CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hours of searching and the result was still the same: no Carlos. The mission had been in vain, and part of her knew that before she'd even jumped into her Hummer. Daylight might shed light on his whereabouts, but he'd obviously vanished into the night. The team had pulled together, everyone's senses keen and sweeping for injury, demons - nothing. Therefore, his disappearance had to be willful. The one thing she was sure of was, if Carlos didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be.
There was no SOS beacon prying its way into her senses. There was no blood trail for her and her trackers to pick up. Memory of the Chairman, and that demon's AWOL status made one dread with every breath. If Lilith resurfaced, God only knew what Carlos had been up against alone. Still, there should have been a trail.
She reentered the living room of the family house and went up to Marlene. Rider and the others could fill in everybody else. She and Mar needed to have a closed-door, one-on-one. She didn't care how it looked, how people might take it; she was so upset right now that all of that was secondary.
Marlene looked up the moment Damali came through the door and stood. No words needed to be exchanged. Marlene nodded and went toward her bedroom. Damali followed, not even greeting the worried housebound team members. Her man was missing, injured, and had possibly relapsed.
"I know," Marlene said in a quiet voice as she shut the door.
Damali walked in a circle, tugging at her locks. "Mar, there's a huge problem out there beyond the one we already know about. I can feel it, but can't put my finger on it. Call me double paranoid, but my gut ain't been right about Carlos since we left Philly."
Marlene stared at her. "This relapse may be a Net-flux, kiddo. Let's not become overly alarmed. We know he had an attitude when he left, and may have just gone somewhere to chill out till daybreak. None of us with second sight are picking up that he's out there injured, or abducted. In fact, who are we to talk? We're all shaky."
"That's just the thing, Mar," Damali said. "Shaky or not, I can't pick up anything on him. No vibration whatsoever. It's like a total absence of light, nothing to track, and even when he was a vamp, I could home in on the brother. Something even deeper than the infection is wrong with him - I know it."
"It may be us," Marlene said slowly, again raking her hair in frustration. "We're all infected. Like the fact that Shabazz and I didn't want to come home, and didn't right away, when there was a serious emergency going on... and Marjorie and Richard said they were tired of being parents and stayed away from the house as long as Shabazz and I did. Can you imagine?" Marlene shook her head and glanced out the window. "It took everything in us to fight the urge just to leave the family." She closed her eyes. "The pull just to worrying about ourselves for a change, being together without responsibilities... our judgment is impaired, baby. Maybe yours is, too."
She didn't want to hurt Marlene's feelings by telling her straight up that she was no longer banking solely on her mother-seer's second sight, but the fact remained that Marlene's judgment had been shattered and stretched thin since Kamal had hit North American soil and the portals had been opened. Damali chose her words carefully, avoiding the too-hot topic that was currently not her main focus, then stopped pacing and leaned against the dresser to look at Marlene squarely.
Marlene opened her eyes and folded her arms over her chest, allowing her gaze to slip away from Damali's toward the window again. "His energy has been different. Angry. Unsettled. Kicking up a lot of dust in the house, creating an undercurrent. But Shabazz and I have talked about that at length. We'd been through the same drama with you, so we weren't particularly concerned. Plus, with the strained living conditions, the loss of his mother and grandmother, all you two kids have been through, and him being a rogue male that had to come in out of the streets to this new Joe-citizen life..." Marlene let her breath out hard. "Showing a little teeth every now and then didn't really worry me, even with what we know now... until tonight."
"I hear you," Damali said, pushing away from the furniture. "But, Mar, he came by my house this afternoon in a cold-blooded vamp purge. Shivering, daylight sensitive, and when I doused his clothes and vomit in the yard, the ground swallowed it all whole."
"What?" Marlene whispered. "He's supposed to be immune."
The tone of Marlene's voice and the look in her eyes made Damali hesitate. She could feel her blood pressure spiking within her as she again chose her words with care.
