He tried to reach her again and hit the same wall. He opened his phone to see if she left a phone number from however she had called him and realized that she had used a landline to call him from. And if his memory was correct, she had used the one in this room to leave him the message.
“Damn it!” Before he threw the phone across the room he set it gently on the bedside table and got up to pace, trying to remember what he might have done.
They had had sex, but that couldn’t be it—unless he had hurt her. He didn’t think he had, but if he had, then she should have said something to him, not run away. But he didn’t think that was it. Rubbing his hand over his face, he tried to think. They hadn’t said anything before going to bed. He realized he was grinning and tried to stop it, but found he could not. They had been animals for each other. Sobering, he realized that this was not helping him figure out why she had left without as much as a goodbye.
Well, he thought, that wasn’t true either; she had left him a message. “Thanks for the good time” message. He got mad all over again, showered, and got dressed.
Maybe Duncan or one of the others in the household had seen her and knew where she had gone. He just hoped he didn’t see the master of the house on his way out. Maybe he should just leave and not ask.
Walking into the kitchen, he knew he should have taken his own advice and left the moment he saw them all in the kitchen. It did not improve his mood, nor curb his tongue, when he noticed that they were smiling and seemingly having a good time.
“Where is she? Tess, where is she?” he demanded as he opened the door.
Aaron merely raised a brow, but Sara got mad and while she did not yell, her voice
conveyed her anger as nothing else might have. “People do not growl in my house, especially guests. You want something, you ask politely or not at all. Now, you walk out that door and come back in and be nice about it.”
He stared at her for a few seconds then turned around to go back out. He was leaving and there was not a damned thing these people could do about it. Sara’s next statement whispering through his mind had him stopping in his tracks.
“You leave this house like this and I will hunt you down, castrate you, serve up your dick with your mashed balls on a platter, and make you eat it. I’m in no mood to fuck with you today so I would suggest you gird up your manhood and do what I told you. If you don’t believe I have it in me to do just what I said, then try me.”
Closing his eyes, he turned back around, stepped into the kitchen, and smiled. It might not have reached his eyes, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. “Good morning. I was wondering if anyone might have noticed where Tess might have disappeared to this
morning. I’m not positive when she left, but it would have been sometime after two this morning.”
“Much better, not perfect, but we’ll work on your delivery later. She wasn’t here when I got up at four so I think your timeline is correct. Did she leave angry?”
Nathaniel sat down and looked over at Aaron. He knew he was going to regret this, but the look on his face was more than he could bear. “What?”
“I thought you weren’t going to mate with her. Her scent is all over you, by the way. I don’t believe you bonded, but you should be able to find her without blood. She does have yours. If she is half as angry as you are, this might prove to be fun.”
“She’s blocking me. And I have no intent…ah fuck! I told her that. I told her that we
weren’t going to bond, that the sex would be enough until I left again. Shit! No wonder she left without a word. Damn it. What the fuck else could go wrong?”
The giggling children had him flush with embarrassment. He had forgotten about them and looked over at Sara. If he was honest with himself, he was more afraid of her than her mate. She just looked like she could take him on and win. And he did not trust her smile right now.
“I’m sorry, mistress. I’m not…it’s been a very long time since I’ve been around civilized people and longer still since I’ve been around children. The men I work with, well, we don’t exactly get invited to many tea parties in our line of work. I’m not even sure that most of them would know a tea cup anyway. Forgive me.”
“No, I don’t imagine you do. The children have heard that particular word a time or two before, haven’t they, Aaron love?”
The large vamp, master of his own realm, overlord to several thousand vamps, dropped his head and nodded. Nathaniel was not sure, but he thought he might have seen a hint of a smile on his face before he lifted his head up again and winked at the children.
Nathaniel was sure this was the strangest house he had ever been in and also the most
loving. He was suddenly glad that he had taken Aaron up on his “suggestion” to come stay at the mansion. He really had not been around anyone that did not drop the “F” bomb every other word and quite a few more just as colorful.
