"Really?" He remembered her coy avoidance of his question to her age. Wasn't important. He was curious, though, now he knew of her ancestors.
"So I've a theory about you," Ivan said, as she shoved a steaming teacup across the counter his way, and then came around to join him in the living room.
"I'm sure it's wrong." Dez sat on one of two wicker chairs in the room. The white wicker reeds creaked when she settled into it.
A thick blue chenille blanket hung over the back. "But go ahead. I could use a laugh."
Ivan left the tea on the counter. He didn't need food, liquid or solid, so drinking was merely for show. And tea wasn't his thing; he'd learned that the other day.
He walked over to squat before Dez, bracketing her legs between his splayed knees. Today, crisp bergamot and clove and the creamy tendril of caramel wafted from her. But behind the perfumes he thought he sensed something more visceral. Couldn't be blood. But maybe? Didn't smell like apricots. Though, if she had been conjuring...
"You were saying?" she prompted.
"Yes, I was, uh...you smell so good." He kissed her knee through the thin silk fabric that flowed possessively over her curves.
Definitely blood, but not human. Curious.
"Maybe it's not so much a theory as a question. I look around and see not a single personal memento in your home. That tells me you want to forget about your past-"
"Or that I'm not much of a decorator."
"I'll give you that. But. Your shop is beautiful. You know how to decorate. And what about the shop? You don't have customers."
"They're all online."
"So why not close up and simply do online orders?"
"I happen to fancy that shop. It's cute and I like the view. And I get a few customers every day it's open."
"But not from the Rose Club."
"What are you getting at, Ivan?"
Not the answer to what kind of blood he smelled on her. Did witches still use small creatures in their spells? That was positively archaic. However, so was eye of newt, which she seemed to have in good supply.
"You seem pretty eager to have those old biddies accept you into their group. Why? I get you want friends and companionship.
As immortals we are forced to live a singular life, and of course we always want what we cannot have. But you don't need the Rose Club. They're old, and they're backstabbers. They're not interested in you for you. They didn't even look at you until I showed up."
"Self-centered much?"
"You know it's true, Dez."
Attention focused on the tea shimmering in her cup, Dez gave a noncommittal shrug. "Maybe. But I happen to know Elise wants to get her hands on my gardening secrets. The rose vines fascinate her."
"If she only knew."
Dez chuckled. "So you see, it's not just you. Let me make my own mistakes, Ivan. I've made enough of them over the centuries.
This one won't kill me or see me tied to a bundle of fagots, so I'm not too concerned."
He reached to trace the fine line that creased out from the corner of her eye. "So that's how you earned these."
"Age has a tendency to do that."
"They're beautiful." He leaned in and kissed the delicate skin at her eye. "You would be a lesser woman without them."
Bowing her head, she wouldn't meet his gaze.
"You're a dichotomy, Dez. You've closed yourself off from the world. You take nothing from it, and keep it at an arm's length. And yet, you're ready to leap through hoops for a few kind words from Elise Henderson. You must have friends?"
She set her teacup on the arm of the chair and clasped her arms tight across her chest. "Are you suddenly my analyst instead of my betrayer?"
"I'm not going to betray you."
"Truth?"
She wasn't about to let him sweet-talk her. Good. He liked that she didn't accept anything less than a person at full value.
"All right. I will," he corrected, "but only because I have to. But that's truth, not betrayal. And you're avoiding this conversation."
"What one is that? About my desire for companionship? I've had friends," she said sharply. "They die."
A bitter truth; sooner or later any immortal would lose someone close to them from old age. He'd yet to experience that sort of heartache, and, frankly, he had gone to lengths to ensure it wouldn't happen. Another thing to thank his parents for.
But was it something to be proud of?
"Ivan, you're what? Less than thirty years old." She touched his chin with a finger and drew it along his jaw. The touch was softer than a fairy's flight, but more intense than molten lava.
Fairies? Could it be...he'd never smelled fairy blood. And he knew blood did not run through the veins of the fey, but ichor. But for some reason, it seemed the right answer. She did have that beating heart in a glass.
"After you've lived a few centuries you begin to care less and less for close relationships," Dez continued. "The reality is such connections will result in hurt, grief and agony. And yet, it is all you crave. You gain a friend, she dies. You take a lover, he eventually dies."
"Immortality is a bitch, but shouldn't the love and friend ship you gain be enough? Knowing you've had opportunity to experience it, if for a little while?"
"You're making guesses, aren't you?" A rhetorical question.
She leaned back and slid her bare foot along her opposite ankle. Glancing aside, her profile showed a different woman than he was accustomed to seeing. This one was harder. The softness of her flesh resembled pure white marble now. Deter mined, yet weary.
Yes, those fine wrinkles had been earned. The hard way. What Ivan wouldn't give to be able to punish all those who had wrongly accused, tortured and beaten Dez over the centuries, for he was very sure it had occurred.
"It's hard to explain to one so young. You've a long lifetime of learning ahead of you. I do crave companionship, and I have a few good immortal friends, but I've learned to protect myself from emotional damage."
He kissed the side of her knee. If only he could get around behind her knee and lick the sweet flesh there. "I wish I was in a position to offer you trust. Damn, I hate this job." Standing, Ivan paced away from her and beat his fist against a cedar wallboard.
"If I could get away from him, I would."
"But at what price? What does Himself use to keep you in check?"
