Ким Харрисон - Every Witch Way But Dead

Kisten stood, and I froze as he went around the table and reached for her. "Ivy…"

"This is going to stop," she said, knocking his hand aside with a quick jerk before he could touch her. "Right now."

My jaw dropped as she strode from the room with a vampire quickness. The candles flickered, then steadied. "Ivy?" I set my coffee down and stood, but the room was empty. Kisten had darted out after her. I was alone. "Where are you going…." I whispered.

I heard the muffled rumble of Ivy's sedan start, borrowed from her mother for the winter. In an instant she was gone. I went into the hall, the soft thump of Kisten shutting the door and his steps on the hardwood floor clear in the silence.

"Where's she going?" I asked him as he came even with me at the top of the hallway.

He put a hand on my shoulder in a silent suggestion that I go back into the living room. In my stocking feet I felt the difference in our height keenly. "To talk to Piscary."

"Piscary!" Alarm brought me to a standstill. I pulled out of his light grip and stopped in the hall. "She can't talk to him alone!"

But Kisten gave me a mirthless smile. "She'll be fine. It's high time she talk to him. As soon as she does, he'll back off. That's why he's been bothering her. This is a good thing."

Not convinced, I returned to the living room. I was very conscious of him behind me, silent, close enough to touch. We were alone, if you didn't count the fifty-six pixies in my desk. "She'll be all right," he said under his breath as he followed me, shoes silent on the gray carpet.

I wanted him to leave. I was emotionally whipped, and I wanted him to leave. Feeling his eyes on me, I blew out the candles. In the new darkness, I gathered the coffee cups onto the tray in the hopes that he would take the hint. But as my gaze rose to the hallway, a thought stopped me cold. "Do you think Piscary can make her bite me? He almost made her bite Quen."

Kisten shifted into motion, his fingers brushing mine as he took the tray from me in the smoke-scented air. "No," he said, clearly waiting for me to go into the kitchen before him.

"Why not?" I padded into the brightly lit room.

Squinting at the new glare, Kisten slid the tray beside the sink and dumped the coffee to make brown puddles in the white porcelain sink. "Piscary was able to exert such an influence on her this afternoon because he caught her off guard. That, and she didn't have any set behavior to fight it. She's been battling her instincts to bite you since you were partners in the I.S. Saying no has gotten easy. Piscary can't make her bite you unless she gives in first, and she won't give in. She respects you too much."

I opened the dishwasher, and Kisten stacked the cups in the top rack. "Are you sure?" I asked softly, wanting to believe.

"Yes." His knowing smile made him a bad boy in an expensive suit again. "Ivy takes pride in denying herself. She values her independence more than I do, which is why she fights him. It'd be easier if she'd give it up. He'd stop forcing his dominance then. It's not degrading to let Piscary see through your eyes, channel your emotions and desires. I found it uplifting."

"Uplifting." I leaned against the counter in disbelief. "Piscary exerting his will over her and making her do things she doesn't want to is 'uplifting'?"

"Not when you put it like that." He opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the dish detergent. I briefly wondered how he knew it was there. "But Piscary is being a pain in the ass only because she's resisting him. He likes her fighting him."

I took the bottle from him and filled the little cup in the door of the dishwasher.

"I keep telling her that being Piscary's scion doesn't make her less, but more," he said. "She doesn't lose any of herself, and gains so much. Like the vampire track, and having almost the full strength of an undead without any of the drawbacks."

"Like a soul to tell you it's wrong to view people as walking snack bars," I said tartly, snapping the door shut.

A sigh slipped from him, the fine fabric of his suit bunching at his shoulders when he took the bottle of soap from me and set in on the counter. "It's not like that," he said. "Sheep are treated like sheep, users are used, and those who deserve more receive everything."

Arms crossed over my chest, I said, "And who are you to make that decision?"

"Rachel." He sounded weary as he cupped my elbows in his hands. "They make the decision themselves."

"I don't believe that." But I didn't pull away, and I didn't push his hands off me. "And even if they do, you take advantage of it."

Kisten's eyes went distant, falling from mine as he gently pulled my arms into a less aggressive posture. "Most people," he said, "are desperate to be needed. And if they don't feel good about themselves or think they're undeserving of love, some will fasten upon the worst possible way to satisfy that need to punish themselves. They're the addicts, the shadows both claimed and unclaimed, passed like the fawning sheep they make themselves into as they search for a glimmer of worth, knowing it's false even as they beg for it. Yes, it is ugly. And yes, we take advantage of those who let us. But which is worse, taking from someone who wants you to, knowing in your soul that you're a monster, or taking from an unwilling person and proving it?"

My heart pounded. I wanted to argue with him, but everything he had said, I agreed with.

"And then there are those who relish the power they have over us." Kisten's lips thinned from a past anger, and he dropped his hands from me. "The clever ones who know that our need to be accepted and trusted runs so deep it can be crippling. Those who play upon that, knowing we will do almost anything for that invitation to take the blood we desperately crave. The ones who exalt in the hidden domination a lover can exert, feeling it elevates them to an almost godlike status. Those are the ones who want to be us, thinking it will make them powerful. And we use them, too, casting them aside with less regret than the sheep unless we grow to hate them, upon which we make them one of us in cruel restitution."

He cupped my jaw with his hand. It was warm, and I didn't pull away. "And then there are the rare ones who know love, who understand it. Who freely give of themselves, demanding only a return of that love, that trust." His faultless blue eyes never blinked, and I held my breath. "It can be beautiful, Rachel, when there is trust and love. No one is bound. No one loses his or her will. No one becomes less. Both become more than they can be alone. But it is so rare, so beautiful when it happens."

I shivered, wondering if he was lying to me.

The soft touch of his hand down my jaw as he pulled away sent my blood humming. But he didn't notice, his attention on the coming dawn visible out the window. "I feel bad for Ivy," he whispered. "She doesn't want to accept her need for belonging, even as it charts her every move. She wants that perfect love but thinks she isn't deserving of it."

"She doesn't love Piscary," I whispered. "You said there was no beauty without trust and love."

Kisten's eyes met mine. "I wasn't talking about Piscary."

His attention went to the clock above the sink, and when he took a backward step, I knew he was leaving. "It's getting late," he said, his distant voice telling me he was already mentally somewhere else. Then his eyes cleared and he was back. "I enjoyed our date," he said as he drew away. "But next time, there isn't going to be a limit on what I can spend."

"You're assuming there's going to be a next time?" I said, trying to lighten the mood.

He met my smile with his own, the new bristles on his face catching the light. "Maybe."

Kisten started for the front door, and I automatically followed to see him out. In my stockings, my feet were as soundless as his on the hardwood floor. The sanctuary was quiet, not a peep from my desk. Still not having said anything, Kisten shrugged into his wool coat.