copyright 2005-2006
There was a knock at her door the next morning and she opened it to find a floral delivery of tangerine colored roses, a full dozen with dark green leaves and white baby’s breath.
After signing, she read the card.
Thank you for last night. I’ll pick you up at seven.
A blush crawled over her skin as she remembered the feel of him against her. She didn’t know which feeling was stronger… excitement at seeing him again or nervous at seeing him again.
***
After tearing through her closet she settled on an asymmetrical short black skirt, that went no longer than her knees at the longest point, and a pale pink colored silk blouse, similar to the one she had worn the night before but an extra button undone. Lacy black thigh highs and strappy heels completed her outfit. Her long hair was loose and flowing, sides clipped back except for a strand that refused to stay back. Just a touch of colored gloss to her lips and she was ready when he arrived. Her long, black leather coat was over her arm for when it got cold later.
Grumbles met him at the door, watching him. For a long moment they stared at each other. Finally, his eyes moved to Dairine.
“You look beautiful,” he said, trying to swallow the lump in his throat.
“Thank you,” she tried not to blush. “You look great.”
His thick red sweater hugged his chest so nicely she almost couldn’t stand it. He wore black dress slacks, his black hair looked so temptingly shiny she wanted to reach out and touch it.
Finally he held out his hand to her and she took it, turning off the light. She spoke to Grumbles in a language he didn’t know, shut the door, locked it, and they left.
“Do you like Thai?” he asked. She nodded. “Good. If you don’t, though, there are a bunch of other places, so you tell me.”
“Thai is good.” She smiled up at him and he felt his heart skip.
Surely not. This woman was so familiar, so warm to him, so alluring. It was more than lust. Lust didn’t make your magicks mingle and bind. He had dated other supernatural women. Nothing was like this one.
“What did you say to Grumbles?” he asked.
“I speak to her in Fae a lot of the time. I trained her in it. I told her I’d be back in a while.”
“Is she okay with you going with me?” he pushed the elevator down button.
“I think so,” she smiled up at him.
His eyes lingered on her and she felt the trickle of power slipping around her. With a wicked smile she stepped up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, making sure her lips tickled it, “You shouldn’t do that in public.”
The effect was perfect and he suddenly pulled her against him, chuckling as he buried his face in her hair. The elevator opened and laughing, they got on.
“That was cute,” he said.
She smiled shyly.
“Won’t you be cold?” she asked, noting he had no jacket.
“I’m rarely cold,” he replied. “Too much heat in the blood.”
Dairine let the comment slide by, biting her tongue. The elevator stopped and someone else got on, a large man that took up a fair amount of space. She stepped closer to Mal and he pulled her against him tightly.
Mal was dying to kiss her. But not with this stranger on the elevator, because he knew it would get out of hand quickly. As soon as she opened her power to him he would be lost and while he would love to get her out of that silk blouse, not in front of her neighbor.
They finally reached the bottom and walked outside. Mal took her hand but hissed in pain and pulled it back.
“What?” she turned in alarm.
“Are you wearing silver rings?” he asked. She looked down.
“Oh no,” Removing the silver ring with its moonstone she slid it on her right hand, leaving her left hand naked. “Sorry, didn’t think about that.”
“It’s ok, it was just a sting,” he took her hand eagerly now as he led her to his car.
It was a sleek and shiny and black, but she didn’t look closely at it as he held the door for her to get in, and waited to shut it. As he walked around to his side she looked around. The interior was all leather, a dark gray, and the windows were almost fully black. The car was loaded with what she had always referred to as frou-frou extras, separate climate controls and such.
Fastening her seatbelt she looked at him closely when he got in.
“What did you say you did for a living?” she asked.
“I didn’t. I’m an entrepreneur,” his smile was vaguely uneasy.
“You’re not into anything illegal are you?” she asked.
“No. Not at all.” He wasn’t lying, she could tell that much.
Lightly, her fingertips touched the glass, feeling.
“These are bulletproof windows,” she turned to him, wide eyed. “Exactly what kind of an entrepreneur are you?”
Mal sighed. “I promise you it’s nothing illegal but it’s not really supposed to be discussed. And I really don’t want to discuss it on our first date.”
Dairine’s eyes narrowed. “Do you transport vampires?”
