"Murder? Hope was murdered? When?" I asked, backing away from the muscular young woman who bowled in through the door. "I had no idea where she went, let alone what happened to her, but I certainly haven't killed her!"
Theo, what's going on here? Murder?
I don't know, but the mare must be handled carefully. This is a serious situation.
You ain't just whistlin' 'Dixie'!
"I fear there has been a misunderstanding about my client's situation, your grace," Theo said suavely, positioning himself between me and the bailiff.
The mare stared at Theo for a moment, thawing visibly when he smiled at her.
Oh, that's subtle, I thought at him.
Subtle doesn't win the fair maiden.
I sent him thoughts of what I'd like to do to him at that very moment.
You are a bloodthirsty little thing, aren't you? You can stop mentally sharpening your neutering knife. I simply mean to win her over to our side, not seduce her.
"You are the champion?" the mare asked, giving Theo a much more thorough eyeing than I thought strictly necessary.
"Theondre North at your service, your grace," he said, bowing, charm positively oozing off him.
Just see that you don't. I like to think of myself as a generous person, but when it comes to men, I don't share.
Neither do I, but that's not the issue at stake.
I won't say the mare actually cracked a smile, but she stopped looking like she was going to have me gutted on the spot. "One moment, Mathilda," she told the bailiff before turning back to me. "Am I to understand that you did not seek an audience with me in order to turn yourself in for the crime of murdering the virtue named Hope?"
I lifted my chin and gave her a polite smile. "That's correct. I am here to discuss the continuation of the seven trials I have been forced to undergo. I also wish to discuss the process for submitting a petition. And finally, I want to lodge a complaint about two old ladies who beat me up without due cause."
The mare's eyebrows rose, her eyes chilly. "I see."
"I can reassure you that my client is not the type of person who would commit murder for her own gain," Theo said, moving closer to me in a show of faith. As a gesture, it warmed me to my toes. "She is innocent of the charge you have laid at her feet."
The mare didn't look at all like she believed him. "And did you take on the role of her champion before or after she summoned the virtue?"
"After, your grace. I discussed the situation with her at some length - "
If you could call almost choking me to death discussing the situation.
Hush.
" - and determined that she summoned the virtue without knowing that she was doing so. The virtue assumed she wished to take on the position, and since she was desirous of leaving, she passed on her powers without Portia being aware of exactly what she was committing herself to."
"Save your defense for the hearing," the mare said, gesturing to the bailiff.
The bailiff grabbed my upper arm in a grip that would no doubt leave bruises. Above my head, the cloud began to form.
"Your grace, please, we ask that you recognize the extenuating circumstances of this situation, and grant leniency." Theo sent the mare another sultry smile.
I'd really appreciate if you could stop doing that.
Saving your life, you mean?
No, sending her those wicked smiles.
Are you jealous?
Not in the least.
There was a pregnant pause during which Theo laughed into my head.
Oh, all right, perhaps a little, but it's justified. I know you're trying to get us out of this situation, but it...oh, never mind. Just get it over with.
"On what grounds do you ask for leniency?" the mare asked, thawing just a bit more under the influence of his smile.
The air grew thick, but not with static. I fought to control my anger, aware that it was triggering the ministorms around me. Once I got my emotions under control, everything would be fine.
I noticed the mare kept her eyes on Theo, not paying me much attention. It irritated me that he was using his masculine wiles to sway her almost as much as it irritated me that I was bothered by that in the first place.
The analytical part of my brain pointed out that I'd only known Theo a few days, and been intimate with him only one day, all of which hardly added up to deep insight into his nature. Oh, sure, we were talking about following the steps to a formal binding, but so far, that was just talk - we hadn't taken the last couple of steps. What if he never intended us to? What if we did, and I found out he was really a jerk? Perhaps he was one of those men who felt it acceptable to flirt with every female. Perhaps he was nothing more than a tomcat, on the prowl for the next conquest. Perhaps he didn't believe in things like fidelity and honor.
Perhaps I needed to stop worrying about Theo's intentions toward me, and cope instead with more important issues, like keeping myself out of heavenly prison.
What if he didn't love me?
The air grew cold around us.
"I ask that leniency be shown to Portia due to her inexperience with Court matters."
"Ignorance is not suitable grounds for clemency," the mare said, her voice turning icy as she looked at me.
"I am not ignorant," I answered, trying to tone down the indignation in my voice.
Tiny little pitter-patter sounds followed a shower of minute hailstones.
