Shadowflame Part 3

David rubbed Osiris down with sure strokes. Miranda had learned that grooming his horses, along with debugging code and taking apart complex circuitry, was like yoga for the Prime.

She climbed up onto a rail and let her feet swing, trying not to bother him while he was so immersed in what he was doing; instead she took the time to admire how he moved, how his hands followed Osiris's muscles to check for injuries or other problems, how he murmured to the animal as if they shared a secret. She could almost understand the attraction some women had to horses, watching them like this.

"You shouldn't be uncomfortable around powerful beings," David said. "You're a powerful being, too, remember?" He led Osiris into his stall.

"It's not just that," Miranda replied. "They look at me all sideways like they're trying to decide whether to eat me."

"That's because their eyes are on the sides of their head, not the front," he explained. "They have a nearly three-hundred-sixty-degree range of vision. They need to be able to see all around them in the wild, both to keep tabs on herdmates and to watch for predators. That's how they look at everything-don't take it personally."

She hadn't really thought much about it. "Oh. Makes sense, I guess."

He gestured for her to come closer, and after a moment's hesitation she came to stand next to David, ready to jump back out of the stall, examining the enormous nostril that was entirely too close to her face. The horse's ear flicked toward her, but he made no sign of agitation and turned his attention to the hay hanging in the back of the stall.

"It's safe," David said gently. "I promise."

Tentatively, sure that Osiris was going to turn and bite her hand off, she reached out and lightly touched the side of his neck, her heart pounding in her throat.

Osiris suffered the touch without comment and didn't so much as bat an eye when she tried again, this time laying her hand on his neck and gingerly stroking the hair and the powerful muscle beneath.

"Isis and Osiris are Friesians," David told her, no doubt to distract her from the huge wall of animal she was touching. "They're very showy and proud, but usually pretty docile. Osiris's dam-his mother-was a handful, though."

"How many generations have you owned?" she asked, running her hand along the horse's side, amazed at how solid and strong he was.

"Three, counting him. I had his mother and grandfather."

"What about Isis?"

He smiled. "She was a bribe. The Prime of Eastern Europe was trying to get on my good side. It worked."

Miranda, quite done with her experiments, moved back out of the stall, crossing her arms, grateful to put distance between them again. David gave her a look that held more than a little pride; he knew how much she hated being afraid of anything. The first month she had refused to even go in the stable. He was hoping one day she'd want to try riding, and though she'd snorted openly at the suggestion, it wasn't as if they would run out of time for her to overcome her fears.

"I've still got a while here," David said, taking a metal thing-a hoof pick, she remembered-from the wall and gingerly lifting up Osiris's front left foot. "Why don't you go on inside and I'll finish up, shower, and join you?"

She nodded. "Sounds good. I'll be in the music room."

Another smile. "You're kidding."

Miranda stuck her tongue out at him. "I have songs to finish," she said. "I'm in the studio in a few days."

"By the way, how did the bodyguard roundup go?" he asked as he inspected the hoof in his hand for rocks and, she guessed, small mammals.

"Fine. I guess we'll see tomorrow. After the latest Magnificent b.a.s.t.a.r.d gets here, I've got a show."

"Right." David's voice and expression altered very slightly, and she frowned, catching the subtle hardening of his tone.

"What's wrong? Are you still worried about Hart?"

"I want to know what he's up to, but there have been no rumors or intelligence suggesting why he's coming here. The only thing I can think of is that he wants Kentucky back-there's a full Council in three years and we have to rebid for it, but there's zero chance I'll be outvoted. I've got representatives from Louisville ready to testify that they want my continued leadership, and Hart can barely hold his own territory without constant threat of revolt. So, yes, I'm suspicious. Not even Dev has any idea, and if anyone would know, he would."

Miranda had been hearing about Deven for months now, and she was both anxious to meet him and on the verge of rolling her eyes every time she heard his name. According to both David and Faith, Prime Deven knew all, saw all, and had never lost a fight; he was old and smart and powerful and apparently shot unicorns out of his a.s.s. "Don't worry," she told David. "We can handle him, can't we? He'll be on our turf, after all. You have the right to toss him out if he misbehaves."

"Not if," David said. "When. And it's not that simple. Hart has allies in the Council who aren't known for their fair-mindedness. They're a minority, yes, but they can still make life very unpleasant for us if they want to. It's in our best interest to maintain good relations on the surface."