“Master Nathaniel, if you do not mind my buttering in, but did Lord Phillip not mention that she was a Black Knight? I’m sure they have their little get-togethers somewhere, and that someone would know where they are. I could ask Miss Mel. She may have a YPM to find those type of meetings.”
Nathaniel looked at Sara and then at Aaron; confusion marred both their faces. Buttering in?
YPM? He was about to ask Duncan what he meant by YPM when Lizzy spoke up.
“Mr. Duncan, it’s GPS not YPM. Remember? Aunt Pete told you that last week when she
tried to show you how to use it in the car.”
“How did that go, the teaching, Lizzy?” Sara asked. Nathaniel looked up at her sharply and noticed she was nearly cross-eyed trying not to laugh. He wondered if this was a normal thing, Mr. Duncan messing up a phrase. Then Nathaniel remembered that Duncan had told him that the lair was specially booted to keep others out.
“He’s hopeless, she said. She said that he is the only man she had ever met that could get lost in the garage walking from one car to the next. I think I know why he called it YPM, though.
She told him that she put the GPS in his car to help him with ‘your puny memory.’ She kept saying that over and over to him. I thought it was funny, but Aunt Pete said that Mr. Duncan had a handicap. I asked her what that meant and she said never mind.”
“She most certainly did not say I had a puny anything, young lady. She said it was to help me with my negative sense of direction. I like that so much better than puny memory. Miss Pete said that I was her favorite trainee.”
“Yeah, but Mr. Duncan, you’re her only trainee, aren’t you?” Mac asked with all
seriousness.
“Yes, I am, so that does make me her favorite, does it not? Would you like another scone, Lady Sara? I believe Miss Penny has some fresh ones in the pantry for you.”
Aaron was fighting his mirth; Nathaniel could see it, but Sara was nearly falling off her chair with laughter. The children just continued to eat their breakfast as though nothing at all was wrong with their parents.
Yeah, Nathaniel thought, the strangest household he had ever been in.
~~~
“Give! I give. Please, no more. I give, my lady.”
Tess was breathing hard; sweat poured from her body in wide streams. Pushing her soaked hair out of her eyes, she looked down at the man on the ground and the blood on his tunic—lots of blood. She started to reach for him and he scrambled away from her on his knees. She took a step back then another and backed into her second in arms, Albadar.
“You keep this up and you’ll kill them, wear them all out to the point of uselessness, or terrify them so much they land on a sword to keep from disappointing you. This is the fourth man you’ve taken down today. How about you give me a go?”
His sword was suddenly in front of him. Before she could raise hers, he swiped at her
quickly, slicing a long mar along her bicep. He did not break the skin, but the red scratch was there for all to see.
“You too tired to fight someone with better skills or are you too frightened of my
superiority?” He swiped again, but this time, she was ready. His blade met with steel, not skin.
“No, not tired. I figured that I’m just about ready for you now. The others have taken the edge off and I won’t hurt you so badly now that some of my energy has dissipated.” Her blade whistled through the air and landed on his arm just where he had scratched her, but she drew blood. “First blood, you owe me a boon.”
“The only one you’ll get this day, master. The only one.”
For the next hour and a half, they fought. Not a soul on the field did anything but marvel at the pair as they fought and bantered. Blade against blade, matched perfectly when one of them was not trying to fight a demon within, but anger fueled Tess and time and time again she bit into Albadar’s skin with her sword. Their insults and laughter fought hard to be heard over the clanging of steel hitting steel.
Albadar managed to draw second blood, but he never got close enough again to lay his
sword against her skin. Several times she nearly went too deep with her blade, but he never called “give,” the word they used to stop when it became too much or one was too exhausted to go on. She, however, managed to cut him eight more times before they were called to halt by the arrival of Athropos, one of the Fates.