"My parents."
"I'm sorry, Ivan." He hadn't noticed her movement. Dez's warm hand glided down his arm, and her thin, delicate fingers clasped about his rough, clenched fist.
"I have never known hope," he said. It just came out. The truth of him.
"It's not all it's cracked up to be. Trust me on that one."
He smiled. So much knowing in that comment.
While his nights were filled with unthinkable acts, Ivan had found it difficult to adjust during the day. To bring himself down. And he'd not needed to come all the way down to reality. He could not. Goodness was not his.
Yet, Dez made it much easier to put off the barbed tendrils of the night, and to enter daylight. To become...simpler. More relaxed. More open, even.
"I wish things were different," she whispered against the back of his shoulder. "You're the first vampire I've ever been attracted to."
"Seriously?"
"Quite. And I've met a lot in my days. I've always scoffed at the opposites-attract thing, but there may be something to it."
"We're not so different." He turned and stroked her hair. The glints of gold attracted him to trace from crown to cheek. "We both view the world the same. No man is better than any other. The witches and vampires should all live peaceably alongside one another. Which reminds me."
"Hmm?"
"There's a council meeting this afternoon. Would you like to come along with me? It'll give us some time together. To just...be."
An invitation to attend the Gray Council had initially turned Dez off. But she'd given it a few minutes' thought, and finally the idea of attending one did appeal. As Ivan had said, she'd been secluding herself from the world.
It wasn't fair he could read her so well.
Yet, what better way to step back into the world than to familiarize herself with the war and work to find a way to stop it?
And it gave her time to spend with Ivan. She would now be given a glimpse into the side of him directly opposite to the fixer who did the devil's deeds.
Clarity of heart, indeed. She had followed her heart today. Pray it would not lead her astray.
A private jet whisked them to Minneapolis in less than two hours. Dez didn't like flying much, and she went to the bathroom to freshen up while Ivan chatted with the pilot.
A limo waited to whisk them downtown, and they drove toward the city. The bustle of the big city put her off yet at the same time intrigued her. Life moved about her. It smelled like gasoline and industry and pine trees and restaurant fumes. Nothing like her sleepy little oceanside village.
She'd once lived in Paris for fifty years in a little apartment in the Second Arrondissement. That had been during the end of the eighteenth century, following the revolution. Another time of war, but she'd been an observer, secluding herself away from its politics.Before that, well, she knew the workings of small European villages all too well.
Life had certainly sped up since then. It didn't scare her; it made her want to watch and not look away. To draw it in, yet without actually participating.
And what was so wrong with that? Hadn't she served her time out at the vanguard of life that now a little seclusion was deserved?
She was...tired. Not so exhausted with life that she didn't wish to face it, but certainly, these recent decades had become a time of rest for her. To breathe in and take stock.
But she contradicted herself by wishing to be accepted by those old biddies, as Ivan had pointed out.
Why did she want to join the Rose Club? It wasn't as if she desired to attend meetings and discuss soil pH or plant germination techniques with blue-haired, wrinkled old women-who were a hell of a lot younger than she.
Had Elise looked younger this morning at the grocery store? There had been something about her Dez couldn't quite pin...
And maybe that was it. Did she feel the way to insinuate herself back into the real world was by starting with the geriatric set that, by all means, she should be a part of?
Who did she think she was, trying to coax a young stud like Ivan Drake to have sex with her? He was a virtual child.
Yet, when he'd touched the fine lines at the side of her eye with such reverence, Dez had softly exhaled. He understood her life had been a struggle. And she had felt utterly beautiful in that moment when he'd kissed her softly.
Further seduction tactics? Or the real Ivan Drake?
"We're here."
Ivan stood outside the car, the door open. Dez hadn't even noticed him get out. Was it because she had become hard of hearing in her old age? Senile?
What am I doing? She gasped at her crazed thoughts. Why am I thinking like this? The spell...is it wearing off so quickly?
Perhaps this was how her heart worked. Ready, willing, yet unsure. A little frightened, actually.
"You nervous?" he wondered.
Yes. But only about the unknown future of her heart.
Business she could handle. Nervous about attending the council?
"Why should I be?" she said, and accepted his hand and rose out of the car.
Wanting to look presentable, and maybe a little imposing, she had donned a simple black skirt with heels and white silk shirt. A pearl choker hugged her neck. Yeah, she could do imposing. And she had every right.
Keeping a secret smile to herself, Dez contained her anticipation as they road the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor. A doorman greeted them. Ivan shook the mortal's hand and asked about his wife.
Interesting how the devil's right hand functioned so seamlessly in mortal society.
"In here," Ivan said, and then pulled her close before he opened the door. "I really like you, Dez."
She clasped one of his hands and gave the knuckles a rub. "Why do I feel like my high school boyfriend is spilling his guts to me?" "I'm going to guess you never went to high school."
"Touche. But why the confession now? Are you nervous?"
"A little." His serious expression was exchanged with a smirk. It made his eyes more deeply inviting. And now she teetered even closer to undone. A nice feeling of being unfurled that she wouldn't press back.
Rather, her heart would no longer deny emotion.
"My mom and dad are inside. I should warn you, Mom is always on a mission to get me married and settled down. She wants grandchildren."
"Ah." That confession proved a buzz killer. Dez straightened and adjusted a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Did you tell her about me?"