A Stone-Kissed Sea

  “It was when it was written.” He stroked her again. “Beethoven was a bastard. Stravinsky caused riots. I’m fairly sure Mozart was thrown out of a church or two.”

  She tried to turn, but he wouldn’t let her. “Will you let me go please?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Anger and pleasure flickered across her face so quickly he nearly didn’t catch them. Oh yes, he’d have to watch Makeda Abel very closely to understand the secrets she tried to conceal.

  She wanted him. That wasn’t a secret. And he had four weeks to convince her it wasn’t a byproduct of her bloodlust. He didn’t have any illusions that her newborn cravings hadn’t contributed to her loss of inhibition. They did. But bloodlust didn’t create feelings. She hadn’t latched on to Ruben or Gedeyon or Hirut. She only reacted to Lucien, which—in his mind—proved she’d wanted him before.

  Makeda pulled her wrist away. “You don’t like vampires.”

  “I like you.”

  Her eyes met his in challenge. “And when I don’t die after a few decades?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” The thought of her dying made him snarl. Made him remember those terrifying—he could admit it in retrospect—moments on the night of her accident.

  “There were plenty of rumors around the lab about your kink. You only like human women. Maybe it was a blood thing. Maybe it was the body heat. I don’t judge. But personally, I don’t think it was either of those.”

  Lucien crossed his arms. “Enlighten me.”

  “You’re an arrogant jackass.”

  And she had the guts to tell him to his face. That was probably part of the attraction. “I’m arrogant. And?”

  “You see humans as inferior, and you don’t want an equal for a partner. You want a pretty creature you can drink from and fuck for a few decades until they want more than you can give them and they leave you.”

  He felt a muscle in his jaw jump. “You know nothing.”

  “Afraid of commitment, Lucien? Is that why you don’t take an immortal mate?”

  His arm shot out and wrapped around her waist, pulling her tight into his torso. He pressed his chest to hers. Locked his thighs around her hips.

  “So perceptive, Makeda. You think you can put my relationship history in a neat box? You think that will help you avoid the clawing need for me in your gut? It won’t.”

  She didn’t look away. “It’s the bloodlust.”

  “Liar.” He leaned forward, enjoying the cool brush of her breath against his lips. “And for the record, I do like human women. They’re soft and warm and delicious all over. I like to take my time with them. Like to wring pleasure out of them until they’re wrecked from it.”

  There was that anger again. But hidden behind it was pure desire.

  “But right now, I find you more interesting.” He leaned back and pushed her away. “Pick some music. Anything you want. Just make it loud.”

  A moment later, the driving sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Green River” filled the lab.

  “You’re archaic,” Makeda muttered. “I’m getting you an iPod.”

  “If you want to waste your money, go ahead.”

  ❖

  He forced her out of the lab a few hours before dawn, dragging her away from her work before she collapsed or broke something. She’d begun to go in circles on possible trial protocols for the Irish hospital where the Elixir patients were being kept. It was driving her to distraction. He couldn’t seem to reason with her, so Lucien turned off the generator, tossed her over his shoulder, and threw her in the lake.

  She came up sputtering, but then she let out a long breath, sank into the water, and he knew he’d been right.

  They swam out to the rock where they’d sat the night before, and Lucien instructed Makeda to shadow him in a deliberate tai chi routine Baojia had taught him before they left California. They stood in the center of the lake, feet planted on the smooth grey rock, as the moon circuited the sky and the stars grew faint. He felt the threads of energy weaving around them like a tapestry. Earth and water. Sky and stars.

  Peace.

  He felt Makeda behind him, her young amnis bright and wild. It shimmered like the cool reflection of the moon. Burst around him like the curls that dried in a riot around her face.

  He turned to face her and she halted in her forms.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No.” He started another form. “I just want to look at you.”

  She kept her eyes locked with his as they moved. “Why?”

  “You’re beautiful. And I don’t understand you.”

