Summoning Sebastian (20 page)

He settled deeper between my thighs, his body pumping, his mouth training down my neck. His teeth pricked my skin lightly.

“Wait,” I said suddenly.

He drew his head back, looking down into my face. “What? Wait?”

“When you bite. Be careful of the marks.”

He frowned, and his eyes shifted, his head tipping a little to take in the side of my neck.

“Oh. Good idea.” Then his brows knitted together for a split second.

“Uh-oh. You're having an idea.”

“I am.” He jumped off the bed. I scrubbed my face. Damn vampire. If I couldn't get him to focus on sex, what could I get him to focus on? Then I remembered the sex had been his idea in the first place. Which didn't make me any less irritated.

He returned momentarily, though, this time sans pants and carrying…a Sharpie? He stretched himself back out beside me. One hand cupped my chin gently, turning my head to the side. I heard a soft click as he popped the lid off the pen, then the tip touched my skin, just beneath my ear.

“I thought you meant something else when you said ‘marking'.”

“I did. But this is a good idea too.”

“Just be careful. You have to draw them right.”

“I know.”

Neither of us said anything else for quite some time. He held my head still as he traced over the marks on my neck, then he turned my head to mark the other side. While he inflicted rejuvenated artwork upon me, his body pressed against the length of mine, his hard cock prodding between my thighs.

After a few minutes, he stopped to ease me out of my clothes. His hands were soft—it almost felt as if the clothes were floating off me rather than being actively removed. And when they were off, he slipped back alongside me again. His erection slid along my skin, my thighs wet now with my own desire. He drew a breast into his mouth, sucked a moment, then set back to work drawing on me. His free hand played with my nipple, slid down between my legs, pressed my aching clit.

“God,” I said after a while. “This is better than when Roland did it.”

He took a time-out to kiss me, his tongue pressing between my lips to stroke my teeth. He drew back with a chuckle.

“Much to my disappointment,” he said. “I was hoping the two of you would make out.”

“You're a perv.” He knew this, of course. The longer I knew him, the more obvious it became that he was entirely self-aware. Even his douchebaggery was calculated. I kind of liked that. It was different.

He only chuckled again at my assessment and cupped one breast in his big hand as he finished outlining the largest of the runes, the one in the middle of my chest.

“Now turn over,” he told me.

I did, rolling languidly as his hands traced along my sides, easing me over. He settled again between my thighs, his chest against my back. I relaxed, melting into the pillow as he finished marking my back. His hips moved in a slow pulse, almost as if he wasn't thinking about it, his erection sliding on my almost embarrassingly wet thighs.

The marker moved over my shoulder blades, then over my spine. I tried to make out the shapes he was forming, but working it out by touch was complicated. I hadn't seen the marks on my back as often as I'd seen the others, which made it harder for me to visualize the shapes. There were a few of them, though—at least five, maybe as many as seven. And while he drew, his other hand moved down my side, cupped my ass, while his cock slid closer and closer to home.

I was damn near dizzy with arousal by the time he finally clicked the pen shut. His lips touched the point of my shoulder, then I felt his teeth prick me there, ever so lightly. I made an embarrassing noise, sort of a gurgle, and he chuckled. A moment later, his teeth bit hard, and his hips thrust with certainty between my thighs.

God, that was perfect. His teeth in me, his cock in me—I came so hard, I thought I might have cracked a molar. The soft sound of his mouth pulling at my shoulder changed to the quiet drag of his tongue over my skin, his hips thrusting in an easy rhythm. His cock slid deep, and surprisingly slow, and I clenched on it again, the orgasm burning every inch of me.

Still, he kept his movements deep and slow, and when I finally felt him stiffen in climax, it was in an easy, deep inward movement. He let out a low, satisfied sound and held himself above me, still deep inside, for a few long seconds before he finally eased down and moved to lie beside me.

I turned to look at him, moving onto my side. His smile was soft and satisfied, with a generous side of smug. I smiled back, a little sadly. He reached up to touch my cheek lightly.

“Am I marked up right?” I asked.

“As right as I could manage.” He leaned forward and kissed me lightly, then said quietly, “He's here. Can you feel him?”