"Mar, listen," Damali said slowly. "He upchucked green bile, which, given how much he'd probably thrown up already, and what he drank last night, made sense. But the smell..." Damali wrinkled her nose and shook her head, almost tasting the putrid stench on the back of her tongue as she remembered it. "I took everything, even the bathroom sponge, out into the yard, and doused it. Holy water, oil, salt, you name it. If it was in my cabinets, I beat it back with what you'd given me to protect the house. The shit smoked, the ground opened up, and sucked it down, and then the earth closed over like nothing had ever been there."
"Have you been with him since all this happened?" Marlene began to pace. "Not that I'm in your business, girlfriend, but - "
"No," Damali said quickly. "I hear you, and no."
"Good. Maybe you'd better hold up on that until I can divine something more on the situation."
Both women stared at each other for a moment.
"That's not gonna be a problem," Damali said, her tone distant and sad.
"We'll find him," Marlene reassured her.
"That's not what I'm talking about," Damali said, her eyes seeking Marlene's for understanding.
"Oh," Marlene said in a quiet voice. "Since when have things cooled?"
"Since we got back from Philly. A couple of times, yeah... but, it wasn't the same."
Marlene held Damali's gaze, but kept her voice tender. "Why, baby?"
"I don't know," Damali said with a sad smile. "I was hoping you could tell me?"
Marlene chuckled softly. "I can tell you a lot of things, and see a lot, too, but that I can't divine for you. Your heart knows the answer, so talk to me."
Damali let her breath out in a rush of frustration, blowing a stray lock up from her forehead. "Marlene. ... I don't know. I've been stressed, with all this stuff that's going on, worrying about how to keep the uninitiated members of the team safe, the moves, everything. I'm battle-weary."
Marlene shook her head to signal she wasn't buying the explanation. "No, girlfriend. I hear you about the stress thing, but - "
"I know, I know," Damali said, holding up both hands. "All right, here's the deal as honestly as I can tell you." She looked away, finding a benign spot on the wall. "I go to hug him, and I tense up. He goes to kiss my neck, and I freeze. There's this deep-down revulsion that I have to get past; then I have to hide that away in my head, black box it, and then talk to myself while he's holding me to remember, this is my friend, my man, we've been through thick and thin, he loves me, I love him. I've got so much chatter going on in my head that by the time everything is over, I just feel relieved, then want him up off of me and out of me as soon as possible. It's all I can do not to dash for the shower. Now, I know I'm wrong, crazy, it makes no kinda sense... and Lord knows, I'm - "
"Stop beating yourself up, right this minute," Marlene said in a firm but gentle tone. She walked away from Damali and went to the closet, found her big satchel, and extracted her huge, black book. "When are you gonna learn that you can come to me with anything, chile? I'm female. I've been there. And every time I have been, my gut instinct was never wrong."
Again, there was a long pause as their gazes and minds connected.
"I just figured..." Damali's voice trailed off as Marlene shook her head. "Maybe I'm reacting to the contagion, or it's affected me in some weird way?"
"I know how you feel about Jose," Marlene said bluntly. "Know how he feels about you, too. No matter. But he's a carrier, and you respond to him. Your body is functioning normally. It's your head or your heart, maybe your spirit link with Carlos. I don't know."
Shame made Damali's face feel warm. "I don't wanna talk about... let's just focus on Car - "
"Girl, please," Marlene said in an exasperated tone, dropping her satchel and the Temt Tchaas book on the bed. "The man is fine. Jose is crazy about you, always has been. Y'all are tight, thick as thieves. You guys practically grew up in the compound together and share so much in common. You have a pulse, so, chile, an attraction is normal. Been there, too. Recently." Marlene looked away for a moment, but returned her gaze to Damali's. "But, the thing is, you have a line, he has one, too, and you've both elected to honor it. Cool. My lips on that are sealed; ain't my bizness. So, Jose hooked up with Juanita, even though she's a piece of work... but has a good heart down deep; and you've hooked up with Carlos, who also has a good heart - down deep."
