“Good. I wouldn’t want you to overindulge.”
“No. Not me. Have you a target in mind for the night?”
Vampires tended to use the same targets over time. They never fed from the same target twice in a month, in order to keep from lowering that target’s immune system and leaving them vulnerable to any number of human diseases. So vampires who stayed in the same area for a long period of time came up with a list of appropriate targets and the dates it would be safe to take them. Provided that target was remaining clean. If the target did something to soil themselves, then a new target must be found…a fresh hunt must take place.
Tonight would be both. Both a repetitive target and a fresh one. One for the queen and one for him. He would have to develop his own list of targets…but for now he had to fly by the seat of his pants.
She imagined he would like that. A fresh opportunity to hunt. Fresh targets. The thrill of the chase. It excited her to think of it as well. Hunting with him would be like hunting a fresh target for her just as much as it meant hunting for him. The prospect excited her. While there was plenty of opportunity to trade out old targets in order to introduce new, it didn’t happen very often for her and she sometimes felt she was in a rut. It wasn't unusual for expedience’s sake that she would have a bodyguard do the hunting and vetting for her and simply arrange a meeting between her and her target.
“I’m to have dinner with an old friend. You can come along. He is used to Danton coming along so he will think nothing of your company…except to wonder what happened to Danton.”
Hunting for a feed wasn't so much about stalking down prey and chasing it down into a dark alley as if it was a poor defenseless beast. There was a lot more subtlety than that. More elegance. A vampire made friends with her targets. She selected the target then went about getting to know it, luring it into a dinner date, getting it to invite them into their home where a feed could happen in private rather than risking it out on the open street. Tonight she had a standing dinner date with a male friend. They ate out once a month. They would have to find someone new for Marcus. Hunt them, introduce themselves, cultivate a new friendship…a new trust. There was something exciting in a hunt like that.
Of course that didn’t mean they never got down and dirty and did a savage sort of hunt for a target without all the wining and dining. When they travelled there was a great deal of that. Well…not so much for her. Often whenever she was visiting another principality, sources were provided for her…like a generous offer of local cuisine. It was not unusual for a state dinner to be provided where they not only ate the exquisite food of a human chef, but the ate one of the guest’s energy. One human per guest was usually provided. It was easier to do than one might think. Humans so loved a good party. The trick was not talking about any vampire business during the dinner party. Hard for a roomful of politicians to do. However it was more usual for the visiting vampire to feed right before getting on the plane so they wouldn’t have to hunt in unfamiliar territory. If the visit lasted more than three days there was usually a state dinner arranged or a smaller dinner party where her meals were provided for her.
It was good to be the queen. She never really needed to hunt…there was always someone available to do it for her.
That did take some of the fun out of it though. They had once, in their history, been quite the instinctive and savage hunters. Before civilization had come desperation. Learning exactly how to feed themselves had been a process. A hardship. Once they had figured it out, they had hunted purely by instinct…which had been easier in that part of history. It was easier to catch prey alone. Easier to find clean prey. Just easier.
Now there was such a polished veneer to it. There were purists who thought all of this posh hunting was dulling their senses and making them lazy. She wondered if Marcus fell into that camp, with his conservative views and aggressive attitude.
“Very well,” Marcus said. “Will there be one offering or two?”
“One. We’ll have to get your feed the hard way,” she said.
“Not an easy trick out on a cold night. But we’re sure to find something,” he said.
She stood up and moved from behind her desk. She was very aware of his eyes on her as she came toward him. She had to make an effort not to allow a natural sensuality show itself in her movements. She was afraid it made her a little stiff, but it was better than trying to lure him in as was her natural instinct. Her people were a naturally sensual race. They took great pleasure in hedonistic behaviors…like eating for pleasure and engaging in intense sexual bouts. It was more natural than not for her to want to attract every man in the room, but for some reason she wanted to resist tempting this man. Tempting herself. It was probably because she knew they would be working closely together and she couldn’t afford to risk complications…and sexual relationships could always be fraught with complications.
She walked out of her office and felt his hand fall to her waist in a guiding gesture. She was certain he meant nothing of it except to lead her beside him, but just the same it had a certain intimacy to it.
She said nothing about it, and his hand left her waist as quickly as it had arrived when they reached the elevator banks. As they waited for the car to come, she found herself fidgeting with her charm bracelet on her left wrist.
“That’s a lovely piece,” he said.
“Oh. Yes. It’s very antique. I've had it next to forever. I'm afraid I’m rather a slave to it. I've worn it so much and for so long that I automatically put it on every morning. I only take it off to sleep and if I’m wearing special jewels to a soiree of some sort.”
“I always wondered…does the queen have state jewels…or are they all your own?”
“They are mostly my own. I have a couple of tiaras that came with the position, but otherwise nothing too ostentatious. So I can wear them without screaming they are because I am queen. There is a crown, as you know, for my coronation ceremony, but it remains locked away and is owned by the state, just as the princes’ crowns are owned by their principalities.”
“Leo loves his crown. He sometimes wears it to bed,” Marcus said with a chuckle.
