Reap the Wind (29 page)

“It’s a privacy issue—”

“A minute ago it was a security issue.”

“It is possible for it to be both!” he snapped.

I blinked.

“I’m starting to wish I had popcorn,” Marlowe murmured.

“You can leave,” Mircea informed him.

A dark eyebrow raised. “This is
my
office. You already threw me out of yours.”

“This really has you freaked out, doesn’t it?” I stared at Mircea in amazement. I’d been pissed, sure, when I thought he was tiptoeing through my head. But he didn’t look pissed. He looked almost . . . “What are you afraid of?” I asked, hardly believing I was saying the words.

“I am not afraid. I simply think—”

“Yes, you are. I’ve seen you fight a whole squadron of dark mages, and look like you were enjoying yourself. I saw you be
electrocuted
and not lose your cool. And now you’re freaking out because—”

“I am not ‘freaking out’!”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“I—I should go,” the small vamp whispered, edging toward the door. But Mircea grabbed him by the front of his natty brown vest.

“You. Tell me how to remove this!”

“But—but I already—that is to say—”

“If you utter that phrase one more time—”

“God does exist, and he loves me,” Marlowe said, bright-eyed.

“Tell me how!” Mircea roared.

“Mircea!” I said, appalled.

He shot me an exasperated look. “I am not threatening him, Cassie! He is a second-level master and under the protection of a senator. And he is expected to know his business—”

“I do know my business!” the man said, brushing himself down huffily when Mircea released him. “But as I explained—in some detail, I might add—no one knows much about seiðr. It isn’t used anymore. It’s too expensive, magically speaking. The gods found it useful to communicate with one another, even across different worlds. But for humans—well, a phone call is rather easier!”

“A phone call is also voluntary,” Mircea pointed out.

He really did not look happy.

And I suddenly felt stupidly hurt. Or maybe not so stupidly. I wasn’t sure. This was my first big romance—my first romance period, really, unless you counted one night with a friend to complete a spell and keep from dying, and I somehow didn’t think you were supposed to count that. But this . . . this was supposed to count.

I felt my face crumple.

And Mircea suddenly sighed and ran a hand over his own face.

“You manage to make me forget all my training,” he told me ruefully.

“You’re not supposed to need training with me,” I whispered. And I wasn’t crying, damn it. I wasn’t!

Mircea came over and pulled me against his chest, a strong hand in my hair. “I’m not good at relationships,” I told him, sounding muffled.

“I hate to tell you, but it doesn’t get any easier,” he told me back.

“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” Marlowe said, sighing, and headed for the door, taking the wide-eyed little vamp along with him.

“I’ll—I’ll look for a solution,” the vamp threw over his shoulder as he was hustled out.

“Do that,” Mircea said dryly.

“Don’t step on the rugs,” Marlowe said, and then they were gone.

“What happens if we step on the rugs?” I asked.

“Probably nothing.” Mircea sat in Marlowe’s vacated chair and pulled me onto his lap, maybe because there weren’t any others. “It’s a running joke.”

“What is? That his rugs will kill you?”

“That everything in here will kill you. Kit has a reputation for having truly vicious wards, to the point that anything new that appears in his office is automatically suspect. He began to notice that people avoided even stepping on his rugs. And he . . . found it amusing.”

“So he bought more of them?”

Mircea nodded. “I think he enjoys seeing everyone have to wind their way through them.”

“But . . . you still don’t step on them,” I pointed out.

“With Kit, it is always best to err on the side of caution.”

Great.

I let my head rest on his shoulder.

We just stayed like that for a while.

I had a ton of questions, and he probably did, too. And there were so many things we needed to talk about that I’d lost count. But I didn’t want to do that right now. I didn’t want to do anything. Except sit here like this, just like this, because how often did we get downtime anymore? How often did we get a chance to be just us, just Mircea and Cassie, instead of senator and Pythia? How often did we get a chance to be together at all?

I realized that I’d missed him this last week, or whatever it had been. With time travel, I never knew exactly how much time had passed anymore. But I knew I’d missed the sound of his voice, the feel of his hands, the way he had of immediately making things seem easy, simple, right. The feeling of comfort and security that enveloped me like a warm blanket whenever we were together. I’d missed this, I thought, as he kissed my neck.

And then bent me backward over the chair arm to kiss my breast instead.

Sharp fangs scraped across the nipple, not enough to hurt, just enough to let me know he could. It furled tight, tight under his tongue, and a shiver of anticipation ran through me. He bit down, hard enough to draw blood this time, and I felt the room revolve around me. Like I was already light-headed from blood loss when I wasn’t, when I couldn’t be, when I wasn’t even here.

But it felt real anyway, like when he tugged the towel away and bent me over the desk, because there was no room on top. And entered me thickly, sweetly, less urgently than before but just as good. Oh God, so good.