  “No, you don’t understand why I’m interesting to you,” she said.

  Clever, clever.

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Were you this interested in me when I was human?”

  “Yes.” He paused and thought back. “No.”

  “Make up your mind, Lucien.”

  He stopped moving and stepped closer. “I think I have.” He ran a finger across her collarbones. She was wearing a sleeveless tunic and a pair of loose pants that night. The tunic dipped low enough he could see the faint pulse of her erratic heartbeat. He could hear it.

  She closed her hand over his and pulled it away from her skin. “You might have decided, but I haven’t.”

  Lucien cocked his head. “Why do you hesitate to take what you crave?”

  “I don’t do out of control well.”

  “I beg to differ. I remember your bite on the night you woke. You do out of control very well.”

  She shook her head and crossed her arms. “Do you indulge every craving you have?”

  “It depends on what it is,” he said. “If it’s something that would be good for me, then yes. And Makeda”—he bent down and whispered in her ear—“I would be very good for you.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Seduce you?” He didn’t touch her. Instead, he let the amnis flow from his feet, into the rock, and spread over her legs. He knew when she felt it, the warm trickle of heat that crawled across those delicate, tempting ankles, up to her knees, caressing her thighs until it reached her—

  He sputtered back when the slap of water hit his cheek.

  “Stop it,” she ordered.

  Lucien was too shocked to do anything but laugh. The sound carried over the water, drifting on the wind that whipped over the lake.

  “I like you,” he said.

  “Then don’t try to manipulate me.”

  “Yene konjo,” he said, “that wasn’t manipulation. That was teasing.”

  “So you say.”

  “That was also very impressive,” he said. “Just a few days ago, you could barely splash me.”

  “I don’t know how I did it.” She lifted her regal chin. “Instinct, I suppose. Don’t ask me to do it again.”

  Lucien had to distract himself, or he’d lose any semblance of self-control. “Talk to me about your problem,” he said, starting to move through the tai chi forms again. “Think aloud. Sometimes it’s better that way.”

  She hesitated but followed his motions. “I’m not accustomed to collaboration.”

  “You weren’t accustomed to drinking blood either, but you’re taking to it like a native.”

  “I am a native,” she said, looking around the broad sweep of black water. “Kind of.”

  “But not native to immortal life. You’re doing very well though. Gedeyon mentioned it.”

  She murmured something and fixed her eyes over his shoulder to stare at the horizon. “It’s the chemotherapy sequence. I’m trying to predict immortal reactions to mortal medications. I can’t predict it with any surety.”

  “No surety here. Experiments. Tell me what you’re worried about.”

  As Makeda processed the problem aloud, Lucien offered ideas that she picked through like a finicky cat. None of them was quite the right solution, but as she took in more and more information, he noticed her gaze grow less present. She w
as focusing inward, skipping around a mind that now worked twice as fast as her old one. With time, she grew still, frozen in the White Crane posture, but Lucien could see her mind racing.

  He paced around her on the damp rock, watching as she worked through the thoughts dancing in her mind. Every now and then, she’d blurt out a question and he’d answer it, sometimes asking one of his own. Sometimes she would answer. Sometimes she ignored him.

  “Makeda.” Lucien could see the beginning of dawn creep behind the mountains. “We need to take shelter.”

  “No.”

  “We have to.”

  Her eyes flew open. “I haven’t fed.”

  Damn. She hadn’t. He’d been fascinated by the workings of her mind and completely forgotten she needed to feed her physical body. She’d wake in the evening with her instincts roiling if he couldn’t get her back to shore fast enough.

  “Don’t argue. I’m still faster.” He grabbed her around the waist and dove into the lake, cutting through the water and holding on to her by the hand. He could feel her lagging. Could feel the tug of daylight beginning to pull at her.

  “Makeda?” He picked her up and carried her when they reached the dock. “Wake up.”

