Archon's Queen (55 page)

James muttered about her for a short while, amused by the lengths to which the SIS had to go in order to keep the debutante princess’s post-adolescent wild streak out of the tabloids. As they ate, he worked his way through the conversation and onto the topic of Annabelle Morgan. She felt safe with him, not caring he pried into her life. She held no part of her past from this man; the more she smiled at him, the more he felt like the protector she had always wanted.

“I feel safe with you, James.”

He sipped from his glass, gazing out over the water. “You shouldn’t need a protector. Most of those who have taken advantage of you should have needed protection from you. You are a very capable woman.”

She swirled her drink, lost in the twisted reflection of trees upon the merlot. “I never enjoyed hurting people. I always got it. Even as a little girl, they’d all give me hell for having white hair.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“They called me Ghosty. Everyone thought I was some kind of monster.”
Even my… non-Dad.
Anna took a long sip, thinking about the man for whom she had borne so much guilt over killing. Why had he always seemed so sad after hitting her?

“No Anna… That is your power. Think of it like a fern too big for its pot. You have got quite a lot of energy, and your head is only so big. You were born Awakened; certain oddities are included with that. Quirks like Lauren’s eyes and skin, or the way you burn things out when you get excited.”

“Can you make it stop? NetMinis get expensive after a dozen.”

His fingers traced over the back of her hand where she leaned. “I was not born with the full extent of my power. I found a way to unlock it. If that is possible, perhaps there is a way to make adjustments. I would want to be careful, however. It would not be worth it to lose your gift. A NetMini here or there can be replaced, you are too precious to risk hurting.”

A bird glided along inches above the surface of the lake, striking at an unseen meal before returning to the trees with a small fish in its talons. Anna glanced down, studying the hand touching hers.

“It’s so peaceful here, James. I’m almost afraid our being here will ruin it.”

He stared at ripples where wind touched the water. “Perhaps. I wanted to offer you the chance to unwind before the storm.”

She leaned up and kissed him, a quick smooch on the lips. Jumping back, she smiled at the astonishment in his eyes, and did it again, longer the second time. He gave in, embracing her with a kiss that rolled onto the ground.

Breath fogged in the air as she ran her hands over his shirt; he seemed hesitant to surrender control of the moment. She kissed over his cheek to his neck. His arm tightened across her back as her warm breath flooded his ear.

“I love you, James.”

She surrendered to the hands that worked her clothes away as she continued to kiss him. Cold air washed over the absence of cloth as she reclined with a grin. He shrugged off his coat and shoes, and threw his necktie to the side with a sly grin. Biting her lower lip, she sat up and helped undo his belt. James leaned forward, lowering himself on top of her. His scent enveloped her; she closed her eyes, reveling in the warmth of his body against her as they embraced. He kissed her breast before his lips glided up to her neck where he kissed her again. The scratch of his goatee upon her skin sent shudders through her legs, intensified by the feeling of the rough tartan blanket scraping her writhing body.

He stared at her with an expression as if lost in a dream. “Are you certain this is what you want?”

Anna pushed and rolled on top of him, her eyes brimming with adoration. She stared down at the face surrounded by a fan of chestnut hair in the grass. His hands slid down her sides, caressing her hips. Anna scarcely noticed the puffs of mist their breaths made, or the frigid air across her back.

“I am,” she said with a breathless rasp.

His grin held a touch of imperiousness as he rolled again so he was above her. She squealed, arching her back, paralyzed by the unexpected caress of frosty dew-laden grass. Their fingers interlaced, palm to palm and he pushed her hands apart to the ground on either side of her head. Her effort to get away from the soaked green only tightened their entwined bodies.

She was his.

Anna gazed at magnificent white clouds floating in an ocean of endless blue. She cried at the sight; until that moment, whenever she had looked up, the sky had always been grey.

Trembling, she moaned in a voice half shout and half whimper as they moved as one.

A few feet to the right, the holoprojector in the picnic case died a brilliant sparking death―not that either of them noticed.