He was big, intimidatingly so if I was watching him. It was easier this way, the sweet burn of him overriding everything else. I shivered and he kissed my back, tracing the spinal cord with his lips, and only caused me to tremble harder.

“I’ve dreamed of taking you like this,” he whispered, breath warm in my ear, like the body draped over top of me.

“Does Kit know?”

Mircea laughed, and it echoed down into me, making me gasp and squirm. “His office didn’t actually factor into it,” he clarified.

“And what will he say when he finds out what we used it for?”

“Nothing, if he knows what’s good for him.”

It was my turn to laugh, until he shifted position, sliding fully into me. And then pulled me suddenly back against him, claiming a final half inch I hadn’t even known I had. And before I could recover from
that
, his lips found the marks on my neck, the ones he’d left there, but he didn’t puncture the skin.

He didn’t have to.

The old wound, long since closed, to the point that there was hardly even a trace anymore, opened for him like it had been waiting for his return, his own private orifice. His fangs slid in, clean, painless, easy, and my blood welled up, his for the taking. Like my body, like everything.

He began to feed, something he hadn’t done in a long time, and my whole body stiffened in surprise. And then contracted, beginning to pulse in time to the suction of his mouth, to the throb of his length inside me, to the feel of his hand between my legs, clenching. He wasn’t
doing
anything yet, wasn’t even moving.

And yet I was shivering and shaking, on the brink of orgasm with barely a touch.

“I dreamed about bending you over a table,” he growled into my ear. “A chair, a desk—anything you please. And taking you until you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t walk, couldn’t remember your
name.
”

Halfway there, I thought, slightly hysterically.

“Careful,” I gasped. “You know what happens in our dreams lately.”

I’d been thinking, okay, fantasizing, a few nights ago about Mircea, and suddenly, there he’d been. Or there I’d been, because it had sort of felt like I was suddenly in his shower on the opposite side of the country. But I hadn’t tried to go there, much less to put a spell on him. And I still didn’t know how I had.

“That wasn’t a dream,” he murmured, warm tongue licking the blood from my neck. “I was pleasuring myself, thinking of you, and there you were. I thought I was going mad for a moment, in the best possible way.”

“But you didn’t say anything,” I said, trying to concentrate and mostly failing.

Full-body shivers will do that to you.

“No more did you,” he pointed out.

“I wasn’t . . . sure . . . I hadn’t imagined it,” I said, trying not to squirm. Because he
still wasn’t moving
. If there was any doubt that vampires were superhuman, this ought to cinch it. No human man could just stand there like that. Could be buried in my body, to the point that I could feel his heartbeat echo my own, deep inside my flesh. And then
just stay there
.

He was going to freaking kill me one of these days.

“I was,” he told me. “But I didn’t know what we were dealing with. I still don’t.”

“That’s what had you so upset?” I asked. “That someone could tap into your brain through mine?”

“Not just mine. I am in mental communication with the Senate on a regular basis. If my mind was compromised . . .”

“That’s really what you thought?” I’d noticed that Mircea had been avoiding me lately, but I’d just assumed he was busy. And once or twice I’d wondered if he was having the same trouble defining our relationship that I was. But I should have known better. Mircea was a master vampire and a Senate member. And despite what he’d said, they didn’t have problems with relationships.

They took what they wanted.

Like when he finally, finally started to thrust.

And I suddenly forgot how to breathe.

“We are at war, Cassie,” he murmured against my skin. “And our enemies have proven . . . resourceful. They tapped into the power of your office through the ward you used to wear, did they not? Used it to help them bring a god through the barrier?”

“But I . . . I don’t wear that anymore.”

“No, but you now wear a spell, one invented by the same people we are fighting.”

“But laid by my mother.”

“Yes. To allow her to talk with the council. Can they still access your mind?”

“I . . . don’t think so,” I told him, because yeah, time for twenty questions, Mircea!

“But they could at one time,” he pointed out, his breathing still even, although mine was becoming ragged. “They must have been able to, if your mother could use you as a conduit.”

“Yes, but they shut that down. Or . . . or they said they did.”

“And the word of a demon is to be trusted,” he said sardonically.

“Maybe not,” I said breathlessly. “But they’re on our side in this—”

“The demons are on their own side.”

“But that happens to be ours right now, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” He shifted position slightly, and the gentle undulation he’d been doing picked up speed.

And strength.

Oh God.

“How do we know?”

“We know . . . because they hated . . . the gods,” I told him stubbornly. Refusing to let him have the last word just because he was pounding me into the desktop. “They . . . fed off them, like the demons feed off us. They slaughtered . . . thousands of them. My mother did in particular. It was demon energy she used to build her wall—”

“Something you did not bother to mention.”

“We haven’t exactly . . . had much time . . . to talk!”

“Something I will have to remedy,” he told me, sounding faintly ominous. “Yet you do not think they would spy on the daughter of their old enemy?”

“Yes . . . but I also think . . . they could be . . . good allies. They don’t want the gods back . . . any more than we do.”

