Page 37 of Rock Bottom
I sat back down, turned Bluetooth off on my phone, and played the song through the speakers while I accompanied it, and he nodded when I finished.
I met his gaze and told him, “Kirsten told me ya’ll have NDAs so you can’t talk about anything you see or hear while you’re guarding the property.”
He nodded. “We do, and I feel especially fortunate to have heard a Mythic Beast song while it’s being created. I can’t wait to hear the final product. It’s a good song. I like it.”
I looked over at the wolves. “Do ya’ll agree?”
The hawk guy chuckled. “I can telepath with them. One agrees with me, the other likes one of your other patterns better, so I guess don’t take what I said to the bank.” He tilted his head. “That’s as long of a break as I dare take. I need to get back in the sky. It was good talking to you.”
“Thanks for changing to human and talking to me. Can you tell me your name?”
Hechangedto hawk before I got the second sentence out, one breath, and muscled, feathered wings beat at the air like a mighty thunder god, and he launched skyward, gone in a rush of wind and motion.
But a name slid into my head, his voice with a hint of laughter.
Sage.
While I’d talked to the hawk, I remembered that most of Will’s security is some kind of shifter, which means I have werewolves watching me all the time. Or werelions. Or werebears. Just because these two were in wolf form shouldn’t mean anything. Right?
I turned the video camera off, opened my phone, and checked my email. Nothing pressing, so I went to social media to see what was happening.
The wolves were gone when I looked up again. I turned my Bluetooth back on and cued up a different song. I’ve pretty much got this one like I want it, so I was mostly just practicing with it. No need for the camera. Eventually, I grew restless. I left the video camera and my guitar on the bench, and I went exploring. I came to the meadow, and I thought the boulder would be fun to climb.
Normally, one doesn’t play around on a boulder when alone, but I figured I was being watched. If I fell and hurt myself, they’d telepath someone to come check on me.
Bouldering, theoretically, keeps you below about fifteen feet, so if you fall on soft ground you’ll probably be mostly okay. This boulder was a good bit taller, but I stayed low enough I should survive a fall. The bottom of one side was a negative slant, which we call an overhang, and that made it especially challenging. I went up and down countless times before I moved around to the other side, where it wasn’t terribly hard to climb all the way to the top, and then I just sat on the boulder.
It felt good up there, though I couldn’t have said why. The stone was sun-warmed under me, but it wasn’t just the heat, and whatever it was thrummed against my skin. The whole clearing reminded me of the air just before a summer storm, before the lightning clears it all out. Feral and yet peaceful — but the kind of peace that comes with claws, bared teeth, and blood.
Or maybe going to another realm and watching a dragon fly around had finally gotten to me.
One minute, I was alone, and a few minutes later somethinghugewas flying at me. Not a bird. No wings.
I jolted to my feet, heart in my throat, legs deciding between fight-or-flight mode, when suddenly there was a man standing on the boulder. Justthere. One blink andalakazam!
“I’m sorry,” Marco said, completely calm and as quietly dignified as always. “Most of the residents here are used to me flying around the property after dark. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I regularly look through the memories of our guards to see what’s happened on the property, and I enjoyed watching you play on the boulder. Climbing it over and over, finding different routes up and around it.”
He wore suit pants, a dress shirt, and dress shoes, but he didn’t look out of place when he sat near where I’d been earlier.
I was still standing like a startled goat, while he looked completely at ease. My pulse was still racing, but now it was mostly embarrassment, so I sat back down, rather than stand over him.
“You’ll likely be here a minimum of five days. Possibly a week or more. I will give Julian as much free time as I can, but I need my assistant working. I can’t let him spend the entire time with you. Is there something else we can bring in to help you occupy your time?”
I shook my head. “I love bouldering, and every side of this one has completely different challenges. Plus, it’s more fun than working out with weights. I have my guitar, and you can’t practice too much. Kirsten showed me the room with all the video games, too, and I’m looking forward to playing a few games I haven’t gotten around to yet.”
“The Red Cross only allows people to give blood every fifty-six days. They’re erring on the side of caution, but a healthy human in excellent shape can usually get away with donating to a vampire every four to six weeks. Occasionally, they can do it as soon as two weeks, but only in an emergency — the kind where the vampire is in critical need, but the human won’t likely die from losing another fifteen to twenty ounces so soon.”
So Julian wasn’t joking about having to wait six weeks?Fuck. Could he take sips and make sex better in between?
Marco grinned, and I realized he’d read my mind. I lifted my chin and met his gaze. No way was I going to be embarrassed over good sex.
“I like you,” he said. “I think you’re exactly who Julian needs. Someone who understands what it’s like to live in a body that doesn’t quite fit into society’s idea of a traditional male. He identifies as a man, fully, but his body’s never let him forget he’s different. And you… you know how that feels. You live it.” He tilted his head ever-so-slightly. “You also know what it’s like to be onstage, to be wanted, watched, adored. Julian had that, once. The two of you understand each other on experiential levels, not merely theoretical.”
He shifted position, more relaxed now. “To answer your question — yes, Julian can bite you and deliver different venom cocktails, but he can only take small sips between full donations. Not every day, but two or three times a week should be fine. He’ll still need other donors, but you two can definitely have some fun with his venom.”
Good to know, but I wanted to have that conversation with Julian, not his boss, so I changed the subject. “Julian’s big, so his voice doesn’t make him feel terribly feminine. It’s a contrast, and I guess I noticed it a lot at first, but now it’s just part of who he is.”
And his manboobs? They kind of make him a little feminine, visually. He straps them down when we go out, but I’m glad he doesn’t feel the need to hide that part of himself from me.
