The crunch of ice and salt was loud as Kisten escorted me to my door. His car was parked at the curb in a puddle of light, diffuse from the falling snow. I rose up the steps, wondering what would happen in the next five minutes. It was a platonic date, but it was a date. That he might kiss me had me nervous.
I turned as I reached the door, smiling. Kisten stood beside me in his long wool coat and shiny shoes, looking good with his hair falling over his eyes. The sifting snow was beautiful, and it was gathering on his shoulders. The ugliness of the night's trouble drifted in and out of my thoughts. "I had a good time," I said, wanting to forget it. "Mickey-d's was fun."
Kisten's head drooped and a small chuckle escaped him. "I've never pretended to be health inspectors to get a free meal before. How did you know what to do?"
I winced. "I, uh, flipped burgers during high school until I dropped a charm into the fry vat." His eyebrows rose and I added, "I got fired. I don't know what the big deal was. Nobody got hurt, and the woman looked better with straight hair."
He laughed, turning it into a cough. "You dropped a potion in the fry vat?"
"It was an accident. The manager had to pay for a day at a spa, and I got pushed off the broomstick. All she needed was a salt bath to break the spell, but she was going to sue."
"I can't imagine why..." Kisten rocked to his toes and down, his hands behind his back as he looked up through the snow at the steeple. "I'm glad you had a good time. I did, too." He took a step back, and I went still. "I'll stop by sometime tomorrow night to pick up my coat."
"Hey, um, Kisten?" I said, not knowing why. "Do you...want a cup of coffee?"
He came to a graceful halt with one foot on the next step down. Turning back, he smiled, his pleased expression reaching all the way to his eyes. "Only if you let me make it."
"Deal." My pulse was just a shade faster as I opened the door and preceded him in. The sound of slow jazz met us, drifting up from the living room. Ivy was home, and I hoped she had already been out and back from her twice-weekly fix. A soulfully sung "Lilac Wine" made a soft mood, accentuated by the darkness of the sanctuary.
I shuffled off Kisten's coat, the sound of the silk lining a soft hush as it slid from me. The sanctuary was dim and silent, the pixies snug in my desk though they ought to have been up by now. Wanting to preserve the mood, I slipped off my boots while Kisten hung his coat beside the one he had let me borrow.
"Come on back," I whispered, not wanting to wake the pixies. Kisten's smile was soft as he followed me into the kitchen. We were quiet, but I knew Ivy had heard us when she turned the music down a shade. Tossing my clutch purse to my side of the table, I felt like someone else as I padded in my stocking feet to the fridge for the coffee. I caught sight of my reflection in the window. If you ignored the snow stains and falling hair, I didn't look too bad.
"I'll get the coffee," I said, searching the fridge as the sound of tinkling water intruded on the jazz. Grounds in hand, I turned to find him looking relaxed and comfortable in his pin-striped suit as he stood at the sink and cleaned the new coffee carafe. His mind was entirely on his task, seemingly unaware that I was in the same room while he threw out the old grounds and pulled a filter from the cupboard with a smooth, unthinking motion.
After an entire four hours with him without one flirting comment or sexual/blood innuendo, I felt comfortable. I hadn't known he could be like this: normal. I watched him move, seeing him with his thoughts on nothing. I liked what I saw, and I wondered what it would be like to be this way all the time.
As if feeling my eyes on him, Kisten turned. "What?" he asked, smiling.
"Nothing." I glanced at the black hallway. "I want to check on Ivy."
Kisten's lips parted to show a glimpse of teeth as his smile widened. "Okay."
Not sure why that seemed to please him, I gave him a last, high-eyebrow look and headed into the candlelit living room. Ivy was sprawled across her cushy suede chair, her head on one arm, her legs draped over the other. Her brown eyes flicked to mine as I entered, taking in the smooth, elegant lines of my clothes all the way to my feet in their nylons.
"You've got snow all over you," she said, her expression and position unchanging.
