I jumped at the sound of the voice, clutching my chest as I spun around. A man stepped out of the shadows, his brows pulled together in a familiar scowl. "Dammit, Paen, just give me a heart attack, why don't you?"
He stalked out of the darkness like he was a lion and I was a particularly succulent bit of steak. "It wouldn't matter if I did. You can't be killed short of decapitation."
That's what he thought.
"Where have you... what do you mean, that's what I think?" Paen stopped in front of me, his hands on his hips, his eyes glittering like polished silver.
I tried to gather the shreds of my dignity, giving Paen what I hoped was a coolly professional look. "I didn't say that to you. You read my mind. Since you dumped me so cruelly and heartlessly, we are no longer a couple, so I will thank you to stay out of there. As to where I have been, that, also, is of no concern to you except insofar as my trip has resulted in several good bits of information regarding your statue."
His eyes narrowed. To my surprise, he didn't seem to care about the statue. "I didn't dump you, either cruelly or heartlessly. You fell in love with me! You broke the rules of our relationship!"
I stepped forward until I was toe-to-toe with him, determined to give as good as I got. Oh, sure, being so close to him sent my body into ecstasy, but I ignored its demands in order to clear up a few things with Paen. "At no time did you state I couldn't fall in love with you."
"Aha," he crowed, triumphant. "You admit that it's true!"
"Yes, of course I admit, you great big boob! And how can you say you didn't dump me? You most certainly did."
His eyes glowed with silver brilliance. "I did no such thing. I would have been perfectly happy to continue our relationship within the terms to which we both agreed."
"You would, would you? Just casual lovers, getting together once in a while for sex, is that what you want? Are we back to fucking versus lovemaking?"
"Yes," he snarled, grabbing my arms. "That's all I want. To fuck the breath out of you."
My heart gave a leap despite the crudity of the words and temporarily overrode my brain. I leaned into Paen, every curve, every soft line of my body melting against his. The feel and scent and presence of him filled me until I knew, I knew to the very last beat of my heart, that we were meant to be together. Joined. One. "Tell me," I said against his lips. "Tell me that all you want from me is sex. Tell me nothing else matters."
"Nothing else matters," he said, his mouth possessing mine, his hands hard on my hips as he pulled me even tighter against his body. Nothing else matters but you.
His mind opened up to me, and I merged with him, my body desperate, my soul singing a joyous song of being as I felt the need within him answered in me.
Tell me I'm wrong, tell me you don't want this, I demanded, his mouth moving over mine in a way that made me even more desperate for him. I didn't just want his touch, didn't just crave his body - it was all of him, everything that was Paen that I hungered for.
You're wrong. I don't want this, he said, smiling into my mind. I pulled back from his kiss, sucking his lower lip for a second before releasing it. "I insist you do that more often," I told him, breathless and keyed up, my body humming a song of desire and love.
"Tease you or kiss the breath from you?" he asked, the corners of his mouth turning up.
"Neither. Both. And smile, too." I kissed each corner, giving them a little lick as well. "Paen, I truly am sorry. I didn't mean to mess up your life this way. I didn't mean to mess up mine, either, but dammit, somehow, in just a few days, you've made me lose all reason and fall in love with you. The physical relationship you wanted isn't going to be enough for me. I want you, all of you, not just your body. I want you in the morning when you're grumpy because you haven't had your morning cup of coffee - "
"I don't drink coffee."
"And I want you in the afternoon, when you're stubborn and infuriating - "
"I am never stubborn or infuriating!"
"And I want you in the evening, when you're demanding, broody, and sexy as hell."
"I sense a theme here," he said, pulling me back for another kiss. "It goes without saying that I'm not demanding, broody, or sex... er... all right, I am sexy as hell. I will concede that, but about the rest you are wrong."
I laughed, tears of happiness in my eyes. Inside Paen, instead of the cold denial that had claimed him before, there was reluctant acceptance and a begrudging admission that I meant more to him than he wanted to allow. There was even the start of something that felt warm to me, soft and enveloping, an emotion that made my heart sing. I want all of you, Paen. Every last bit of you. That's the only way we'll work. If you can't give me all of you, we just can't continue on together.