  “Can’t.” She sounded drugged. “Not… optimum development… potential loss of…”

  Her head fell against his shoulder and she was out. She’d fallen asleep worried about the potential detriment to her cognitive development, if he had to guess. Not worried she’d attack someone or wake starving. Lucien tried not to smile.

  She would be hungry and pissed off in the evening, but hopefully she wouldn’t forget what she’d been working on. That would probably anger her more than anything.

  She was soaking wet when he laid her on the bed. It was too damp and cold for her to be comfortable resting with wet clothes against her skin. Trying not to look at her as anything more than an unconscious patient, Lucien disrobed Makeda and pulled one of her traditional cotton dresses over her head. Then he tucked her into bed and secured the tukul before he rested beside her.

  ❖

  Lucien was ready when she woke.

  He’d woken an hour before her and called for a quart of fresh blood to be delivered. Where Gedeyon was getting the blood, Lucien didn’t ask. He knew Gedeyon and Hirut provided for enough humans on the island to meet their own needs, but they might have to go to the mainland for fresh blood. His brother was well aware of the Elixir threat, so whatever source he had, Lucien knew it would be safe.

  Her fingers twitched and brushed against his skin. Lucien rolled closer and Makeda turned to him instinctively. He saw her take a deep breath, and her fangs grew in her mouth. “Makeda.”

  Another deep breath. Her eyes still closed, she rolled into him and buried her face in his neck.

  Lucien’s body reacted immediately. She sighed and licked out against his skin.

  He wanted her bite. By God, he wanted it badly.

  Lucien took a deep breath. “Makeda, wake up.”

  He didn’t want her to wake up scared or shocked. She’d be more dangerous. He put a hand on her cheek and brushed his thumb over her skin, his fingers teasing her curls.

  “Yene konjo, you need to drink.”

  Her teeth scraped over his pulse, and every instinct in Lucien screamed at him to bend his neck and press her mouth to his skin so she could bite.

  He hungered for her bite with every breath. He’d never wanted to be bitten, but the memory of her fangs the night she first woke haunted him.

  A low groan came from his throat, and he tried to gently move her back. “Makeda, wake up.”

  A low, hungry snarl.

  Lucien clenched his eyes shut and fisted her hair, dragging her away from his neck just as her fangs pricked his skin.

  “No.” He rolled her to her back and braced himself over her, controlling her legs as they kicked and she tried to twist out from under him. “Makeda, wake up.”

  Her eyes flew open, but they were in no way rational. She bared her teeth and snapped at him.

  Lucien banded his arms around her and pulled her up, turning her around and clamping his legs around her to hold her down as he reached for the pitcher of blood. Holding it in front of her face, he said, “Drink.”

  Makeda grabbed it and shoved her face in the blood, drinking it in rapid gulps.

  Halfway through the pitcher, she raised her head and let out a strangled sigh. “I hate this.”

  Lucien frowned. “Is there something wrong with the blood? Gedeyon assured me—”

  “No. It’s not the blood.” Her voice was tired. “I hate feeling like an animal. Controlled by my hunger.”

  He brushed her hair away from her face, making sure none of it touched the blood. “We were all this way once. In fact, most of us were far worse. I was nearly uncontrollable for three months. I attacked anything that came near me, including my mother.”

  “Why?”

  He nudged the pitcher back to her mouth as he told the story. “When I was turned, I hadn’t eaten properly in weeks. It’s why my musculature is so defined. We were fighting the Romans, and they were very good at weakening their enemy. I was a soldier, so I was very strong, but in those weeks before my death, my body was beginning to eat itself.”

  She took a break from drinking. “How did you die?”

  “Not in battle.” He smiled. “Which surprised and disappointed me. I was hunting, actually. Stalking a bear that had ransacked our stores. I knew if I managed to kill it, we would also have a good amount of meat for the men. The local crops had been burned by the Romans, but there was still game in the forests.”

  “Man against bear,” Makeda said. “Bear wins?”

