I hadn’t really expected him to.
Chapter Seventeen
He was gone a long time. Well, okay, it was probably more like five minutes, but it felt like a long time when you’re busy arguing with yourself about how stupid you’re being and not getting anywhere. My brain was pissed, but my body clearly wasn’t on board. My toes kept trying to tap and my face kept trying to grin and on the whole, I thought the body might be winning.
I decided to go stand near the fey, so I’d at least have a reason for looking like an idiot.
Things had gotten to the jam stage, and they were really going at it. The neighbors had brought the usual—drums, a tambourine and Jacob’s guitar. The fey instruments were a little different, but still sort of familiar—flute-type things, lute-type things, and one collection of oddness that looked like an octopus had mated with some bagpipes.
What took me a few minutes to notice was that the fey without instruments were playing, too.
The breeze rustled through the treetops like a brush on cymbals. Water dripped out of a bamboo fountain with the regularity of a metronome. Wind chimes tinkled on the edge of the house with a suspiciously convenient rhythm. The flapping of a neighbor’s flag, the rumble of distant thunder, and the crickets sounding off in the hedge all got in on the act. Even the annoying bird from this morning, which should have been long asleep, was busy warbling out a tune.
It wasn’t obvious, not at first. But after standing there a few minutes, it was hard not to notice. The whole yard had become an instrument.
“How are they doing that?” I asked Claire, who had come up beside me, the tired lines in her face smoothing out as she watched the dancers.
She shook her head helplessly. “Magic?”
And yeah, it was. Not the kind I was used to, the kind bought from shady dealers in back alleys, the kind used to hurt. But magic nonetheless. Happy and joyful and humming over my skin. It cut through the fatigue, making me want to dance like some of the girls were already doing, their bodies blocking out the firelight in intervals, flickering like images on a silent-film reel.
Only they weren’t faded pictures in black and white, but glorious, living color. Bright scarves fluttered, long hair flowed, eyes sparkled, and jewelry caught the light in dazzling flashes that also, somehow, seemed to be in time to the music. Or the magic, because the whole yard breathed with it, in and out, in and out, like the heartbeat of a giant creature laughing and spinning and whirling in the night—
And then so was I. Someone slid an arm around my waist and I looked up to see Louis-Cesare’s eyes gleaming down at me, bright as sapphires—for a second. And then we were off.
And it was magic, or something very like it. My feet seemed to know the steps, complicated as they were, and the rhythm that was pounding up through the ground instead of the other way around, like the earth itself was directing the dance. And the earth seemed to be in a good mood, because soon almost everyone was caught up in it, even Claire, who was laughing and shaking her head and pulling back from the fey trying to coax her into the dance.
Which only ensured that she fell into the arms of the one behind her.
He swept her into the widening circle before she could tell him no, not that she looked like she wanted to. Her bright red hair bounced around her shoulders as she laughed and spun and leapt in steps I don’t think she knew, either, but that were suddenly instinctive. It was like breathing or—no, I realized.
It was like we were part of the music.
The magic that had the garden in thrall had pulled us in, too, adding us to the beat without missing a note. Our pounding feet, our laughter, even our thudding pulses—everything fed into the melody, as if it had been intended all along. As if that was how it had been written.
And then it changed, slowing from vibrant energy to a thrumming, heavy rhythm that shivered up through my feet, raising goose bumps over my entire body. The other would have been hard to transcribe, to take all the myriad sensations and put them on a page. This would have been impossible.
No notes could capture the feel of Louis-Cesare tensing and relaxing against me, the slow grind of skin on cloth and skin on skin that I swear I could feel everywhere, even the places where we didn’t touch. Or the hand on my hip, guiding us both, or the chest warm and hard against mine, or the open-mouthed kiss that stole my breath before giving it back, all in time to the beat of the music.
I’d like to blame it on the magic, but it wasn’t a spell that had my arms looping around his neck, drawing him into another slow kiss, or my body arching against him, with every shift of our muscles sending sparks up my spine. It wasn’t magic, although it felt a bit like it. But this was better, pushing back to see eyes dilated dark and hungry with real emotion.
My arms had been around his neck, but now they dropped so my hands could stroke through his hair, my nails skim down his cheek, before pulling away, fingers twined in his. I drew him out of the flickering circle of light, and into the darkness under a small group of trees. I didn’t have to pull very hard.
The trees were ornamental and not very big, but one was a willow and gave good shade. And I decided that was good enough. I pulled Louis-Cesare into its shadow, and the next thing I knew, I was pressed against the trunk, a hungry vampire licking a stripe up the side of my throat, sucking a kiss below my ear, catching the lobe between his teeth.
I drew in a sharp breath, but it wasn’t a vampire bite. It was the nip of a human lover who had lost a bit of control, and that was okay. I was feeling a little reckless myself. Or maybe more than a little.
My hands ran up his chest, ghosting over ribs and pecs and skin too fine for a soldier. He pulled back, just long enough to strip the sweater off, before attacking my neck again. And whether by luck or design, he’d found exactly the approach I liked best.
It was part of why I’d been attracted to vampires in the past; the edge of danger, the knowledge of what they could do adding thrill to thrill. Louis-Cesare wouldn’t hurt me; I knew that. But he could. A senior master that close? Inside my defenses? I groaned and hooked a leg around him, drawing him closer.
His body was heavy, and huge and warm. None of which was news. The guy was well over six feet tall, and solid as a rock. But it felt like news, felt new, with all that strength pressing against me, all that power thrumming from his skin into mine.
And that was before the images hit.
His mouth crushing against hers, parting her lips in a bruising kiss that she returns with equal intensity. His hands on her waist, unzipping those so-tight jeans, the ones he swore she wore just to drive him mad. Fingers gentle on her thighs as he strips the material down, the heat of her mouth fading as he follows it, dropping to his knees, nimble fingers sliding beneath her underwear and pausing to caress her tautness. Before stripping them away, too. And then the sweet wetness between her legs, chased by his tongue, feeling her back arch off the tree, hearing her come with his name on her lips…
I blinked and snapped out of it, panting and breathless. And unsure what had just happened, since my jeans were still on. “I…what was that?”