“Hi Andy,” Brody said.
“Do you want to let us in?”
“Andy,” Taylor said. “Shut your mouth.”
Andy shut it with a snap.
* * * * *
Brody was still sitting at the tiny breakfast bar when Taylor emerged into the main room, twenty minutes later.
“Andy’s asleep.
He’s exhausted, I imagine.”
Brody pushed the spare apartment key he had been playing with back next to the sugar bowl.
“We’ll make sure he comes out of this okay.
No police hassles, that sort of stuff.
He was there for you in a major way.
He deserves a break.”
“I think he would define a break as landing a job.
No one can see past his heavy metal appearance, but he’s a good guy.”
“A job is definitely something we can arrange.”
Brody grinned.
“Figure he’d like doing something for the band?”
Taylor grinned back.
“He’d think he’s died and gone to heaven.
That would be perfect.”
Brody stood up.
He was a big guy, too.
It was just that when Veris was around, Brody’s size was diminished in comparison.
When it was just him in the room, his true height and the width of his shoulders became apparent.
He studied her with his dark eyes.
“Is there anything I can do to win you back, Taylor?
Is there anything that will undo the damage?”
“Oh, Brody, it’s not you who did the damage….”
“We’re a package deal.
You know that, or you wouldn’t be walking away from both of us.”
His chest lifted and fell. “But I’m not proud like Veris. I’m here to beg.” He shifted his stance and she knew he was lying. He was every bit as proud as Veris but he’d subsumed his pride for this, for Veris’ sake.
“How can you stand being with a man who talks about reparations for your own slavery, but casually speaks of the enslavement of others like it is his God-given right?”
“You know that was not his meaning.”
“It came out that way.”
Brody shook his head.
“Veris has been walking this earth since the fifth century.
That’s over sixteen hundred years.
The attitudes he grew up with have changed so profoundly.
He has changed with the times, but sometimes when it is very important to him, he reverts back to his old Viking self and all the old values emerge.
He can’t help it, Taylor.
He wants this too badly and he’s tripping over his own need.”
“You’re as old as he is.
You don’t have any problems with modern attitudes.”
He took a deep breath.
“I was the one who was enslaved, remember?
That teaches you a lot about adaptation, believe me.”
He shrugged.
“My father was a poet.
I think some of his ideas about love rubbed off.”
Frustration tore at her.
“But all I want is for him to
ask
me!
Why can’t he simply ask, instead of all this posturing and demanding?”
“How much more can a man do to make it clear he wants you in his life?” Brody shot back.
“He tracked you down when the queen took you, he risked her fury so he could bargain for your freedom.
It lets you come to us as an independent woman—”
“What are you talking about?” Taylor cried.
Brody studied her, his chest lifting.
He looked as puzzled as she felt.
“What did you think Veris was doing when he was negotiating with the queen for compensation?”
Taylor tried to get her breath back. “Buying me,” she whispered.
Brody’s jaw sagged. Understanding flooded his features. He shook his head. “Buying your independence,” he corrected. “That’s why he made sure it was the queen’s money, not ours.”
Taylor reached for the nearest chair and dropped into it.
Brody lowered himself to his knees in front of her and wrapped his hands around her waist.
“Taylor, come back to us,” he said, his voice low. “We had you for a day and you’ve been gone for nearly a week and we already know we can’t stand it without you. Veris is like a dog with a sore tooth and my chest aches all the time.”
Taylor bit her lip. “And the guarantee he gave the queen? In a decade or two, there would be no human left who knew of Domhnall?”
Brody nodded. “Stay with us and when you’re ready, in ten years or so, we’ll turn you, so that you can be with us forever.
We
turn you.
Not the queen.” He got to his feet, leaned down and kissed her. “I love you, Maggie Taylor Yates.
So does Veris, although right at this time he’d rather chew razor blades than admit it. I think my father’s poems were preserved this long just so we might find you. Don’t let his heritage go to waste.”