Marlene stared at Daman intently. "Now, pound for pound, round for round, given the real special connection you and Carlos have, I'm not understanding what's ringing your alarm bells. The man ain't been nowhere, ain't been with nobody but you."
"I know," Damali said quietly.
"He hasn't flagrantly relapsed, yet. Hasn't said or done anything any more or less annoying than the average male, has he?"
Damali shook her head.
"So, I can get with fatigue, general purpose not feeling romantic due to lack of privacy and chaos - oh, yeah, been there. But revulsion - your word not mine, seems a little extreme. And all of us who have been infected have heightened libido to the point of the ridiculous, not lowered. I could understand if you two couldn't get out of bed to make decisions or address this new threat. That would make sense, given how this mess is manifesting in the household. But you're telling me you're revolted by the love of your life? Uh-uh. Something ain't right."
"I know," Damali whispered, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "What's wrong with me, Marlene?"
Marlene flipped open the book and began furiously turning pages. After a while, she sat down and sighed. "There's a lot in the book, honey. You're a huntress, with vampires as your primary target. You've mastered dealing with that entity. Know werewolves and incubi pretty good, too. I'm looking at your living history, and it stops dead here," she said, placing a finger on the page and turning the book for Damali to inspect.
"The Himalayas? C'mon, Mar, what's that got to do with what we're talking about?" Damali leaned in and sniffed. "New information burns."
Marlene peered more closely. "Just came in tonight." She gingerly touched the still-warm print and jerked her attention up to stare at Damali. "Has Eve's signature vibration in it."
Damali flattened her hand on the page and closed her eyes. A mountain came into her mental view and she recognized it from an earlier vision, but this time landmarks surrounded it to add additional guidance. "The Chairman's lair... oh, my God... she actually met with him on my behalf. My destiny begins there."
Marlene's brow furrowed as she ran her palm over the ancient text, the slight brush of her hand making the secret alphabet sway and ripple as though riding on an invisible wave. "Part of it ends there, too." Marlene looked up. "Have you had any visions?"
Damali sat down slowly on the edge of the bed next to Marlene. "Yeah." Slowly and carefully she related how the cactus in her yard had transformed.
"I wonder..." Marlene said after Damali had finished, causing the young Neteru to hang on her every word. "Two things. You could be really angry at having lost the Isis long blade in large part because of Carlos, and that could be driving a wedge between you. I'm no psychologist, baby, but being with him did significantly alter your career path. You wouldn't be the first woman to harbor deep-seated resentment, even while loving a man, for something like that."
"I don't know," Damali said, studying her clasped hands. "Maybe. I've thought about it. But if I had to do it all over again for the same outcome, him being alive, I would."
"That's just the thing," Marlene said, her voice warm, and her palms covered Damali's. "It had to be done, you made the ultimate sacrifice on his behalf - gambled everything, gave up something that defined you, and he got to be redeemed, stepped into your space, your family, your team, and has the gall and audacity to have an attitude about things not going exactly his way."
Damali nodded fervently. "Ungrateful bastard."
"Ahh... now we're getting somewhere."
Damali smiled for the first time since she'd entered Marlene's room. "Okay, I got beef about a lot of things."
"You're glad he's alive, thank God that he is, but..."
"Yeah," Damali said, looking at Marlene without blinking. "But."
"Then, because he ain't feelin' no luv, and doesn't like the step down from the fabulous, he has the nerve to go out with his boy, Yonnie, and possibly get himself back into trouble again while the world is literally falling apart. All you can think of is all the changes you went through to save his sorry ass in the first place, and all he can think of is how much he hates that a woman had to be the one to pull his butt out of the flames. Which leads me to the second thing I was gonna say. Your energies got disconnected and you're no longer in sync, once the big crisis was over and it was back to everyday life. So neither of you was ready and in lockstep when this new serious challenge came down."
"That is it, Marlene!" Damali shouted. "That's it. In a nutshell."
"Whew," Marlene said, blowing out a hard breath. "If every world crisis could be so easily solved."
