Part 14 (1/2)
Rylan howled in laughter, nearly falling from the chair as he tried to contain himself.
”I still think there might be something back at the Book Nook,” Simeon insisted aloud, not caring in the slightest both his brothers had a very clear idea of what it was he actually wanted to do. ”Not to mention none of us have really searched Gav's lodgings or office over there. I think there's plenty there to keep us all busy.”
He could feel Clare rolling her eyes at him, yet he didn't care. He pulled her closer to his body, needing the contact.
”We'd better get moving,” he said hoa.r.s.ely, moving his arm from around Clare's shoulder to hold her hand and pull her up next to him. ”Lots to do,” he said unconvincingly.
As he ushered Clare out, he felt Michael grab the scruff of his neck.
”Mike wants a word with him,” Rylan said charmingly to Clare. ”Let me show you to the front door.”
Simeon gritted his teeth as Rylan gently took Clare's arm out from his grip and led her away from the chamber. Simeon turned to his elder brother and barely kept himself from snapping out at him.
”What?” he said peevishly.
”You're in heat?” Mike said, not really asking but confirming.
”Yeah, so? You already knew that.” Simeon hadn't felt so juvenile and pettish since he was a tiny kid.
”That means Ry will be, if he isn't already.”
Simeon thought back to the restlessness Ry had been feeling of late. ”I bet he's close. It's been...different for me this time. That said, maybe I could sense Clare around, close by, and it altered the heat's effect on me. I really don't know.”
Michael merely nodded. ”Chances are I will be entering heat sometime soon too. As we were all born the year following Gav's heat phases, we are all roughly in sync with each other's phases. But I haven't been feeling any of its effects recently, so maybe I have a couple of months still to go.”
Simeon merely raised his eyebrow. Michael was over a hundred and fifty years older than both himself and Rylan. Likely he had a lot more control over his heat phase. Still, he let Mike's comment slide.
”Maybe blowing off some steam with Ruthie is exactly what Ry needs,” Simeon suggested, his mind diverted from Clare for the first time since he had laid eyes on her. ”Not even he can push the investigator around. Ruthie won't take any of his s.h.i.+t.”
”I'm glad you found such a nice girl to close your Soul's Circle with,” Michael said slightly out of the blue, ”but maybe once we've found Gav we could sit down and get to know her a bit better? Ry is positively panting with curiosity.”
”s.h.i.+t, Mike,” Simeon complained, not surprised at all that either of his brothers were able to tell he had completed his Soul's Circle, or the ritual. ”I am having enough troubles keeping my hands off her as it is, I really don't want to be feeling jealous of the two of you as well.”
Simeon glared at his brother when he laughed.
”I seriously doubt Ry would poach,” Michael insisted, ”but a bit of healthy flirting won't hurt you. Besides, you're obviously besotted with her, and she feels the same in response-it's clearly written all over the two of you.”
Simeon merely grunted and headed out the door of the chamber they had been conversing in. He heard Michael chuckling as he followed behind. Simeon headed in the direction of the front door, his excellent hearing able to catch the playful, seductive tone from his twin.
”And I should trust you to do this for me?” he heard Clare say, disbelief dripping from every word.
”But of course!”
Simeon hurried as he heard the teasing, flirty tone in Rylan's voice.
”It's not as if-oh, h.e.l.lo there, Si. You have a wonderful woman here, bro.”
Simeon wrapped an arm around Clare's waist, managing to smile at last when he felt her soft mental fingers brush across his mind. She wasn't feeling uncomfortable, he realized, she was just hot for him. Clare had been enjoying the byplay between herself and Rylan, but he felt his whole demeanor settle down when he realized she wasn't attracted to his twin, it was him she burned for.
He smiled at Rylan, and opened the door to the street.
”Go hara.s.s poor Ruthie, you schmuck,” he said cheerfully, most of his anger and jealousy abated with that simple gesture from his woman. ”And give her my best. We have stuff to do,” he added with a warning stare.