"I, uh, slipped," I lied, and she accepted that, taking my nervousness as embarrassment. "Why are the pixies still asleep?"
She snorted - sitting up to put her feet on the floor - and I sat on the matching couch across from her with the coffee table between us. "Jenks kept them up after you left so they wouldn't be awake when you got home."
A thankful smile came over me. "Remind me to make him some honey cakes," I said, leaning back and crossing my legs.
Ivy slumped into her chair, mirroring my posture. "So...how was your date?"
My eyes met hers. Very aware of Kisten listening from the kitchen, I shrugged. Ivy often acted like a cloying ex-boyfriend, which was really, really weird. But now that I knew it stemmed from her need to keep my trust, it was a bit easier to understand, though still odd.
She took a slow breath, and I knew she was scenting the air to make sure no one had bitten me at Piscary's. Her shoulders eased, and I rolled my eyes in exasperation.
"Hey, um," I started. "I'm really sorry about what I said earlier. About Piscary's?" Her eyes jerked to mine and I quickly added, "You want to go sometime? Together, I mean? I think if I stay downstairs, I won't pass out." My eyes pinched, not knowing why I was doing this except if she didn't find a way to relax soon, she was going to snap. I didn't want to be around for that. And I'd feel better if I was there to keep an eye on her. I had a feeling she would pass out quicker than I had.
Ivy shifted in the chair, moving back where she was when I came in. "Sure," she said, her voice not giving me a clue to her thoughts as she looked at the ceiling and closed her eyes. "We haven't had a girls' night out in a while."
"Great."
I settled back into the cushions to wait for Kisten. From the stereo, a soft-spoken voice dripping sex whispered as the songs changed. The scent of brewing coffee became obvious. A smile came over me as Takata's newest single came on. They were playing it even on the jazz stations. Ivy opened her eyes. "Backstage passes," she said, smiling.
"Al-l-l-l-l-l the way backstage," I countered. She had already agreed to work the concert with me, and I was eager to introduce her to Takata. But then I thought of Nick. No chance he'd be going now. Maybe I could ask Kisten to help us. And since he was posing as Piscary's scion, he would be doubly effective as a deterrent. Kinda like a cop car parked in the median. I looked at the black archway, wondering if he'd say yes if I asked, and if I wanted him there.
"Listen." Ivy held up a finger. "This is my favorite part. That low thrum goes all the way to my gut. Hear the pain in her voice? This has got to be Takata's best CD yet."
Her voice? I thought. Takata was the only one singing.
"You're mine, in some small fashion," Ivy whispered, her eyes closed, the inner pain showing on her brow making me uneasy. "You're mine, though you know it not. You're mine, bond born of passion..."
My eyes widened. She wasn't singing what Takata was. Her words were interlaced with his, an eerie backdrop that set my skin to crawl. That was the chorus he wasn't going to release.
"You're mine, yet wholly you," she breathed. "By the way of your will - "
"Ivy!" I exclaimed, and her eyes flashed open. "Where did you hear that?"
She looked blankly at me as Takata continued, singing of bargains made in ignorance.
"That's the alternate chorus!" I said, sitting up to the edge of the couch. "He wasn't going to release that."
"Alternate chorus?" she said as Kisten came in, setting the tray with three cups of coffee on the table beside the thick red candles and pointedly sitting next to me.
"The lyrics!" I pointed to the stereo. "You were singing them. He wasn't going to release those. He told me. He was going to release the other ones."
Ivy stared at me as if I had gone insane, but Kisten groaned, hunching to put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "It's the vamp track," he said, his voice flat. "Damn. I thought something was missing."
Bewildered, I reached for my coffee. Ivy sat up and did the same. "Vamp track?" I said.
Kisten's head came up. His expression was resigned as he brushed his blond bangs back. "Takata puts a track in his music that only the undead can hear," he said, and I froze, my mug halfway to my lips. "Ivy can hear it because she's Piscary's scion."