He dropped a business card on the table next to her. “Don’t lose it. There’s no other way to find us.”
He shut the door gently behind him, leaving her alone with the stiff white business card and her thoughts.
Two days later, a courier tapped on Taylor’s door and she signed for the simple business envelope, puzzled.
Andy was sitting at her kitchen table.
He had shown no inclination to go back to his apartment, and Taylor would never in a million years admit she was enjoying the company.
Andy helped her keep her thoughts off Veris and Brody.
Taylor returned to her cooling cup of tea and studied the envelope.
“Special mail.
They’re usually bad news,” Andy observed.
“They don’t have to be,” Taylor told him.
It was an ordinary business envelope with a window. The document inside had her name on it. Puzzled, she opened the sealed envelope and pulled out the document.
It was a check. A very large check in her name. She counted the figures. There were eight of them before she got to the decimal place. Then her hand started to tremble.
“This has to be a joke,” she said, and wasn’t surprised when her voice came out wobbly.
“Why?
What’s so funny?” Andy asked.
He took the check from her and looked at it.
“Some funny joke,” he said.
“It looks real to me.”
Taylor licked her lips.
“It is real,” she said, her voice bodiless.
Andy looked at the check again.
He gave a long, low whistle.
“Who writes checks like this?
For real?”
Taylor covered her face with her hands, trying to block out the sudden rush of memories – sense memories, images, even scent.
She could
taste
them…both of them.
It was almost like they were there in the room with her right now.
The yearning to actually be with them, this instant, was almost overpowering.
She moaned with the strength of her need.
“Oh man, you don’t mean…
Gallagher
gave you this?” Andy asked, his voice nearly a whisper of excitement.
“And Veris,” she said into her hands.
“The big guy?
That
Veris?
The Viking dude you told me about?”
Andy blew out his breath.
“They’re
that
loaded?
Shit, Taylor, you must be one hell of a lay.
‘scuse my language, but…”
She gave a tight laugh and sat up.
“They didn’t give me this money.
They arranged it.
Someone else is paying up.
The same people who killed Graham.
Brody and Veris…um…talked them into paying me for screwing up my career.”
“Good,” Andy said shortly.
“You deserve it.”
She stood up.
“I think you should go back to your apartment, Andy.”
His face fell.
“Jeez, have I hung around too long…?”
She shook her head.
“No, I’ve liked your company, Andy, but I have a feeling you’re about to get a phone call and you need to be home to take it.”
“A phone call about what?”
“A job.”
He smiled shyly.
“Did you do something…?”
“Brody and I talked.”
She gave him a smile.
“Go home, Andy.
I have things to do.”
She pulled the stiff white business card out from under the sugar bowl.
* * * * *
The Beverley Hills mansion rivaled anything that the Hollywood film stars could have dreamed up, including the security that greeted her at the Spanish wrought iron gates. Taylor got out of the taxi, clutching the coat around her throat and looked up at the big, armed guard nervously. “I’m not expected,” she said hesitantly. “My name is Taylor Yates and I’m—“
“You can go right in, Ms. Yates,” the guard said with a smile.
“Just like that?” she said.
“Just like that.” He opened the gate and held it for her. “Straight up the drive. I’ll let the house guard know you’re coming.”
She nodded, feeling winded and reassessed once more Brody’s unscheduled and unaccompanied visit to her lowly apartment. He had taken a huge risk.
When she pressed the doorbell buzzer, a maid answered the door, opened it wide for her and waved her in. “Come. Come,” she said with a heavy Spanish accent.
“I’m looking for—“
“Come,” the maid insisted, waving her on. Clearly, English wasn’t even close to a résumé entry for her. Taylor followed her as the maid hurried through the foyer into a room of staggering beauty. A library of books.
Books.
Taylor came to another astonished halt.
“Oh…”
Brody looked up from his sprawl on a sofa and his face lit up.
Veris turned around from examining the shelves and she saw him draw in a breath and let it out. He moved toward her very slowly, as if he was afraid he might startle her.