"But what about the clothes in the yard and this Himalayas stuff?"
"Were you angry when you doused his clothes?"
"Mad as Hell."
Marlene laughed. "Then, that's where you sent them, girl."
Damali's eyes opened wide. "For real?"
"You're full-blown Neteru, kiddo. You sent something back into the pit, put a fury topspin on it, and it's gone."
"Dang."
"Yep." Marlene grunted as she stood. "The Himalayas... hey. We go to the Chairman's lair and dust him, once and for all. Carlos doesn't have time to go through another month of training before he spikes, even though Tibet is where some real serious martial and spiritual arts masters reside. If he has to learn Zen principles and integrate his longings for his old life with this new one in the Light, what better place for him to learn in a hurry; he dang sure ain't absorbing what he should out here in Arizona. I knew that the moment we set foot on this land and stared at the house. Brotherman's jaw locked so hard I thought he'd chip teeth."
Damali laughed softly in relief, remembering the day well.
"Your long blade is missing and you saw it there," Marlene said, packing away her book and satchel. "Maybe that's where you guys will sync up, get back to the crazy normal y'all call normal. Who knows? Meanwhile, can you work on saving the world?"
"Road trip." Damali hopped up from the bed with a wide grin.
"When we receive a sign," Marlene said, her grin matching Damali's. "Let's not rush things."
"No, Marlene. Eve going into combat mode, risking a full seduction info siphon from the Chairman is a sign. Don't get it twisted. Girlfriend put a lot on the line, had to open old wounds to come away with that. I owe her. We all do."
Damali's expression went stone serious as she stared at Marlene. "We don't have time to waste; we pull out tomorrow - first light, hit L.A. to get a flight over to China. You and Dan make the arrangements; get J.L. to do it online, if you have to. But do it. Call Father Pat, too. Make sure we can get shots and all that, pronto, so we can pass foreign inspection, not that we'll need 'em if we don't succeed in this mission. Tell him to hook us up with a doctor from the Covenant that's already infected, so we don't hurt any innocents. And since we just got booted off Jose's property, if we survive, when we get back, we can figure out a more metropolitan place to live. Sound like a plan?"
"Sounds like a plan. A new location is definitely in order, if we get through this. It might be a good idea to compromise, too. Perhaps find a spot in L.A. that we can all live with, where the Berkfield kids can go to school during the day, even though Marj is doing her best to homeschool them. They're bouncing off the walls, poor babies, as is everyone else. Vamp incidents are at an all-time low, we haven't seen any crazy were-demon activity, and the Chairman is on the run. We can do a good job of throwing down a prayer line, retrofit a mansion, and get the Covenant brothers to add a little somethin' somethin' to the mix."
Damali nodded hard, but Marlene's line of conversation disturbed her. The woman was in denial. Wasn't thinking clearly. Why was she worried about trivial things when in thirty days, there might not be a world? Damali tempered her response.
"Yeah, because Marlene, for real - you can run but you can't hide, and sooner or later, the newbies have to be able to live like regular people, blend in." That was as much as she could offer without bodily shaking sense into Marlene.
"Couldn't agree more," Marlene said, coming to Damali to give her a hug. "Might stem some of that resentment thing, too."
"Ya think?" Damali held Marlene tightly. Oh, God... everyone, even her mother-seer, had lost their minds. "I didn't realize how much of that poison was running through my system." She let Marlene take the statement any way she wanted to, but she'd been referring to the contagion, not some stupid man-woman resentment issue.
"A very famous lady, an old star, Jill St. John, said this when she lost her son: resentment is like taking poison, and hoping the other person dies." Marlene held Damali back from her. "That was so profound, it stayed with me. Here this woman had lost her heart, her fourteen-year-old child to a tragedy, and that was her take on the matter. I learned something from those words, so I pass them on for you to consider."
Damali touched Marlene's cheek, her hand cupping it with tender love. She had to stop the infection. She missed the old Marlene so much she could almost wail. "Marlene, you are so deep sometimes. I've been feeling like I was possessed or like something was trying to get inside me and take over my spirit. Resentment is poison."
