Page 42 of Rock Bottom
“You know when I’m feeling more male than female, or the other way around, and I get that it’s my scent, somehow, but can you explain exactly how you know?”
“Blindfold me and put me in a room with a woman or man, and I can tell you their gender by scent. Neither is good or bad, just different. Like knowing the difference between rosemary and honeysuckle. I noted from the beginning that you smell both male and female. Over time, I’ve learned to scent when you’re more one than the other, or at times, pretty much equally both.”
“Marco says you can’t feed from me often, but you can bite me a couple of times a week so long as you only take a sip?”
He nodded. “You were in the headspace of a woman when I bit you today. I’m looking forward to seeing if there’s a difference in taste when you’re feeling male. Even if I only take a few sips.”
I smiled. “And I look forward to helping with the experiment.”
He moved his beer bottle towards me, I clinked mine to his, and we both took a drink. The silence stretched comfortably, the tree frogs and crickets chirping all around us, and I asked the question I’d been sitting on for too long. “What has to happen before you can gain your freedom?”
His smile disappeared, and I was sorry for that, but this was a conversation we needed to have. “I have a path forward, but it’ll be years before I can be my own man. Marco is giving me as much freedom as he can. He seems to think it’s important you and I have no obstacles in our way. I lead a team of assistants, so I’m the only one working side-by-side with him, and I hand out jobs to the others. The buck stops with me — if they screw up I’m punished, so I’m careful to assign jobs I’m sure they can handle. I mean, I can dock their pay or give them grunt work, and I usually do when…”
He shrugged. “Too much information. He’s changing the assistant structure, so I’ll be in charge of assisting him with vampire business, and I’m training others to handle his restaurants, bars, and other human businesses. Once they’re trained, I’ll have more time to spend with you.”
We’d been sitting several feet apart, facing each other, and he moved to the lounging seat beside me and then lifted me into his lap, leaned against his torso. My face was farther out of the water like this, sitting on his lap. He seemed warmer than usual, too, with the water heating his body.
He easily reached across to retrieve my beer with his oh-so-long arm, and he settled it to his right.
His arms came around me, and my entire body relaxed into him. After a few moments of comfortable silence, I told him, “It’s been a crazy week. Vampires, werewolves, a motherfucking dragon, a lion — and now a magical necklace. I keep expecting to wake up and have this crazy dream to share with you.”
“I’m beyond relieved that you know about me,andthat you didn’t run screaming the other direction.”
“Do you think the necklace can hear us?”
Julian’s hand moved slowly up and down my back. “I think the coin pendant can do way more than hear us. I believe it knows our thoughts, who we know,everything. Sentient, possibly at a god level. It knew Kirsten was friends with the person who had its other half…”
He sighed, the sound vibrating through his chest. “Not friends, exactly, because she doesn’t trust him, and yet, she likes him. She wishes she could trust him, but…” Another quiet breath. “However one describes their relationship, the necklace must’ve known there was a chance it might come in contact with its other half when it attached itself to her. Not many humans come into contact with the Lord of Lust, and since she’s one of the few, it seems too big of a coincidence.”
“So why me?”
He was quiet long enough, I didn’t think he’d answer, but he finally said, “Maybe so it can show itself on stage? Hoping someone will see who has it now?”
“A weak human who can’t possibly defend herself against vampires and demons.”
“Kirsten, Cora, and Marco will keep you safe.”
* * * *
Julian
I was really worried for Silver, but Marco had telepathed me with an order while we walked to the hot tub.Don’t let her know how worried you are, she needs your assurances that we’ll handle whatever comes up. She needs to understand the dangers, and we’ll make sure she does, but we don’t want her completely freaked out.
“It’s creepy as fuck,” Silver said, and he was in full-on boy mode at the moment. I wondered if the necklace was curious about this human who was both male and female, but it made more sense that it went to someone who could give it an opportunity to be seen by a huge audience.
If the coin showed itself on stage, or in an interview, would someone recognize it for what it is and tell the Demon Lord? I supposed that was the danger.
I’d asked Marco for permission to look through his files on the necklace, and he’d given the okay, but there were pages and pages of information, so I’d only had time to skim the material. I’d dig into it in-depth later, but what I picked up was that it was rumored to have manipulated events in the past, creating opportunities for it to move from person to person. It seemed it needed to be in the vicinity of someone to go to them the first time, but then, after it’d gone to them once, it could go to them from a distance.
“When is your next live performance in front of a big audience?” I asked him. “Or something else live that’s broadcast to a big audience? An interview, or something like that?”
“Like, six months, I think? We’re doing four music festivals within about six weeks. California, Rio, London, Australia. Next year is just music festivals. No tour. We’ll only be gone a couple of days for the California festival. Probably four to seven days for the others because it takes nearly two days to get to freaking Australia from here.” He sighed. “There’ll be red carpet stuff if we get nominated, award shows, and that’s before then. We won’t know if we’ll be invited to perform until closer to the events, though.”
I hugged him to me, enveloping him in my arms because hevibratedstress and anxiety. “Okay. So we have months to come up with a game plan. Marco is a master strategist.”
* * * *
Silver
