Vampire Instinct (Vampire Queen #7)

Mal stretched his arm out across the Jeep seat behind her. “Watch.”

Two cubs came out of a tumble of rocks along the slope. As the mother patiently held the impala above them, they played with the twitching legs, batting at them like string, and then took tentative nips at them.

Elisa closed her eyes. “What are they doing?”

“It won’t last long,” Mal said quietly. “The cubs are old enough to start understanding how to take down live prey. Up until now, their mother has brought them their food already dead. They have to learn to hunt, and this is part of doing that. She’ll finish the kill in a few moments, just tighten her grip on the neck and take the young one’s life.”

“Tell me when, and I’ll look again.” Elisa stared out the front windshield. “I can’t look at that, Mr. Malachi. I just can’t.”

Whether or not the cheetah had intelligent, sensible, God-given motives, it was too close to other, darker things she didn’t want swirling through her mind. Victor, dragging her across the barn floor, knowing she was alive and not caring . . .

Mal touched her shoulder then, and she looked toward him. “She’s done,” he said. “You can look.”

She nodded, set her jaw, expecting him to patronize or chide, but he did neither. The babies were all tugging at their now mercifully inert dinner, joining their mother in tearing back the fur to get to the meat they needed.

“Even when the cubs play, they are learning how to survive, developing hunting skills. You see something similar with humans, particularly poorer parents who rely on the children’s help to run the household. More well-off parents sometimes forget the point of parenthood is to create successful, independent adults, not forever children. They must learn to hunt what they need, survive and prosper on their own. If they can’t, they won’t know how to fit in our world. They’ll only have a life of unhappiness and discontent because they’ve never truly learned or been given the skills to take control of their own destiny. They won’t understand that their happiness rests squarely in their own hands.”

He’d successfully turned her mind from her own memories, but it was clear where he was pointing the compass now. She pressed her lips together, hard. “If we can help them learn control, the fledglings can learn those skills.”

“Hmm.” Putting the vehicle in gear, he took her across the field, saying nothing further. Earlier she’d felt so good, but now she was in turmoil again. Why was he trying at all? Was it just an empty favor to Danny? No, she didn’t believe that. He was a variety of things, but she didn’t think he’d be spending time with the fledglings if he thought there was no hope. He wasn’t the type to waste time on sentiment or a perceived favor to a female vampire.

Which meant he thought something was possible. She just didn’t know what.

“All right, we’ll lay down here.”

They were behind a half-buried tree trunk, over which they could look down the slope of a shallow plain. The meadow rolled off into rocky slopes and denser forest beyond that. He’d parked the Jeep a few hundred yards away on a road that passed through the trees. She’d noted that the Jeeps didn’t really startle the creatures. Mal told her there were times the cats would even jump up on them for a hunting vantage point, indifferent to the humans. She imagined her cougar crouching on the dusty hood, thick tail twitching over the powerful haunches before she leaped. It made her shiver, remembering another point he’d made.

Normally, you’d never leave the Jeep when surveying the cats, because once you’re on foot, you look entirely different to them. But I thought you’d appreciate this vantage point, at least this one time.

She didn’t see any cats at all, but his senses were sharper than hers. She wondered what he was seeing. Mal stretched out beside her, but instead of being side by side, shoulder to shoulder, he put one arm over her, his body canted so it overlapped hers, his hip bone pressed into her buttock, his chest against her shoulder blade, and spoke into her ear, his lips close.

His mind-voice was unsettling, but merciful heavens. Her blood went right back to hot, because of that warm breath on her skin. Her earlier resolve scattered in twenty different directions. Please stop doing this. It was an internal plea, so weak it was likely directed more to her errant mind and body than at him. That kiss hadn’t seemed to affect him in a lingering way at all, unless being cranky was a reaction. She tried to calm her mind and body, because even if he didn’t choose to read her mind, he could certainly sense arousal. If nothing else, she didn’t want to embarrass herself.

She’d once thought arousal was something a woman had to summon up with concentrated effort, like pumping up water from a well. It took some effort to make it happen, but it had an important function that helped everything go smoothly so she could handle the man’s needs and then move on to the next thing. Now she knew that slick and secret moisture would come forth spontaneously when her body was drawn toward a certain edge.

As Malachi’s hand settled on her opposite hip, his fingers curved over her right buttock. That was their way, wasn’t it? They played with their food like the cheetah cubs, with as much concern for their feelings.

