiris was the Lord of Light, then maybe there was a Lord of Dark too. I'd have to ask Amisi.
All this deep thinking was giving me a headache. I stood stiffly and stretched and went to make a cup of coffee. Nothing like caffeine to scare away a headache before it begins.
So, I was a tool of the Prophesy, something I had long been fighting, denying even, but like Michel said in the front yard of that Church, I
am
the Prophesied and there's fuck all I can do about it. What I can do, is try my hardest to live up to the faith Nut has placed in me and that means, dammit all to hell, that I can't just rush off and get myself killed in a battle that isn't even the final one. Jonathan may be putting a spanner in the works right now, but he is not the Queen of Darkness, she is still out there and although he seems to be playing into her hands right now, I still have to face her if we have any chance of fighting the Dark and balancing our universe out.
It's not going to be easy, I still don't know what my final power is meant to do, but it, along with the other two, is meant to be enough to bring back the Light and banish the Dark. I would just have to trust that when the time came it would all fall into place.
Hell of a thing to leave to fate.
I would also have to trust something else. I would have to trust that my kindred could avenge my honour and take out Jonathan without me by his side. I almost dropped my coffee when I thought that thought through. Oh God, how do I let him leave me to do this?
I heard Michel come up behind me, softly, he wasn't going for stealth, but he probably had been going for careful. I'd sensed him approach a few minutes ago, he'd probably held back so I could get my thoughts in my head to settle. His arms came around my stomach, his head resting over my shoulder and laying a kiss on his new mark at my neck. I felt the warmth of him through my back, the reassuring feel of him around me and I inhaled deeply his scent, allowing it to calm me even further. It always surprised me how much of a soothing effect he had on my nerves.
“I will kill him,
ma douce
, of this you can be assured.” His words were said with such conviction, it was hard to doubt him at all, but I was scared. What we faced was enormous and it wasn't even the last of what was ahead. Why was it that we kept facing these hurdles which in essence had nothing at all to do with the Prophesy itself?
“I'm not sure how to let you go,” I admitted, my voice cracking slightly at the end.
He sighed and turned me in his arms to face him, resting his head in his favourite spot. “It will not be easy for me to leave your side either, but it must be done. Jonathan threatens more than just us,
ma douce
, he threatens the balance of Dark and Light.” He paused, gathering his thoughts it seemed. “Gregor has confirmed that seven Nosferatin have vanished from Europe; Rome, Lucerne, Copenhagen, Salzburg, Milan, Naples and one in Lubeck.”
“
The Rome one will be Marco, the others I don't know. Are all the Parisian Nosferatin accounted for?” I was hoping they were, but if they had vanished, we could have relied on the
Iunctio
to get involved.
“
Yes. Although, that is to be expected, Jonathan is not unintelligent, taking a Parisian Nosferatin would have had him on the
Iunctio
's
hit list, this way they have no real desire to get involved, despite the imbalance this could cause if they are not recovered. The
Iunctio
has always swayed towards the Dark. For now it would suit their purpose.”
Not a pleasant thought.
“So, twelve Nosferatin unaccounted for.”
Michel went on. “Enrique has confirmed all of Spain's Nosferatin are safe, but we could assume there may be more we are not able to trace, South America has always been unregulated. Many vampires who congregate there have dropped out of the
Iunctio
for one reason or another, but just because they are not regulated does not mean they could not have their own Nosferatins within their mix.”
“Still, we can't know for certain, let's just stick with the dozen we know for sure and if there are more, you'll find them with the others.”
It was easy to say the words, but not so easy to believe them. Finding the stolen Nosferatin and successfully rescuing them were two outcomes that were not necessarily set in stone. The enormity of what we faced, once again threatened to overwhelm me.
“
Ma douce,
” Michel said with sadness, picking up on my emotions and thoughts. His hands came to cup my face as his lips tenderly brushed mine.
I allowed myself a moment to sink into the kiss, to savour the taste and feel of him, to float in the warmth and love that he wrapped around us. And then I pulled back and took a deep breath. Time wasn't on our side, we needed to get things in motion, we needed to rescue those Nosferatin before the Queen of Darkness made her next move.
“There is always time,
ma douce,
” Michel said nuzzling my neck, his tongue laying a wet trail along the length of the blue blood vessel there, making my pulse jump out towards him. “Mm. Always time,” he added, as his fangs came down and scraped over his favourite spot.
“Michel,” I whispered, meaning to admonish him for distracting us, but not nearly delivering the word as forcefully as I had intended. He was now sucking on my pulse point, his hands running all over my back and arms.
“Yes?” he asked in between kisses.