Marlene nodded and released her hold on Damali. She watched her grown daughter walk away from her, but didn't immediately follow behind her. There was something in what Damali had said; also something had slithered within her daughter's touch. The word possessed hung in her mind like a dark cloud. Her lips moved reciting a silent prayer as she watched Damali rejoin the despondent group in the living room. Something was wrong; her internal warning bells were going off.
For the first time in a long time, Marlene was very unsure.
All heads jerked up as footsteps came up the path. Before they could land on the front steps, the entire team was on the porch. Carlos glanced up sheepishly, his ragged, bloodstained jeans, torn T-shirt, and dirt-smeared face made them stare.
"Damn, y'all, what a night!" Carlos exclaimed, shaking his head as he mounted the stairs. "I'm driving to L.A. to get the hell out of here for a short break until we could all figure out what to do, and a freakin' deer jumps into the middle of the road, wrecks my Jeep, messes up a brother's transpo, are you feeling me? I am done!"
He smoothed his palm over his hair as the team stared at him without blinking, their expressions blank. "Then," he said quickly, adding to his story, "I'm trying to find my way back home in the dark, and white light holds me, checking to see if I even smelled the deer - like I'm an addict, or something? What'd y'all do, call the spiritual feds on a brother, or something?"
Shoulders relaxed, smiles eased into expressions, Damali slowly came down the steps. "The angels scanned you, huh?" she said with a slow grin. "Did you pass inspection?"
"Would I be standing here, if I didn't?" Carlos folded his arms over his chest. "Now what kinda question is that?" He shook his head and brushed past her. "No, 'hi, baby, glad you're all right?' Damn, girl, you cold. What is up with you, D? What's the 'get back you don't know me like that' about?"
Rider put his semiautomatic lengthwise, barring Carlos farther entry up the steps. Carlos stopped, looked at the gun, and then up at Rider. All right, sensors were on. Everybody that had someone dear to protect might be able to feel the change. Love cut through all dark-side illusions. He needed to find weak links in the chain. "What's up with that, Rider?"
Rider's gaze into Carlos's eyes never wavered. "Where'd the so-called angels drop you, then? We had a search party covering the ground from the land and the air."
"Tara came?" Carlos said, acting surprised. He'd seen them both, but hadn't allowed them to see him.
"And Yonnie," Rider said evenly. "Neither one of them, working together, could find you - just like we couldn't."
Again the group went still. Carlos looked down at his bloodstained clothes.
"I hope somebody had the presence of mind to check out the deer that was stuck in my windshield? Take a sniff, man. This was all over my seats."
"The deer checked out, Rider," Damali said, trying to mediate the tension.
Rider refused to yield. "That's not what I asked him. I can smell deer blood from here."
Carlos sighed. "What do you want from me, man? They dropped me far enough away that I could barely see the house lights in the distance, then gave me some long speech about duty to the greater good. But you know how they work. They didn't bother to give a brother a lift home."
Big Mike nodded. "Rider, man, it would make sense that they'd shield him from his old friends if they feared a relapse, given Yonnie and Tara are still... you know, vamps, and all."
Carlos fought not to smile. "My point, Rider."
"Why don't you get washed up," Marjorie said cautiously, "while there's hot water, and if you give me those clothes - "
Rider shook his head no, and glanced at Shabazz, who had been strangely silent.
"Not back in this house with newbies. No," Rider said flatly. "If the angels thought you might relapse, then - "
"Well where the hell am I gonna go, Rider!" Carlos shouted, and then looked at Shabazz for support.
Rider hocked and spit. "Metal is all in my throat." He glanced at Jose. "Talk to me little brother. You picking that up, too?"
Carlos's gaze narrowed on Jose. He homed in on the vamp tracer in Jose's DNA and unlocked the code that was embedded within it: You can never out your own to humans. Ask Yonnie and Tara, who are several generations up. Your Chairman commands it so, with a little extra topspin that would make old Dante piss in his pants.
