Linda Robertson - Fatal Circle

Words whispered through my mind. Menessos’s voice. Latin, a chant ending with: in signum amoris. Those words left my own lips, in whispered sighs. “In signum amoris. In signum amoris. In signum amoris.”

Johnny growled as pleasure claimed him.

Together we rode the bliss to its end, panting, entwined, and gratefully ensnared in each other’s arms. It was beautiful.

Until I realized Johnny was kissing my sternum and whispering, “ In signum amoris . . .”

Johnny carried me to the bed and we spooned until he was snoring deeply. Then I slipped away, hoping to sneak out. Yeah, finally a chance for cuddling after sex and I’m leaving.

He roused and sleepily asked, “Where you going?”

“To shower.” To keep it from being a lie, I went and showered. The wine had matted my hair anyway. By the time I’d finished, he was sleeping soundly, so I found the soft, white couture robe that Risqué had mentioned. I donned the robe and its matching slippers, intending to creep quietly from the room.

The industrial door and the noise beyond it was going to be a problem, but I had to find Menessos and confront him about this. Bastard. I put him in his place, and at his first chance, he’s harassing me in a new way.

Releasing all the bolts and then twisting the handle, I opened the door. I slithered out fast and shut it as quietly as possible.

I hurried down the stairs and to Menessos’s door where I knocked loudly. I was going to get an answer about what had just happened. Plus Xerxadrea’s warning about being Bindspoken gave me a second line of questioning to pursue.

No one answered the door. I tried the knob. Locked.

Stalking through the green room and into the backstage area, I found a Beholder washing out paintbrushes in a deep sink. His jeans, T-shirt, and work boots were spattered with dark paint. He was wiry, but his upper body bulged with lean muscles.

“You there.”

“Yeah?” He glanced up. His eyes were an unusual green-gray-brown, and conveyed a brokenness that made me uncomfortable, like the eyes of a pit fighting dog. When he recognized me he stood straighter and said, “Yes, my lady?”

“Do you know where Menessos is?”

He bowed his head. “Follow me.”

Tromping around the theater wet-headed and wearing nothing but a robe wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind, but I couldn’t back out now. We passed into the theater. I saw Mountain carrying thick bolts of fabric on either shoulder, but the bulk of the crew was vampire. My guide gave a shrill whistle. Everyone stopped and came to a respectful attention.

Seeing that the nearest half-dozen of them were scenting me, I called out, “You may continue.” The painter led me through the house, past Seven at the podium—she gave me a distracted nod—and into the lobby. We went up one flight of now-cleaned and restored stairs to the hall. At the end of the hall to my right, two pale and lean vampires stood on either side of a cherry door with an elegant polished brass knob.

“The future Erus Veneficus would see the Master,” the Beholder said, and bowed, leaving me with the vampires. Both seemed formidable and fierce. One could have been a skinny Viking; the other could have been a Zulu warrior. If an expression other than “badass” happened to take either face, neither of them would have survived.

They waited expectantly, radiating the threat of being hungry and on edge. I had an urge to throw my arms up and shout “Boo!” but that probably would have gotten me killed.

“May I go in?”

“Always,” the Zulu said.

The Viking opened the door for me. He breathed in as I passed, scenting me like a ravenous waerewolf standing outside a steakhouse on Friday night.

Inside, the room was like a gentleman’s library, cherry paneling, dark leather-upholstered furniture. A full suit of armor stood in one corner, relics and weaponry of ages past in glass museum cases. A newer, gleaming dagger with wicked curves rested in a case upon the desk Menessos sat behind. He smiled up at me as smug as a Cheshire cat.

Stopping between the two guest chairs before his desk, I demanded, “What the hell did you do?”

“I have been in here for hours, tending my administrative duties, taking a few calls, approving orders, payment on other orders, and—”

“I don’t see any paperwork.” His desk was empty except for decorative items and a closed laptop sitting on an unmarked blotter.

“I completed it just before you arrived all lovely in that robe and smelling of wolf.” The look in his eyes made me truly understand the meaning of “devour.” “Your cheeks are flushed. I might think I’d embarrassed you but your hands have risen to perch defiantly on your shapely hips, so”—he steepled his fingers—“I conclude the flush is more anger.”

“We both know I can force answers from you, Menessos. Don’t make me.”

“You are not attempting to threaten me, are you, my dear?”

He’d just turned my anger switch from “almost” to “on.” I fought to rotate it back. “Must everything be a struggle?”

“Life is a struggle.”

“I’ve been here a little more than twenty-four hours, and already I am sick of the damned games you play. Every time things appear clearly established, you pull some new stunt. I may walk away from it having learned something, but it’s wearying nonetheless. Is there never a moment of contentment for you?”

The predatory, masculine countenance returned, and his eyes became glistening pools of gray. He rose and came around his desk as he spoke. “We all fight for what we achieve and what we want, don’t we?” He settled into a lean against the front of his desk, then lifted a tendril of my damp hair, admired the bandage, and reached toward my neck. In the next instant, he ripped the wide Band-Aid free.

“Ow!” I tried to slap him. He restrained my wrist.

“I know how this works, Persephone.” He dropped the bandage into a waste basket. I tried to pull my wrist free; he held on. “I know how you work . . . and then you ‘pull some new stunt’ and I find that truly, I don’t.”

The skin on my neck was burning from the rough bandage removal. When he didn’t continue, I muttered, “Glad to know the feeling’s mutual.”

“But that’s just it, the ‘feeling’ isn’t.” The tone of his voice was laced with a despondency that touched my heart.

Enough of this. Every time he ignited my rage, he followed it with stirring my heart, or vice versa, shifting until my resistance was gone and my anger was fully triggered. Let’s skip ahead this time. Intending to invoke the power pull, I visualized it and felt the charge of energy materialize—

Menessos jerked on my arm, yanking me easily into his embrace, and sank his teeth into me.

I screamed and, my concentration lost, dropped the attempt.

He raised his mouth from my neck and stood straight, but his grip stayed vise-tight. He hadn’t fed, just reopened the wounds or made new ones. Drops of my blood stained his lips, ran into his beard. “You may have the means to drain my energy, but I can drain yours, as well.”

A trickle of blood slowly rolled down my neck.

Menessos came at me again. I feared he would bite me again, but he smeared blood from his lips across my cheek and whispered into my ear, “There’s much more to mastery than simply holding the upper hand.” He jerked the collar of my robe open, exposing my neck and breasts, and bent, licking where the blood had run.

I hadn’t dressed fearing that doing so would wake Johnny, but now I was wishing I’d taken that risk and put on more than the robe. I growled, “I still want answers.”