Chapter 9 #2
Spence drove at a normal pace this time, pulling out of the parking lot, and she noted they had security tailing them now.
“Will you be in trouble for leaving before security could keep up?”
“No. Special circumstance, and they weren’t far behind.
” He sighed. “I have to admit, I was a little jealous of the bruises, the cane stripes, the lashes and welts from the whip. I would cherish those marks, but not the burn. I’m a masochist, but never would I want my dick burned like that.
Not what he did to your clit. That’s not the kind of pain I’d ever want. ”
His words landed heavy, but not cruel. Just honest.
“I know you’re aware of everything that happens in the flock, so you know I enjoy giving pain, not receiving it. I thought — naively, I now understand — that I could handle anything for forty minutes. I thought my list of hard limits kept him from…”
She sighed. “He didn’t break the rules, I just didn’t realize chemical play should be on the list. No burns should mean no burns, but he’s a damned vampire, and…
” She cut herself off before she admitted her father had warned her a thousand times to always have a supernatural lawyer look over any contract she made with a supernatural older than her, and maybe two or three lawyers to look over a contract with someone ancient.
Fuck, but she hated when he was right.
“How much does Zander tell my parents about me?”
“You’d have to ask Zander any questions you have about him.”
“Kind of hard to do when he’s never around for me to ask.”
“You applied for actress status at Mordnik, but you haven’t sent in your application to be a feed-and-fuck, or more.”
It was a statement, but she knew where he was going with it. When you applied to go, you had to put yourself into one of the three categories.
She’d held off because she’d been seriously considering going as level two, but after this experience, not just no, but hell-fucking-no.
“Yeah,” she finally answered. “I was debating between the first and second because the pay difference seemed substantial, but after today, it doesn’t seem anywhere near big enough. I didn’t enjoy the cane or the whip, even before the damned capsaicin oil on my clit.”
Spence pulled into the garage, and the door closed behind them.
Someone was waiting, a younger shifter Emmy recognized from the security team, tall and lanky, and she had the idea he knew more about the technology stuff than protection.
He handed Spence her neatly folded clothes from the dungeon and left with a nod.
Spence handed them to her, and she slipped into the slate cargo pants while seated, then stepped out and took the tee off before donning her ice-pink thermal henley.
And then her socks and boots, and she didn’t bother looking into a mirror to see how she looked. Her hair would be curly and wild after her change, and she’d have zero makeup on.
Spence handed her a ponytail holder, and she said, “Can I kiss you? I would’ve bear-hugged you and planted a huge kiss on your cheeks when I was six. It’s really too bad we have all these stupid rules as adults.”
“It is. C’mon, I have dinner waiting for you. I know you have to be starving after you changed.”
When they stepped through the door into the pantry, the scent of a rich and savory stew hit her like a weighted blanket.
Slow-cooked, but she could still parse the mingled scents: root vegetables, seared beef, red wine, rosemary.
It was her mother’s recipe, and Spence had made it for her. She knew it without asking.
Rhea and Felix were already seated at the island. A few others lingered — Zoa, curled in a chair with a cup of tea, and Toby working through a bowl of stew, but it was Rhea who looked up first.
“The gossip tree is alive and well. We know you were in bad shape when Spence drove like a bat out of hell out of here with you, but no one knows what happened. You okay?”
Felix stood as Emmy approached, his posture casual but his eyes serious.
“I agreed to more than I should’ve,” Emmy said, voice level but flat. “It was … bad. Worse than bad. Spence took me to the Atrium to shift.”
“And now Spence is feeding her stew,” Spence said, ladling it into a bowl before setting it in front of her.
“Thank you,” she told him, accepting the spoon he handed her. “For everything, but especially for my mom’s stew. You do more than just take care of us.”
“He’s never made me my mother’s famous chowder,” Zoa said, and Emmy frowned at her, then at Spence.
“I happen to know her mother,” he told Zoa, and then looked at Emmy.
“And I got the recipe back when I was your neighbor. It isn’t like I had to call her to get it.
I figured you were going to have a hard day, and maybe a little taste of home might help.