Now she did roll her eyes. "If you say so. Personally I don't see the point in playing nice. You're David Solomon. Everyone's scared s.h.i.tless of you."

David shook his head. "Not everyone."

"Well, they should be." Miranda moved just close enough to kiss him on the cheek-he did smell rather horsey, after all-and said, "I'll see you after you've showered, Lord Prime. Have fun giving your pony a pedicure."

The Prime chuckled and swatted her lightly on the a.s.s as she walked away.

Faith met her on the steps to the house. "I've got Lalita and Jake scheduled for tomorrow night, if that's all right with you."

"Any particular reason you matched them that way?"

"I ran them through some scenarios in various pairs, and they seemed to work well together, as do Aaron and Minh. Also Lali and Jake have run patrols on the same team, so they're comfortable with each other. I have them as your primary guards for now, but we can change that if you find you prefer Aaron and Minh."

Faith walked beside her down the hall; as they pa.s.sed, the guards at each station bowed, and Miranda gave them an acknowledging nod. "I'm in for the night," Miranda told the Second. "The Prime will be soon, too-I'm sure he'll want you to check in before you log off."

Faith nodded, then slowed down. "My Lady . . ."

"Yes?" Miranda turned to her.

"I know what you're going to say to this, but . . . I just feel like I need to say it."

Miranda sighed. Here we go again. "Go on."

"I'm just wondering if it's safe for you to continue playing in public." At Miranda's expression, Faith added, "Someone tried to kill you, Miranda. I'm not being paranoid. And having a Prime like Hart in town . . . well, it tends to bring out the crazies. I'm perfectly willing to give you as big or small a security detail as you and the Prime think is best, but I just . . . I just want you to think. Think about how many lives depend on you."

Miranda made a face. "Faith, n.o.body but David depends on me. If we die, there will always be another Prime."

"Maybe. But I don't think you get how important you are to all of us. What do you think it was like in this territory before Auren was deposed? Vampires killed at will, and no one even tried to stop them. Hunters were starting to flood the major cities of the South, and the entire Shadow World was almost exposed. Right now the Council majority sides with David that no-kill laws are the safest thing for all of us, but Hart is one of the ones who disagrees. What if he's got some hotshot vampire friend willing to start a war for your Signet?"

Miranda crossed her arms and faced the Second. "What do you want me to do, Faith? Give up everything that matters to me? I can't do that. I can't live forever-and moreover, I can't be the person David needs as his partner-if I can't be who I am. I'll take guards, I'll have Harlan drive me, I'll do what I can to put your minds at ease. But I can't give this up. Music is . . . it's who I am, Faith."

Miranda hated the note of pleading in her voice, but it had the desired effect, as Faith looked stricken by the intensity of her tone, and her whole demeanor changed from "second in command making battle plans" to "worried friend." Miranda tried hard not to take advantage of Faith's friendship, but it was hard sometimes to know where to draw the line between Faith-her-friend and Faith-her-Second, especially given how much older and wiser Faith was.

"We're all on your side, Miranda. But we have to be realistic. You're a vampire now, and not just any vampire. You are Queen. You'll never be like the others. Ever."

Miranda stopped outside the music room door. She nodded to Faith-not in agreement, but in acknowledgment that she had been listening to her Second's concerns and wouldn't automatically dismiss them. "I hear you, Faith."

"Thank you, my Lady. That's all I ask." Faith was clearly not satisfied with the conversation, but she said only, "I'm logging off for the night, then, after a quick check-in with the Prime. Send out if you need me after that."

"Thank you, Faith. Dismissed."

Miranda slid inside the music room and shut and locked the door behind her, standing for a moment with her back against the door, eyes closed, trying to breathe.

When she opened her eyes, she smiled with relief.

The room was her refuge, more important to her than any other place in the Haven. Here she could lay down her responsibilities-which she was already having trouble carrying-and just be Miranda for a while.

From the moment she'd first set foot inside the room, she had known it was hers. She was meant to be there. Her hands were meant to touch the keys of the magnificent instrument that took up a third of the s.p.a.ce: her Bosendorfer Imperial Grand, a gleaming black empress holding court over the room. There was also s.p.a.ce devoted to her other instrument of choice, the Martin guitar she had bought after her old one was destroyed. It had its own stand and its own area for her to practice in.

Miranda took off her coat and hung it and her bag on the rack by the door. She approached the piano, as always, as if walking into a church.