I will give you everything I can, he swore, and I believed him. I wanted to hear that he loved me as well, but I knew it was too soon for him. I sensed there were deeper emotions in him, but didn't push it. He needed time to come to grips with his change of heart.
His kiss was hot and deep, sizzling down to my toenails until I was one gigantic blaze of desire. You are the most exasperating, frustrating... fascinating woman I've ever met. Lord help me, I want you as well. I need you.
Sounds like we've reached a detente... Paen!
Hmm?
He backed me up against my desk, his mouth still on mine, his hands roaming my body, thumbs brushing my breasts for a moment before they moved lower, unzipping my jeans.
This isn't lovemaking.
No. I told you - I'm going to fuck the breath out of you.
Here? Now?
Here. Now. Any complaints?
No. But what if someone comes? I might be moderately scandalized that he wanted to do this in the office, but I was no fool - I happily kicked my pants off as he yanked my sweater over my head. This was no mere sexual act. It was fast, sweaty sex, but it was fast, sweaty sex powered by love.
I told you before that someone is going to come, he answered, grinning.
Promises, promises, I answered, my fingers hurrying down the buttons of his shirt. I purred as the shirt hit the floor, my hands spread across his chest, fingers splayed wide across his pectorals before inevitably, one hand followed the silky trail of hair down to his pants. "Oooh. Now I'm anticipating."
"Anticipating what?" His breath caught as I caressed the bulge behind his zipper for a moment, slowly pulling the zipper down, my hands sliding around his hips to push his pants off.
"You don't mind if I indulge in a little fantasy, do you?"
I swear, the glow from his eyes could light up at least half of Edinburgh.
"Sweetheart, you can do whatever you desire to me, but I don't want you feeling obligated in any way. We can take as much time as you... oh dear lord." Paen stopped talking but inside him, a thousand sensations were roiling in his mind. Excitement, arousal, passion, the warm fuzzy thing that looked so much like the beginning of love, and intense sexual pleasure crashed over me like a wave as I took him in my mouth. My body hummed even louder as the emotions built within him, growing quickly to something that almost overwhelmed Paen.
"I'm sorry," I said, pulling back for a moment to look up at him. "Was that too much too quickly? I'm sorry if I'm going about this the wrong way. I assumed more is better? Yes? No? Boy, I hate being new at this sort of thing."
He looked wildly at me, as if he didn't quite understand what I was saying. "You haven't done this before?"
"Well... I started to once, with my last boyfriend, Carl, but I zoned out almost immediately, and that evidently ruined the whole experience for Carl so I never tried it again."
"Sam?"
"Hmm?" I said, flicking my tongue across the end of his penis. I smiled at the zing of pleasure my touch sent shimmering through Paen.
"Let's not talk about your boyfriends now."
"OK. But one of them kept talking about me doing this..." I snagged my purse from the desk and dug out a tin of breath mints, popping a couple in my mouth. "This isn't too much, is it? I've always wanted to try this."
Paen's eyes grew big as I crunched the mints loudly, licking my lips as the minty sensation of a cold burn made my mouth tingle.
"You don't think you're going to - dear lord, you are. And it's your first time... good god, woman!"
"Less talking," I said, swirling my mint-coated tongue along the underside of his penis. "More moaning."
And oh, how he moaned. He sucked in huge quantities of air as I took him into my mouth again, so caught up in what he was feeling, of the added sensitivity the mintyness brought to the experience, that it was almost as if I was the recipient.
I laved the entire length of his shaft with my tongue. Paen's entire body trembled as the air hit his wet flesh, his eyes rolling back in his head when I clamped my fingers around the base and concentrated on a particularly sensitive spot on the underside. "This is amazing. So this is what you feel when we have sex? It's so different than what I feel, but I have to say, it's making me incredibly aroused. What happens if I try this?"
He lasted a whole second before he jerked me upward, spinning me around so I faced the desk, shredding off my underwear and unhooking my bra before I could even blink.