I'd thought Sebastian had stayed away during our encounter, but Colin was right. There was a low thrumming in the room—so low I hadn't noticed it at first. Now that I'd tuned in on it, I could hear little else—the sound seemed to vibrate up my spine, into my scalp.

Sebastian.
I mouthed his name, and felt a warmth brush over my skin. It wasn't like it had been on other occasions—he wasn't visible or communicating, but he was there.

I pressed my face against Colin's chest, absorbing all the sensations. I was tired and cold, and I knew the most difficult part of this journey was undoubtedly ahead of us, but for now this bubble of peace held me close. It was a nice feeling. It was just too bad it wasn't going to last.

C
hapter Nineteen

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We w
ere cuddling by the time Roland returned. It occurred to me that she'd told us her timeframe specifically so we'd be done when she got back. Well, it had occurred to me earlier, but only as a fleeting thought between orgasms.

Cuddling was a bit of a challenge in the cold, although it seemed to have gotten a little warmer over the past hour. I had pulled my pants back on and spread the big fur coat over myself while Colin curled up beside me with the blankets spread over both of us. He'd also become warmer, leaching my heat and feeding it back to me. My blood had probably heated him up a little too, and my gymnastics had helped. In any case, I was comfortable, with Colin's weight draped over me and the heavy furs cocooning me in my own body heat. I thought fleetingly that Rufus would have been a big help under the circumstances.

Roland knocked briefly but didn't leave quite enough time for a response before she opened the door. Colin grunted something that might have been interpreted as permission to enter. Although by the time he got it out, she'd already entered.

She gave the bed a quick glance as if to make sure we were decent, then moved toward the table next to the wall. I suddenly realized she'd brought an astounding smell with her—warm bread, meat and coffee mingling in a swirl of delicious. My stomach immediately turned inside out, gurgling a demand to be filled.

Roland quirked a brow at me. “Wow, you really are hungry, aren't you?”

“Duh.” I sat up, pulling the coat around me. “Where did this come from?”

“From the humans' quarters.” This was Colin, who sat up, the blankets falling back from his broad shoulders. He scratched his chest absently. “I told you they take good care of them.”

I gave him a glance, momentarily distracted by the marble-like curves of his musculature.

“I guess you were right.” I reached over and touched him lightly, letting my fingers trail over his smooth skin. When I looked back at Roland, she looked like she was torn between revulsion and arousal. I quickly pulled my hand away from Colin, more than a little disturbed. Vampires, man.

Colin reached out and took the hand I'd just pulled away from him and folded my fingers through his. I liked the gesture, like he didn't much give a shit what Roland thought. Not that Colin gave a shit about what anyone thought, but it was still nice to see him demonstrate that trait in an affirming context.

Roland set the food on the table next to the bed. “I also had them channel some heat from the humans' chambers to this one so you don't freeze.” Her gaze slid sideways then, touching on Colin. “And I brought something for us. Or if you want, they said we can visit the feeding chambers while we're here.”

“Bagged is fine,” Colin said. “At least for now.” He studiously avoided looking at me.

I ignored any resulting mind-pictures of Colin feeding on one of the captive humans while they watched the new Marvel movie—oddly, I would be more jealous about the movie than about the feeding—and reached for the food. There was roast beef and a roll, so I made a sandwich. The coffee was black but rich, and I sipped cautiously, trying not to scald my tongue.

Colin watched me a moment, his expression thoughtful. After I'd gotten a few bites down, he said, “We need to find out why they're daywalking.”

Roland settled into a chair with a bag of blood, passing another to Colin. I had the feeling they'd both been waiting for me to get started before they indulged. Polite, I supposed, though I wondered why they bothered trying to be cautious around me, as intimately as I'd been entwined in vampire goings-on of late. Especially Colin. Although you never could tell with vampires.

“How many of them do you think are doing it?” Roland asked.

“Just Gregor that I've seen,” I put in. “If a whole herd of them could, wouldn't they have sent a whole herd after me instead of just him?” Not that Gregor didn't give me the screaming willies. There was something familiar about him, and I didn't like it.