Ivy's face went white. "You can't hear her?" she asked. "Right there," she said, looking at the stereo as the refrain came back on. "You can't hear her singing between Takata?"
I shook my head, feeling uneasy. "All I can hear is him."
"The drum?" she asked. "Can you hear that?"
Kisten nodded, leaning back with his coffee and looking sullen. "Yes, but you're hearing a hell of a lot more than we are." He set his cup down. "Damn it," he swore. "Now I'll have to wait until I'm dead and hope to find an old copy laying around." He sighed in disappointment. "Is it good, Ivy? Her voice is the eeriest thing I've ever heard. She's in every CD, but she's never listed in the credits." He slumped. "I don't know why she doesn't burn her own album."
"You can't hear her?" Ivy said, her words a sharp staccato. She set the cup down hard enough to spill, and I stared, surprised.
Kisten made a wry face and shook his head. "Congratulations," he said bitterly. "Welcome to the club. Wish I was still in it."
My pulse quickened as Ivy's eyes flashed into anger. "No!" she said, standing.
Kisten glanced up, his eyes wide, only now realizing Ivy wasn't pleased.
Ivy shook her head, wire-tight. "No," she said adamantly. "I don't want it!"
Understanding pulled me straight. That she could hear it meant that Piscary's grip on her was tightening. I looked at Kisten and his expression went worried. "Ivy, wait," he soothed as her usually placid face went ugly with anger.
"Nothing is mine anymore!" she exclaimed, her eyes flashing to black. "It was beautiful, and now it's ugly because of him. He's taking everything, Kist!" she shouted. "Everything!"
Kisten stood, and I froze as he went around the table and reached for her. "Ivy..."
"This is going to stop," she said, knocking his hand aside with a quick jerk before he could touch her. "Right now."
My jaw dropped as she strode from the room with a vampire quickness. The candles flickered, then steadied. "Ivy?" I set my coffee down and stood, but the room was empty. Kisten had darted out after her. I was alone. "Where are you going...." I whispered.
I heard the muffled rumble of Ivy's sedan start, borrowed from her mother for the winter. In an instant she was gone. I went into the hall, the soft thump of Kisten shutting the door and his steps on the hardwood floor clear in the silence.
"Where's she going?" I asked him as he came even with me at the top of the hallway.
He put a hand on my shoulder in a silent suggestion that I go back into the living room. In my stocking feet I felt the difference in our height keenly. "To talk to Piscary."
"Piscary!" Alarm brought me to a standstill. I pulled out of his light grip and stopped in the hall. "She can't talk to him alone!"
But Kisten gave me a mirthless smile. "She'll be fine. It's high time she talk to him. As soon as she does, he'll back off. That's why he's been bothering her. This is a good thing."
Not convinced, I returned to the living room. I was very conscious of him behind me, silent, close enough to touch. We were alone, if you didn't count the fifty-six pixies in my desk. "She'll be all right," he said under his breath as he followed me, shoes silent on the gray carpet.
I wanted him to leave. I was emotionally whipped, and I wanted him to leave. Feeling his eyes on me, I blew out the candles. In the new darkness, I gathered the coffee cups onto the tray in the hopes that he would take the hint. But as my gaze rose to the hallway, a thought stopped me cold. "Do you think Piscary can make her bite me? He almost made her bite Quen."
Kisten shifted into motion, his fingers brushing mine as he took the tray from me in the smoke-scented air. "No," he said, clearly waiting for me to go into the kitchen before him.
"Why not?" I padded into the brightly lit room.
Squinting at the new glare, Kisten slid the tray beside the sink and dumped the coffee to make brown puddles in the white porcelain sink. "Piscary was able to exert such an influence on her this afternoon because he caught her off guard. That, and she didn't have any set behavior to fight it. She's been battling her instincts to bite you since you were partners in the I.S. Saying no has gotten easy. Piscary can't make her bite you unless she gives in first, and she won't give in. She respects you too much."
I opened the dishwasher, and Kisten stacked the cups in the top rack. "Are you sure?" I asked softly, wanting to believe.