“Allies bring something to the table.”

“They . . . bring something to the table,” I said, trying to look at him over my shoulder. And finding it hard, since I needed both hands just to hold on.

Damn; I knew I’d pay for that little tease in the office, sooner or later.

“They killed . . . Apollo,” I managed to say.

“Your mother’s spell killed Apollo, for all intents and purposes.”

“But they finished him off.”

“Yes, that is what they do. Scavengers, vultures, leeches—”

“Some people . . . would say the same thing . . . about vamps.”

“Then those people are fools. We live on earth. Contribute to it in many ways. It is our home. The demons use it as a hunting ground, nothing more.”

I didn’t entirely agree with that, but I was having a hard time thinking clearly with him shuddering to completion. “But . . . but they still wouldn’t . . . want the competition . . . would they?” I asked. “The gods . . . controlled earth when they were here. When the demons came, they . . . fed off them. If the gods come back, the demons lose their favorite snack bar. And maybe become snacks themselves!”

“The fact that you are still able to reason at this point worries me,” Mircea said, and sat down, taking me with him, his body still inside mine. And God, I need a chair like this, I thought dizzily, groaning from the abrupt change in position. And then groaning again as he began pleasuring me with his fingers, teasing, expert, maddening. And had me writhing on his lap in seconds.

And, okay, that was better than talking, which I hadn’t wanted to do anyway. But that was back when I thought we’d be discussing us, which I didn’t know how to do. But this . . . yeah, we needed to talk about this.

But we weren’t. Because I was too busy thrashing and wriggling and squealing and coming. And then lying back against him, exhausted and happy, with what was probably a totally goofy smile on my face. Which, fortunately, he couldn’t see, because God knew he didn’t need the ego boost.

“That doesn’t . . . refute . . . my point,” I said, when I could talk.

And felt the sweaty chest behind me shake slightly.

Mircea had always had what many people viewed as an unfortunate sense of humor. I viewed it as a plus, and one of the most human things about him. He couldn’t help but see the absurdity in things, like us trying to talk politics now of all times.

But when else was I likely to get the chance? And he needed to understand this. Only Mircea didn’t seem to think so.

“Whether the demons are ‘on our side’ or not, they are useless to us,” he told me.

“But they’re powerful—”

“In their own realm, yes. But in faerie?” He shook his head. “Their magic doesn’t work there.”

“Are you sure?” I knew mine didn’t, at least not well. Different worlds had different time streams, and my power seemed to be tied to this one. But the demons didn’t have that problem, so maybe—

But Mircea crushed that idea. “Quite sure. Their strength remains intact, for those who have a body, but their magic falters outside their own realm.”

“But they could be helpful here, couldn’t they? On earth?” I asked, because, as strange as it seemed, earth
was
their realm. Or, to be more precise, it was one of the hell dimensions. The hells, which weren’t a single world but thousands, were all on the same metaphysical plane, so the same magical laws worked across all of them.

That didn’t mean there weren’t issues. The main one being that human mages, and I guess demons and fey and whatever, manufactured some of their own magic. They were magical creatures, which meant that their bodies acted sort of like talismans, soaking it up from the world they were born in and then generating usable power, like a regular human’s body making vitamin D if they sat in the sun.

But outside their home world, magical beings didn’t absorb as much, meaning their store of power ran low really fast. It would be like trying to make vitamin D while in northern Alaska during winter, when there’s all of a couple hours of sun a day. Possible but not easy.

But it looked easy compared to trying the same thing in faerie.

Because faerie wasn’t a hell, it was a heaven, hard as that was to believe after having been there briefly. And having barely surviving the trip. But, technically, it was in one of the heavenly dimensions, and therefore had magic that worked on totally different rules.

That basically meant zero absorption from the natural world while you were there. You would have what magic you went in with, for as long as it lasted you, and then that was it. Instead of Alaska, it would be like being in a dark room and being told to make vitamin D—not happening.

But, of course, the same was true of the fey when they came here. They had what they had when they arrived, and that was all they had, magically speaking. And that didn’t last long, because it was harder to cast your spells on an alien world. It was like it was trying to reject them or something.

It was why there’d never been a war between the two realms and probably never would be. What were people going to fight it with? Clubs?

But that didn’t mean the demons couldn’t be useful on earth, which was their own backyard. “They could help us with Black Circle,” I pointed out, talking about the corrupt mages that were a perpetual pain in the ass to Jonas’ organization. “And free up some of our own mages for the war.”

But Mircea was shaking his head. “The Black Circle is a nuisance, nothing more. Like the smugglers we’re taking out at the moment. Destroying them is helpful, and we will do it where and when the opportunity arises, but we will not win the war that way. Kit was right; our enemies are in faerie, not here. And they are not likely to come here.”

I would have twisted around to look at him, but I was too tired. And it would have meant pulling myself off him, and I didn’t want to do that yet. Didn’t want to let him go. “You’re planning to invade.”