“Will you be home for a while?” Christian asked.
Mark nodded, gaze never leaving the TV screen and the game he was partway through. “Once I finish this level, I was planning to go rent a movie and maybe swing by to pick up fish'n'chips on the way back, since they don't deliver and I feel like junk food. I'm taking a night off, it's supposed to rain later. Maybe snow, if the temperature drops enough after sunset. Or freezing rain. Hunting gets harder after Hallowe’en, when everything needs to be indoors, and I’m not in the mood or hungry enough to care. Doing another summoning?”
“Mmhmm. I can do earth, I've been doing that for years and you know I'm better now. I want to try water.” He perched on the arm of a chair, and reached down absently to pet the black ball of fur lying on the seat; said ball of fur began to purr. Mark could hear the frown in his voice, thoughtful and doubtful at once. “Fire still makes me really nervous, and I want to think more about air and how to keep the consequences contained if I mess up, especially considering what happened with the little one I set free in the kitchen without thinking about it, but I think I can probably do water with the fountain in the loft.”
“I don’t know that much about elementals, but considering how you handle liminals, I can’t think why not. Keep doing what you usually do and you should be fine.”
“What do I usually do that’s so special?”
“You treat everything with respect and courtesy. You ask for what you want, and you're willing to give in return.”
“There can’t be that many witches that don’t. I know there are some that are really into forced summonings and bindings, but they have to be the exception, not the rule.”
Mark glanced away from the screen and sighed.
“Chris, seriously, you are the exception, not them.”
“What? No. I’m really not sure I believe that. I mean, I don’t think you’re lying, but how many witches have you spent any time with?”
What was that expression? Telling a child that Santa Claus didn’t exist?
Given the way Rosa and Seth had spoken to Alexandra, it wasn't altogether surprising that Christian considered that normal. Even though they had, understandably, insisted on the binding, he'd had a clear impression that it wasn't something they'd done often or much cared for.
“Just... take my word for it, okay? Just keep making friends. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your defences up anyway—some would consider it an insult if you didn't, as though they aren't worth being careful of, even if they'd never think of attacking you. And, obviously, one of the worst things you can ever do to make enemies is impose any kind of binding using any form of coercion.”
“I never plan on using bindings. Ever. On anything.”
“Don't say never. It would've been stupid to let me in here without some kind of insurance, and I keep reminding you that, good as it feels for it to be gone, I did agree to it. I didn't say it was inherently a bad thing, only when it's without consent. There can be circumstances when something powerful will agree to it. It might help them save face, for example. Or they might agree because it will make you feel safer, as insurance when they didn't plan to do something anyway. I think there are some things that can't stay on this plane unless they're bound, and they might want to. There are endless possibilities. Just make sure it's only as agreed, including the exact wording. Most of the time, though, your usual approach should get you what you want.”
Slowly, Christian nodded, the motion visible in Mark's peripheral vision, barely. “Got it. And some things to think about later, too.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to shake your faith in humanity. Do you want me to come to the library so I’m right there, just in case this water elemental has a competely different perspective and decides to make me look like a liar?”
“Um... it always seems to take longer than I expect and I don’t see how it can’t be awfully boring for you. And I don’t know how water elementals feel about having extra people around, but a couple of things I read suggested they might not always be happy about it. But can you tell if I need help if you aren’t there?”
“As long as I’m Alexandra and I’m paying attention, I’ll know. I’ll put the movie on up in my room so I’m closer.” That would make it harder to stay focused on the movie, but it was a reasonable tradeoff. “Maybe you can leave the upstairs library door open or something, so I don’t have to damage it if I’m in a hurry?”
Christian paused for a couple of beats, possibly wondering whether Alexandra really could and would go right through the old secret doors. “I’ll have to prop it open with a chair or something, so it won’t close by itself, but I can do that. That sounds good, then you won’t have to be bored waiting. I want to check on a couple of final details and I’m not starting anything until I know you’re around, so there’s no hurry on going out. I'll likely be starving afterwards, but I don't want to eat beforehand.”
“I’ll do a quick run out and we can order something after you're done. Go do your stuff.”
“Yes, Mom.” Christian gave Sid a final chin-rub and vanished up the stairs.
Nothing had yet gone awry on any summoning Christian had tried, and in the six weeks or so since he’d first gathered up the courage to ask Alexandra to be ready in case the summons of the juno loci went wrong, there had been... four? The juno again, and a different earth elemental to ask for help with the plants in the loft that had apparently begun to fail, and two separate creatures apparently called mandagots that looked similar to Christian’s cat, apparently so he could ask them to protect his feral colony through the winter. All had been successful.
