Primal Cravings (16 page)

She expected this thought to sour her pleasure at Piper’s gift to the Matri, but, no, it only make her more pleased with him. Yakov Piper had proved himself a perfect gentleman in their time together. He had issues. He was terribly confused about who and what he was at the moment, but he hadn’t given in to any dark temptations. Not yet, anyway.

“You are thinking about temptation,” the Prime beside her said. “I hope you’re thinking about me.” He ran a finger along her jawline.

“You’re laying it on a little thick, Carlos,” Laurent said as he came up behind the other Prime. He glanced at Dee over Carlos’s shoulder. “Forgive his technique. My young cousin here hasn’t been out of the crèche that long.”

“I think he’s cute,” Dee said.

“Does that mean—”

“No,” both Dee and Laurent cut Carlos off.

Laurent offered an arm each to his lady and to Dee. “The garden is nice,” he said as he led them from the entry.

Carlos followed along. “You’re lovely,” he said when Dee gave him a look. “And unaccompanied,” he added to Laurent’s look. “I have rights.”

“The Law of the Hunt,” Laurent intoned. “Fetch the ladies champagne and I’ll let you hang around.”

Carlos took a left and they continued on through a large, crowded room toward the wide patio doors on the other side. Dee noted that the majority of the drop-dead beautiful women wore black. As did the men who crowded around them. The ratio was about four to one male to female. She’d heard that vampire females used to keep harems, or that Primes fought for mating rights. She could understand why both practices might have been part of Prime culture. She wondered if it was true, and why things had changed if it was true. As much as she liked collecting facts, she supposed it would be rude to march up to one of these goddesses in sexy black dresses and ask. After all, the rough and ready Prime members of the Angels weren’t all that forthcoming about themselves to their non-vampire buddies. It was kind of odd knowing more about Tribe Primes then about Clan and Family ones because of the things Piper had told her, when her vampire friends were from Clans and Families.

It always came back to thinking about Piper, didn’t it?

They stepped out of the Spanish-style house into a garden courtyard: a private area with a central fountain, trees, flowers, benches, and a wide, tiled patio where couples were dancing to music provided by a string quartet.

If you want to call that dancing
, Dee thought after studying the sensuous, erotic way the dancers moved together.
Couples coupling with their clothes on is more like it.
Other couples moved in the garden shadows; there was nothing furtive in their moans and gasps. A couple perched on the edge of the central fountain. The female’s short skirt was hiked to her hip, and a Prime caressed her pale thigh. No one paid them any attention. Dee looked away.

Vampires were very sexual beings, she reminded herself. The sights and sounds as well as sensual energy pervading the place were quite a turn-on for a little old mortal girl like her. As if she wasn’t already nursing a simmering longing for Piper. Where was that Prime, anyway?

She fanned herself, and shared a look with Eden, the only other person at the party she was certain was a mortal. Eden’s cheeks sported spots of color, and her eyes were bright. She grinned knowingly at Dee.

“Where’s Laurent?” Dee asked as she noticed Eden’s bondmate was missing.

“He went to find his girlfriend,” Eden answered.

“But—”

“Champagne for the ladies,” Carlos announced, coming up with a pair of crystal flutes full of bubbling gold wine. He made sure their fingers brushed as he handed Dee her glass. “This is Ted,” he added grudgingly as another Prime came up beside him.

Ted wore his hair in a long auburn braid. His eyes were emerald green. He had sharp cheekbones and a wide sensual mouth.

Nice.

“And I am Xander Wolf,” another new arrival said. This one was blond. He resembled Laurent.

He kissed her hand. There was a brush of the tooth edge against her skin, but with no fang. It was still enough to send a surprised shiver of pleasure through her.

Dee snatched her hand back. “Hey!” She didn’t want anybody making her feel like that but—

“The Princess arrives!” Laurent announced, returning to the group.

There was applause and someone said, “Huzzah!”

Dee saw that Laurent was carrying a golden-curled toddler in a black velvet party dress. She was an adorable little kid, but it seemed a little late for the child to be up to Dee. Of course at a vampire party—

“Mamma blood!” the little girl cried, holding her arms out to Eden.