He laughed. “No. I told you it wasn’t illegal. I have very little association with vampires.”
“But you have enemies. With lots of firepower.”
“Yes.” He reached over and took her hand. “Look, I promise you, I am not involved with any illegal or immoral. And I’ll explain it all after dinner, if you aren’t ready to just run.”
Her blue eyes burned into him. “All right.”
“Good. Now, relax, please,” he smiled and she felt her tension slip away as she settled into the comfortable seat.
The restaurant wasn’t the usual small hole in the wall places she frequented, but an upscale full service restaurant. And it was full of Shifters. Uneasy, she moved closer to him as soon as they walked in.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a low voice as they were being led to their table.
“Everyone in here is a lycanthrope,” she hissed. Dairine was very aware of more than a few staring at her with interest. She hoped not as food.
“Well, yes. Should I have warned you?” he asked, holding her chair for her.
“I don’t like feeling like an appetizer,” she murmured. Smiling, he took her hand as he sat across the small table.
“They won’t hurt you,” he said gently. “They’re just surprised to see me accompanied.”
“You come here often?” she asked, squeezing his hand.
“Fair amount,” there was the smile again, the one that said he didn’t want to reveal too much. Why was he hiding so much? But it wasn’t really a fair question. She was playing her cards close to the vest as well.
As they sat waiting for their food, sipping wine, Mal broached the subject of her family.
“Are they nearby?” he asked.
Shaking her head, the sadness that crept into her eyes bothered Mal.
“No. They divorced when I was young. Mother didn’t feel father’s lifestyle as a free wheeling Faerie was suitable to raise me, and he didn’t think her sacrificial witch life was either. The Fae courts put me with my grandmother who was Fae, and she raised me. My father roams the world, I hear from him once a year, on my birthday. He’s had a new family since I was about seven. Mother doesn’t approve of me using my talents for money; she thinks I should have gone to college to become an accountant or something. So we don’t talk much either.”
“Your grandmother?” he asked. He was aware of the waiters moving around them, the soft music, and the way the light glowed off of her red hair.
“She passed on four yeas ago.”
“Siblings?”
“None. Thankfully my parents realized that if they couldn’t agree on how to raise one, they shouldn’t have more. I grew up with most of my Faerie cousins, because they all converged at Grams’ house on the weekends. But since I’m only half Fae, they usually won the games and contests. They think it’s a riot I’m a well known Seer now.”
“Why didn’t you go to college?” he asked. She shrugged.
“I tried. I dropped out after the first semester. I hated being confined in a room learning about boring things. When I realized I could freelance as a Seer and make decent money, I took that option. Then Bernie came along to form the Agency, and I took the offer. Now I’m booked almost all day long.”
“How did you hone your skills?” he was drinking in her loveliness, the way her silver necklace glowed against the pale skin, the shimmery eyes that never stayed put, the dip of cleavage he could just barely make out.
“Just practicing. I had a mentor in Colorado for a few years that really helped me get it together. He’s probably the most powerful Fae alive today, and he hides out in the canyons. He doesn’t trust humans, or anyone for that matter. If you can find him, he’ll teach you. I managed to find him.”
“Amazing,” he ran his fingers over her soft hand, only the left, since the silver ring was on the right hand. “How did you find him?”
“Sheer luck truthfully,” she laughed, not meeting his gaze. If she looked into those intense eyes or thought too much about his hand playing with hers she would tackle him to the ground and rip his clothes off. Every time he moved his fingers over her hand, an ever so light zap of electricity followed “He had ventured down to the town for a few supplies. Of course I sensed him and I gave him a good chase through the streets.”
“You chased an old man?” he asked, surprised. She shook her head.
“He’s over a hundred but he looks no more than thirty. Faeries age much differently than humans. He’s still considered young.” No need to mention they had been engaged briefly, having fallen in love while teaching her to fine tune her gifts.
“So what are you considered?” he asked. She shrugged.
“Abnormal, because I’m only half Fae. So far, it appears I age like most normal humans, maybe slightly slower.”
“I guessed you to be about twenty five.”
Dairine smiled.
“Close. I’m twenty nine.”
“Thirty two,” he replied.
Dairine sipped her wine and their food arrived. He had to be a regular, he had ordered his ‘usual’.