How many witches could summon liminals and elementals as casually and naturally as phoning a friend? Mark was fairly sure that the number was even smaller than the number who didn’t see liminals and elementals as simply potential resources to be dominated and enslaved and used.
He finished the level in only a moment more, then saved and shut it down. When he switched, simulated violence would be much harder to concentrate on, and the whole thing would feel trivial; he'd regretted it before when Alexandra lost all interest in something that hadn't been wrapped up properly.
That cat watched him, curled up like a furry snake. He wanted to lean down and hiss at it, tell it to go away in language it would understand, but Christian would make his life difficult if the cat were suddenly afraid of him, so he ignored its presence. Given how irritating he found the whole situation, his initial avoidance reaction had probably saved the cat's life, preventing Alexandra from lashing out in annoyance—but it had left him feeling restless and unsettled, with a sense of something missing. It had taken him days to figure out what it was, and that was unsettling in itself.
At least Christian hadn't made an issue out of Mark deciding to pretend there'd been no interruption, and had dropped immediately back into the previous level of... what was it, anyway? Friendship was probably the best word. Unfamiliar ground though it was, he was coming to the conclusion that losing Christian, in any sense, would be intensely unpleasant. But a discussion about the whole subject was not anywhere on the list of things Mark had any desire for, so it was just as well Christian hadn’t tried to start one.
Having shut off the PlayStation and TV, he ventured out long enough to rent a movie from the little strip mall two and a half blocks away, at the nearest bus stop. The gathering clouds suggested that the weather forecast had been accurate and it would be just as well to stay indoors; postponing hunting for one night would make little difference. Since he was expecting to be Alexandra for the evening, and tastes varied between forms—a more extreme version of humans being in different moods—he switched once he was around the corner and a block down. Reluctant to foul her own nest, she did try to limit the lamia fascination while not hunting, at least by altering her clothes into something relatively modest. Tonight, on a whim, that was a long full skirt and a short-sleeved loose-fitting top, both soft matte-black knit, with a casual black leather jacket over them because it was November and a human would actually feel the cold. She knew her presence spawned fantasies nonetheless in many of the people she encountered.
She chose something light that wouldn't divert her attention from Christian too much: one of the action movies she found sometimes boring and sometimes amusing in a tasteless sort of way. There was little point to snacks, since she would be staying in a form that didn't eat, but she picked up a couple of things she knew Christian liked as well as Mark's favourites, for later or another day.
It amused her that she'd told the usual evening clerk that she was Mark's sister and he played along, even though he obviously never saw them together and she always used the membership that had Mark's name on it. Let him think what he liked. If he had fantasies, that cost her nothing, and she considered it a reward for being polite and accommodating.
The small risk of one local business having an address on record associated with her, she considered too minor to worry over.
Changing back to Mark long enough to approach and enter the house, however, was an absolute. Making certain that no one associated Alexandra with that house was important for multiple reasons, too much so to take chances on a single exception, ever.
Alexandra again in the house, she recreated the top and skirt because they were comfortable, and took the movie with her up to her room.
“I’m home,” she called, as she passed the library door on the second floor. As promised, it was braced open with one of the hard chairs from the table. She probably didn’t really need to, since he’d be able to sense her presence.
“Thanks!” Christian called back. “I’ll get started, then! Enjoy your movie!”
The cat settled itself on the rug in the hardwood-floored hall, watching her as she put the tape in the VCR and settled herself in the comfortable chair she’d used for playing games until the PlayStation had moved down to the living room.
The movie was... well, it was. Unremarkable, although an occasional fight scene made her chuckle at just how bad it was. It was something to pass time, without a better option currently available.
Stirrings of power, not Christian's... stirrings of intense emotion, fear, definitely Christian's... The cat raised its head and hissed, ears flattening, then fled. Alexandra abandoned the movie and ran for the library, sidestepping the chair holding the door open; the stairs to the loft didn't take her long to cover, her skirt gathered in one hand.
A lamia's eyes didn't really need even the patchy moonlight that escaped between the clouds to reach the skylight of the greenhouse garden or the lamp that was on in the library below the loft; she could easily see Christian, on his knees to a woman with luminous blue-white skin like a pearl, blue-green hair like a waterfall, and eyes as dark as the ocean depths where humans drowned. Long thin webbed fingers reached out towards the kneeling witch.
Alexandra's witch.
