“What is Mater’s Shade Vale like?” I asked. I knew already how they were created—death, worship, natural disasters… Sometimes areas of dense ecological harmony could act as Shade Vales. Wherever spiritual energy concentrated.
“Unpleasant,” he said. “You may see things there that you wouldn’t normally—malevolent or benevolent spirits, objects that appear as treasures but are actually very deadly, animals that might be innocent in the real world, suddenly seem monstrous.”
“Mater has snakes for hair in my dreams. If they were to bite me in a Shade Vale, would it hurt?”
“Terribly.”
“Would their bites leave marks on my body?”
“Not on your physical person, but on your spirit. Any violence you endure in a Shade Vale can impact your energy, and those types of injuries take a long time to heal.”
I wondered if your time spent in a Shade Vale had affected your spirit in a similar way.
“Henri was imprisoned in a battlefield, and he said part of the reason he chose to be a reaper was because he feared he’d only want to murder people when he was able.”
Seneser nodded. “Shade Vales can corrupt even the most honorable of beings.”
Like war, I thought, and situations where survival made you do things you normally wouldn’t. I shouldn’t judge you too harshly. You’d endured things no being ever should, while I’d only recently left the boundaries of Miami.
“Your brothers are nearby,” Seneser said. “Should you gag me before they arrive?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to lie to Henri.”
He eyed me curiously. Moments later, you and Lucian entered through the front door, both of you loaded down with shopping bags and travel packs. You immediately noticed the food and Seneser’s lack of a gag. I stared at you, prepared for a lecture—expecting it—but your brow only furrowed in frustration.
Funny, it didn’t devastate me nearly as much as I thought it would.
26
Henri
“Are you afraid of me?”
You posed this question to me in our bedroom. I’d secured Seneser for the night and made sure Lucian was adequately accommodated. Your cat opted to bed down with Lucian, which meant we had the room to ourselves. At the moment, you were reclined against an excess of pillows, wearing only your underwear and cradling a bottle of blood in your lap.
“Why would you say that?” I asked while trying to determine the nature of your inquiry. As was more common lately, I came up short.
Your dark eyes held mine captive as your fist squeezed the neck of the glass bottle, knuckles paling from the pressure. “You kissed me in your condo, then ran out the door. You gave me a blow job at the Bambi Hotel, then never said a word about it.”
“Compelling evidence,” I said.
“You say you want things with me, but you don’t follow through. That I’m irresistible, but here you are, resisting.”
You shifted so that you were kneeling with the bottle still between your thighs. I ventured closer to the bed. Your natural scent mingled with your cologne and was sharpened by a hint of blood—not yours. I suspected you’d already been nursing that bottle, though there was still a bite of hunger about you, customary for a youngblood.
“I’m not afraid of you, but I am wary of the effect you have on me,” I said carefully.
You licked your lips and tilted your head, silver hair falling over one eye alluringly as you stared at my thickening shaft, obvious in my ballooning trousers.
“That effect?” you asked, twisting your grip around the glass neck while your inner thighs squeezed the bottle.
“I like to be in control. That’s how I feel I’m better able to protect you. And when we’re intimate like this…” I swallowed, and my thoughts abandoned me because you’d bitten down on your lip. Ruby red droplets beaded up on your velvet skin.
“When we’re intimate…” you prompted.
There were no secrets between us anymore. Even if I wanted to keep them, I didn’t believe that I could.
“I lose all reason.”
“Worried I’ll take advantage of you?”
I smiled ruefully. “Or that I might. You’re innocent.”
“I’m not that innocent.” Your tongue swept across your mouth and claimed what had collected there. Your neck was lovely and unblemished. How much lovelier it would be when my teeth marked it. “I think you’re only lying to yourself.”
“About?”
“Part of you wants to protect my virtue, but another part wants to ruin me.”
“Ruin you?” I said. Blood pounded in my ears. And elsewhere.
“Yeah,” you said dreamily. “But you can’t have your cake and eat it too,