"This is what happens," he growled, bending me over the desk, his knee nudging my legs apart. I gasped from the dual sensations of the cold wood of the desk as my sensitive, tight breasts hit it, and the burning brand that thrust into my waiting flesh.
"Paen!" I shrieked, clutching the table, knocking the phone off as my body was rammed forward. "Condom?"
"Don't have one," he growled, pulling back. "Should I stop - "
"Never mind, we'll risk it this oooonce...!" My sentence ended on a slight scream as he lunged forward into me again.
"Too hard?" he asked, pausing.
"No! Harder!"
He grunted a happy reply, his hips flexing, his fingers digging into my thighs.
My flesh made a squeaky noise on the polished wood as he pounded into me. The pretty wire flower-embossed in-box full of letters and receipts slid off the desk, bursting into a shower of paper as it fell to the floor.
"Oh, my god, yes! More!" I gasped, arms flailing for something to hold on to as Paen continued to make my eyes cross with ecstasy. The wire flower pen holder that matched the inbox (both gifts from Clare) went flying, pens scattering everywhere. "More!"
"I'll give you more," he grunted, grabbing my hips and pulling upward to alter the angle of penetration. A small pad of sticky notes trembled on the lip of the desk, then fell to the floor just as I started to moan non-stop. He was deep inside me, hard and hot and invasive, but at the same time, so much a part of me that I wasn't sure which emotions, which sensations were mine, and which were his.
"Christ, you're tight," he groaned, thrusting forward.
"I Kegel. A lot. Oh, yes, right there, oh my goooooooooo..." My inner muscles, honed by years of doing Kegel exercises, cramped from the attempt to keep him within their grasp. The cold burn of mint went from pleasant tingles to wildly erotic sparks of electricity that burned brightly, so brightly I thought I was going to pass out from the experience. "No more! I changed my mind! I can't take any more!"
You can take it, he said, his voice rich with emotion. You can take this and more.
My back arched as he filled my head with the sensations he was feeling, wanting - no, needing - for him to take life from me. Our souls entwined as he shoved my hair aside, baring the back of my neck.
Please, god, do it, I begged, on the verge of mind-numbing rapture. His teeth pierced my skin, the sudden sharp pain merging with the pleasure the rest of his body was providing both of us as he pumped into me. Light, silver, pure light blossomed behind my eyes as I gave in to the sensations we shared, spiraling us both into an orgasm of blinding magnitude.
"It's a good... thing I have a... strong heart," I gasped long, long minutes later, from where I lay panting on top of Paen after he had collapsed into a chair. His chest, slicked with perspiration, rose and fell in a ragged rhythm beneath my still quivering body. "Because otherwise, I'd be dead in a week."
"It's good that you're immortal, then," he said without opening his eyes, his head lolling exhaustedly against the high back of the chair. I pressed a little kiss to the pulse that beat so wildly in his neck, freezing as what he said made a couple of synapses stand up and take notice.
"Bloody hell!"
His eyes opened to look at me with curiosity.
The enormity of what I'd done sank in at that moment. "I'm not... I'm not immortal anymore."
"What?" The word shot out of his mouth in a manner that might be said to be yelling. I matched the sudden frown that appeared between his eyebrows.
"I'm not immortal anymore. I used that to barter with the seer."
He stared at me in disbelief for a moment. "You saw a seer after I explicitly told you not to?"
"No, I saw the seer after you unreasonably ordered me not to. The difference should be apparent, even to you."
"Unreasonably? Is it unreasonable for a man to expect his Beloved to listen to him once in a while?"
I pushed back so I could really glare at him. "You de-Beloveded me! You told me you didn't want me anymore - oh, not in so many words, but you know what I mean."
"You used your immortality - the one thing I could give you - in exchange for information?" he asked, disbelief warring with pain in his eyes.
I rubbed my thumb along his jaw, sharing the anguish he felt. "You said we had no future together. I thought there was no reason for me to live forever if the man I loved didn't want me to share eternity with him."