Her skirt swirling around her ankles, wings partly spread and flexing in annoyance, Alexandra strode over and laid her hands on Christian's shoulders from behind.
“He's mine. Begone,” she said coldly.
The water elemental considered. “He bears no mark.”
“He's mine.”
“Lexa,” Christian whispered, and shivered violently under her hands. He cringed away as the elemental took a step towards him, and twisted around to bury his face in Alexandra's skirt, trembling; mostly to keep them from getting broken unnoticed, but partially because they were digging into her leg, she slid his glasses off for him with one hand, and tucked them in the pocket in the side-seam of her skirt. She ran her hand reassuringly over his hair, curving one wing around him like a protective cloak of shadows, and gave the elemental a warning look.
“You're running out of rope.”
“You can't kill an elemental.” The water-maid took another step.
“True.” Even if it were possible to kill a personification of an element, she couldn't do much with Christian interfering with her movements. She curled the glossy black nails of her free hand into claws, nails just shy of unbreakable and much sharper than they looked, and waited, still absently stroking Christian's hair and shoulders with the other. One more step...
The elemental shrieked, as Alexandra's nails raked her face, her chest, her abdomen, spilling water everywhere before the water-maid even saw the attack coming. The next stroke took those dark eyes, even as the dazed elemental raised her hands in an instinctive and futile defence; the one after ripped her midriff in the opposite direction, shredding it thoroughly enough to have disemboweled a human entirely. A final stroke tore her throat out, silencing her keening.
“Can hurt you, though,” Alexandra concluded in satisfaction.
The water-maid vanished, left only rivulets pooling on the wooden floor where she'd stood and a large splash back into the indoor fountain that had been the source of at least some of the water.
“It's gone,” she said gently, and dropped to one knee to hug him, folding both wings around him. With a sound that could have been a sob, he clung to her, face hidden in her shoulder, shuddering. She scooped him up like a child and straightened, cradling him in arms and wings, to carry him down to his room. Very carefully, she set him down on the bed, left his glasses safely on the dresser, and laid down beside him, not at all surprised that he huddled against her; she just wrapped her arms and wings around him to steady him.
“Want to tell me?” she asked quietly. Talking helped humans calm down and cope with difficult things, she knew that.
“She was in my head... kept telling me things.”
“What things?”
“That there's something wrong with me for preferring books and magic over a lover and sex... although sex the way she showed it... it can't be like that.”
Alexandra mulled that over, doing her best to ignore the warm living human scent of him, the hunger roused by his nearness and his lingering fear and the fact that she had originally intended to hunt that night. “Water shows reflections, but the reflections are usually distorted. As for what sex is like... never?”
Christian shrugged. “I had a girlfriend for a while. We did some messing around but she got annoyed that I didn't spend enough time with her and somehow it all just felt weird. It didn't seem worth finding someone else and repeating the whole mess, and I don't know any other witches I can share things with. I'm interested in sex, I just can't realistically give someone enough time. I'm not putting anyone through that. Including me.”
“Mm. You do have one person who cares about you, is happy with the amount of time you spend together, and isn't shy about sex.”
“You said you don't treat friends like prey.”
“Specifically, I said I don’t treat you as prey. I'm perfectly able to have sex without feeding, as long as I'm hunting regularly, and I would never take anything from you without consent. But I don't think you're in any condition for stuff like this right now. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”
“Every time I close my eyes, I see what she showed me.”
“Distorted reflections. Close your eyes. Trust me. Nothing is going to reach you past me. And there's nothing I can't fight. You're safe while I'm here, I promise.” It was a shame she had no idea which of Cecilia's afghans might actually have useful magic worked into it; her own abilities and instincts were all about provoking fear or lust, not particularly useful in the current context.
She felt him relax against her trustingly, finally dozing off. Sound sleep, she figured, was the best cure for this kind of shock. Christian was strong and resilient; she had no doubt he'd be all right, and that much wiser to elemental tricks.
Alexandra sighed to herself. Christian was so very appetizing, the gentle rhythmic pulse of his gifts in time with his heart, his scent, his present vulnerability. No one sensible who knew anything about lamias ever trusted them to do anything save hunt and kill, their lives dominated by sex and violence; Christian, however, trusted her to the point of removing the one chain she'd consented to bear, trusted her enough to sleep here beside her with no fear, trusted her to protect him from other threats. That was simply confusing, something else altogether. Her hunger wasn't presently a need, only a desire, yet the temptation was very real. She dared not sleep deeply, in case she did something unforgivable. This was going to be a long night.
