Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(32)

Rune’s frown deepened. As a succubus, Carling could take sustenance from the emotions from living creatures, but she’d had only Rhoswen and Rasputin on the island for company. He said, “What about Carling?”

Rhoswen’s eyes filled. She said, “I’ve been trying to convince her to go back to San Francisco, but she won’t budge.”

“You mean she was starving herself,” Rune growled. Eager to burn off the weight of the strange crushing sadness, his temper flashed quick and hot.

“We’ve not been alone for more than a few days, and she’s been looking much better since you’ve arrived,” Rhoswen said. Rasputin finished his meal, and Rhoswen went to scoop the dog up. Rasputin tried to run away from her, but she was too fast for him. He gave her a leery look, his paws paddling at the air. She told the dog, “You’re such a little freak.”

Rune nearly turned back to confront Carling, but if he did that, he knew he would also have to confront the speculative look she gave him as he left with such abruptness. Carling had given up by the time he had arrived, but he had already known that, and it was in the past. If she tried to give up again, he would kick her ass and make sure it hurt.

Besides, he wasn’t ready to talk to her. He had too much to think about first, and he simply didn’t know what he could or should say.

“I’m going to take a flight,” he said. “See if I can clear my head. I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” Rhoswen said. She and Rasputin watched him leave.

Take a flight. Clear his head.

Yeah, like that had done him any good over the last couple of weeks.

Still, a body had to try.

As a Vampyre, Carling didn’t feel the cold like a normal human. That did not mean she couldn’t feel the lack of warmth. The spell of protection that allowed her to walk in the middle of a sunlit day was a great triumph, but at times the victory rang hollow because she would never again know the warm comfort of the sun on her skin.

She craved warmth and light. Every house she owned had fireplaces in most of the rooms. Rune’s presence finally faded from the bedroom, leaving it feeling slightly damp, dark and empty. She crouched at the hearth to lay wood for a fire. She stacked plenty of wood. She wanted a big, cheerful bright blaze.

She lit it, and hugged her knees as she watched the small new flames lick at the wood. With a sigh of relief, she let the protection spell fall away so that she could bask in the building warmth of the fire.

What had caused Rune such inner turmoil? She stood abruptly, impatient with herself. It was useless to speculate. She couldn’t know what disturbed him until he chose to tell her. Waiting for him to return made her feel helpless, and she abhorred feeling helpless.

She moved to her large east-facing windows and opened them. A restless breeze blew into the room and ruffled her hair as she looked out at a gigantic full moon. A witch’s moon. It would appear to decrease in size as it moved away from the horizon, but for now it hung impossibly huge over the ivorytipped black ocean, its color rich champagne. The brightest jewel in the night sky, it hung as though from the pendant of a goddess’s necklace, the spray of stars surrounding it the filigree within which the jewel had been set.

Ever since she had claimed the island, she had sketched the positions of the night stars throughout the seasons. It was an idle, useless hobby. She had never been able to determine if the stars were actually the same ones as seen from Earth. Their positions were too different in relation to each other. There would never be any satellite telescope to capture and compare deep-space imagery with that of Earth’s.

Perhaps they were different stars altogether. Carling tended to think not, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Here, the stars were nothing more than a mystery and ornamentation. No weight of historical belief hung on their configuration. There were no myths attached to any constellations. There was nowhere to navigate to by their positions. No matter where one sailed, one always came back to the island. This little bubble of dimensional reality was nothing more than a seed pearl strung beside the goddess’s pendant moon.

This had been a good place to retreat to when the rest of the world grew to be too much, a good place to find at least a measure of solitude and quiet whenever she could find time to attend to her research and studies.

She supposed it had been as much a home as anywhere else had been, and it had been far better than most. She had made peace with the shy winged creatures that lived at the top of the redwoods. She set wards around the forest and refused to let anyone hunt them. In return, presents were sometimes left on her window ledge, a black iridescent feather, a perfect seashell, or a gold-veined rock, or sometimes a handful of tart red berries on a leaf, and once, there had been a string of strangely carved wooden beads.

The place had not changed, but what peace she had managed to find here had fled, and she missed it. She missed it badly.

All that it had taken to wreck it was the presence of one insouciant Wyr, a strange and ancient creature who, at his heart, was a compassionate man.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and her attention shifted.

Rune strode out in the champagne and ivory night. As she watched, he turned toward the cliff and started to run. With each powerful thrust of his long legs, he kicked to an astonishing speed, his vigorous wide-shouldered body moving faster and faster as he approached land’s end. Then he sprang like the great cat he was, landed in a crouch on top of the stone wall at the edge of the cliff, and leaped into the air, his arms spread wide, his athletic body thrown into a perfect diver’s pose.