My Familiar Stranger (22 page)

When Elora caught Ram staring at her with heavy lids, eyes darkened to navy blue and magnifying the reflection of any nearby light, it made her uncomfortable because she treasured the friendship and wanted nothing to interfere with it. And. It made her uncomfortable because it was titillating, a rush of excitement that ran the length of her body like a drug always beginning and ending in a little jerk of her clit.

She didn’t have much experience with boys, but she wasn’t a virgin either. One of her cousins had brought a friend from prep, a cute son of a County, to a big event at the palace.

While everyone’s attention was on the fireworks display, the two of them had sneaked off to sample kisses and touches. At least that was what she thought. Those kisses, those eye-opening kisses, warm and delightful, soon turned into a demand for more.

She would like to say the story went that she didn’t want what happened next, but she couldn’t say that honestly. She’d been curious, eager for new experiences, and acutely aware that her life didn’t present a lot of opportunities for sexual experimentation. So she allowed him to lift the long, costume skirts and take her against a wall, behind an old stone column. The entire event took less than a minute, or seemed so, just enough time to lose her virginity painfully. Enough time to learn that boys could make revolting noises. Enough time to be left feeling thoroughly used without anything to show for it.

He didn’t even bother to walk her back to her place in the hall. He just smirked and walked away. She knew he wouldn’t go back to school and brag about deflowering one of the royals or her cousin would kill him.

As a species-old rite of passage she learned that flattering words, looks of longing, and inadvertent touches are often no more than skillfully applied means to an end. The humiliation that burned inside her caught fire and crystallized into resolve. What came from the ashes of anger and shame was a determination that she would never be used for rutting again. Ever.

So, when she thought Ram was flirting with her, she pretended to be oblivious. If his knee brushed against hers, she simply chose to ignore the contact even when her body seemed to have its own ideas.

Resisting him was easy when he was engaged in raucous laughter over some movie scene with over-the-top vulgarity or nasty bathroom humor that would make the vilest of boors regard him with disdain.

Likewise, on occasions when she thought Storm might be expressing interest in her as a woman, she preferred to take that bit of presage and set it aside for examination at some later time. Storm was attentive to her, gentlemanly to a fault, and protective. That was clear. Certainly a girl could do a lot worse than be adored by a gorgeous man with exceptional intelligence, courage, and a heart that was good through and through.

There was no doubt she owed Storm everything. He didn’t just save her life. Throughout recovery he’d been there every day, but it didn’t stop there. After she was physically well, he made every effort to support her and help her find her way in a world that was strange at best and desolately lonely at worst. If Storm wanted her, she didn’t know how she would be able to say no.

“Elora?” She felt a light tap on her knee and blinked out of her reverie shaking herself internally. “Welcome back.” Ram’s lips curled up at the corners and his eyes sparkled with teasing. And affection.

“Sorry,” she smiled in return. “Where were we?”

They made certain to shop with merchants who could ship overnight in the true sense, not in the we’ll-ship-overnight-three-days-from-now sense. They bought luggage and clothes that would travel well and be temperature appropriate. That was the tricky part, traveling from New York to high in the Carpathian Mountains in mid October, they could encounter a seventy degree difference. The remote Carpathians were at a high enough altitude that even snowfall was possible.

Ram explained the dress-for-warmth technology of their world which was functional, comfortable and fashionable in fabrics that absorbed color with the deep intensity of silk. What more could a girl want?

They had developed light weight layers with temperature ratings such as warms to forty, twenty, ten, zero degrees and so on. One of the best features was that synthetic fur looked and felt exactly like the real thing while being extremely light weight.

By the time they were done they had everything from lightweight sleeveless silk knits to cashmere socks.

Last, but not least, Elora wanted to prepare for her meeting with Istvan Baka by learning what she could about him.

“I’m no’ exactly the end all authority, but I’ve heard he sits in a plush accommodation writin’ vampire romance novels under a nom de plume. And that they’re best sellers.”

Elora blinked at Ram while waiting for the punch line. When seconds ticked by without so much as a twitch of his beautiful mouth, she ventured, “You are joking, right?”

Nodding he said, “I can see why you would think so. It does sound fanciful and farfetched.” He shrugged his shoulders, stood up, and raised his arms in a stretch that made the six pack ripple in a fascinating pattern that could be glimpsed under the thin cotton tee. She couldn’t have looked away if her life depended on it. “Probably just a rumor,” he yawned.

Following her gaze to his torso, and clearly pleased that she was looking, he got a fresh infusion of energy. “Hey! Caught you checkin’ out the machine. Look at this.” Grinning, Ram pulled his knit shirt up to his neck and proceeded to make his stomach muscles dance in and out, side to side, like a belly dancer.

She had to admit it was an amazing performance. Cirque du Soleil offered nothing more captivating. She gaped partly because of the spectacle and partly because she couldn’t believe they had actually knighted someone so common and vulgar.

With considerable effort she finally pulled her eyes away so that she could register disapproval with a resounding, “Ughhhh!”

She stood and closed the laptop with a resolute click. “Does it even cross your mind that this is not appropriate behavior? You could use a few months of finishing school, you know that? On second thought, make that years.”

“Finishin’ school?” he spluttered taking his turn at gaping. “Now that is a joke!”

“No it’s not a joke! Blackie has better manners than you do, elf.”

Inexplicably Ram felt offended even knowing that was ridiculous considering how often he had mocked the conventions of "manners" and gone out of his way to rebel against them.

“Really? That bein’ the case, in your book it would be better manners for me to fall on my back with big, naked balls rollin’ from side to side, tongue hangin' out, askin’ for a nice, tummy rub? 'Cause I can manage that. Right here and now.” He pointed at a spot on the floor next to her feet. “Is this good for you?”