The door she had just stepped through shut softly. Taylor faced Veris, took a deep breath and dropped the coat at her feet. Beneath she wore black lace-topped stay-up stockings, red and black French lace thong panties and a matching shelf bra, Swarovski crystals in her belly button and clipped to her nipples. “Yes,” she told him.
She heard Brody’s breath catch but she was watching Veris’ face.
His response caught her by surprise even though she had deliberately baited him. Moving faster than human perception could follow, he came at her. She was swooped up in his arms, carried to the rug in front of the fireplace that crackled with a real fire and placed on her knees on the rug, facing the fire. His arms were around her and his fangs were out and piercing her neck, before she even realized what was happening.
Taylor fell back against him, as the erotically charged bite registered. She moaned in ecstasy, writhing in his arms. “Mine,” Veris growled against her neck.
“And mine,” Brody added, as he sank his fangs into her neck on the other side.
Taylor cried out as the double dose of aphrodisiac slammed into her system and she squirmed between them, her fingers raking across their bodies in a desperate bid to draw them into her. She was incoherent. Drugged with lust.
“Take me,” she moaned. “Make me yours.”
Veris’ fingers trembled as they wrenched the panties from her. He bent her over and she felt the cool touch of lubricant and deep wicked excitement shuddered through her. “Hurry,” she moaned.
His fingers pushed inside her, and gently stretched her, working the muscle. She closed her eyes. Even that simple touch was almost overwhelming. She was shuddering, her breathing uneven. Veris’ cock pushed against her anus and she pushed back. There was a flare of pressure, then the slick feeling of being opened as he slid into her. She gave a choked cry.
But it wasn’t finished yet. Veris was lifting her shoulders, bringing her up and Brody was stroking her pussy as he brought his cock up against her. She threw her arm around his neck. “Yes. Hurry.” She was starting to shake as her climax drew near.
His cock eased inside her. There was no way to hurry it. There was so little room in her channel. But at last he was deep inside her and she could feel the impending climax. There was no holding it back.
Veris turned her head and kissed her, even as her orgasm bloomed and her body clenched around them all. She screamed and they absorbed it into themselves, making it a part of them.
When she opened her eyes, they were elsewhere. A curtained bed with the curtain drawn closed.
Medieval, she judged.
There was a flickering candle beyond the curtain, and it was the only source of light.
She looked up at Veris, who watched her with cautious blue eyes, then at Brody, who held her, waiting for her to speak.
“And whose life was this?” she asked in a whisper.
They both relaxed and rained kisses on her face and whatever parts of her body they could reach. Her decadent lingerie and body jewelry had disappeared, for this was a memory of a time long gone. Brody and Veris lay her down in the bed and held her between them.
Veris stroked her brow. “You’re here to stay?” he asked and even she could hear the hope in his voice.
“Yes means yes, Veris,” she told him gently. “You bought my independence. I’ve run out of excuses to stay away.”
Brody stroked her stomach, making it twitch and spasm. “You shouldn’t be looking for excuses to stay away,
leannán
. You should be looking for reasons to stay.”
“I have reasons to stay,” Taylor admitted. She turned her gaze away from them. “They scare me.”
“Love scares you?” Brody asked, his voice a rumble.
Even hearing the word on his lips made her jump. She found her gaze dragging back to him. Brody was smiling.
“Veris and I made our peace with it a long time ago,” he explained. “It’s a tough old emotion, that one. You’ve a right to feel fear. Love gives no quarter and fights to the death.”
Veris touched her chin and brought her gaze to meet his. “But know this, Taylor. You’ll never be alone.
Never
. That’s a guarantee no human can ever give you. You’ll never be harmed while either of us walks this earth.”
“I love you,” she said. “Both of you, so much.” She felt tears sting her eyes. “What did I do to deserve you?”
Brody caught her tear as it slid from her eye and licked his fingertip. “You believed in fairytales, once upon a time.” he said. “And a poet called Domhnall.”