When Jose opened his mouth to speak, he fell eerily quiet and shrugged. Seeming satisfied, Carlos returned his attention to Rider. "Jack Daniel's and cigarettes got your senses off, hombre. You need to chill."
"Jack Daniel's ain't got nothin' to do with it. I know what I know. Something ain't right."
"Maybe we're all just a little taxed," Marjorie offered. "Carlos has been - "
"Acting strange," Shabazz muttered. "Say what you want to, and my job is to groom a male Neteru, but I ain't having a potential vamp flux in here with newbies. Call it misplaced paternal instinct, but something is making the hair stand up on my arms. Dig?"
"So, now I have to sleep in the equipment shed like a dog?" Indignant, Carlos stormed down the steps. "Then at least give me a vehicle so I can drive to a motel."
His gaze went to Marlene's and then Damali's. Both women were impassive, and it totally floored him that Damali had remained silent throughout the exchange.
"Rider and Shabazz are right," Damali finally said.
"What!" Carlos was so angry that he could feel his own breath singe the hairs within his nose on each breath.
"If there's any flux happening, innocent or otherwise," Damali said, unsheathing her baby Isis, "then maybe you'd better come home with somebody who can deal with it."
Carlos almost smiled. He gave the team his back to consider, catching Berkfield's pained expression before he turned around.
"If you're injured," Berkfield said, beginning to walk down the steps. "Maybe - "
"No," Carlos yelled. "Don't touch me." He then mellowed his next response. "I'm fine. Y'all have put me out of the house, so, fine. I don't need anything from anybody." He waited, watching Berkfield remain on the step, unmoving. The last thing he needed was for a healer with sacred blood running through his veins to attempt to lay hands on him. He didn't know what the repercussions of that would be, and would make it a point not even to shake Berkfield's hand until he knew.
"Carlos," Juanita said, coming down the steps past the others. "Listen, it's not like that, okay?"
Carlos tilted his head as he watched her come closer. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind and captured it... Oh, Juanita, ya don't want none of this...
She froze in the path, just like the deer had, and then began backing up the steps one at a time. "But, uh," she said, slowly recovering, "we've got kids in the house. Try to understand."
"Yeah, man," J.L. said, placing a possessive arm around Krissy's shoulders. "That's the only reason people are tense. I mean, with the contagion, and all, who knows how bad any of us is gonna get - and you're stronger than any of us, if you flux out, or something. It ain't personal."
Dan nodded and body-shielded Bobby. "Don't take offense. They can't deal with it. That's the only reason, man."
"Oh, fuck all that," Inez said, her eyes narrowing on Carlos. "I don't like how the man looked at Juanita in front of my girl!"
Inez was practically down the steps, and were it not for Big Mike's hand on her shoulder, she would have been. Up to this point, Inez had been skittish, but was spiking a battle surge within him. He hadn't banked on Inez having the leanings of being a seer, not to mention, he forgot that she was Damali's cut-buddy. Inez was also from the 'hood, and had street sense to hone the other gift she obviously had. Right now she seemed ready to go down for her girl over a respect principle. So be it.
"Let her go," Carlos said, his tone even and lethal. "I didn't look at Juanita no kinda way, and if Jose was cool with it - "
"But I wasn't," Marlene said in a flat tone. "He stays out of the house until daylight hours."
Damali gave Marlene a knowing glance. "In the morning, we pack and move out. Everybody get some rest. We're going back to L.A."
He couldn't believe his good fortune. Carlos kept his gaze out the window of Damali's Hummer as they made their way down the road. He used an attitude as a shield to keep her from seeing his overwhelming relief. They'd be off this prayer dirt in no time. It was making him sick.
She jumped out of the Hummer without looking at him. She'd fled it so quickly that she'd practically forgotten to turn off the engine.
"Strip," she ordered, using her short blade as a pointer. "Right here in the front yard. Then I'm gonna douse your clothes, and I want you to see what happens to them when I do. Then you'll be able to understand why everybody is just a little bit nervous around you, brother."