Simone was aghast, her jaw dropping open. “But…that’s so…that's so…”
“Irreverent? This is Leo we’re talking about.”
She settled and sighed. “Yes. That would be typical Leopold now wouldn’t it?”
The elevator arrived and Marcus pressed the button for the penthouse.
“Won’t we stop on your floor first?”
“I’ll drop you off so you can get ready then return to my apartment on my own. I’m afraid it’s quite a mess still. You can text me or call me when it is time to hit the road.”
“Well, my dinner is at eight. Would you prefer we hunt for yours before or after? It’s six o’clock now.”
“I think we should hunt for me after you. That way we won’t feel rushed. We can take our time.”
“The later it gets the harder it will be to find a good source of energy,” she said.
“I'm up for the challenge if you are,” he said with a broad grin.
She smiled in return. “Where do you usually stalk your prey?” she asked.
“I prefer to find an organic market. People are much more health conscious who shop in an organic market.”
“That's where many of us like to start a hunt. There are several such markets that I know of in the boroughs that are open late.”
“Excellent. Where is your dinner?”
“Here. In the city. At a restaurant called Fresh. They specialize in farm to table high end cuisine. I think you'll like it.”
“Sounds delightful. I’m looking forward to it. I love posh cuisine.”
“The chef is an artist. We have to book our reservations two months in advance. It’s a very popular place.”
They arrived at the penthouse and he walked her to her door. She laughed at him. “Really, there's no need to dog my every step.”
“There is
a need. When your bodyguards are not with you, I am your guard. I take that very seriously. Now let’s go inside so I can take a quick look around. Then I want to change for dinner.”
She let him into the apartment and he left her in the foyer with a touch on her arm to tell her she should remain there while he checked out her entire apartment. Quite a feat, considering how big it was. Luckily it was all about open spaces and the bedrooms were the only sectioned off area besides the foyer. He ran into Darcy at some point because they both entered the foyer to fetch her.
“I’ll draw you a bath,” Darcy said. She knew Simone’s routine well enough by now. She worked on an instinctual level as well. Darcy knew her. Knew everything about her. They were companions as well as employer and employee. They confided in each other…lived together…sometimes hunted together. So she most certainly knew the night she was supposed to hunt and what she did to prepare for it.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Marcus said with a small up-tilt to his lips. There was suddenly something in the way he looked at her…the way she caught at his mind, she thought, that made the idea of him knowing she was about to slip naked into a bath something intimate and sexual. Their eyes met and held just long enough to make her skin flush warmly. She quickly looked away, moving out of the foyer as she called back to him in her best I-couldn’t-care-less attitude and hoped it sounded right.
“I’ll see you at 7:15. Please be prompt as I am always running late and need someone to pressure me into getting ready.”
She heard him chuckle at that right before Darcy closed the door to the foyer on him, leaving him alone. Darcy immediately hurried up to Simone’s side as Simone began to walk toward her bedroom.
“Are you going out with that hunk of burnin’ love?” she asked breathlessly.
Simone laughed at her. “He is my new authoritarian after all,” she pointed out.
“I thought you might hunt with Danton for as long as you could before he left,” she said gently. Darcy knew how abandoned Simone felt by the veteran authoritarian. She was the only person who knew. The only one she had confided her true feelings to.
The fact was, when you boiled it all down, she felt betrayed by Danton. She had given him everything, had raised him up to his position in spite of the voluble protest against giving a half-breed such an exalted position, she had given him her complete trust. She had trusted him with the safety of her soul as well as her body. They had never been physically intimate, but no one knew her more intimately in all other ways than Danton did, save Darcy. They were the best of friends and he was leaving her.
“No. I’ve already hunted with Danton for the last time. He leaves in two days and it’s better this transition happens while he’s still here. I want to make sure I get a feel for Marcus’s style before then. Nothing should make that more clear than watching him hunt…watching him as he builds bridges to the new relationships he’s going to need in order to survive here. Hunting requires a great deal of savvy and it reveals a lot about a vampire.”
“I wonder if he’s the classy type or the more savage type,” Darcy said. “Is he more like Rafe who is all smooth and refined or is he more primal like Halo.”
“Halo liked to seduce his food just as Rafe does. But…he did it in a more sexualized manner. A baser one. He used to sleep with his meals.” Simone frowned. “I've crossed that line myself on very rare occasions in my lifetime, but I don’t make a habit of it like he did. I wonder if Marcus…”
Simone stopped. For some reason, she didn’t want to consider Marcus having sex with anyone, least of all a target. The images it stirred up left her heated all along the surfaces of her skin. Marcus naked. Marcus making love. What kind of lover would he be?
She stopped herself before her contemplations went any further than that. But it was too late. Images had burned themselves across her mind’s eye.
“I had better get that bath,” she sad after clearing her throat. “I’ll find out what kind of hunter he is soon enough.”