Portia, you are not helping the situation.
I'm not doing it on purpose!
The mare looked up at my cloud, then at me, with a look that spoke volumes.
"I'm sorry. I don't seem to have very good control of this whole weather business yet," I said stiffly, trying to dissipate the cloud. "As for the other, I am simply inexperienced in the ways of the Court. I did not ask to become a virtue, but I have decided, after much thought, that I am willing to take on the job. Since no one bothered to explain to me the rules and regulations governing virtues, I'm pretty much feeling my way blindly here, and would appreciate it if you could recognize that fact."
Sweetling, you must temper your tone. It is borderline hostile. And stop the hail! It's spreading to the mare's desk.
I'm sorry about that, but I will not stand by while you prostitute yourself in order to get this woman to understand I haven't done anything wrong!
He sighed into my head. My using a bit of charm on the mare in order that she might understand our point of view has nothing to do with our relationship. You have no reason to feel threatened by other women.
The mare lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me. The hail was growing in size and scope, until the rug in the entire room was covered in a white blanket of ice the size of small marbles. The bailiff looked questioningly at the mare. The latter looked angry.
Portia, stop the dramatics!
I can't! I'm trying to make the cloud go away, but it won't!
I can assure you that the sovereign takes very dim views of people who treat officers of the Court with such antipathy!
The hail came down even harder.
The mare suddenly picked up a book and slammed it down onto her desk. "Cease this display!" she bellowed.
"I can't! I don't know how!" I yelled back, waving my hands desperately as if that would help disperse the cloud over my head.
"Such insolence!" the bailiff said, jerking me back when I moved forward to brush the hail off the mare's desk. "This will not be tolerated."
"Your grace, please - " Theo started to say, but the mare interrupted him.
She pointed at me, her voice loud enough to rattle the windows in the room, looking like some sort of Nordic goddess as the hail swirled around her. "You are out of control and a danger to others, as well as yourself. For that reason, and that reason alone, I will bypass the justice calendar and commit you to an immediate hearing concerning the charge of murder that has been leveled against you. You will report to Petitioner's Park at Nones. You will not leave the Court without permission. You will not discuss your case with anyone but the appropriate authorities. You will not utilize your Gift without permission. Do you understand what I have said?"
I blinked a couple of times, surprised that she didn't order me clamped into irons and thrown into the nearest dungeon, to be left to rot for a few years before someone remembered me. "I...yes. Thank you."
The mare took a deep breath. "Now get out of here!"
Reluctantly, the bailiff released my arm.
What just happened? I asked Theo.
I believe she realized the truth in what we were saying about you not having any experience with the powers of a virtue.
Just because I couldn't control the hail?
Yes. Anyone who intended to become a virtue would have a basic understanding of the role, and better control over those elements in her domain. This may actually be a good thing. "Thank you for your generosity, your grace."
The look she gave Theo as he made another bow was enough to raise my hackles, but I gritted my teeth and reminded myself of what Theo had said.
The cloud disappeared as I left the room.
"We really do need to get you through the rest of the trials so you can take control of your Gift," Theo said in a low voice as he hustled me out of the library.
"You're telling me. When is Nones?"
Theo glanced at the sky. "Another hour. Time enough for us to get some answers...and food. You are hungry."
"So are you," I said, aware of the hot need that growled inside him.
"Yes. We will seek the dapifer. This way."
A dapifer, it turned out, was some sort of steward responsible for caring for visitors to the Court. Or so Theo explained as we met with a small bespectacled man who wrung his hands when we asked for a room and food.
"We don't normally allow nephilim in the apartments, but if her grace said it was all right..."
I bit back the desire to state the obvious about such a ridiculous policy.
"I don't suppose there are any phones here?" I asked instead as the dapifer showed us to a room in the keep that housed the noble apartments. It was furnished in an odd mixture of old and new, with a huge, canopied bed, candles in sconces on the wall, and an armoire that contained a TV, DVD player, and popular video game machine. A small, modern bathroom led off the main room. It was comfortable, though, and I certainly wasn't in any position to comment about the eccentric decorating schemes of the sovereign.
"Gracious me, no, no telephones are allowed! Contact with the outside is strictly prohibited in the Court," he told me, looking horrified at the very thought. He gave us both a curt little bow. "I will have a meal delivered to you immediately."
I thanked him, sinking onto the bed with an exhausted sigh as he left. "I wanted to call Sarah and tell her I'd be late, but I guess that's out. Unless your cell phone..." I looked hopefully at Theo.