"Yes." His knowing smile made him a bad boy in an expensive suit again. "Ivy takes pride in denying herself. She values her independence more than I do, which is why she fights him. It'd be easier if she'd give it up. He'd stop forcing his dominance then. It's not degrading to let Piscary see through your eyes, channel your emotions and desires. I found it uplifting."
"Uplifting." I leaned against the counter in disbelief. "Piscary exerting his will over her and making her do things she doesn't want to is 'uplifting'?"
"Not when you put it like that." He opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the dish detergent. I briefly wondered how he knew it was there. "But Piscary is being a pain in the ass only because she's resisting him. He likes her fighting him."
I took the bottle from him and filled the little cup in the door of the dishwasher.
"I keep telling her that being Piscary's scion doesn't make her less, but more," he said. "She doesn't lose any of herself, and gains so much. Like the vampire track, and having almost the full strength of an undead without any of the drawbacks."
"Like a soul to tell you it's wrong to view people as walking snack bars," I said tartly, snapping the door shut.
A sigh slipped from him, the fine fabric of his suit bunching at his shoulders when he took the bottle of soap from me and set in on the counter. "It's not like that," he said. "Sheep are treated like sheep, users are used, and those who deserve more receive everything."
Arms crossed over my chest, I said, "And who are you to make that decision?"
"Rachel." He sounded weary as he cupped my elbows in his hands. "They make the decision themselves."
"I don't believe that." But I didn't pull away, and I didn't push his hands off me. "And even if they do, you take advantage of it."
Kisten's eyes went distant, falling from mine as he gently pulled my arms into a less aggressive posture. "Most people," he said, "are desperate to be needed. And if they don't feel good about themselves or think they're undeserving of love, some will fasten upon the worst possible way to satisfy that need to punish themselves. They're the addicts, the shadows both claimed and unclaimed, passed like the fawning sheep they make themselves into as they search for a glimmer of worth, knowing it's false even as they beg for it. Yes, it is ugly. And yes, we take advantage of those who let us. But which is worse, taking from someone who wants you to, knowing in your soul that you're a monster, or taking from an unwilling person and proving it?"
My heart pounded. I wanted to argue with him, but everything he had said, I agreed with.
"And then there are those who relish the power they have over us." Kisten's lips thinned from a past anger, and he dropped his hands from me. "The clever ones who know that our need to be accepted and trusted runs so deep it can be crippling. Those who play upon that, knowing we will do almost anything for that invitation to take the blood we desperately crave. The ones who exalt in the hidden domination a lover can exert, feeling it elevates them to an almost godlike status. Those are the ones who want to be us, thinking it will make them powerful. And we use them, too, casting them aside with less regret than the sheep unless we grow to hate them, upon which we make them one of us in cruel restitution."
He cupped my jaw with his hand. It was warm, and I didn't pull away. "And then there are the rare ones who know love, who understand it. Who freely give of themselves, demanding only a return of that love, that trust." His faultless blue eyes never blinked, and I held my breath. "It can be beautiful, Rachel, when there is trust and love. No one is bound. No one loses his or her will. No one becomes less. Both become more than they can be alone. But it is so rare, so beautiful when it happens."
I shivered, wondering if he was lying to me.
The soft touch of his hand down my jaw as he pulled away sent my blood humming. But he didn't notice, his attention on the coming dawn visible out the window. "I feel bad for Ivy," he whispered. "She doesn't want to accept her need for belonging, even as it charts her every move. She wants that perfect love but thinks she isn't deserving of it."
"She doesn't love Piscary," I whispered. "You said there was no beauty without trust and love."
Kisten's eyes met mine. "I wasn't talking about Piscary."
His attention went to the clock above the sink, and when he took a backward step, I knew he was leaving. "It's getting late," he said, his distant voice telling me he was already mentally somewhere else. Then his eyes cleared and he was back. "I enjoyed our date," he said as he drew away. "But next time, there isn't going to be a limit on what I can spend."