“Will you be home for a while?” Christian asked.
Mark nodded, gaze never leaving the TV screen and the game he was partway through. “Once I finish this level, I was planning to go rent a movie and maybe swing by to pick up fish'n'chips on the way back, since they don't deliver and I feel like junk food. I'm taking a night off, it's supposed to rain later. Maybe snow, if the temperature drops enough after sunset. Or freezing rain. Hunting gets harder after Hallowe’en, when everything needs to be indoors, and I’m not in the mood or hungry enough to care. Doing another summoning?”
“Mmhmm. I can do earth, I've been doing that for years and you know I'm better now. I want to try water.” He perched on the arm of a chair, and reached down absently to pet the black ball of fur lying on the seat; said ball of fur began to purr. Mark could hear the frown in his voice, thoughtful and doubtful at once. “Fire still makes me really nervous, and I want to think more about air and how to keep the consequences contained if I mess up, especially considering what happened with the little one I set free in the kitchen without thinking about it, but I think I can probably do water with the fountain in the loft.”
“I don’t know that much about elementals, but considering how you handle liminals, I can’t think why not. Keep doing what you usually do and you should be fine.”
“What do I usually do that’s so special?”
“You treat everything with respect and courtesy. You ask for what you want, and you're willing to give in return.”
“There can’t be that many witches that don’t. I know there are some that are really into forced summonings and bindings, but they have to be the exception, not the rule.”
Mark glanced away from the screen and sighed.
“Chris, seriously, you are the exception, not them.”
“What? No. I’m really not sure I believe that. I mean, I don’t think you’re lying, but how many witches have you spent any time with?”
What was that expression? Telling a child that Santa Claus didn’t exist?
Given the way Rosa and Seth had spoken to Alexandra, it wasn't altogether surprising that Christian considered that normal. Even though they had, understandably, insisted on the binding, he'd had a clear impression that it wasn't something they'd done often or much cared for.
“Just... take my word for it, okay? Just keep making friends. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your defences up anyway—some would consider it an insult if you didn't, as though they aren't worth being careful of, even if they'd never think of attacking you. And, obviously, one of the worst things you can ever do to make enemies is impose any kind of binding using any form of coercion.”
“I never plan on using bindings. Ever. On anything.”
“Don't say never. It would've been stupid to let me in here without some kind of insurance, and I keep reminding you that, good as it feels for it to be gone, I did agree to it. I didn't say it was inherently a bad thing, only when it's without consent. There can be circumstances when something powerful will agree to it. It might help them save face, for example. Or they might agree because it will make you feel safer, as insurance when they didn't plan to do something anyway. I think there are some things that can't stay on this plane unless they're bound, and they might want to. There are endless possibilities. Just make sure it's only as agreed, including the exact wording. Most of the time, though, your usual approach should get you what you want.”
Slowly, Christian nodded, the motion visible in Mark's peripheral vision, barely. “Got it. And some things to think about later, too.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to shake your faith in humanity. Do you want me to come to the library so I’m right there, just in case this water elemental has a competely different perspective and decides to make me look like a liar?”
“Um... it always seems to take longer than I expect and I don’t see how it can’t be awfully boring for you. And I don’t know how water elementals feel about having extra people around, but a couple of things I read suggested they might not always be happy about it. But can you tell if I need help if you aren’t there?”
“As long as I’m Alexandra and I’m paying attention, I’ll know. I’ll put the movie on up in my room so I’m closer.” That would make it harder to stay focused on the movie, but it was a reasonable tradeoff. “Maybe you can leave the upstairs library door open or something, so I don’t have to damage it if I’m in a hurry?”
Christian paused for a couple of beats, possibly wondering whether Alexandra really could and would go right through the old secret doors. “I’ll have to prop it open with a chair or something, so it won’t close by itself, but I can do that. That sounds good, then you won’t have to be bored waiting. I want to check on a couple of final details and I’m not starting anything until I know you’re around, so there’s no hurry on going out. I'll likely be starving afterwards, but I don't want to eat beforehand.”
“I’ll do a quick run out and we can order something after you're done. Go do your stuff.”
“Yes, Mom.” Christian gave Sid a final chin-rub and vanished up the stairs.
Nothing had yet gone awry on any summoning Christian had tried, and in the six weeks or so since he’d first gathered up the courage to ask Alexandra to be ready in case the summons of the juno loci went wrong, there had been... four? The juno again, and a different earth elemental to ask for help with the plants in the loft that had apparently begun to fail, and two separate creatures apparently called mandagots that looked similar to Christian’s cat, apparently so he could ask them to protect his feral colony through the winter. All had been successful.