He shook his head. "Won't work here. Only certain officials are allowed access to the outside world."
"Damn. I hope Sarah doesn't worry. We were supposed to go to another haunted house tonight."
Theo stretched, pushing aside a heavy maroon curtain to look out the double-glazed, diamond-paned window. "Time operates differently in the Court than outside. We could be here for days, and only an hour or two would pass outside. Or a year. It just depends."
"Depends on what? How can the time variable be so diverse?"
"It depends on the whim of the sovereign, I suppose. I knew a man who was here for a few days, and only an hour passed outside. His wife, who was with him, left at the same time only to find three years had gone by in her absence."
"That doesn't make any sense." I spent a few minutes trying to calculate the equations necessary for such an impossible thing, but gave it up when a headache bloomed to life. "No, that can't be right. It's not logical at all."
"Shades of grey, sweetling, shades of grey."
"Oh, I've been shades-of-greying ever since we met that demon, but that is asking too much. Even here, even in this Court, there has to be an underlying, fundamental structure of physical properties upon which reality is built. To say that no laws keep the structure consistent is impossible."
"That's where faith comes in," he said dryly.
I let the matter drop. It didn't do any good to argue with Theo. I was willing to accept that a different set of physical laws applied to the Court, but exist they must. And I was just the person to explore what sort of glue held together this bizarre world I had joined.
"The only other time I was in Court, I was not allowed to stay in the keep," Theo said after a few minutes of silence.
"Why not?" I asked, pushing aside my concerns to watch him. So many emotions rolled around inside him that I had a hard time separating them.
"I was considered unworthy." He turned to look at me, a smile on his lips. "If nothing else, sweetling, you have elevated me beyond obscurity."
I made a face. "I'm willing to bet you would have preferred not being known as the boyfriend of the woman who hailed on a mare."
"Boyfriend?"
"Well...what's the male equivalent to Beloved?"
"Dark One."
"That's rather a general-purpose label, not one indicative of a man so completely wrapped around his woman's little finger."
"Is that what you think I am?" he asked, one eyebrow cocked in inquiry.
I smiled, kicked off my shoes, and slid back on the bed, wiggling my toes in invitation. "Aren't you?"
Hunger roared through him with such intensity it made me gasp. He started toward me, his eyes black as onyx, one hand undoing his belt. "Intrigued, yes. Impassioned, definitely. Aroused..." He glanced down at himself. "I don't believe that is in question. But wrapped around your little finger? I am not so easily manipulated."
"How about in love?" I asked, suddenly breathless as he knelt on the bed and started crawling up my legs.
He stopped, his face impassive, but inside him a great well of pain existed. "I have loved women before, Portia. I don't think I could have lasted as long as I have without occasionally being in love, caring for someone, and receiving love in return."
A knife twisted in my heart. It was unreasonable for me to expect that Theo could live the thousand plus years he had lived without falling in love, but my heart refused to recognize reason.
"What I feel for you is...different."
Different could be good. Different could be...oh, who was I fooling? Different was horrible. I didn't want to be different - I wanted Theo to love me just as much as he loved the other women in his life. I wanted the same place in his affections, to mean something to him other than a means to an end. I wanted him to love me as much as I was coming to love him!
"I see." My throat ached with unshed tears of self-pity. "These women you loved...were they immortal?"
"No. I knew when I began with them that the relationship was finite. I knew they would grow old, and there would come a time when they would die, and I would be left alone again." He sat back on his heels and unbuttoned his shirt, tossing it onto a nearby chair. With a look in his eye that warmed me despite the pain, he continued up the length of my body. "You, as I said, are different. Whether by Joining as my Beloved, or by acceptance into the Court, you will be immortal."
"Which means that when you grow tired of me, you won't be able to count on attrition to get rid of me."
His breath feathered against my mouth as he settled onto my body. "I have never grown tired of any of the women whom I loved. I mourned their passings, and felt myself diminished for a time."
"And then you got over it and fell in love again." The pain hurt so deeply in me that I wondered if there would ever be an end to it.
"Yes. But now there is you, and you, as I said, are different."
His lips brushed mine as he spoke. I wanted so badly to kiss him, to taste him, to merge myself with him that my body shook. But the pain at his confession was too much, too much for me to live with. I couldn't do it.
"I need you, Portia."