As they ate and talked, she learned he had grown up here in Nashville, the oldest of seven children. Family holidays were a noisy affair, as several siblings were married, with children. His human mother ruled the family, easily, keeping all seven children in line. All four brothers were about his size, but their personalities couldn’t have been different. One sister was away in college in Washington State, the other attended a local high school.
His father had been killed in a battle over land when Mal was ten. Werewolves hadn’t been readily accepted into society at that point and a bigot deputy tried to say they didn’t own the land, even though it had been in the family since the early 1800s, and Mal’s father had the documents to prove it. Silver bullets had ended the argument, the deputy swearing he had taken the big man-wolf form, and attacked him. No matter that it hadn’t been a full moon and his father was a passive man, the defense held in court.
Dairine refused dessert to Mal’s knowing smile. He had sensed her weakness for sugar, but she was doing so well on her diet.
They walked along the sidewalk to the car, holding hands but not really saying much. Once they were back in the car, she looked at him expectedly.
“What?” he asked.
“You said you’d explain everything after dinner,” she said sweetly. He laughed.
“How about I show you?” he asked. She raised one eyebrow. “Nothing like that, I assure you.”
“All right.”
He drove them to a tall building in downtown, the side of Nashville that was all country music record labels and corporations.
The drove into the parking garage of a towering glass building A few lights were on here and there, scattered on various floors. The guards acknowledged them and let them through.
“They’re Shifters too,” she murmured.
“Most of my employees are,” he replied casually.
They rode the glass elevator up the tenth floor, but she noticed the upper floors weren’t open offices like most of them. They were solid doors and windows.
“You conducting experiments?” she teased. He hesitated just a second before shaking his head but she began to wonder.
Walking past an empty desk, she saw his name in bold letters on a solid oak door. He opened it for her.
“My office,” he smiled. Stepping in, she looked around. There were various plaques and awards on the walls, thick leather bound books. It looked like an ordinary office but she could hear the whispers, feel the power.
“You know you have company in here,” she said. He nodded.
“Chimera,” he replied. She knew Chimera; a Fae-related spirit known for wisdom.
Walking to the window, she looked out for a moment over the city before she turned to him.
“This building is full of magick. Some of the floors are solid walls and doors as opposed to glass. You’re hiding something here, something you don’t want to be found easily. I have a feeling if I tried to get to one of those floors, the elevator wouldn’t stop.”
“You’re correct.”
“But you said it was nothing illegal.”
“It’s not,” he was smiling, very irritating, she thought.
“So why all the ambiguity?” she asked. He held out his hand.
“Let me kiss you once and I’ll show you.”
Dairine laughed as he stepped up to her, encircling his arms around her waist and coming to rest on her backside. Their powers crackled as they began to mingle and she felt the almost familiar onset of dizziness as their lips met and he crushed her into his chest, lifting her off the ground.
“You said one kiss,” she breathed as his lips moved to her cheek and started towards her neck.
“One prolonged kiss,” his voice was muffled as he nuzzled her neck, breathing her in. Giggling she pushed him back.
“Show me, please.”
“Yes ma’am,” he sighed, setting her down.
“It’s kind of unnerving you lifted me so easily,” she said thoughtfully. At six feet tall, two hundred pounds, she wasn’t a small girl.
“I’m a werewolf.” he breathed in her ear as a reminder and she felt her knees go weak. “In my human form I can bench press almost four hundred pounds.”
“Show me,” she murmured.
“You want me to shift?” he asked in feigned amusement. She tried to glare at him but those deep blue eyes were too mesmerizing.
“C’mon,” he laughed.
The elevator went down when he opened a panel in the wall and pushed a button, then laid his hand over it.
The doors slid open and he escorted her out. The guard on duty glanced up.
“Good evening sir.”
“Good evening Thomas. This young lady here is curious as to what we do.”
“Very good sir,” Thomas stepped aside and Mal followed him through the doors.
“He’s a werewolf too,” she murmured.
Mal nodded an affirmation. There was a set of steel doors that opened when Mal waved his hand in front of him.
“You’re a Jedi too?” she teased. He half smiled.
“No. I was one of the ones who created that door. Only three of us can open it that way.”
They entered a hallway and walked, passing only four doors. At the end of the hallway was another door that opened for Mal. Dairine hesitated only a moment before following him.