“They might have, and you just didn't see them.” Roland frowned. “Although that seems unlikely, come to mention it, since you can…” She made a wobbly gesture with one hand as if she didn't want to say it aloud. I supposed there was every chance we had eavesdroppers. I nodded, following her lead by not elaborating. Our hosts didn't need to know I was immune to glamours, or that I had a pretty reliable vampire radar system. As far as I was concerned, our hosts needed to know as little as possible. Which would make it hard for us to plan if someone was, indeed, eavesdropping.

“It's the Amp Juice,” Colin put in, coming to the same conclusion I had.

“How does it work” I asked.

Roland shook her head. “I'm not sure. All I know is you ingest it and you can walk in daylight for short periods. But, like Armand mentioned, there are side effects.”

Colin shifted next to me. “What kind of side effects?” There was something overly careful in his tone, controlled. I glanced at him, but his face gave away nothing. I suddenly pictured him standing in the sun, his dark hair backlit with gold. Did he miss the daylight? I'd never really asked him. My heart squeezed vaguely. If he could have that—the ability to walk in the sun even for a few hours—would he want it? Would the side effects matter?

Roland's gaze on him was just as even, and I wondered if she might be harboring a desire for the sun as well. It wasn't a conversation I wanted to wade into right now. It wasn't the focus of our quest. Also I was afraid it just might break my heart.

“I don't know,” Roland answered. “I get the impression they're not great.” She emptied her bag of blood and laid it out flat on the desk. “Armand wanted me to send you down to the human quarters instead of having you stay with us.” It seemed like a non sequitur, but I had a feeling the bag of blood had prompted the comment. “I said no. There's no way to guarantee your safety.”

“Thank you.” I wasn't sure how else to respond to that. I polished off the last few bites of my makeshift sandwich and turned again to the coffee, which had cooled appreciably since I'd sampled it. It was very good. Not as good as what I could get out of Colin's cabinets at home, but still not exactly sludge. “So I stay here while you're sleeping?”

The vampires exchanged a quick look I was at a loss how to interpret. “Yes,” Colin affirmed. “It's probably your best bet.”

I nodded. “Daylight won't last long, anyway.”

“True.” Colin settled back more comfortably in the bed, his own bag of blood finished. “It'll only be a few hours.”

“How long until sunrise?” I asked.

“We've got some time yet.”

I nodded. An hour or two, I thought. Not much more than that. The nights here were long, but we were on the wrong side of the winter solstice—they were getting shorter. I leaned back in the bed and listened to them talk, only vaguely registering the conversation.

They were going to leave me alone. They had no choice. If they stayed awake to keep me safe, they'd sacrifice strength, stamina, focus…all the things we desperately needed to be sure everything went as it was supposed to with Sebastian.

I knew there was at least one vampire here who could walk in the daylight. Which meant the smartest thing I could possibly do was to stay put, right here, in this room, between two sleeping and very boring vampires, making sure nobody disturbed them and protecting the blue glass bottle that held Sebastian. And that was apparently what they expected from me. But that wasn't what they were going to get.

I had a plan, yes, but it wasn't so clear that I could have articulated it if somebody asked me. I just knew I wasn't going to sit around and watch Roland and Colin be dead for however many hours. It seemed pointless. It also seemed pointless to discuss any of it with Colin. He'd just tell me to stay put so I wouldn't get into trouble.

Staying out of trouble was really not my style. He should know that by now. So, really, it was his own damn fault if anything I did came as a surprise to him. Because if it did, then he just hadn't been paying attention.

I sat quietly in a corner and read for a while, letting the vampires do their thing to prepare for the daylight. Even in the dreary, mostly concrete, nearly windowless building, and without digging out my phone, I could sense when the sun was on its way. A hazard of living with vampires, I supposed—you learned their rhythms. Or maybe it was yet another side effect of that damned stone. No way to know.

In any case, it wasn't much of a surprise when my fanged compatriots wound down their conversation and prepared for daylight.

“I can stay awake,” Colin offered. “It's not easy, but I can do it.” His searching glance made me wonder what he wanted my answer to be. As well as I could usually read him, I couldn't quite tell this time.