"All right," Carlos said, allowing a half smile to tug at his mouth. "You're the boss," he added, slowly hopping down from the Hummer and pulling his shirt over his head. He held out the ripped T with two fingers and dropped it, as though providing her with a slow striptease. He bent to unlace his Tims, but steadily kept his eyes on her as he straightened and stepped out of them, then kicked them near his ruined shirt.
It was something she'd seen him do more times than she could count, but for some reason, tonight, his slow undressing was so sensual that he might as well have been doing a male version of the Dance of the Seven Veils in her front yard.
Damali's gaze traveled across his broad shoulders and the sculpted form of his chest, lingering on each bulge of defined abdominal muscle packs. His skin seemed like fired bronze in the moonlight. She couldn't help staring at his hands as they took their time unfastening the top button of his jeans. Reflex made her lick her lips as his hand slid his zipper down. Her mouth went dry, her face flushed hot. A hard shiver made her belly clench as he rolled the denim fabric away from his body as though peeling back an onionskin. Just looking at him had made her so wet that she feared the emulsion between her thighs would soak through her pants.
She couldn't move as she watched him; didn't want to move. Oh, yeah, he'd blown her mind with sexy vamp drama in the past, but she'd never almost fallen over at his antics from twenty-five feet away. Her skin felt damp and warm, and before she knew it she was breathing out of her mouth in short sips. Maybe Marlene was right, all they needed to do was sync up... and man oh man was she ready to sync and squash whatever had been between them. This was the sexiest shit he'd ever done to her.
Carlos yanked his pants down his thighs slowly, and let them slide the rest of the way to his feet. His intense gaze held her in place as he casually kicked them toward the other clothes that lay in a pile. She was not looking at his face. Her jaw went slack, her heart seemed to stopped for a few seconds, it was beating in arrhythmia for sure... It had been a while, but she didn't remember hombre being hung like that!
He walked nearer, an easy smile of satisfaction rooting her to the top porch step. "Can I come in the house now?"
She had every intention of saying something flippant, but the words got caught in her throat.
"Well, you just gonna leave me out here in the raw?"
She shook her head no. "I need to douse you and your clothes," she quietly gasped.
"Why don't you worry about that, later. Obviously, I've missed you. How about if you douse me in the shower, like old times, instead?"
From some reservoir of common sense, she scrambled together a sentence. "We can't just jump in the shower... no... uh; we have to use protection. I could get pregnant." She wasn't sure why those words were first to come to her mind or out of her mouth.
Carlos shook his head and clicked his tongue, making a little tsking sound. "And here I thought you'd consider making another baby with me tonight."
Forget warning bells - cymbals went off in her head, breaking what felt like a spell.
"Latex or nothing... Why are we even shouting this conversation in the yard?" Damali looked around, confusion eating at her brain. Then she felt her mind pry open and nearly snap.
"Latex?" He chuckled low and sensually, his eyes roving over her body like a caress. "You don't trust your Sankofa to do the work for you?"
In all truth, she didn't. Not tonight. There was something very dark, half scary, but way, way too magnetic about him at the moment. But to admit that would fly in the face of everything Neteru within her, not to mention might blaspheme her Queens. She forced a smile to cover up her distress. Y'all got my back, right? she mentally whispered. This brother ain't no joke. I don't know what's wrong with his ass tonight.
"Since you're packing heat," she said as coolly as possible, "and talking plenty of trash, a double layer of protection is a girl's best friend. A condom or the couch. Your choice."
"What I've got for you tonight," he said, his voice a tone lower than she'd ever heard it before, "will burn right through latex."
His voice had washed her entire body with a wave of want, and then entered it between her legs to coat her insides with new heat.
"Oh, shit..." she murmured, having meant the comment to come out as a possible battle-readiness shout for him to back off. She weaved, caught the porch banister, and gripped it for support as another penetrating wave hit her.
