"I know you're inside each other's minds and souls now," Samantha says. "But that will fade by the time the morning sun arrives.
"Remember, this potion can only be taken by you this once. You'll always be changed by having experienced it, always be connected to each other, but you'll never be inside each other as much as this again. Enjoy this night. Enjoy each other."
"Peter," Charles Blood says. "Elizabeth is now yours. Protect her."
"Elizabeth," Samantha Blood says. "Peter is now yours. Make sure he never suffers for lack of sustenance."
Derek brings over the Jamaican man he's selected, shoves him in front of us, pushes him to his knees.
"Our tradition, Peter, calls for the wife to hunt for her husband and give him the first opportunity to feed on her kill. Elizabeth caught this one in preparation for the feast tonight. Once you feed, you will have signified your acceptance of her as your mate."
I feel Elizabeth's heartbeat quicken. Mine speeds up in sympathy to it. Together we realize the hunger that's been building within us. Elizabeth slashes the man's throat open with one sweep of her right arm and he crumbles to the floor, his blood spilling out, the hot, rich aroma of it filling our nostrils.
Ravenous as I am, we are, I pause, waiting for Elizabeth to feed at the same time. "No, Peter," she says and I feel her form the words just as I hear them. "You must feed first-please."
Charles and Samantha grunt approval as I lower my head and bite into Elizabeth's kill, tear off a chunk of meat and devour it. Then Elizabeth joins me, feeding at my side.
We're vaguely aware of the rest of the family choosing others from the group huddled in the corner. Feasting on them, drinking Dragon's Tear wine from the green flagon, laughing, boasting about their hunts. Charles tells stories as he feeds-about Captain Jack and other ancestors. Derek tries to speak, but is being talked over. Human blood is everywhere.
Elizabeth and I take our bites at the same time, press against each other as we eat. As our hunger abates, we become more and more aware of other urges.
"Peter?" she says.
"Elizabeth?" I say at the same time.
We both giggle. "I know what you feel like now," I say.
"And I can feel you like that," she says.
"For pity's sake, spare us your drivel and take it to your room!" Charles Blood mindspeaks.
Not quite sure how we get there, unaware of how much time has passed, Elizabeth and I lie side by side on the bed of hay in her room and touch and explore each other, everything felt, everything shared, everything magnified by our duality of feeling.
"Peter, this is how it feels for you?" Elizabeth rubs against me and sucks in a breath as the sensation rips through both of us.
I feel her readiness for me build, just as my hardness intensifies until it becomes almost painful.
"Now!" we say at the same time. Both of us gasp as I enter her.
She resides inside every molecule of my being as I do in hers. We press against each other, move in perfect rhythm to each other's needs, stroke and buck and slow and speed up again in unison, roaring at the same time, growling in tandem, scratching, biting, all thought gone, lungs pumping for air, hearts racing-everything, every sense strained to the point just past ecstasy until we reach one, last great explosion of feelings, senses, movements-together, truly united as one.
Afterward, we lie smiling, her head next to mine-our tails, our legs entwined, our breaths mixed. I allow myself to feel her satisfaction, the pleasant aches that run through her from our exertions. She stretches and arches her back and I feel the lazy pleasure of her movement… and something else.
The faintest sign of a heartbeat, a tiny glimpse of an unformed thought.
"Our son, Peter," Elizabeth says. "Your child growing inside me."
We doze off together, the cool evening wind blowing through our window, prompting us to press closer together. Elizabeth's dreams intermix with mine. Images of her valley overlay memories of my island. Her family's faces float in and out with images of my mother and father and her/my memories come and go of oceans, hunts, laughter, love and flying.
Elizabeth nudges me awake shortly before dawn. Already I can sense the distance starting to return between us. I pull her close, as if that act could stop the inevitable separation her mother promised us the morning would bring.
"Peter," Elizabeth says. "We were dreaming such nice things together and then, then something you dreamed scared me."
"What was it?"
"I'm not sure… I can't quite remember. But it was something… someone, who bothered you, threatened us."
"And?" I ask, stroking her.
"I'm not sure. I can't picture any image. I don't know why we felt threatened but I remember you wanted to protect me."
"Of course," I say.
"There was something else but… I don't know." She shrugs, turns quiet, snuggles against me and I listen to her breathing slow, let mine slow in tandem with hers.
Just before we both escape into sleep again, she half awakens, turns in my arms and murmurs, "Peter, who is Jorge Santos?"
Chapter 14
"Why don't you just kill him?" Elizabeth says, when she feels me stir next to her in the morning.
Her words jar me from that state of half-sleep, that warm dreamy place our minds occupy when we first resist the necessity of awakening. I stretch and yawn and try to delay answering-Jorge Santos an unwelcome presence in my thoughts.
I would prefer that Elizabeth half doze beside me, but she turns over and says, "Why don't you?"
The last vestige of sleep escapes me. I sigh. "Jorge Santos is simply a human who doesn't know when to stop pestering me. When we get back to Miami, I'll meet with him, answer a few of his stupid questions and send him on his way. That will be the end of it."
"I don't understand," she says. "You say he's only a human. Why bother with him at all?"
Why indeed? I think. One simple phone call to Arturo would ensure the man's rapid disappearance and demise. But what I can't tell Elizabeth is that I possess no appetite to eliminate Maria's brother.
Had the girl just been prey, had Maria been as anonymous to me as the hundreds of others I've killed over the years, I would give her and her brother no thought. But she had laughed in my arms and I had resolved to let her live and then I had failed her. If Jorge Santos is stupid enough to trespass on my property and Arturo kills him-so be it. Otherwise, the least I can do for the girl is to meet with her brother, steer him away from me.
"We'll see what happens," I say. "If he continues to be an irritant after the meeting-then I'll follow your advice."
I'm anxious to leave, to be on the way home. I want to walk the corridors of my house again, sleep in my own bed with my new bride beside me. I miss the sea breeze, the ocean's constant song outside my windows. I ache to cruise Biscayne Bay in my Grady White, show Elizabeth the dolphins racing alongside our bow. But when she asks me to stay another day-so she can spend some last moments with her sister and mother-I have no heart to refuse.
Her father finds me on his veranda in the late afternoon, warming myself in the rays of the waning sun. Charles Blood has retained his natural state while I've changed into my human form. The elder dragon towers over me. "Lost track of your wife already, have you?" he asks.
"She's upstairs with her sister." I smile, knowing Charles has to be perfectly cognizant of my ability to sense where Elizabeth is at all times. Though the image is, at best, obscure, I picture her upstairs with Chloe, both of them in their human states. Both I guess giggling and whispering, talking of her future.