“What do you see?” she whispered, determined to get out of her head.

“You can use your senses almost as effectively as I can. You just haven’t been doing it to their full potential. Close your eyes now, and listen. Have you tried to use the enhanced ability for your ears, your sense of smell and taste? Your sense of touch?”

Though she’d used them, she hadn’t thought of using them like this. Full potential, indeed. She could feel the heat of his hand through the thin fabric, his steady heartbeat behind her back, even the whisper of his hair falling along her neck, for she’d bundled her hair up.

“Not me, daft girl. The world around you.”

The flush of blood in her face was altogether uncomfortable and humiliating, but it also pricked her shortening temper. “It’s a little hard to notice anything when you’re not giving me much space, Mr. Malachi.”

“You can do it,” he said, unimpressed by her tart tone. In fact, his fingers on her buttock tightened into a grip that was an admonishment, strong enough to make her bite back a yelp, a reminder of her place in the world. It helped her focus . . . somewhat.

Closing her eyes, she told herself it was like seeing a big shiny diamond—she might ooh and aah over seeing it on the Queen’s neck or under glass in one of those traveling exhibits, but in the long run it had nothing to do with her. Like that diamond, he was unaffected, as if it was tiresomely expected that human females would trip over their tongues around him.

Ironically, that helped her push past the hurt pride, because it meant he considered it an involuntary, chemical reaction, like a sneeze or hiccup. Though one usually did say, “God bless you,” for a sneeze. She wondered why.

“Because technically the heart stops, which means you’re close to dead for about a second. Historically, it was also believed a person was more open to demon possession in that moment, your foot in two worlds. Focus, girl.”

A demon possession might be closer to the truth. She had an entirely uncomplimentary response to his impatient command, one that she prudently kept to herself. At least, that was her intention.

“Stick that tongue out at me, and I’ll find a use for it,” he said in that rumbling murmur against her ear, his hand smoothing over the curve of her bottom as if he had every right to do that. She wasn’t stopping him, because of course she couldn’t, could she? Yet it was more than that. It didn’t feel . . . wrong. It was almost nice to be touched in such an absently intimate way. At bedtime, she’d take the memory and replace his indifferent expression with Willis’s face and hand. She’d imagine them on a picnic blanket beneath a Boab tree, watching the birds and flowers during the wet, when everything was pretty and green . . .

Mal shifted, now no longer touching her. “Think about what you’re hearing now,” he ordered curtly. “Then try to reach a little further with it. Don’t push. It’s like opening a door. Put your hand on it and let it give way.”

It took several moments, but as she did as he suggested, she marveled at it. The rustling of the wind in the grasses became more than just rustling. It was music, with notes and shifts of melody, up and down. For a moment, she thought she would actually see the various wind currents meet and veer off, tangle and cyclone, then curl and uncurl. They’d drift onward in their play with the leaves and tree branches, making notes among the trunks like strumming a harp’s strings. Or a child with a stick, clattering along a picket fence. Her lips curved at the thought.

More instruments and voices joined in. A drip, drip, drip told her nighttime dew was falling off the eaves of the tiny supply shack hidden in the trees. Those shacks were scattered across the island, putting medical and maintenance supplies within ready reach.

Birds called back and forth in the night. Not as many as those during sunrise, of course. Tomorrow she’d stay up late enough that she could come out and listen like this during the dawn, appreciate how different the resonances were between the calls. How many times had she noted Dev doing something like that? She’d thought he was enjoying his coffee and a passing interest in the scenery, but sometimes he’d close his eyes. As a third mark, with senses even more expanded than hers, was he allowing himself time to get lost in the miracle of hearing things the way one of God’s creatures did, so much more possible with enhanced senses?

“Now.” Malachi’s arm was back over her, his masculine voice resonating through her chest, her throat. “Open your eyes and do the same with your sight. You’ll discover treasure in the field in front of you. Don’t strain to look for it. Just see.”

Slowly, she lifted her lashes and took in the scene. Each blade of grass in the field was lit up, turning what was golden brown under a sunny sky into silver-white strands under the moon. Moths, dancing between the blades, spiraled upward into a night sky, competing with the stars. The tree silhouettes, their shapes looking like women in various poses, bent and danced, their arms out, swaying with the rhythm of the night.