How many witches could summon liminals and elementals as casually and naturally as phoning a friend? Mark was fairly sure that the number was even smaller than the number who didn’t see liminals and elementals as simply potential resources to be dominated and enslaved and used.
He finished the level in only a moment more, then saved and shut it down. When he switched, simulated violence would be much harder to concentrate on, and the whole thing would feel trivial; he'd regretted it before when Alexandra lost all interest in something that hadn't been wrapped up properly.
That cat watched him, curled up like a furry snake. He wanted to lean down and hiss at it, tell it to go away in language it would understand, but Christian would make his life difficult if the cat were suddenly afraid of him, so he ignored its presence. Given how irritating he found the whole situation, his initial avoidance reaction had probably saved the cat's life, preventing Alexandra from lashing out in annoyance—but it had left him feeling restless and unsettled, with a sense of something missing. It had taken him days to figure out what it was, and that was unsettling in itself.
At least Christian hadn't made an issue out of Mark deciding to pretend there'd been no interruption, and had dropped immediately back into the previous level of... what was it, anyway? Friendship was probably the best word. Unfamiliar ground though it was, he was coming to the conclusion that losing Christian, in any sense, would be intensely unpleasant. But a discussion about the whole subject was not anywhere on the list of things Mark had any desire for, so it was just as well Christian hadn’t tried to start one.
Having shut off the PlayStation and TV, he ventured out long enough to rent a movie from the little strip mall two and a half blocks away, at the nearest bus stop. The gathering clouds suggested that the weather forecast had been accurate and it would be just as well to stay indoors; postponing hunting for one night would make little difference. Since he was expecting to be Alexandra for the evening, and tastes varied between forms—a more extreme version of humans being in different moods—he switched once he was around the corner and a block down. Reluctant to foul her own nest, she did try to limit the lamia fascination while not hunting, at least by altering her clothes into something relatively modest. Tonight, on a whim, that was a long full skirt and a short-sleeved loose-fitting top, both soft matte-black knit, with a casual black leather jacket over them because it was November and a human would actually feel the cold. She knew her presence spawned fantasies nonetheless in many of the people she encountered.
She chose something light that wouldn't divert her attention from Christian too much: one of the action movies she found sometimes boring and sometimes amusing in a tasteless sort of way. There was little point to snacks, since she would be staying in a form that didn't eat, but she picked up a couple of things she knew Christian liked as well as Mark's favourites, for later or another day.
It amused her that she'd told the usual evening clerk that she was Mark's sister and he played along, even though he obviously never saw them together and she always used the membership that had Mark's name on it. Let him think what he liked. If he had fantasies, that cost her nothing, and she considered it a reward for being polite and accommodating.
The small risk of one local business having an address on record associated with her, she considered too minor to worry over.
Changing back to Mark long enough to approach and enter the house, however, was an absolute. Making certain that no one associated Alexandra with that house was important for multiple reasons, too much so to take chances on a single exception, ever.
Alexandra again in the house, she recreated the top and skirt because they were comfortable, and took the movie with her up to her room.
“I’m home,” she called, as she passed the library door on the second floor. As promised, it was braced open with one of the hard chairs from the table. She probably didn’t really need to, since he’d be able to sense her presence.
“Thanks!” Christian called back. “I’ll get started, then! Enjoy your movie!”
The cat settled itself on the rug in the hardwood-floored hall, watching her as she put the tape in the VCR and settled herself in the comfortable chair she’d used for playing games until the PlayStation had moved down to the living room.
The movie was... well, it was. Unremarkable, although an occasional fight scene made her chuckle at just how bad it was. It was something to pass time, without a better option currently available.
Stirrings of power, not Christian's... stirrings of intense emotion, fear, definitely Christian's... The cat raised its head and hissed, ears flattening, then fled. Alexandra abandoned the movie and ran for the library, sidestepping the chair holding the door open; the stairs to the loft didn't take her long to cover, her skirt gathered in one hand.
A lamia's eyes didn't really need even the patchy moonlight that escaped between the clouds to reach the skylight of the greenhouse garden or the lamp that was on in the library below the loft; she could easily see Christian, on his knees to a woman with luminous blue-white skin like a pearl, blue-green hair like a waterfall, and eyes as dark as the ocean depths where humans drowned. Long thin webbed fingers reached out towards the kneeling witch.
Alexandra's witch.