“I'll be okay,” I told him. “It's only a few hours, right?”

He nodded, and his gaze flicked toward the bag by the desk. The bottle was inside it. I wondered then if he'd offered to stay awake to protect me or to protect Sebastian. Probably both.

He didn't sigh as he looked back at me, but the subtle shift in his body conveyed a similar expression of reluctant acceptance.

“Stay out of trouble,” he told me.

I smiled. The comment made me warm inside. He did, indeed, know me better than anyone else. “Of course.”

I wa
ited until I was sure they were both asleep. Absolutely sure. A hundred percent sure. As in I poked them both in the face with the fork from my lunch to be sure they were completely unconscious. I was pretty sure I didn't hurt either of them. I didn't draw any blood, anyway. And neither of them so much as flinched.

With that taken care of, it was time to decide if I should go on this adventure alone or take Sebastian with me. If I left the bottle here, there wouldn't be anyone to keep an eye on it. If Gregor was out and about, it would be easy enough for him to just meander in here and take the bottle. That was what they wanted, after all, if Roland's read of the situation was accurate. Not a thing would stop Gregor—or his daywalking friends, if he had any—from waltzing in here, snagging Sebastian and taking him off to do whatever crazy experiments they'd already decided they were going to do with him.

For that matter, there wasn't much of anything to stop them from taking the bottle if I stayed here. I didn't know if the daywalking reduced Gregor's strength at all—the fact he hadn't attacked me in Chelyabinsk didn't prove anything one way or the other. I had to assume he'd be at full strength if he decided to mosey in here and confront me. If he wanted the bottle, he'd have to go through me to take it, but when it came down to it, that might not be much of a deterrent.

So I'd pieced together a plan of my own while Colin and Roland had chatted about the possibility of returning to the lab area with its Lego-steampunk machinery to see what they could dig up. I'd absorbed their theories, Roland's speculation about what they might do once they got back into the lab, and I'd made up my mind.

I still had a small—very small—arsenal of anti-vampire items with me. However cautious they'd been letting us get on the helicopter in Vanavara, they'd still managed to miss my stash. I had what was left of the holy water I'd used on Gregor in Chelyabinsk, which wasn't much, and I had a silver cross and a vacuum-packed head of garlic I'd picked up at a grocery store when I'd been out with my mom.

It was enough. It would have to be. And I'd have to be creative with it.

I opened the pack of garlic and separated out a few cloves. The stuff was pungent—if it hadn't been vacuum-packed, I probably wouldn't have gotten away with bringing it on board the helicopter. I laid the cloves on the plate that had held my dinner and crushed them with my fork. I anointed myself with the results. Colin wouldn't want to be anywhere near me until I managed to get it all washed off, but that was a price I was willing to pay.

I thought about what else to do with it. There had to be a way to use it to help protect Colin and Roland. I couldn't let it touch them, though. I didn't want to hurt them.

While I was mulling that question, I fetched Sebastian's bottle from my bag. I'd packed a smaller purse I could wear bandolier-style, mostly to make it easier to navigate the airports. Now I slid the bottle into it. It made for a handy hands-free cradle. I was pretty sure the bottle would stay safe and stable as long as nothing weird happened.

Still mulling the question of the garlic, I poked through my bag for anything else that seemed useful. Finally I tucked the Sharpie pens into my pocket, not sure how they might be helpful. If I thought Sebastian's bottle needed a touchup, maybe. Drawing the symbols on the glass had seemed to work, as had drawing them on my skin. If there was any possibility I'd need to draw them anywhere else, then it would be a good idea to have the pens along.

The bottle, hanging at my hip now in its shoulder-slung cradle, seemed to be warming. I could feel the temperature change as well as a faint vibration through the cloth of the purse and through the denim of my jeans when the bottle rested at my hip. The activity didn't seem suspicious; I was pretty sure it was just Sebastian doing whatever the hell it was he did in there rather than someone trying to force him out. I still found it odd that, in his present form, the daylight didn't seem to affect his cycles.

I couldn't think of anything else to do before I headed out, so I tucked Sebastian against me and headed out the door.