"Your eyes are glowing silver," she finally said with a smirk when he'd offered no comment. "I suppose it's time for me to go in the house."
"Yeah, baby. Go back in the house. I'll watch you to be sure you get in safely."
She didn't move for a moment. "Remember that night you called me out of the house and I came to you?"
Again, he didn't answer her, shame halting his words. How could he forget calling her past his mother and grandmother's prayer barriers for what might have been his first real throat feeding? He didn't want to ever have to remember that or ever think about that.
"My soul knew what you were then, and it didn't matter," she said in a breathy whisper. "At that moment, I wanted you so badly that I would have been with you no matter what the final consequences."
She allowed her words to fall between them in an open offer. He knew what she was saying, just like she did. The ball was in his court.
"Go in the house, Juanita," he whispered, but not as firmly as he should have.
"Your eyes haven't glowed for anybody in a long time," she said as she brushed past him, allowing the body contact to linger before they parted. "I'm flattered that I was the one who brought the silver back. I didn't mind being her placeholder. Ever. Thank you for that."
"De nada," he murmured, and watched her leisurely stroll down the path and up the steps, her round backside sashaying as she sauntered away.
The screen door slammed behind Juanita and snapped him out of the trancelike sensation. Carlos opened his Jeep door with care and slid into the seat and started the engine. Instant images slammed into his brain in jagged still frames as he backed out of his space and pulled onto the road. A Navajo blanket covered his woman. Male hands ran down her arms and made her shiver. A mouth nearly caressed her throat. Her eyes closed. He could feel the desire thick and hot within her. She laughed from way down in her soul - someone had made her laugh and had filled her with sudden joy, even with everything going on. He could taste iced tea in his mouth. Her eyes opened wide with surprise and also disappointment. Her ache to be touched by this intruder was palpable. He could feel her body sway to the invitation. The male smelled like Ivory Soap.
Carlos gripped the steering wheel. If he'd known all that, then fair exchange was no robbery - he should have told Juanita to get into his car. She had every right to be salty, if all that had gone down right under both of their noses. He'd been blind, but women always had superior second sight. He owed Juanita for that, now, too. Once again, girlfriend had had his back... like Damali should have, but didn't.
Yeah, he knew the blanket that rested on Damali's bed; it was the blanket that had made him sick, it was so hot... the bed that she couldn't get into with him... the blanket that she slept beneath each night... fibers that were alive with another male's energy. Juanita didn't have to say a word. He knew the Ivory Soap and the scent that went with it, and the brown eyes that drank Damali in. Juanita's touch had transmitted that knowing to him... as did her sad agony for having to still compete - when Juanita shouldn't have had to compete for anything or anyone at this point. Just like he shouldn't, and Yonnie shouldn't.
This was beyond f**ked-up.
She took her time going out onto the back deck, sensing her environment, fully alert to possible danger. But she would not live like a prisoner behind locked windows and bolted doors. The dark side would not be allowed to take her freedom; otherwise she might as well be dead.
When she got outside, she flipped on the floodlights, needing illumination. The darkness had become suffocating around her. She carefully set down a bag of Red Sea salt close to her. By rote, she began to work her body, hoping that would bring clarity to her mind.
Her daily routine of exercise had been destroyed over the past months, and she wanted to regain all that had been disrupted in her life. Tonight she needed clear vision. There was only one way to achieve that; suspend all personal problems and then home in on a solution. She hadn't even been able to focus enough to raise an audience with the Neteru Queens.
Anything close to normalcy, in her abnormal world, was a soothing dream that they all clung to. Just like the holiday seasons were always celebrated the same way; no store-purchased gifts, only one handmade or self-made item given from the heart to each member of the house. The rest of the giving was for the community, spreading love and cheer, and offering helping hands to less fortunate people they'd heard about or seen on the news. For them, that was normal. She and the Guardians had their own rituals and ways to give thanks. Like Shabazz had always said, it was imperative to keep a routine, stay focused on one's blessing, lest one's spiritual, mental, and physical muscle give way to flab.