Her skirt swirling around her ankles, wings partly spread and flexing in annoyance, Alexandra strode over and laid her hands on Christian's shoulders from behind.
“He's mine. Begone,” she said coldly.
The water elemental considered. “He bears no mark.”
“He's mine.”
“Lexa,” Christian whispered, and shivered violently under her hands. He cringed away as the elemental took a step towards him, and twisted around to bury his face in Alexandra's skirt, trembling; mostly to keep them from getting broken unnoticed, but partially because they were digging into her leg, she slid his glasses off for him with one hand, and tucked them in the pocket in the side-seam of her skirt. She ran her hand reassuringly over his hair, curving one wing around him like a protective cloak of shadows, and gave the elemental a warning look.
“You're running out of rope.”
“You can't kill an elemental.” The water-maid took another step.
“True.” Even if it were possible to kill a personification of an element, she couldn't do much with Christian interfering with her movements. She curled the glossy black nails of her free hand into claws, nails just shy of unbreakable and much sharper than they looked, and waited, still absently stroking Christian's hair and shoulders with the other. One more step...
The elemental shrieked, as Alexandra's nails raked her face, her chest, her abdomen, spilling water everywhere before the water-maid even saw the attack coming. The next stroke took those dark eyes, even as the dazed elemental raised her hands in an instinctive and futile defence; the one after ripped her midriff in the opposite direction, shredding it thoroughly enough to have disemboweled a human entirely. A final stroke tore her throat out, silencing her keening.
“Can hurt you, though,” Alexandra concluded in satisfaction.
The water-maid vanished, left only rivulets pooling on the wooden floor where she'd stood and a large splash back into the indoor fountain that had been the source of at least some of the water.
“It's gone,” she said gently, and dropped to one knee to hug him, folding both wings around him. With a sound that could have been a sob, he clung to her, face hidden in her shoulder, shuddering. She scooped him up like a child and straightened, cradling him in arms and wings, to carry him down to his room. Very carefully, she set him down on the bed, left his glasses safely on the dresser, and laid down beside him, not at all surprised that he huddled against her; she just wrapped her arms and wings around him to steady him.
“Want to tell me?” she asked quietly. Talking helped humans calm down and cope with difficult things, she knew that.
“She was in my head... kept telling me things.”
“What things?”
“That there's something wrong with me for preferring books and magic over a lover and sex... although sex the way she showed it... it can't be like that.”
Alexandra mulled that over, doing her best to ignore the warm living human scent of him, the hunger roused by his nearness and his lingering fear and the fact that she had originally intended to hunt that night. “Water shows reflections, but the reflections are usually distorted. As for what sex is like... never?”
Christian shrugged. “I had a girlfriend for a while. We did some messing around but she got annoyed that I didn't spend enough time with her and somehow it all just felt weird. It didn't seem worth finding someone else and repeating the whole mess, and I don't know any other witches I can share things with. I'm interested in sex, I just can't realistically give someone enough time. I'm not putting anyone through that. Including me.”
“Mm. You do have one person who cares about you, is happy with the amount of time you spend together, and isn't shy about sex.”
“You said you don't treat friends like prey.”
“Specifically, I said I don’t treat you as prey. I'm perfectly able to have sex without feeding, as long as I'm hunting regularly, and I would never take anything from you without consent. But I don't think you're in any condition for stuff like this right now. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”
“Every time I close my eyes, I see what she showed me.”
“Distorted reflections. Close your eyes. Trust me. Nothing is going to reach you past me. And there's nothing I can't fight. You're safe while I'm here, I promise.” It was a shame she had no idea which of Cecilia's afghans might actually have useful magic worked into it; her own abilities and instincts were all about provoking fear or lust, not particularly useful in the current context.
She felt him relax against her trustingly, finally dozing off. Sound sleep, she figured, was the best cure for this kind of shock. Christian was strong and resilient; she had no doubt he'd be all right, and that much wiser to elemental tricks.
Alexandra sighed to herself. Christian was so very appetizing, the gentle rhythmic pulse of his gifts in time with his heart, his scent, his present vulnerability. No one sensible who knew anything about lamias ever trusted them to do anything save hunt and kill, their lives dominated by sex and violence; Christian, however, trusted her to the point of removing the one chain she'd consented to bear, trusted her enough to sleep here beside her with no fear, trusted her to protect him from other threats. That was simply confusing, something else altogether. Her hunger wasn't presently a need, only a desire, yet the temptation was very real. She dared not sleep deeply, in case she did something unforgivable. This was going to be a long night.