“I know just how she feels,” Laurent said, handing the girl over to Eden. “This is our daughter Toni,” he added to Dee. “She’s going to be a vampire when she grows up.”

“Hence, the completely spoiled royal treatment we accord her,” Eden said. She sounded more amused than anything else, though she smiled proudly at her offspring. Toni was currently suckling on one of Eden’s fingers.

A couple of adolescent girls now joined the growing group. Dee saw them as teenagers, but since vampires aged differently than mortals, it was hard to tell.

“Ariadne and Celeste of Clan Wolf, Toni’s babysitters,” Laurent said.

The pretty young females smiled temptingly at the unattached Primes. The Primes avoided looking at the younger girls. Jail bait, Dee concluded, real teenagers rather the equivalent thereof.

Xander concentrated on Dee. “We haven’t been introduced to you, yet.”

“No, we haven’t,” Ted added.

“Dee McCoy,” Laurent told them. “Dark Angel and witch.”

“Wow,” said one of the girls. “Dark Angel!” She looked at Dee in awe.

Dee was pleased at the vampire girl’s reaction. Not for herself. It was kind of embarrassing to encounter hero worship. She was pleased for the sake of the next generation of Clan and Family females. Vampire chicks definitely needed to get out more.

“Are you related to Sid Wolf?” she asked the girls. “She’s the first female vam—”

“We know,” one of the girl’s said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

The mood in the group changed abruptly. Tension rose. Antagonistic looks were exchanged between the Primes. Laurent smiled, in a way that threatened pain and death to the other males. The teenagers crossed their arms, lifted their chins defiantly.

Eden murmured warningly, “Boys….”

It was obviously something she’d said. Dee looked to Laurent.

“My sister Sid’s life choices are a bit polarizing. It’s best not to mention Sid around here at the moment.”

“Especially in great-grandmother’s hearing,” one of the teenagers added.

Dee saw she’d put her foot into a family feud. Searching for a way out, she glanced toward the dancers on the patio. She looked at the trio of unattached Primes surrounding her.

“Isn’t anyone going to ask me to dance?” she asked.

They all moved fast. Xander put his arm around her waist first. He led her forward. “Can you tango?”

“Nope.”

His lips brushed her ear as he whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.”

Dee managed not to laugh. Comparing Xander with gruff, sarcastic Jake Piper didn’t come out in Xander’s favor.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Delilah had mentioned that her dress was blue. Jake did not mean to be searching the crowd for any spot of color among the sea of black, but his attention was caught by color just the same. One mortal female wearing orange—perhaps females would call it tangerine—mistook his brief study of her as something different and came up to introduce herself.

She stood next to Jake now, with the Prime she was attached to next to him, as well. The other Prime radiated a proper amount of jealous tension although Jake was doing no more than answering “Yes” or “No” to the female’s eager questions. The antagonism being specifically directed at him wrapped a dulling cloud of emotion around Jake, adding to his already messed-up senses. His long drive had done nothing to aid his confusion. He had returned calm enough to face the prospect of this party with a calm demeanor.

He supposed the Prime wanted to provoke a fight to impress the girl. Jake had seen this behavior among the Piper family and the Dark Angels. It was part of the party atmosphere, entertainment rather than serious sparring for mating rights.

“Excuse me,” he said to the talkative young woman when he could take the tension no longer. He turned to the Prime. “Go away or I will kill you.”

The Prime met and held Jake’s gaze. Conversation gradually ceased around them. While others watched them, the two Primes gauged each other. The other Prime’s eyes were ice-chip blue. His gaze was steady, at first. Not arrogant, but full of courage. Jake liked this dangerous fellow. Ripping his throat out would be a shame. He let this thought filter into the other Prime’s head. Blue eyes understood Jake wasn’t joking.

I’ve had a bad week. Let me take it out on you.

I may let you try,
the other Prime thought back.

“Kiril,” the female in orange said anxiously.

The mortal’s word went unheeded. No vampire spoke, or felt or thought if they could help it. They recognized this was no game to Jake, and Kiril was going to have to deal with it himself.

Kiril looked away first. His muscles relaxed. The hostility in his emotions dissipated. He said, “I didn’t mean to irritate you.”