Then she laid her hands on the piano's lid, exposed the keys, and sat down, leaning her head sideways on the keys for a moment, closing her eyes.

With her eyes shut she felt along the keys with one hand and gently touched a few, the barest hint of a melody almost too quiet to be heard. She hummed with the notes, letting her energy sync with the piano's; it wasn't alive by any stretch, but it sort of reminded her of the Signets in the way it responded to her. The stones' light flared or dimmed to match the bearer's emotional state, and it felt like the piano's strength rose up to meet her own, or lay down beneath her sorrows. She couldn't believe she had ever lived without it.

On the far wall hung a portrait of the woman who had bought the Bosendorfer and set aside this room for it: the seventh Queen of the South, Elizabeth Jensen, who had been murdered, with her Prime, by Auren in 1914. Bess, as she'd been known, was the first African-American Queen in the South, and had been a slave in her human life. She was known all over the territory as a wildly intelligent woman who spent her immortality becoming as educated as she could, studying music, medicine, history, art, and several languages. And though like most Queens she'd taken a backseat in Signet politics and had been the subject of scorn and derision from several other Pairs, she had been a n.o.ble woman, greatly respected by many.

Miranda wished she could have met Bess, if for no other reason than to thank her for her devotion to music. Bess was the only Queen so far to whom Miranda felt any kind of real connection, and she wasn't even alive.

Gradually Miranda applied more pressure to the keys and more notes to the melody, raising her head until it leaned against the piano's lid. She let her fingers find their own way, channeling the pile of confused emotions in her heart into sound where they could be lifted up and turned into something beautiful.

The Prime tended horses and worked equations. She made music.

Sometimes she played songs that she already knew, and sometimes she just improvised or combined both-without even thinking, it always ended up dark and complex, the lines of melody doubling back and twisting around themselves like Celtic knotwork. Certain themes repeated on certain days.

More than once she'd woken up here with David sitting nearby keeping watch over her as she played in her sleep. Her arms would ache for hours afterward, but it was better than having nightmares.

As if the thought had summoned him, she felt a warm presence flood through her mind, and she knew without looking that David was there, taking up his usual seat in the small audience section of the room. She still remembered the first time she'd seen him there, back when she was human, back before either of them had been ready to admit what they had, deep down, already known about the connection they shared. He'd be sitting with his hands folded, elbows on the chair's arms, carelessly regal and infernally attractive. She could feel the comfortable weight of his gaze.

She reached along their bond, drawing the gentle surety of its power into the music, creating two streams of melody and twisting them around each other so that the chord was stronger than the sum of its notes. Together they were a natural harmony, and she followed it deeper until the room and the Haven and the world disappeared and there was nothing but one song, breathtakingly beautiful and intense beyond words.

She brought the piece to a winding conclusion, and by the time the last chords rang into the air, pain had begun to a.s.sert itself in her hands. She lifted her eyes to the clock and realized with some surprise that she'd been playing for almost two hours.

When she lowered her eyes, David was beside her, sitting down on the bench and taking her hands in his. "Silly woman," he chided affectionately. "You could burn yourself out doing that."

She leaned against his shoulder, all the tension gone from her body. The piano wasn't quite as good as s.e.x, but it came d.a.m.n close. "Only way to fly," she murmured.

He was smiling, and she felt the heat of healing energy pa.s.s between them again, soothing the cramps in her fingers. It was a handy thing in some ways, being Paired; they could heal each other of anything short of a mortal wound almost instantly, even faster than a vampire's natural regenerative speed. Either of them could draw from their combined power, and there were supposedly ways they could work together to become even stronger, but David had said that must wait until she wasn't so new.

She was dimly aware that he threaded his arms around her and picked her up. She heard the faint clunk of the piano lid closing, followed by the sound of the lights clicking off, and turned her face happily into his chest, inhaling the scent of his shirt. There was something in the way he smelled-some undertone of great age that would never have registered to her mortal senses-that she found deeply comforting, like leaning against a mountain or red-wood or some other nearly eternal thing.

Doors opened, doors closed; the guards at the suite door gave their greetings. Inside the suite was warm from the hearth that Esther had stoked before they arrived.

David deposited her on the bed and sat down, taking one of her legs and removing her boot, unconsciously running his hand along her shin as he had Osiris's. She chuckled.

"I'm not a horse," she said without looking up.

"I'm well aware of that," David answered wryly. "Horses are far less stubborn than you."