” He looked back to Zoa. “If you want me to call your mother and ask for the recipe of your favorite comfort food, I’ll do it. Just give me her number.”
Zoa looked mortified. “No. That’s okay. The stew’s good, and Emmy’s right — you do take good care of us. You know what I want for breakfast without me having to tell you.”
Spence sat with them at the island with his own bowl of stew, and Rhea told him, “Thanks for putting together the Kenai Fjords riverboat cruise. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Yes,” Emmy agreed. At first, she wasn’t going to go because of the hundred-and-fifty-dollar ticket price, but Spence had arranged for a group tour, and the tickets were usually a hundred dollars more.
Plus, it was a six-hour ride, and they served a meal, and there was a good chance to see whales and other ocean creatures along with all the glaciers.
“Any chance a bunch of us can stay in town for the concert series Thursday?” Rhea asked Spence. “It’s from 5:30 to 8:30 in the Town Square Park.”
He lifted his phone, looked at it a few seconds, and nodded while he typed into it.
“I’ll need everyone going to text me by Tuesday morning at the latest, preferably sooner.
You’ll probably get the vampires who don’t wake early.
Sunset after eleven at night must be a real pain in the ass for the young ones. ”
“But it’s balanced by long nights later,” Felix noted.
Emmy grabbed her phone and texted Spence she was going to the concert on Thursday.
She’d learned from the past that he preferred to have it so he could refer to it, rather than verbal.
For official stuff planned farther out, he’d have a check-in on the coterie’s app, but for something like this, he handled it with texts.
Felix fished some of the veggies out of the big pot of stew, making sure he didn’t get any meat in his bowl, sat back down, and told Emmy, “If it’ll help to hurt someone rather than be hurt, I’ll volunteer.”
Rhea snorted. “Like you don’t want her to hurt you anyway.”
“I do,” he admitted, eyes still on Emmy. “But I’m offering because I mean it. If putting that energy back out helps, I’ll take it.”
Emmy paused, spoon halfway to her mouth. “Thank you.”
The words were plain, but they hit with weight. She set the spoon down and met his gaze fully for the first time since entering the kitchen.
“How do you feel about chemical play?”
He hesitated. “Not my favorite. You and I have never needed to talk about all my hard limits because I can always say no if you pull something out I don’t want to do. If we’d discussed them, you’d know it’s a hard limit.”
Emmy nodded. Maybe she could find someone else, because now that he mentioned it, she did think it would help to hurt someone in a reasonable way with it. Not pure capsaicin, because fuck, but enough to burn without causing harm.
“You know what?” Felix said. “Maybe it’ll do me good to step outside my limits. I’m actually okay with ginger, but you’re going to need more than basic figging. I’d be open to maybe some diluted cinnamon.”
“I can talk to you about ratios,” Spence told her. “Enough so he’ll feel the burn without actually being burned.”
Emmy nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.” She looked at Felix. “We’ll talk privately later, but seriously, thanks for the offer.” And it was time to change the subject. “Any chance a bunch of us can claim the big hot tub in the torture garden tonight?”
Spence looked at his phone again and smiled. “The statue garden hot tub has a reservation at two. You’re good until then.”
They all talked about when they wanted it, Spence reserved it for them, and Emmy went back to eating.
The stew almost made her want to call her mom, but not quite.
She did miss her parents, but not enough to listen to lectures and bitching about what she was doing with her life.
She knew exactly what she was going to do during this first hundred or so years, and it involved genetics. Who the fuck knew where she’d go from there? She’d live until someone killed her, which hopefully wouldn’t be for many, many thousands of years.
And what difference did it make that her brother and sister were a few years ahead of her?
She’d been determined to have fun while she kept up her nearly four-point-zero GPA at some of the hardest colleges on the planet.
What the fuck had been wrong with that? So she’d fucked three frat brothers at the same time, and so what if they were in the middle of the soccer field after a midnight game of capture-the-flag between rival fraternities?
Humans can’t get her pregnant, and she can’t catch diseases. So what the fuck did it matter?
Uggg.
No, she didn’t need to call her mother just because Spence made one of her recipes.