“Mistress, if you could give us but a few minutes, we’ll get cleaned up and meet you in the dining hall. I’m sure this one has built up quite the appetite. She has managed to take down four of her own men today without so much as an apple to fortify her.” Albadar playfully punched at Tess’s chin and grinned.
“Yes. My sisters are on their way and this will give them time to get here. Take your time, you know how they are, always late for everything.”
“Thank you, we won’t be long.” Tess started to turn away, but Athropos stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“You’ve met your match. Good. That will make things so much easier for you from now on.
I’m happy for you, Tess.”
Tess did not understand the statement, but it mattered little anyway. So she pulled loose, started walking backwards away from her and answered. “He said he doesn’t want me. He’ll be going back to Virginia soon and I was just someone to fuck. I have to get cleaned up; I’ll meet you in the house in a few.” Turning around, she had to keep herself from running as fast as she could away from her.
Tess got to her house without anyone stopping her. She was pretty sure that word had gotten around that she was quite mad, what with her taking down four of her own men and the manic way she had been doing things this past week. Laughing slightly, she thought maybe she was.
She was angry with herself for letting Nathaniel’s rejection of her color her ability to do her job. More so because she did not know why it bothered her that he had. She did not want or need a mate any more than he did, obviously. She did all right on her own. But he had rejected her and it did hurt. Turning off the water, she started to get dressed and was stunned by what she saw in the mirror.
Tess doubted there was one square inch of her body that was not covered in a bruise or cut.
Christ! She looked like a Jackson Pollack painting, bright colors of red and blue here, darker browns and blacks there in between the bright white of unmarred skin. Even the sigils on her arm were unnoticeable due to the massive bruise on her shoulder.
Pulling on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt to cover most of the marks, she left her house and made her way to the large dining house, plaiting her hair into a tight braid as she went.
The main hall was a massive room filled with table after table, each with twelve chairs around it. There were currently over three hundred men and women under her command and she made it a point to make sure they all ate at least one meal together when they could. Dinner was this week, so when she walked in every solider stood and saluted her with their blades. Nodding, she walked to the back of the line to get her meal.
The Sisters and Albadar were already at one table and they had saved a seat for her across from them. She picked up her sandwich and bit down into the veggie sub. She did not eat meat often and preferred chicken to anything else. With her mouth full, she looked at Lachesis and grinned. “Hungry.”
“So I see. Albadar tells me you’ve been working rather hard at something. Or are you
working hard to understand something? Want to talk about it?”
“No. And stay out of my head. You came here for a reason, and I’m sure it wasn’t for the special. Spill it.”
“Always straight to the point, aren’t you? All right. First, we need to talk about Nathaniel,”
Clotho demanded.
“No and hell no. Next topic. And if you bring him up again, I’m out of here. I have more important things to do than talk about a vampire and what he may or may not be to me. Frankly, I think it’s a moot point, so let’s move on, shall we? You said there was an issue coming up we may have to deal with. Do you have any more information about that?”
“Albadar, could you be a dear and go away? We need to talk with Tess about something and if you are sitting too close she may hurt you again. You know how she can be when she gets pissy.”
“Very funny, Athropos. You should have gone into show business. And I do not get pissy. I get pissed. Big difference. If you ladies are quite through, I have things to do.” She stood to go.
“Sit down.” The command in her voice made it so that Tess could do nothing but obey
Athropos. She sat.
The Sisters Three as a whole was who Tess worked for. But Athropos was the one who
actually commanded her. She had been the one to touch Tess’s arm and burn the sigil into her skin. She was also the only one who could remove it.
Tess had been recruited to command the Black Knights, an elite group of immortal men and women who guarded the realm and had been doing so since magic had first started being used by outsiders of the magical realm. She had agreed to lead the men rather than merely train them as she had been “recruited” to do from the start, gaining their respect as well as their loyalty. Any one of them would die for her, and she for them.