"Oh, Sam - " Regret filled him, spilling over onto me. "I never meant for you to be hurt. I just... I didn't..."
"I know," I said, kissing his nose. "You just were a little commitment-shy. What changed that? It happened so fast - one minute you were yelling, the next everything went flying and we were using my breasts to polish the desk."
He groaned. "You're going to force me into a detailed discussion of my emotional state, aren't you?"
"Yup. It's every woman's right as soon as she knows she's snagged a man. The sooner you start, the easier it'll get. Now spill."
"I stopped pretending you weren't important," he said, trying to look pathetic. I kissed him just because he was so cute. "When you ran off earlier, there was a moment when you passed through me. I felt just how much I'd hurt you - and how much you loved me. No one but my family has loved me, Sam. I thought I didn't need it. I realized then that I was wrong."
"It takes a big man to admit he's wrong," I teased, squirming against his penis. My tone was light, but I let him feel how much joy his words brought to me.
His hands tightened on my hips. "Stop distracting me or I won't tell you the last bit."
I stopped and looked contrite.
"I told myself the entire time you were gone that I was just waiting around for you to return so I could fire you, and go back to my life. But then you walked in looking so warm, and beautiful, and sexy - and all I could think about was how right it was that you were here with me."
Tears formed in my eyes. "Oh, Paen, that's just about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. That's so sweet, and I'm so glad you got your head out of your ass and realized that I'm the best thing that'll ever happen to you."
He laughed and kissed me. "I know I can trust you to keep me humble."
"Of course, it's my job. Only..." I bit my lower lip until he gently freed it with a few soft strokes of his thumb. "Now I'm back to living a mortal life. I didn't mind that before, but if you're going to live for hundreds of years, I think I'd like to live them with you. Is there any way to get my immortality back?"
His arm tightened around my waist, pulling me closer. The regret that simmered in him rose up again until it made me want to weep. "No reasonable way, I'm afraid."
"Stop blaming yourself for this," I said, leaning back against his arm so I could see him without my eyes crossing. "You are not responsible for my actions."
"If I hadn't said I didn't want you as a Beloved - "
I put my finger on his lips. "Paen, it was my decision. I had the choice, and I took it. You are not to blame."
"I am as much to blame as you are," he said, his eyes going stubborn.
"Fine, we can share the blame, but that's not going to do either of us any good," I pointed out. His chest rose and fell beneath me in a slower rhythm as we both recovered from the lovemaking. "You said there's no reasonable way for me to get back my immortality - what unreasonable ways are there?"
"Any number, varying from becoming a demon lord - which I don't advise - to buying it back, which isn't likely since seers never part with those items they collect."
"Oh," I said, my hopes plummeting. The thought of growing old while Paen remained young and vital made my heart ache. "There's no other way?"
He hesitated. It was an almost infinitesimal hesitation, but his mind purposely went blank for a moment. "No."
I put a finger on his chin and turned his head so he was looking at me. His eyes were clouded and wary. "What?"
"What what?"
"Paen." I frowned at him. "I felt you deliberately not think something at me."
One eyebrow rose. "That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard yet."
"You know what I mean, so stop evading it, and just spit it out. What is the other way that you don't want to tell me about?"
He sighed. He sighed so deeply, it came from the very depths of his soul. "Anyone who is turned by a Dark One is made immortal."
"Turned?" I thought for a moment. "Oh, you mean made a vampire? You can do that? I thought it was just a myth or something."
He looked away. "Dark Ones can turn mortals. It doesn't happen very often since there is no real reason to do so, but it is within the realm of improbable possibility."
"But females aren't Dark Ones, so what do they turn into?"
"Moravians."
I thought about that for a minute. "Finn said a Beloved was more or less a female Moravian. So if turning would put me back there, then I say let's do it."
"No." He gently pushed me off his lap and started gathering up his clothes. Since I didn't want to be caught standing around naked and sweaty, I did the same.
"Why?" I asked, fingering my shredded underwear and wondering if I could staple it back together. "It sounds like the ideal solution to me. I'd be immortal again, and you said the females don't have to drink blood."
