Page 8 of Vampire's Choice

It was just before dawn, so she was in her room underground, where she’d be protected from the sun. Once dawn came, sleep would claim her, whether she wanted it to do so or not, but at least it would give her busy brain a break.

Ruth lay in her bed, studying the handful of black and white feathers she’d been able to find and collect in the vicinity of her wrestling match with the incubus. She’d put them in a clay pot on her dresser, one that Chumani, Kohana’s wife, had made for Ruth when she was nine. Etchings of bounding bobcats formed a decorative collar below the rounded lip.

Before Ruth put the feathers in there, she’d laid them out on the dresser. Three wing feathers and a contour feather. She’d confirmed the jagged lightning pattern, the silver-tinged white intersecting gleaming black.

She’d gathered them up into one hand and stroked them through the channel formed by her half-curled fist. The contact made her shiver and recall the astounding force of his sexual energy. The demanding strength of his hands upon her.

He’d liked her resistance. She suspected he’d particularly liked it because she’d known she was overpowered and outmatched, and it didn’t stop her from fighting.

The over-the-top climaxes had left a very pointed message. I let you run from me, but when it comes time to take what I want, you will submit.

She had an answer for him. If we meet again, I don’t plan to make it easy on you.

Incubus was still her best guess on what her dangerous playmate was. But she knew of another winged race.

Angels.

Adan had told her there was one at the Circus. She’d thought he was messing with her, but he insisted he wasn’t. She’d never had the chance to attend a Circus performance. That was about to change.

A woman needs protection there… The Circus travels to many places. As a Circus employee, you would be under the protection and rule of Lady Yvette. She would be your overlord while you’re with them.

When Mal explained the situation to her, she’d heard all the unspoken messages. This was an option to broaden her world, with the best safeguards possible. But there were no guarantees. For the first time in her life, if she needed immediate protection, she would be out of range of the people and setting she trusted to provide it.

“Do you wish to go?” he’d asked, watching her closely.

When her father was experiencing strong emotions, his voice became flatter and harder, his expression freezing in lines that made him look almost cruel.

They’d been in his home office, dominated by a scarred giant desk that looked like an old sea chest. When Mal had asked her to join him there, Ruth had been sure it was because he knew about her earlier encounter. She’d braced herself for his censure for not alerting him, but that concern had vanished in the face of the unexpected topic.

Even so, she wasn’t in the habit of lying to her father, or hiding information from him. For the first couple decades of a born vampire’s life, it was impossible anyway. Vampire parents could scour their kids’ minds if they suspected even a hint of evasion. They didn’t hesitate to do so, since a pre-pubescent vampire’s bloodlust, strength and lack of impulse control could take an adult human’s life, and their island had a staff of a dozen humans. They were all first or second marked, but only a third mark “might” have the strength to fight off a born vampire child and prevail.

At that age, if she’d ever even thought about copping an attitude, demanding her parents “respect her privacy,” her father’s stare would have pushed the words right back down her throat, wisely blocking anything else from coming out. Other than the two words he’d expect.

Yes, Sgidoda.

Yes, Da.

She used the Cherokee and Irish terms interchangeably.

She was an adult now, but the respect was still there, and well-earned. Ruth circled the desk to sink to her knees beside him. She put her hand on his leg as she gazed up into his face.

“Yes, I want to go. I think I need to.” Change was scary. But she was ready for it, and that would give her the courage to bear the uncertainty. “I won’t forget just how precious home is.”

Mal stroked her hair as she laid her head on his knee and wrapped her arms around his muscled calf to hold him close. He always smelled like earth, fur, forest. Wild things.

“I will miss you, tlanistè.”

The affectionate, informal term for daughter was gentle in his deep voice.

She raised her head to gaze at him. She saw her father, but there was no denying his appeal as a man. All vampires were sexy and mesmerizing. Whenever Ruth accompanied her father to the mainland for a supply pickup he had to handle directly, human females stammered and blushed over his simplest question, like “Do you have half-inch PVC pipe?”

Elisa liked to tease him, saying he looked like a warrior from the set of Dances With Wolves. With the long hair he sometimes wore braided with feathers, beads and ribbons—when he didn’t have to work close to the big cats—it was a pretty accurate comparison.

When Ruth was a child, he’d been strength and authority to her, the port in the storm. She’d watched him weather some awful ones and hold fast. As an adult, she wanted him to be proud of her. Wanted him not to think of her as a burden, a constant worry.

Aside from her own reasons for wanting to go, she hoped this was a path to do that.

Dawn was getting closer, and they’d discussed what was needed. As she rose to leave, she stopped at the office door and traced the knife marks alongside the frame. It was an idle habit, Mal testing his throwing accuracy from his desk.

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