“
And besides,” she continued, ignoring his rant, “doesn’t that,” she pointed at his stomach, “hurt your injury?” Suddenly she did a double take and narrowed her eyes with suspicion. “Or have you been faking this whole time to get attention?”

His eyes widened at the same time his mouth fell open even further. The term ‘brain freeze’ took on a whole new meaning. It was too much. The very person who did the damage claiming he was faking! Still trying to form a response, he caught the light in her eye half a second before her mouth twitched.

“Got cha.”

He relaxed, giving her wicked smile a once-over with an entirely new appreciation. “Seems I’ve taught you well.”

Elora chuffed and gave a throaty laugh he hadn’t heard before as she reveled in his admiration.

It made him want to press his face into her chest and ask her to do it again so he could absorb the vibration while he nuzzled the locket out of the way.

He didn’t know how long he was going to be able to last at this outrageous business of flirting without touching. Everything about this experience was foreign for him. He’d never had to work at seduction. Women often pressed breasts into his body and shoved panties into his hand just because he had glanced in a direction where they were in his line of sight. Elora’s indifference was making him crazed and enthralling him at the same time.

It occurred to him that it had been over six weeks since he’d last been laid. Certainly that was the first since he’d reached puberty. Even stranger was the realization that he had no desire to bed anyone else. It seemed the whole thing about elf mating was true. He wanted Elora. Just Elora. And he wanted her now.

When Blackie heard the laptop close, he stuck his head out from under the table looking hopeful that it might be time to go out for a run. Elora reached out to rub between his ears and the dog automatically leaned into her leg.

Sanction agreed to take care of Blackie while Elora was away. The dog never failed to give Sanction a canine equivalent of a grin and that was a good enough character reference for her. She supposed ‘Sanction’ was a nickname, but didn’t think it would be polite to ask. In case it wasn’t.

She fastened Blackie’s leash and took him with her to hunt down Monq and find out the best way to go about researching Istvan Baka.

Monq confirmed that, indeed, Baka was the successful author of a very popular series of vampire romance novels.

“…
however unlikely that might seem. I believe he writes as Valerie de Stygian.”

“Stygian? As in the River Styx?”

“I see my counterpart gave you a decent education in classical studies.” Monq looked at her above the rims of his glasses. “I suspect Baka didn’t think many of his readers would catch the tongue-in-cheek reference, but, at the same time, hoped they would.”

"A vampire who is a complicated personality?"

Monq summarized what he knew about Baka’s history before his capture and gave her the records of his involvement with The Order since.

“Your friends from Bad Company are worried and not entirely without justification.”

Elora made a scoffing noise in response.

“There’s nothing wrong with feeling competent, Ms. Laiken, but you are treading very close to the edge of disrespecting your associates. They don’t make a habit of hand wringing, you know. They’re experienced vampire killers who know all too well what you will be facing whereas you do not. You must not get overly confident in your abilities. Even you need to be careful around a vampire as old and strong as Baka.”

On returning to her apartment, Elora downloaded eleven books by Valerie de Stygian and started to read.

Three days later she was packed and ready to go. She said goodbye to Blackie who whined because he sensed she was leaving.

***

BLACK SWAN FIELD TRAINING MANUAL Chapter 12,#13

Once infected by the virus, vampire cease to live as humans. They retain neither conscience nor memory of their lives before onset. So, in that sense, they might be accurately regarded as “undead”. In the Dark Ages vampire were considered evil, but, in more enlightened times, we recognize that they are inherently no better or worse than the mosquito that is mindlessly driven by its nature to drink blood or die. The philosophical or theological nature of the question of evil is not relevant to our purpose which is complete extermination.

Elora wheeled her rolling suitcase down the hallway toward the elevator. Her body was vibrating with a hum of exhilaration at the prospect of seeing something of the world outside Jefferson Unit. And Baka alone was responsible for the junket. Owing a vampire a debt of gratitude had to be one of Fate’s more comical twists.

For the first time since arriving this world she crossed the front door threshold of Jefferson Unit. It was a beautiful moonlit night.

Two servicemen in camouflage uniforms stood next to open air Jeeps at the end of the sidewalk. They lifted luggage into the rear compartments while Storm gestured for Elora to climb onto the back seat. He swung in beside her while Ram and Kay hopped the other Jeep. She hadn’t asked how they were traveling. Until now it had seemed like the least important aspect of the experience.

The ride to the base airstrip took less than five minutes. They pulled up next to a sleek, white, unmarked Learjet, lit by spotlights, and stopped next to the stairs. She arched a brow at Storm. “Private plane?”

He put his finger to his lips in a gesture of silence, then leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Ask me on board.”

The breath on her ear gave her an involuntary little shiver. She nodded an okay.

At the top of the steps stood an exotic looking woman with black hair, black eyes, skin the color of creamed coffee and rosy cheeks, an unusual, but effective combination. Her grooming was as impeccable as a doll in a toy store window. Perfect nails. Lined lips. Helmet hair.

She regarded Elora as coolly as she gushed flirtatious warmth toward the men. Naturally, they were oblivious to the double standard of behavior.

“Good evening. I’m Minerva. I’ll be your attendant for this flight.”

Elora gave her a look that said, "Are we going to have a problem?" Minerva responded with a grin that was both insincere and far too artificially white.

The interior of the jet was lavish and comfortable with cushy bench seating in the forward area and ottomans on tracks. In the rear were four, large arm chairs that could swivel and lock down in any direction or recline for sleeping. Between each was a hide-a-table that could be lowered and used for cards or as a desk with monitor, satellite feed for TV or movies, and laptop friendly connectors.