"You're not doing it and that's the end of the discussion." Paen turned his back to me as he pulled on his shirt.
I ground my teeth and pulled my jeans on without underwear (something I disliked, but I didn't have much of a choice). "You're being high-handed again. I really don't appreciate that."
"What did you find out about my statue?"
"And now you're changing the subject."
"What did you find out about my statue?"
I finished dressing, thinking several loud thoughts that he summarily ignored. "Fine, I'll talk about the statue, but don't think I'll forget about this. I'm thirty-three now - I want to be immortal while I still look halfway decent. Pilar had the statue last. I'm sure he's hidden it somewhere nearby."
"Pilar?" A frown wrinkled Paen's forehead. "Where is he?"
I pulled my sweater on and reached for my shoes. "Somewhere in the area, according to Kelsey the seer. Edinburgh, most likely."
"I thought you said he had your statue. He has both?"
Paen turned around, dressed, and watched as I slipped on my loafers. I gave him a brief recap of my conversation with the seer, ending with the question of why Pilar would want both statues.
"Unless," I said, stopping as I tried to fit together two pieces of the puzzle that didn't want to mesh.
"Unless the two statues are the same?" Paen asked, clearly thinking the same thing I was.
"Yeah, but how can that be? One is of a bird. We all saw it - it was definitely a falcon of some sort. Your statue is of a monkey. They don't look even remotely alike."
"You saw the statue as entombed, confined in a dark place," he said slowly.
I nodded.
"And the seer told you the statue was hidden from sight, protected while it slept."
"Yes. But the statue I had wasn't hidden from sight, and it wasn't protected, unless you call a shoe-box protection, and I don't."
"What if the Jilin God was held within the falcon statue?" he asked, his brow still wrinkled with puzzlement.
"Of course," I said, enlightenment finally dawning. "It's inside the bird! That's why I saw the bird statue when I tried to scry the location of the Jilin God. Now it makes sense why Pilar would do anything to get it - he must have known the Jilin statue was inside the bird, and wanted it for his own purposes."
Paen pulled on his long black coat. "Let's go get it back."
"What, right now?" I glanced at the clock. The trip back from the seer had taken me twice as long to return by bus as the trip out. It was now less than an hour to deep night. "I don't know exactly where he is. It may take us a while to track him down."
"The sooner we get started, the sooner we can retrieve that statue," Paen said, holding the door open. "You don't need to come if you are too tired."
"No, I'm fine," I said, getting my jacket and purse. "You're right. The sooner we have it, the sooner your father's debt can be paid, and the easier I'll rest. Let's go kick some whatever-Pilar-is booty!"
"You are a strange woman," Paen said as we hurried down the stairs.
"Why, because I'm proactive and independent? Because I take pride in my work ethic? Because I'll move heaven and hell to see a job done?"
"I was referring to the fact that you are willing to face a potentially lethal opponent armed with nothing more than a purse and a PDA."
I smiled at Paen as he held open the door at the bottom of the stairs, brushing my fingers across his jaw as I passed. "I have a secret weapon."
His eyebrows rose in silent question.
"I have you," I said, smiling, full of confidence. Things were looking so rosy for us - we'd worked out the worst of the relationship kinks, Paen's statue was within our grasp, and I was sure I would be able to talk him into making me a Moravian to regain immortality. I still had a longer than normal life span, but that wasn't going to cut it when there was Paen to spend an eternity with. "All in all, things are coming together nicely. Nothing can stop us once we put our heads together on it."
I really wish someone would stop me from making those sorts of generalizations. They're almost always wrong.
We found Pilar the second hour of deep night. We'd spent the last two hours trolling through the city, following mostly my instincts on where Pilar was, but whenever we'd arrive at a location (nightclub, store, two cemeteries, an all-night McDonald's, and Edinburgh Castle), we'd find he'd been there and left. Finally we lucked out and found Pilar at one of the oddities in Edinburgh - the Real Mary King's Close, an underground historical site made up of a warren of several seventeenth-century closes (narrow lanes used as shortcuts that were "closed" in by surrounding multistoried buildings). It was reported to be one of the most haunted spots in Edinburgh, so several ghost-hunting groups and parapsychology devotees booked time in it at night. We slipped in at the tail end of a ghost-hunting group and made it inside without anyone the wiser, following as the group walked down several levels until we were deep beneath the modern streets. Narrow white stone walls and uneven dirt floors made every whisper echo, so we were careful to be as silent as possible.