He ignored the laughter from both his brothers as he led Clare from his lodgings and headed back in the direction of the Book Nook.
Chapter Twelve.
Meanwhile, in the Colonial Vampiric Library of Owa.n.u.s Planet Owa.n.u.s
Chandra Tripplen stood just inside the door of the ma.s.sive library. Ancient bloodstone surrounded her, its black stone depths creating the eerie and hushed sense of atmosphere she had never found elsewhere across the immense galaxy.
It was old-world gothic. Ancient in the literal sense. No one even knew of a time when the vampire library had not stood here, monument to the thirst for knowledge many vampires, particularly the more elderly kind, always seemed to have possessed.
The sense of hushed atmosphere, the scent of sacred knowledge hung heavy in the air. Chandra took a deep, cleansing breath, bringing the familiar, much-loved smell of the old stone and ancient texts deep into her lungs.
She loved this place, for a mult.i.tude of reasons, but all of them boiled down to nowhere else came close to giving her the same sense of ”home” as she felt here. She felt safe within these learned walls. The sense of feeling protected, cherished here, as if she truly were just one piece of an enormous puzzle even the vampiric mind was too tiny to behold.
Chandra could feel her destiny inside this cavernous room.
She cast her eyes over the private tables, recognized a number of the vampires studying tomes and texts. Refusing to let go of the task at hand, she hunted throughout the room, searching and discarding vampire after vampire.
And then she found the man she had been following, chasing-intellectually speaking-for at least the last few hundred years.
She watched as Gavreel Montague ran an agitated hand through his shortly cropped brown hair. His dark brown eyes scanned the words of the volume in front of him so lightning-fast it hardly looked as if he were reading at all.
Chandra knew he was absorbing the words at a supernaturally fast pace, superior even to many of the more learned vampires present in this sacred place of knowledge. Knowing she now had time, as Gavreel did not look to be moving anywhere fast if the number of tomes surrounding him were any indication, Chandra leaned against the wall and released a huge sigh of relief that had been pent-up inside her for what felt like an age.
She had been hot on Gavreel's trail for most of the last few weeks, following him from research center to library around the galaxy. It was obvious he was on to something big, and she fully intended to either help him or force him to let her in on the deal.
Chandra had a very good idea of what it was Gavreel sought, as most of their antagonism sprang from the fact they sought the same sort of goals, the same style of knowledge. If Gavreel truly was after what she thought he was, she would do practically anything to make sure she helped with her own five credits and saw this through to the very end.
Chandra took her own sweet time to survey the vampire who had driven her to screaming point any number of times over the last few decades.
Chandra frowned in annoyance as she once again recounted the litany she nearly knew by heart now. Gavreel refused to listen to her postulations, often making a mockery of her in his own journal articles and papers. They had been clas.h.i.+ng over the more public journals over obscure references as well as challenging each other over the theory of whence the Vampire came from for many a decade.
Yet still she studied what she loved and gave more and more evidence for her own views as the examples came to hand. She refused to back down to the more accoladed Gavreel Montague, simply because her theories, which were just as well supported as his, were less traditional.
Chandra had no idea why she bothered fighting with the vampire, why she seemed to get so hot under the collar at his barbs and dismissals in their papers. It merely seemed to her mind that this particular vampire got under her skin in a way no one else had been able to in her three hundred and eight years.
Chandra mused on the subject a moment, enjoying watching Gavreel deep in his text. It wasn't as if she had never enjoyed the compet.i.tive nature of other academics in their circles, nor was it as if she had some silly, juvenile need to prove herself to the vampire-nor anyone else, for that matter.
Yet for some reason, she so often found herself swearing at the walls or mentally casting daggers toward Gavreel Montague after reading one of his papers. She frowned, wondered what odd magic it was that he more than anyone could pierce her usual cool, calm and collected armor.