Simone walked into the rear of the apartment, into her bedroom as Darcy peeled away to go into the bathroom and fill the tub. She knew that, although Simone showered the rest of her days, she preferred a bath on the days she was hunting. It relaxed it. Gave her time to get her mind right. Not that it was so complex at this stage of the game. She had known Cyril, her target for the evening, for two years now. It was all a matter of getting Cyril to invite her back to his place where she could feed from him in private. Since they did this almost every time they met together, there was little to worry about. Cyril was single, lived alone and had no lovers. He was at an age, he said, where lovers were rare and his desire for them was rarer. She liked Cyril. He was acerbic and kind and very intelligent for a human. Of course, most humans were intelligent, but not like Cyril. Cyril was a renaissance man. He prided himself on being an expert authority one a wide range of topics and in many areas of culture amongst his people. He was a philanthropist and a good friend. Simone liked him a great deal. She counted him as one of her best human friends…and she was friends with most of her targets. She was good friends with exactly fifteen humans. No more, no less. Enough to eat every two days if the need arose. Of course, being a senior vampire she could go almost a full week between feedings. She really only needed to cultivate five serious targets, but she liked to keep her options open and she didn’t like all of her targets the way she liked Cyril. Then again, she did away with those humans whose company she could find barely tolerable. She moved on from them. If she had to spend time wooing a human, she’d much rather it be a worthwhile one.
Simone was slipping into the hot waters of her bath a short time later and sitting back with a sigh. It had been a long day and it had seemed at times that the weight of her crown made her neck ache unbearably. There were days when that metaphorical ache was almost too much to bear. This had not been quite one of those days, but without Danton standing around her office whenever he wasn't on authoritarian business, she had felt alone. Lonely even. Oh she had spent most of her early morning in meetings with him as she usually did, but after that he had made himself very scarce. She wondered if he was avoiding her, and in the next moment was grateful if he was. This was a hard goodbye and it was an excruciatingly slow process. At least she would have Marcus’s integration into his new role at her side to keep her busy. As he filled in the blank places left by Danton’s withdrawal she would find herself feeling more like things were getting back to normal.
However, right then things were not normal.
Simone was full of questions, doubts and second guesses about her new lieutenant. When he was with her she was mostly confident she had made the right choice when she had so impulsively chosen him. Even so he said things and acted in certain ways that made her and others uncomfortable around him. And yet she liked that. They needed to be made uncomfortable. They needed to be shaken up. They had all become far too complacent and it had allowed a creature like Draz to entrench himself in their world. Over the past two months Draz’s lieutenants had been causing havoc in their world. It was time it was put to an end…and Marcus was just the man to see to it that it was done. With Marcus and Halo working together it would be done.
It should have been Danton standing in victory over Draz, but that was not to be. Also, Danton had not gotten the job done to date. It did not mean he wasn't capable, there had been other things in the way and he was a very busy man…but the fact remained he had not been able to eliminate Draz.
She hoped her faith in Marcus and his brazen attitude would pay off.
She finished her bath, dried off and began to dress and apply her cosmetics. She didn’t really need them, her youthful beauty striking and remarkable without them, but she enjoyed the way they enhanced her looks. The smokiness of her eye shadow, the pink of her lips. And there was something about the ritual of it. It felt as if she were preparing to meet a lover, making herself as beautiful and attractive as possible.
She tried to tell herself it was her ol
d friend Cyril she was trying to please, but if she examined her motives too closely she realized it was Marcus who filled her thoughts. As she rubbed lotion into her skin, her hands sliding silkily everywhere, stimulating her in sensuality, she imagined it was his long cool fingers and strong large palms she emulated.
She caught herself in the indulgence and gave herself a hard mental shake. This would not do. It would not do at all. So what if it was the first time in ever so long she had felt an attraction for any man? He was her subordinate. Inappropriate. Then again, there were few men out there who could be considered worthy of her…an equal. That usually meant a prince. But she knew all two hundred forty two princes on some level or another, and none of them had attracted her attention. At least, not recently. She did have past lovers among them and among former princes who had since been voted out of office.
Who else but those who worked closely to her would she be exposed to? All other vampires were kept at a distance. Oh, she met hundreds of attaches and secretaries of office every day and especially at state functions, but it was hard to find the time to really get to know them. Truly the closeness of working every day with someone was the only opportunity she had for getting to know a male vampire. It was a frustrating conundrum. Especially for a vital woman who liked to indulge in the sensualities of life. It was the only way to keep life interesting…otherwise an older vampire like herself might be overcome with the sameness of it all after hundreds of years on the planet. It was important to indulge herself or she might experience the ennui that affected so many of their elder vampires.
To her every day was made different by the pleasures and challenges they brought. Without those pleasures and challenges life would become dull and colorless. She used challenges like work or relationships to add vitality to her every day life.
And the feed. No two feedings were alike and each feeding was a feast of sensuality and revitalization. At least, it was to her. She knew there were those who fed only because they had to, those who wasted the opportunity to find the pleasure in the act, those who wished they didn’t have to depend on humans to survive. They looked on humans as cattle…or annoying, barely domesticated pets. It was that air of superiority that threatened the delicate balance between their species and the human race.