"Are you sure he's here?" Paen asked me in a whisper as the group gathered around their excited leader in front of the remains of a store.
We clung to the shadows cast by reproduction seventeenth-century lighting to avoid being noticed. I rubbed my arms, understanding why people thought this area was haunted. The buildings in the close had been built over for a couple hundred years, but this part had been excavated and restored to what were pretty realistic historic conditions. It was dark, damp, cold, and smelly.
I shivered as cold fingers of air touched my neck, then closed my eyes and concentrated for a moment. "I think so. It feels like he's here. I think he's" - I turned, my eyes still closed, trusting my elf instincts to guide me - "that way."
We waited for the ghost chasers to hurry off for their ghostly hot spots before turning in the opposite direction.
"Which one?" Paen asked as we came to a narrow alley with three entrances. I ignored the door marked MR. CHESNEY'S DWELLING and entered the sawmaker's workshop next to it. The room was empty of everything but a few shelves and hooks on the walls, but a partially opened wooden door led to a room beyond. I pointed and started toward it, but Paen pulled me behind him, giving me a look that warned me not to challenge him.
I stuck my tongue out at the back of his head and followed closely on his heels.
"... took it away from her when she was trapped in the web and hid it. Now I need someone to go in and get it for me. You're Fae, you should be able to retrieve it."
A couple of soft raps answered the man's voice that emerged from the workshop.
"The curse means nothing in this instance - once a faery, always a faery, even if Oriens did turn you into a poltergeist. It's a simple enough job - all you have to do is find the statue where I left it in the beyond, and bring it out to me."
Three sharp raps followed. Paen sidled around the door to peer into the room. I peeked over his shoulder, shivering again as the cold seeped out of the room and straight into my bones. Pilar stood in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips as he faced a familiar poltergeist.
"Don't be a fool - you know I was born of dark powers. I can enter and leave the beyond, but I have no power there, so you're going to have to be the one to fetch the statue. Just don't cock it up! I want something done right for a change."
Whoa. It doesn't sound like he has the statue. At least I know I didn't lose it. He must have taken it without me knowing when I was trapped between realities, hauled it farther into the beyond, then not been able to get it out again.
Paen gave a mental shrug. However it got there, it's to our benefit that he can't retrieve it easily.
A couple more knocks answered Pilar.
"Don't be foolish," he snarled at the poltergeist. "It's not that easy to lift a curse, you know. The offer is simple - you bring the statue out to me, and I'll find a Charmer to lift the curse. Take it or leave it."
It sounds as if he is having difficulties finding someone to bring it out, Paen said.
I'm surprised he thinks a poltergeist can. Everyone knows beings born of the darkness have no powers in the beyond.
Reuben rapped out an answer that had Pilar snorting, "No. No one else knows where that half-breed elf was. It's safe enough until you retrieve it."
If Reuben was cursed to this state, it means he wasn't born into it. It's probably entirely likely that he would have his full powers in the beyond.
I suppose, although there wouldn't be much he could do there even with them. I've never heard of a faery who was cursed, but I don't get around much in the Fae world. Regardless, what are we going to do now?
Find out just where it is so you can get it yourself. Paen stepped into the room, his wide shoulders filling the narrow doorway. "Lost the statue, did you? That's too bad. Sam would like it back."
Life suddenly took on a very abstract quality. In the fraction of a second after Paen's words were spoken, Pilar spun around to find himself face-to-face with an angry vampire. But what he did next took us both by surprise. Rather than attacking Paen, or challenging him, or even laughing a mocking, superior laugh at Paen's bravado, he did something entirely different. He killed me.