“When are you meeting with Enrique and Alessandra?” I managed to get out before he took away all reasonable thought.
“When I arrive at
Sensations
and not before,” he answered before switching to the other side of my neck and starting to lay wet kisses there.
“So you're keeping them waiting?”
“Perhaps, but I have not fed this night, it is only reasonable that I feed before facing such a meeting, is it not?”
Well, when he put it like that, it did make sense. There was no way I wanted him to face Alessandra without my blood inside of him. Not that I thought for a minute that he would be tempted by her, especially not for blood, although vampires can feed off each other, nourishment is only gained from feeding off a human, or Nosferatin. But, I wanted him flushed, warm and alive, because of me. And I wanted her to know it.
He chuckled at my thoughts. “So possessive,
ma douce
. I like it.”
“So, get on with it then, have your dinner.” It had taken me a long time to be so flippant about feeding. Let's face it, I am born to hunt vampires who prey on the innocent, many of which I catch in the act of biting. I had an awful lot of prejudices to overcome when Michel started drinking my blood as his sole form of energy.
“I would never rush such an intimate moment with you,
ma belle
. Your blood is to be savoured, not guzzled on the run.”
Now he had me smiling, Michel never guzzled. It was more of a slow dance, a sensual movement involving all of his body against mine, not just his fangs and tongue. That was part of the reason why it had been easy in the end, to let him feed from me. It in no way reflected what rogue vampires do when they feed off unsuspecting Norms.
Still....
“
Michel, we don't have time to turn this into a marathon event, bite me and let's get to
Sensations
.”
Of course he ignored me and started kissing down across my collar bone towards my breasts.
“You can't drink through my T-Shirt,” I pointed out helpfully, as his face began to nuzzle the material above the dip between my breasts. His response was to raise up my T-Shirt from the bottom and kneel down in front of me, letting his mouth lay a wonderful trail of kisses across my flat stomach. He paused over the ridges of my hips, the bones sticking out a little too prominently even for my liking.
“I need to look after you more,
ma douce,
” he observed softly, then kissed along the ridges there, his finger sliding into the top of my yoga pants and pulling them down ever so slightly, to make way for his tongue.
“Michel,” I warned. We were in the kitchen, a well used and common part of the house. Amisi could walk in at any second and man, that was not something I ever wanted to experience. I knew Michel had an exhibitionist side to him, but I couldn't freely allow a seduction to occur here.
My guards are keeping us private,
he simply said in my mind. The thought that they were outside the two entrance ways to the kitchen and dining area did not make me any more comfortable with where Michel was going with his hands and tongue.
“Please. Michel,” I managed, as he removed my yoga pants altogether and lifted one of my legs over his shoulder. My underwear was still on, but I felt extremely naked all the same. Michel's lips just kept trailing a line down the inside of each thigh, ignoring my protests and making it impossible for me to step away.
“What are you doing?” I breathed, as he nuzzled the crease between the top of my thigh and my pelvis.
He pulled back slightly and looked up at me, the most adorable cheeky look on his face. “I desire of a different location for my dinner,
ma douce
. One must have variety in one's diet.”
Before I could protest he bit, right above my femoral artery, the blood rushing out of the puncture marks into his mouth making me gasp. One of his hands came around behind my butt and pulled me closer to him, his tongue lapping quickly as my blood filled his mouth.
But of course, he didn't stop there. His fingers on his other hand slid beneath my underwear and started working just as furiously as his tongue, making me gasp again and arch against his touch. With the intense combination of sensations of his mouth on my sensitive skin at the top of my thigh, his emotions flooding back down through the bite filled with deep desire and a hot ardent lust, the pull of my blood leaving my body and entering his, and his fingers making me build to an alarmingly high peak within seconds, I could barely stand. But he held me firm and worked his magic. Filling himself up with my precious life giving blood and making me come in magical waves of unbelievable releases against his fingers again and again and again.
Finally, he pulled his fangs out and gently licked at his bite, his fingers continuing to gently rub as they ever so slowly withdrew, only making me continue to shudder against him in mini orgasms until he eventually released me from his spell.
Still kneeling before me, my body arched back over the bench above the cupboards, his hands now firmly holding me on my hips, he licked his lips and smiled up at me, taking the length of my body in.
“I would have preferred to have you naked before me right now, arching back like that, languishing in the afterglow of my touch. I can almost picture it,
ma douce
, how inviting your body would be. Your perfect breasts peaked and begging for attention, sweat slowly glistening down your stomach waiting for my tongue to lick you clean, your wet, wet folds swelling in anticipation of my entering you, filling you, making you scream for more.”