"How many times have I asked you to stop playing with me, Damali?"
As he walked toward her she could feel the warmth of his hands on her body, touching every place he'd learned by heart. The black box in her head felt light, the lid on it struggling to remain shut. Images began to surround it, taunting it to open, and her gaze slowly found his. Tears blurred her sight, and short pants escaped her mouth.
"Baby, stop," she whispered.
"Why?" he asked in a subsonic tone.
"Because I'm asking you to," she said in a near squeak.
"You know you want a soldier, raw, Mamacita," he said in a voice so low it rumbled through her and produced a pleasure wave that knocked her head back, causing her audible gasp. "Stop trippin'."
Mamacita? He'd never called her that before. Something was definitely wrong. She'd felt every sound decibel from his throaty response drop inside her as though he'd let each word fall like a droplet of water... or blood. Circles of ecstasy spread through every cell within her, uniting every essence of liquid in her system to its throb. Concentric ripples connected each spreading ring in a million tingles that felled her to her knees where she once stood.
She could barely lift her head. Carlos's footsteps rang out as they landed on the steps one by one. The vibration along the wood planks from each footfall made her cry out with desire. Every time he spoke, his whisper was a forceful caress that elicited a sound from within her that she'd never heard. She tried to lift her head to look at him, had to see what this new mood of his was all about... even as a councilman, he'd never blown her away like this.
"I don't care about what happened in your kitchen," he said so quietly that her body began to lift from the porch floor without her aid. "You like vamp. Jose's got that in him, baby... but not like this"
The moment her head dropped back again, she'd braced for a fang strike, even though Carlos was only a few feet from her. Instead of receiving the bite, she found herself sprawled against the porch floor, actual beach waves washing over her, making her scream from the intolerable pleasure.
Water was everywhere, the salty fusion of it reminiscent of blood. What felt like Caribbean sun was prickling her skin, licking it as erotic waves repeatedly lapped at her body and continued to sweep her closer to her front door. It was so intense a vision, or whatever it was that he'd produced, she was sputtering salt water and trying to stand, when another wave knocked her down. Sand was under her fingernails as she scrabbled to fend off another tidal sensation.
Gasping, she peered at him, confused, panting out sentences in short bursts while trying to wrap her mind around where this power rush was coming from. This wasn't no freaking relapse! "Male Neterus can do that? They taught you that on the island with the old men - back in Ethiopia? Shit, baby, you apexing on me, or something? You definitely gotta use something extra, for real."
Carlos tilted his head to the side as he stared down at her. Power was an awesome thing, to be sure. But she'd actually felt desire for some vamp perpetrator over him? His distant line brother? Was she out of her mind? She wanted a change? Something new? Something forbidden? Done. No, this wasn't a relapse or anything some old men on an island had taught him. Far from it.
"Girl, I know what you like," he whispered low and dangerously, his voice a swift-cutting pleasure blade, slicing at her resistance. "Be honest. At least with yourself. You want a true baby-maker, wild risk-taker, to-the-bone dealer... night... thrill... seeka, make you wanna holla, mad-crazy soldier, hot-desire waker... breath to bone shaker, out-of-body quaker, yeah... empire builder, dream ful-filla, girl stop playin', 'cause that ain't the half of what you want." He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath until it hissed. "C'mon, let me get this... and let me get it right."
His hands slid down his body, creating an unnatural heat within hers. Her skin felt like it was catching fire, leaving acute pleasure in its wake. She couldn't take her eyes off him, or pull away from what felt like an erotic, magnetic current. He drew in air between his teeth, creating another quiet hiss of pleasure just behind her ear from where he stood.
Say no - How? Tell him back off - not possible. Not when he felt the way he did - even standing just beyond her steps, his scent divine, making her know what he really was with each burning phantom touch... all vamp. Maybe more.
"And you love it," he whispered, accessing her mind without permission.
"Stop," she whispered. "This isn't the Carlos I know."
"The old Carlos is gone," he murmured sensually, "Muri
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