From his skeptical snort, she guessed only time would convince him. She decided to ignore the fact that his words had been uncomfortably close to her own uneasy rationalizations.
She’d put away her cleaning supplies and was eating the bread and cheese when Mal arrived in the Jeep. He hit the horn once to summon her out to join him. Not in a gentlemanly mood today, she thought wryly, but picked up her basket of things for the children and headed out.
He looked a little less relaxed than he had earlier. The arm of the shirt had been ripped and his khakis were stained with dirt. “Everything okay?” she ventured.
As soon as she got settled, he put the Jeep in gear, but he gave her a brief shrug. “The new lion pair were a bit tricky to handle. One of them was wearing a harness that had been put on him as an adolescent. It had grown into his skin and needed to be removed. They don’t respond well to tranquilizers, but we put him under for a few minutes to get it free and treated. Just a busy evening so far.”
She was sure he’d been calm during all that, but now, away from them, she picked up his anger at the treatment of the animals, and the settling of nerves that came in the aftermath of handling two dangerous creatures. Plus the tension of overseeing staff members who were far more vulnerable to maiming.
She shifted around on her hip so she could look at him, because she might as well not deny she liked looking at him, imagining the way that lean body had curved over hers only hours before. “We had a stockman with a mean streak to him. Kicked one of the dogs one day when the poor thing was doing nothing more than sleeping in the sun. Broke a rib or two. Willis gave that man a thrashing within an inch of his life and sent him off with no back pay, telling him he could consider the fact he could still walk payment enough.” She nodded with firm conviction. “Some people need a foot up the backside; that’s the truth. And the larger the foot, the better.”
Mal’s jaw eased, amusement crossing his face. “That’s about the size of it.”
“And here you are, after such a busy night already, having to chaperone me.”
“You’re a pain in my ass,” he agreed. He dropped his gearshift hand onto her thigh just above her knee, his fingers resting with casual intimacy in the seam between her legs. She stilled all over as his gaze flickered to her. “Did you bring my blood?”
She nodded. “After a fashion. I thought you might want to drink from me. I know vampires prefer that to refrigerated blood. I’m here, and a girl, and second-marked, so you might as well, right?”
He was on a curve, so his startled glance stayed on her a beat too long. Mal cursed, correcting the course with a protesting squeal of tires. Branches of the roadside foliage slapped and squeaked against the hood as he brought the Jeep to a halt.
She was pretty certain he wasn’t stopping to take her up on the offer, but her pulse pounded at the mere thought. She didn’t think she’d offered anything inappropriate, but maybe she was wrong. Part of the reason she suspected vampires had such a distracting effect on human sensibilities was that one saw them only at night. During daylight, a person had a lot less fanciful ideas. Ideas that, in hindsight, might make him think she had kangaroos loose in her top paddock.
He turned toward her, his scrutiny uncomfortably shrewd. “Since I was able to help scald the top layer off one bad memory, letting me drink from your throat might scald away another? Is that about the size of it?”
The moment he said it, there it was, bright as the harsh glare of full sun in the desert. Victor gulping at her throat, a wet, sickening suction she couldn’t break because she was helpless against him. Just like that baby impala, still alive and kicking as the cubs played with its legs.
Her hands convulsed on the basket, but he wasn’t of a mind to ease off or be reassuring. “I asked you a question, Elisa. And I want the answer out loud, not from your mind.”
“Yes,” she said shortly. She turned her face away from him. They were in the plains region right now, so she could see the swaying meadow grass, the lonely outline of the few craggy trees dotting the expanse. A small wildebeest herd was nearby, at the watering area. She could hear their lowing and their grunts. If the wind shifted, she was sure she’d get their overpowering musky aroma. Would any lose their lives to the cats tonight?
“In Africa, their saliva and waste stimulates grass growth. Since they follow the rains, they don’t stay long in any one place. It’s very beneficial, ecologically.”
She glanced at him, a brow raising at the unexpected change of topic. “During a drought,” he continued, holding her gaze, “they become absolutely fearless in their pursuit of food. They might jump a dangerous riverbank, risking broken limbs and certain death to get to another food source. Because at that point the only thing they fear is starvation. Much like a person who will make extremely foolish decisions when the only thing she fears is her memories.”
She turned her face away again, tightening the grip on the basket. He sighed. “Yes, I am patronizing. But I’m not wrong.”
“Why is it foolish?” She glared at him. “You’re hungry; I have a neck. It seems rather practical. I was just offering. If you don’t want it, then fine. There’s no reason to turn it into more than it is. No reason to turn anything into more than it is.”
