I hate you.
And he was so easy to hate, wasn’t he? A Nichtvren. Inhuman, for all that he’d been mortal once, however long ago. How old was he, anyway?
“He was under my protection too,” Nikolai said. “Come with me, Selene. You will be safer.”
Like hell I will. “No.”
“One day you will.” He didn’t push the issue, for once. “Jorge will come to offer you use of a car.”
“And to keep an eye on me? No thanks, Nikolai.” Selene bit her lower lip. It was bruised already. She tasted blood. She would ache tomorrow. It had been too long, she’d built up a heavy debt, and her body had exacted its toll with a vengeance. Not only had she cleared a poltergeist infestation and pulled the wards from Danny’s apartment, but there had also been the work for that witch over on Seventeenth Street.
She’d needed the money. She always needed the money. Lecturing didn’t pay nearly enough for both her rent and Danny’s. And by God, Selene never wanted to be poor again. She agreed with Scarlett O’Hara on that count, thank you very much.
Nikolai paused, and his hand tensed against her belly. She held her breath, but he didn’t move, just tightened his arm around her.
“This is not a request. Jorge will come, and if you leave this place it will be with him. If you do anything foolish I will be vexed.” Even his breath was warm against her hair. Does he breathe because he knows it makes me a little more comfortable? I suppose he has to breathe to talk, doesn’t he? I should ask.
Exhaustion crept in. If she fell asleep now she might be able to get a few hours of rest before…no. The fatigue blurred everything, made it difficult to think.
“Vex all you want, Nik,” she said, and his fingers tapped against her belly once, twice. Then he stopped. “I’m not your servant. I don’t take your orders.”
Yeah, Selene. If you lie often enough, you might even be able to halfway believe it.
He made a low sound against her hair, and Selene’s entire body leapt. The medallion gave one scorching burst of heat. “Of course, if Jorge is incompetent enough to lose you, I suppose he will need punishment.”
You bastard. I should have known. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would, Selene. I would also make you watch.” He sounded calm as if he was discussing a grocery list. “I dislike the thought of damage to you. I will take steps to avoid it.”
Everyone knows I’m your little pet. Nobody messes with me anymore, you jerk. I might even be able to use that to find out who killed Danny. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
“Especially not with Jorge watching over you.” He sounded pleased to have painted her into a logical corner.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll wait for him. I’ll be a good little girl. Now go away and leave me alone.” So I can cry in peace. Leave me that, at least. Just leave me alone so I can cry.
Nikolai rolled away from her, his arm sliding out from beneath her head. She heard him moving, getting into his clothes. She could imagine him getting dressed, pulling his jeans up, pulling his t-shirt back over his head, running his fingers back through his hair to push it back out of his face. Then his coat. She heard the sound of the heavy wool moving.
Best of both worlds. He has to go home before dawn. Can’t stay to make things sticky. And he’s so fucking careful not to damage me. Though I can take it, can’t I? It’s hard to kill me. With sex, at least.
He leaned over the bed to pull the sheet and the blankets up, tucking her in gently and efficiently. Finally, when the covers were smoothed, he settled on the side of the bed and touched her hair. Ran his fingers through the heavy mass, lifting it slightly, and gathering it all up, pulling it back from her face. He stroked her cheek with his fingertips, delicately. His claws didn’t prickle, but she knew they were there.
Go away. I have to cry first, then I will figure out what to do. Oh, God. Danny. Selene kept her eyes shut. Her breathing evened out. She hugged the pillow. Her right hand was under the covers, and she made a fist, her nails biting into her palm. Squeezed. Tighter. Tighter.
Finally, Nikolai touched the corner of her mouth with a fingertip. Selene didn’t open her eyes—but she did peek out through her lashes. Under the bedroom window shade, a faint grayness showed. Dawn was coming.
There was a slight sound—a breath of air. A cold breeze touched Selene’s cheek.
Nikolai was gone.
Selene drove her fingernails into her palms and took in a shuddering breath.
Now, at last, she could cry.
(LIKE A) VIRGIN OF THE SPRING
Susan Sizemore and Denise Little
GINGER WAS CERTAIN THAT THERE HAD BEEN A time in her life when she found public fornication shocking. That time was long behind her. Now, crossing the courtyard between the baths and the sanctuary of the sacred spring, she barely glanced at the naked couple coupling on the altar at the center.
What the pair was doing was a sacred rite meant to please the gods. She did take a moment to glance their way, and observed that the lad had a truly fine ass. The way his broad back narrowed down to his waist was a work of art. But the offering to the gods being shared out there with such energy was business, not pleasure—for her, at least.
It was spring, festival time, and people were crowding in to the stronghold from all over the countryside of southern Britain. It was a joyful season for most people, one that embraced relief at surviving the winter, appreciation of the new life emerging in field and flock, and enthusiastic participation in the fertility rites so important to the gods.
Ginger normally would have been overseeing the celebrations. But her knowledge of the darkness moving ever closer toward them overwhelmed her interest in this seasonal festival.
As priestess of the spring, she had responsibilities that ran far beyond the rites taking place on the altar. She already knew that the next few days were going to be hard on her, and she was certain that her talent as a seeress was going to be called upon on this day when she was supposed to be resting up for the festival.
The future was hers to see and to interpret for others. And now it seemed the gathering storm had managed to alarm even the highest power in this land. The Lord of Ched had called for his senior advisors to gather before him at the sanctuary. Lord Ched was there when she arrived, a big man going to fat, his grizzled gray hair cut short in the Roman manner. Despite being near to fifty, a great age, he was still handsome. It was obvious where his daughter Morga got her beauty.
Morga was chosen of the Mother and she and the Year King should have been here with her father, bracing for the coming storm, instead of outside worshiping on the altar. Ginger wondered at the exclusion, but it wasn’t just a warning from her extrasensory perception that twisted her belly with apprehension. She hadn’t always been the priestess of the well. At one time she’d been a student of history, a collector of the great stories from the past. She’d studied the manipulation of power by men strong enough to seize and keep it. Their names lived on in tales long after they died—Phillip of Macedonia, his son Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Claudius, Constantius, even the cursed Vortigern, whose ill-fated dealings with the Saxons had torn Britannia apart less than a century ago.
The machinations of power and politics were as much a part of her original world as science and psychic research. But that world had changed forever when she’d decided to put her knowledge to good use. Traveling back in time hadn’t made her life any simpler. Of course, back home she’d been more of an observer than a player. She was well aware of the irony that the disaster of a time transfer gone wrong had turned her from the observer she was supposed to be into a person of importance in this time and place.