It was close enough to a surrender for Jake to accept, in this time and place. He nodded.

This would have been the end of the incident as far as Jake, Kiril, and the watching Primes were concerned. But vampire females made things far more complicated than Primes did. Since this was a Solstice Celebration, an important turning point in the year, everyone should be fond of each other, or at least friendly. Kiril would have taken his lady in orange and left, but two vampire females moved up to block their exit. One was short, brown haired and extremely curvaceous. The other was a leggy blond wearing a long turtleneck dress which completely covered her body, and left nothing to the imagination.

“How do you do that?” Jake asked after he’d looked her up and down.

She cocked a perfectly arched eyebrow at him, and ran a finger along his jaw. He felt nothing. Perhaps a bit of embarrassment.

Her voice was silken. “You like the look, but aren’t attracted to me. How sad.”

“I agree,” Jake said. It was sad, and thoroughly nerve-wracking. Another part of that bad week he’d been having. He wished he’d never set eyes on McCoy—only he didn’t.

Where vampire females were, Primes were. Within seconds, Jake found himself surrounded by a dozen people.

“Pipers are from Michigan, yes?” the dark one asked.

“Detroit, mostly,” Jake said.

“How do you like the desert climate?” the blond asked.

“I haven’t paid much attention to it. Except to the earthquakes.”

“What we’ve been getting around here is nothing compared to where I was last week,” the dark one said.

“How was the conference in Arizona?” the blond asked the dark one. “Was the spa as advertised?”

“Gorgeous. It’s at the bottom of this deep, red canyon….”

And the pair of females were off on a conversation which made no sense to Jake, but at least took their attention away from him. The other Primes gathered closer around the females, hanging on their words. Or at least the males were so fascinated by the females’ beauty and sensual auras the Primes didn’t care what the females talked about.

This gave Jake a chance to find an escape route. He could sneak away without appearing rude to the Clan females. His nerves were about to break.

He needed to go somewhere nowhere near the dance floor.

He took a sideways step, then another, and turned.

And a child came running toward him, tiny legs pumping, curls bouncing. She dodged around legs and reaching hands.

“You!” she yelled at Jake. She grabbed him by the pants leg. “I know you! I smell you!”

Jake looked down at the child in utter consternation. “Uh….”

“Leviathans are famous for their sense of smell,” Laurent Wolf said, coming up to pluck the child away from Jake. He held her in his arms while the girl stared at Jake. “Why is that Leviathan sense so strong, do you know?”

Jake was too busy being dumbstruck at the sight of the little girl to answer.

The child put her arms out toward Jake.

He put his hands behind his back. “Oh, no.”

The child’s eyes widened in surprise. She looked at Wolf—her sire, Jake presumed.

Laurent looked at him. “She’s used to getting everything she wants. It’s good for her to be told no once in a while. Or so her mother says. I’d never dare to do it. This is Antonia Wolf. Toni. Descendant of mortal vampire hunters and Tribe Leviathan on her mother’s side. Your great-great-niece.”

“Want to bite him,” Toni announced to her sire.

“No, honey. You can’t bite boys yet.”

“He
wants
biting!”

“I know, Princess, but not by you.”

Jake didn’t appreciate this conversation about his needs and wants, but he could hardly challenge a female child or the sire explaining things to her. Pity.

“You are assaulting me with cute, Wolf. That isn’t fair.”

“Fighting fair is for Clan Boys,” Laurent answered. “Something you and I will never be no matter how they dress us up. Clan or Family, I should say, Piper.”

“But at least they let us come to their parties.”

“It’s a nice party,” Laurent said. “Nice is nice, occasionally.”

Jake looked at the sight of a Prime lovingly holding a spoiled child. He looked at the knots of people, chatting, sipping drinks, laughing and flirting. Music was in the air, as well as the scent of flowers, food, and sex. And McCoy. Her hot, cinnamon spicy scent permeated everything else.

“All this is so banal. So very—”

“Bourgeois was the term used in my youth.” Laurent paused until the child kissed his cheek and he kissed her back. “I’ve never minded bourgeois. What’s wrong with being comfortable?”

“We aren’t meant to be comfortable,” Jake said. “We’re vampires.”

“Who told you that?”