"That's why you love me."

She could hear him smiling. "As a matter of fact, it is." He pulled off her other boot and then set to removing the rest of her clothes with deft, practiced hands. "That, and about a thousand other reasons."

"Such as?"

"You're willful, smart as h.e.l.l, courageous, and you look good in red," he said, touching a finger to her Signet, then lifting a tendril of her hair from her forehead. "You also have a tremendous heart, and, if I may be so bold, absolutely perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

Miranda's eyes popped open, and she saw the wicked glint in his. "Flattery will get you seriously laid, Lord Prime," she said.

"I was hoping you'd say that."

She sat up long enough to put her hand around his neck and pull his mouth to hers, and then she rolled back, hauling him onto her with a growl. He braced himself on his hands to keep from knocking the wind out of her, then tore his lips away and leaned down to kiss a slow line from her throat to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, still bound in black lace.

She arched her back to let him unhook the offending garment, then shifted her shoulders from side to side to strip it off and toss it aside. Meanwhile her fingers ventured in between the b.u.t.tons of his shirt to find the muscle underneath and, with only a little fumbling, managed to push the shirt off. She moved her hands up his back, feeling the slightly raised lines of the hawk etched into his shoulders.

She loved the sensation of sliding her hands down into the waistband of his jeans and around to the front to unzip them. His skin was like silk over stone and warmed under her palms and lips.

She would never have expected in a thousand years to want so much, to crave both the taste of his blood and the deep aching pleasure of their bodies wrapping around each other and joining. That first second of contact when they could finally touch without barriers of s.p.a.ce or fabric was the same every time: a shock to her system, like coming in from freezing rain to the edge of a volcano. Her body was still surprised at how badly it needed his.

The first time after the battle had frightened her. She hadn't realized just how much he'd been holding back that night in her apartment. A human body was so easy to break . . . and two vampires without restraint could easily break furniture, her screams practically peeling the paint off the walls. The intensity of it had been almost too much, but the trust between them was so complete, and the joy of being reunited so overwhelming, that her fear had evaporated.

He alone could touch her. In all of eternity, all the world, there would never be another. She had no desire to ever look at another man-she didn't even feed on them. Her time in h.e.l.l had made sure of it, and the amulet around her neck sealed it. He alone . . . he alone.

Forever.

Three.

Tuesday evening began with the arrival of a bl.u.s.tery cold front that swept through central Texas leaving frost in its wake . . . followed by the arrival of a black stretch limousine and a black van.

Because Faith was Second in Command, it was her job to show the visiting Prime to his rooms, see that he was comfortably installed, then come and let the Pair know when it was time for the formal introduction. Meanwhile David and Miranda waited in David's workroom, where he was taking apart the newest-generation Apple gadget to see how it worked. He had an abiding love for the technical poetry of circuits and chips, and elegant design, whether in a phone or a beehive, was his idea of p.o.r.n.

Miranda knew by how intent he was upon the task that he was, if not nervous, deeply uneasy about the meeting.

She sat with her feet up on an empty chair, trying not to let his emotions affect her. That was a consequence of their connection: She could not shield herself completely from him, ever, and the best she could do was learn to gently nudge his presence to the back of her mind, where it wouldn't overtake her own. Most of the time she liked having him there. There were times, however, when the whole thing was a pain in the a.s.s.

"It's been over an hour," she said. "This is getting ridiculous."

David made an irritated noise. "He's doing it on purpose. Throwing us off schedule a.s.serts his control over the situation."

"I'm supposed to be in town in two hours. Why don't we just go meet him now?"

He looked up at her and smiled. "Because that's not how we do it, beloved. I know, I know-to h.e.l.l with custom and rules-but these protocols have been in place a lot longer than you have. These silly little niceties keep order among the Signets. Besides, watching the way someone navigates the system teaches you a lot about him."

"If this guy is as big a d.i.c.k as everyone says, I don't think I want to know more about him," Miranda pointed out, but he did have something when it came to the value of observing others; she had been watching her husband since the onset of the Magnificent b.a.s.t.a.r.d Parade and had learned quite a bit about him that she hadn't been aware of before. There were areas where he was perfectly happy to flout custom and others where he was a stickler; if he felt the Shadow World was better served by following the rules he did so, but if he believed something was hampering their evolution as a society he ignored it, taking the flak from the others without batting an eye.

"You mentioned you'd met Hart once before," Miranda said. "What happened then?"