She really had turned a corner if she was snapping at a vampire like a fishwife. He surprised her by making another noncommittal grunt, much like Kohana, and put the Jeep back in drive. Only instead of turning down the road that led to the enclosures, he kept going.
Elisa’s heart leaped into her throat, but then she realized they weren’t returning to the house, unless they were taking a much longer route to do it. She wanted to ask, but instead she rummaged in the basket to withdraw the bottle of blood. Unscrewing the cap, she extended the offering ungraciously, catching his attention with the movement. Once he took it, brushing her fingers in a purely utilitarian way, she turned her eyes back toward the terrain, not wanting to see him drink it, not after her offer had been so summarily rejected.
“Are we going somewhere else first?” she asked at last.
“We’re going somewhere else. Hold on to the bar. It gets bumpy through here.”
She complied and passed the rest of the ride in silence, because it was what he seemed to prefer as well. Was he regretting last night? She’d never observed regret in a vampire, whereas humans seemed plagued by it. Perhaps because of those foolish things they did. Like getting out of bed in the middle of the night for milk. The silence that had been comfortable right after their lovemaking was definitely no longer.
She took a steadying breath. “You know, I have a right to make my own decisions. You gave me the choice and I made it last night. I’d make the same decision again in a heartbeat, and I’d do it full well knowing that it means something different to you than it does to me. Just like giving you my blood. I don’t expect anything from that. I just wanted to offer.”
There, she’d said it. She suspected she’d get further by saying it to a barn wall, but she wasn’t going to be a sniveling coward about it. A few minutes later, in the lengthening silence, Mal brought the Jeep to a halt at the edge of a field. They were underneath the spreading branches of a gnarled tree that looked like an old, knotted woman. As they rolled under it, she felt that shimmer she was beginning to recognize as passage through another energy field set by the sorcerer.
Getting out of the Jeep, he came around to her side before she could get out on her own. He placed the basket on the hood, grasped her by the elbows and brought her out. He didn’t move back, so she pressed against his body. Her hands had lifted, unsure of his intent, but his closed over her wrists, guided her arms down to her sides, holding them there. Bending for the difference in their heights, he nudged her head into a tilt, bringing his mouth to her throat.
She went still, except for a leaping pulse. He didn’t bite, though. Just held her like that for a long, charged moment, letting her feel the heat of his breath. “I can’t drink from you right now, Elisa. Not right before you see the fledglings. It leaves a trace scent of fresh blood on your throat, and they’re not stable enough to handle that.” He pressed his lips against her racing artery, though, and she shuddered, knowing her whole body went tight and liquid in all the right places, a mere heartbeat afterward.
“Of course, the scent of your arousal is capable of doing the same. It makes me want to bend you over the front of this Jeep and take you quick and hard, because my cock has been aching for that sweet wet pussy of yours since yesterday.”
Her fingers flexed in his unrelenting grip, wanting the same thing, wanting it fiercely. Too soon, he let her go, stepped back, but he tilted her face up to his. “Later, Elisa. I will take blood from you later. And anything else I want.”
Well, so much for thinking she could tone down her reaction before she saw—
She snapped back to that one point. “The fledglings are here?”
“They’re over that rise there. Three of them. Jeremiah, Matthew and Miah. They were transported in a secure vehicle and Tokala is waiting for me to take over. Remember how I told you we use this western area for the caged cats, because it’s cordoned off magically from the others?” At her nod, he continued. “They’ll have it to themselves tonight, except for Thai and Bello, two of our older circus lions. The two new ones were too wrought up to bring them here tonight.”
She imagined Jeremiah seeing a lion for the first time in his life. “They can’t hurt each other, right?”
He shook his head. “The lions pretty much romp when they get out. I’ll try to make sure the fledglings get to see them, but Thai and Bello will probably be fairly indifferent to them.”
The fledglings were going to run, be free. Even on the miles and miles of land that made up Danny’s station, they hadn’t been able to give them that. Joy bloomed in her heart, twining with the lingering arousal to give her a surge of delightful anticipation.
“It does have a practical purpose, other than to exercise my generous and affable nature,” Mal said dryly. Taking her hand, he guided her across the field, walking up toward the rise. “They need to exhaust themselves, run until the muscles are burning, the lungs are straining and the heart is pumping like mad, to burn off the demons in their minds. It may help them feel less antsy, help them control their physical reactions like the bloodlust better. We’ll see.”