  His shoulders shook with laughter. “I got in a few strikes, but yes, I didn’t fare well in the end. The only reason the monster didn’t drag me off and eat me was that Saba was watching. I’d… amused her.”

  “By fighting a bear?”

  “She told me later it was the cursing.” He smiled. “My mother told me I cursed better than a Roman, and it made her laugh. She wasn’t laughing later when I woke like a bear and began mauling another of her children. She had to bury me.”

  “Bury you?” Makeda asked. “How did she—”

  “She actually buried me. The ground opened up and swallowed me every time I threatened to lose control. I wasn’t in command of my elemental strength at that point, and I was nowhere near as powerful. She kept me underground a good part of the first year.”

  “Is that Saba’s version of a time-out?”

  Lucien threw his head back and laughed. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Did it make you angry?”

  “Not really. In my lucid moments, I understood. I was grateful, in fact. I knew I was far from civilized. And of course, I had no idea what a vampire really was. They were folk tales in the mountains. Monsters that scared children. I wasn’t a fool to believe in them. So I had to overcome my incredulity and my bloodlust. It took far longer than a year because it took me a long time to accept what I was.”

  Makeda had relaxed in the circle of his arms and legs. The pitcher of blood was gone, and her energy was even and easy. Lucien rested his chin on her shoulder and brushed his cheek against her curls. “So you see, we were all uncontrolled at the beginning. We were all monsters.”

  “We still are.”

  It was the first time she’d referred to herself as part of the “we.” The first time he felt her softening toward life as a vampire.

  “We’re only monsters if we allow it,” Lucien said. “We can become so much more.”

  She turned and pressed her cheek to his. “Will you show me?”

  “Yes.”

  ❖

  Except he was a horrible instructor. Lucien and Makeda stood on the edge of the lake, staring at each other, each with their hands on their hips. Gedeyon and Hirut sat on the stone dock, watching them both with poorly concealed amusement.

  “You’re an awful teacher,” Makeda said. “This i
s not going to work.”

  He tugged a hand through his hair. “I have to think that some of the concepts are universal. Our elements may be different, but can’t you sense the… matter of it? The substance, if you will. When your amnis reaches out—”

  “There is no matter. No substance.” She threw up her hands, and he could tell she was getting frustrated. They’d been at this for over two hours. “I’m imagining my amnis wrapping around the water like you say, but it feels a little like trying to fill a bucket with a colander.”

  He crossed his arms. “Can’t you just… follow your instincts?”

  “My instincts are telling me to go for your throat right now. Mind if I follow those?”

  That sent Gedeyon and Hirut into peals of laughter. Both of them had immediately taken to Makeda, and she was cautiously opening up to them. Her Amharic had gone from rusty to fluent. She and Hirut joked as they worked around the island washing clothes or gathering firewood—normally both jobs the humans would be hired to do, but with no humans allowed near Makeda, Gedeyon’s daughter had offered to help.

  “Lucien,” Hirut called, “do you build your house with water? No more can she build with earth. Makeda cannot learn this from any of us. Let me call my friend, agoti.”

  Hirut had a trusted friend in who lived in Djibouti, but Lucien was reluctant to expose Makeda to anyone not under his or Saba’s aegis. If only Baojia had been able to accompany them…

  “Please,” Makeda said. “I have to learn more than the basics. Besides, it will give me something more to focus on. If I can discipline myself learning my element, I know it will help the bloodlust.”

  He pursed his lips and saw—with some satisfaction—Makeda’s attention was drawn to his mouth. “I don’t know this vampire.”

  “You said yourself that Hirut is one of the most cautious vampires you’ve met. If she trusts him—”

  “But do I trust him with you, yene konjo?” He stepped closer and brushed a hand over Makeda’s hair, which had grown damp and wild as she experimented with the lake water.

  She let out a shaky breath. “Lucien…”

  “Four weeks,” he said under his breath. “You think that will be enough to convince you?”