Her mind was muddled, her spirit was sagging, and it wasn't about letting the body go to pot, too. The trinity worked as a unit. Personal gratification, personal problems, all that needed to be sublimated for something greater than herself.
Damali propped her feet up on a deck chair, her boot toes slightly bent. Her face repeatedly neared the wood planks, her left arm behind her back, her full weight on her blade arm - then she slowly stroked the muscles, made the burn work sinew in her upper body, torso, shoulder, stomach, and back. She needed her blade arm strong and readied at all times, whether Madame Isis was still with her or not. She needed Carlos, whether he was with her or not.
"Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, clear the mind!" she shouted, keeping time with the one-arm, military push-ups. At fifty, she switched arms, blew stinging perspiration away from her nose with a puff of breath, and began again.
Her body was in tip-top condition, so this sagging libido thing had to be a function of her mind. But why? Minor spats be damned. He was right. She shouldn't have been feeling this way. But her gut was rarely wrong. Lack of trust had been a shadow around her every time Carlos came near. Without that, she couldn't relax. If she couldn't fully relax in his arms... But that made absolutely no sense. What about him was not to trust? Even if it was some temporary infection... they were supposedly both immune.
She'd trusted the man when he'd become a vamp. Had trusted him with her throat and her very life. Had entrusted her family's safety with him. Now this?
"Thirty-four, thirty-five - aw, shit!" Her left arm was slightly weaker than the right, and she could feel the muscle in it trembling as she tried to reach the fifty push-up mark.
Was it that she didn't trust herself? She jettisoned the thought as she unfurled her right arm from behind her back and began again from the number one, this time using both arms to lift her body.
Damali splayed her fingers against the wood and looked straight ahead through the deck rail into the darkness. She lowered her body in slow movements to burn the energy in agonizing increments and then rose without taking her eyes off the mark. Facts aligned in her inner sight. The man's clothes had torched and smoldered. The earth had swallowed them whole, along with his bodily fluids. He'd fevered and convulsed under a prayer blanket. He'd presented fangs, and daylight had kicked his ass. His recovery was full, as soon as the sun set. Marlene needed to know that, as soon as she got home. Where was Marlene - Shabazz, Marjorie, and Richard! No one had answered the calls all day! Another hour and she'd mount a search party. Marlene had received her transmission. But no answer?
Carlos's Neteru pheromone spike didn't freak out a master vampire the way it should have? If Carlos was somehow turning, even that shouldn't have backed her up and cooled her passion for him. If he'd gotten temporarily infected, that shouldn't have done it; it didn't affect her like that with Jose - it had the opposite affect, in fact. What was it?
"Fifty." Damali stopped, breathing in long and deep through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. She pushed up, jumped to her feet, and then stripped off her pants and boots. Standing on the deck in her T-shirt and underwear, she went to the deck rail and balanced her thighs on it just below her pelvis. Time to work the abs.
She laced her fingers behind her head and bent over the rail until she could see her knees on the other side of it. Then she raised herself in backward sit-ups, shooting for the goal of one hundred.
Each time she lifted her body, she kept her eyes on her focus point - a cactus twenty feet away. At the thirty-eighth sit-up, she noticed that it seemed to move, but focused physical exertion sometimes created mirages. She stopped briefly, mentally swept the terrain, and resumed. However, she began to lose count and to forget about the slow smolder raging in her abdominal muscles. The cactus seemed framed by a glow not created by the floodlights spilling from the porch.
An iridescent, bluish tinge soon conquered the yellow, artificial light surrounding the desert plant. The thick, prickly body seemed to grow narrower and slimmer each time her line of vision went away from it to stare at her knees and then returned to it. The bulbous knots on either side of the cactus soon became curved, ornate silver, and she stopped at the ninetieth sit-up to stare at it in awe.