Hot tears leaked out of my eyes as I closed them tightly, turning my head to the side to avoid the torturous lure of his mouth. Oh, yes, he needed me. He needed me for sustenance. He needed me to help him achieve his greatest wish - salvation. He needed me not in the way a man needs a woman, but as a partner, someone sharing an adventure, bonded by circumstances into a symbiotic relationship.
You, my love, will be with me forever. You will be mine to love, mine to share the joys of life, mine to explore all the possibilities that lie before us.
I looked at him through eyes made blurry with tears. I wanted so much to believe him, but the pain was too deep to be erased with a few easily spoken words.
You complete me, Portia, don't you feel that? His eyes were filled with fire, but it wasn't just the head of passion that burned within him. It is true I have loved in the past, but I know now that I was only biding my time until you would come into my life. You are life to me, my love. I could not exist without you.
I burst into uncharacteristic tears at such beautiful words. I didn't need to look into Theo's face to know that he meant them - his emotions surrounded me, merging with my own until it was impossible to tell which were his and which mine.
His kiss burned more than just my lips; it scorched my soul with its intensity. I gave myself up to him, relinquished every last bit of me, but I wasn't in the least bit diminished. My heart sang as I drank in the sweetness of his mouth, filling me with such joy that I seriously thought for a moment that I would burst with happiness. I wanted to tell him how I felt, what he meant to me, how the warm kernel of love was growing into a feeling that lit up the corners of my soul, but the words would not come. Instead, I poured into him every emotion I possessed.
You don't have to say it, sweetling. Just as you know what I feel for you, so I can read your emotions.
Good, because it's a bit embarrassing falling in love so quickly with a man who I wanted to see in jail just a few days ago.
Theo chuckled in my mind as his tongue continued a lazy exploration of my mouth. Kismet, perhaps? We were meant to be together.
Do we have time for this? I asked as his mouth moved to my neck, kissing a hot trail down to my collarbone. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, but if someone is bringing us food, and you said you thought there was a person whom we could talk to about the murders before the hearing, will we have time for...er...
Wild, unbridled lovemaking?
Exactly.
He froze for a moment, his head lifted and slightly tipped to the side, as if he was listening.
"We will in a moment," he said, sighing a little as he climbed off me.
Someone knocked on the door. I leaped off the bed and straightened my shirt, hoping I didn't look like we were about to do what we were about to do.
"Your meal," an elderly woman said, giving Theo a tray of covered plates. He thanked her as she left, setting down the tray on the table and lifting the lids off the plates. The scent of roasted meat and garlic filled the room.
He sighed again. "Roast beef. One of my favorites. I miss it already."
"You can't eat any normal food anymore?"
"I can, but Christian cautioned against it until I became more comfortable with the vampirism. Evidently it takes some doing to digest food, and is not recommended for new...erm...inductees."
Guilt pinged sharply. "I'm sorry - "
"Don't," he interrupted, and pulled me into an embrace. His eyes were shining with a warmth that heated me to my toenails. "I insist that you stop feeling guilty about it."
"Well, the least you can do is let me feed you," I said, tipping my head so my neck was presented to him. "Soup's on!"
"No, you eat first." He pulled away and waved me to a chair in front of the table.
"You're hungry. We'll take care of you, then I'll eat."
"You're hungry as well. You first."
The stubborn look on his face made me smile. I waggled my eyebrows at him, and summoned up my best leer. "Ah, but I'm hungry for more than just roast beef."
A speculative glint dawned in his eyes. He looked down at the tray of food. I looked as well. The tray bore two plates of roast beef, potatoes, and assorted steamed vegetables. There was also bread, and something blobby that I remembered from a previous dinner at the pub was Yorkshire pudding. To the side sat a plate with two pieces of cake, lavishly frosted.
"You wouldn't be one of those people who eats her dessert first?" Theo asked as I smiled and picked up the plate of cake.
"Not normally, but I'm willing to break the rules now and again." I carried the cake to the nightstand, dipping my finger in the frosting before popping it in my mouth and licking it off with exaggerated laps of my tongue. "Mmm. Cream cheese frosting, my favorite." I raised my eyebrows, and waited to see if Theo wanted to play.
He looked at the bed, looked at the cake, then at me. Before you could say "frosted nephilim," he was naked, lying on the bed, his arms open for me.
"You're sure we have time?" I asked, glancing at the clock.
"For this? Oh, yes. And if we don't, we'll make time."
I laughed as I started removing my clothing, my heart swelling with love. How could life be so topsy-turvy, such a mess of confusion, and yet so wonderful?
Go with the flow, my brain reminded me. Just go with the flow.