"You're assuming there's going to be a next time?" I said, trying to lighten the mood.
He met my smile with his own, the new bristles on his face catching the light. "Maybe."
Kisten started for the front door, and I automatically followed to see him out. In my stockings, my feet were as soundless as his on the hardwood floor. The sanctuary was quiet, not a peep from my desk. Still not having said anything, Kisten shrugged into his wool coat.
"Thank you," I said as I handed him the long leather coat that he had let me borrow.
His teeth were a glimmer in the dark foyer. "My pleasure."
"For the night out, not the coat," I said, feeling my nylons go wet from the snowmelt. "Well, thanks for letting me use your coat, too," I stammered.
He leaned closer. "Again, my pleasure," he said, the faint light a glimmer in his eyes. I stared, trying to tell if his eyes were black from desire or shadow. "I am going to kiss you," he said, his voice dusky, and my muscles tensed. "No shirking."
"No biting," I said, deadly serious. Anticipation bubbled up inside me. But it was from me, not my demon scar, and accepting that was both a relief and a fear - I couldn't pretend it was the scar. Not his time.
His hands enfolded my lower jaw, both rough and warm. I inhaled as he drew closer, his eyes closing. The scent of leather and silk was strong, the hint of something deeper, primal, tugging at my instincts making me not know what to feel. Eyes open, I watched him lean in, my heart pounding with the anticipation of his lips on mine.
His thumbs shifted, following the curve of my jaw. My lips parted. But the angle was wrong for a full kiss, and my shoulders eased when I realized he was going to kiss the corner of my mouth.
Relaxing, I leaned forward to meet him, flashing into a near panic when his fingertips moved farther back, burying themselves in my hair. Adrenaline pounded through me in a cold wash as I realized he wasn't headed for my mouth at all.
He was going to kiss my neck! I thought, freezing.
But he stopped just shy, exhaling when his lips found the soft hollow between my ear and jaw. Relief mixed with fear, making me incapable of anything. The remnants of the adrenaline scouring through me made my pulse thunder. His lips were gentle, but his hands about my face were firm with restrained need.
A cool warmth took the place of his lips when he pulled away, yet he held himself poised for a moment, then another. My heart beat wildly, and I knew he could feel it almost as if it were his own. His breath came in a slow exhalation that I mirrored.
In the sound of rustling wool, Kisten stepped back. His eyes found mine, and I realized my hands had risen and were about his waist. They fell from him reluctantly, and I swallowed hard, shocked. Though he hadn't touched my lips or neck, it had been one of the most exhilarating kisses I'd ever experienced. The thrill of not knowing what he was going to do had put me in a tizzy that a full-mouthed kiss never could have.
"That's the damnedest thing," he said softly, a puzzled arch to his eyebrow.
"What?" I questioned breathily, still not having shaken off the feeling.
He shook his head. "I can't smell you at all. It's kind of a turn-on."
I blinked, unable to say a word.
" 'Night, Rachel." A new smile hovered about him as he shifted another step back.
"Good night," I whispered.
He turned and opened the door. The chill air shocked me out of my daze. My demon scar hadn't made a single twinge, dormant. That, I thought, was frightening. That he could do this to me without even playing upon my scar. What in hell was wrong with me?
Kisten gave me a final smile from the landing, the snowy night a beautiful backdrop. Turning, he walked down the icy steps, his footsteps crunching on the salt.
Bewildered, I shut the door behind him, wondering what had happened. Still feeling unreal, I dropped the locking bar, then reopened it upon remembering Ivy was out.
Arms clasped about myself, I headed for my bedroom. My thoughts were full of what Kisten had told me about how people dictated their own fate when letting a vampire bind them. That people paid for the ecstasy of vampire passion with different levels of dependency ranging from food to equal. What if he was lying? I thought. Lying to trick me into letting him bind me to him? But then a more frightening thought pulled my feet to a halt and made my face go cold.
What if he was telling the truth?