Giving herself in to bliss, she
made love
for the first time in her life.

Amid a strewn mass of clothes and picnic supplies, they cuddled together wrapped in the tartan. She couldn’t get rid of the silly grin while staring at the dark spot on his nose and his fluffed up hair.

“I rather fail to see the humor,” he said.

He set about fussing with it to make it sit down; when it continued to frizz back up, he squinted at her.

“You are doing that on purpose.”

She bit her lip and acted innocent until he shook his head with a faint chuckle. She snuggled against him, and relaxed the mild current so he could set his hair back to rights.

Anna put a hand over her face, rubbing a sore spot. “The nose to nose bit
was
an accident. Remember when you asked if it ran away with positive emotions?”

He stopped combing with his hands. “I say, having a romp with you is quite an electrifying experience. Perhaps wet grass was a poor choice of scenery.”

“Puns, James?” She sat up. “I thought you were an intellectual?”

He stretched past her to retrieve the wine and glasses. “I am, but we are on holiday.”

nna’s eyes popped open at the urging of a bladder full to the point of pain. The woozy head of wine passed away into a dull sense of discomfort. Between James and the blankets, she found it quite difficult to summon up the willpower necessary to make the horrible trek outside to the privy.

Country dark was a new experience. For a few seconds after she awoke, she couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed; it didn’t make any difference. Snuggling into his warmth, she attempted to go back to sleep, but the need nagged at the recesses of her mind until she sat up with a growl.

After running all day, the heater had taken the fangs out of the chill inside the cabin. The cold had lost much of its paralytic nature, but still stunned a gasp out of her as the blankets slid away. She stepped on her boot while attempting to get up, and tripped into the wall, collapsing on all fours.

“Sorry James,” she whispered.

To her surprise, he had not broken out of sleep. A short crawl left resulted in her head smacking into something hard. She cringed into a ball and muttered swear words into her knees. Her hands felt around at the floor in a search for some piece of identifiable clothing. When it became too uncomfortable to continue bending forward, she made an electrical arc between her fingers for light. In the flickering blue, she grabbed his shirt and stuck her feet bare into her boots. The shiver that came with the cold imitation leather against her legs almost made a walk outside needless.

Anna held the spark out as she snuck out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her so as not to disturb James. His shirt tickled at her thighs as she tiptoed past Aurora’s door to the rear exit. The night air wrapped her legs with a chill so intense it came on as a blanket of biting needles. Her teeth chattered two steps along the footpath, beneath the shifting blues of lightning-lit trees. For a second, she debated letting fly on the grass by the door, but shame won out.

The outhouse opened with a low drawn out
creak
, leaving her face to face with her nemesis―the frozen toilet seat. Edging into the tiny space, she pulled and latched the door.

“Dammit, Lauren. Why did you keep feeding me tea last night?”

She put an arm through her mouth, hiked up the shirt, and sat. The muffled shriek from contact with something so cold did not carry too far. Relief came at the absence of discomfort, and she sagged forward. The moment of elation ended with a sudden strange feeling. Indistinct amber light wobbled about outside, the sense of it masked by the wall. Anna braced her hands on the cold wood, searching the perfect darkness. When she caught a glimpse of it again, she focused, and her mind created the image of a ten-inch sphere outside.

An orb?
She froze.
Oh, James! They found us.

She eased herself upright, pressing down on the seat to keep it from making noise. Cold air biting at her legs added to the unknown threat outside, and left her unable to stop shivering.

Through a tiny crescent moon hole, blinking red lights floated amid the black, stopped, and swiveled to face her. Scant moonlight gleamed on the barrel of a gun extending forward like the proboscis of a rabbit-sized mosquito. Her eyes flared. She scrambled electricity within it, and the orb glimmered, encased in a lattice of sparks and smoke. It flew about in a sped up impression of a moon orbiting nothing as it went haywire, spinning about for several seconds before it plowed into the ground and exploded.