Vampire Most Wanted
Page 22

It didn’t smell boring or tasteless now.
“Here.” Marcus picked up the cutting board and used the knife to slide several pieces of cheese onto her plate. He then set that down and scooped up some casserole to add to her plate as well before pushing the bowl holding the grapes and strawberries next to the bowl of salad he’d set beside her plate. “We have a couple of dressings to choose from. Apparently it goes on the salad, but I don’t know what’s good and what’s not.”
Divine shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out,” she said, reaching for a grape from the bowl. She popped it into her mouth, bit into it, and closed her eyes as the sweet juice burst across her tongue. Dear God it was . . . luscious, lovely, sweet, wet.
“Try the strawberries,” Marcus suggested when she reached toward the bowl again. “They’re even better.”
Divine immediately changed direction, reaching for the red fruit instead of the green, seedless balls of juice called grapes. She popped one of the berries in her mouth and bit down and found he was right. The strawberries were—
Marcus glanced up from his cutting with surprise when Divine grimaced and spat out the slightly chewed strawberry. He glanced at it briefly and then wrinkled his nose. “I don’t believe you’re supposed to eat the stem and leafy bits. I’ve seen others eat them and they leave that part.”
“Oh,” Divine muttered, using the napkin he’d set beside her plate to wipe her mouth.
“Try another,” he suggested, picking up a large plump one and holding it out. “Just bite the fruit off though; I’ll hold on to the stem and leafy bit.”
Divine hesitated and then leaned forward and carefully bit into the strawberry, avoiding getting too close to the leafy end. She started out watching Marcus’s face as she did, but the sudden flaring of silver in his eyes made her lower her eyes. It was a relief when she finished the action and sat back.
“Well?” Marcus asked, and she didn’t miss the husky note in his voice.
Divine was silent for a minute as she concentrated on chewing up the fruit and then swallowing, but she smiled then and nodded. “Yes. They’re lovely. Much better without the stem and leafy bits.”
Marcus grinned and settled in the seat across from her. They were silent for several minutes as they began to eat. All of it was good, but the casserole was amazing. What had Marcus called it? A sausage, potato, and cheese casserole? The various flavors blended beautifully in her mouth. They hadn’t had food like this the last time she’d eaten.
“Divine?”
“Hmmm?” she asked, trying the salad next. Not sure which dressing she’d like, Divine had put a creamy concoction called ranch dressing on half her salad and another one called balsamic something or other on the other half. She tried the ranch first and found it surprisingly tasty. But it made her wonder what the balsamic one tasted like and she scooped up a bit of salad from that side to try next.
“Would you tell me a little about your life?”
The question made her pause with the salad halfway to her mouth. Setting the loaded fork back, she peered at him silently.
“Anything,” he said quietly. “How long have you traveled with carnivals for instance?”
Divine relaxed a little and contemplated her fork. She didn’t suppose answering that would be a problem or reveal anything she shouldn’t. “Pretty much since carnivals began,” she said, and then added, “Well, I think the first one was around for a couple years before I joined a competitor in 1901.”
Marcus nodded and took a bite of casserole.
Relaxing even more, Divine slipped the balsamic salad into her mouth and felt her eyebrows rise. She thought she might like this better than the creamy one. It had a bit of tang to it that she enjoyed.
“And before the carnival?”
Divine swallowed her salad and took a drink as she thought, and then set down her glass and admitted, “Before turning to carnivals I rode and lived with the Comanches.”
Marcus’s eyes widened incredulously. “Seriously?”
She smiled faintly at his expression and nodded. “They called me Naduah.”
“Naduah,” he murmured. “That’s pretty. What does it mean?”
“That depends on who you ask,” she admitted with amusement. “I was told by the chief who gave me the name that it meant ‘she who carries herself with dignity and grace.’ However, a rather nasty and jealous maiden once told me it means ‘she who keeps warm with us,’ and the way she said it suggested I did so in a rather X-rated fashion.”
Divine grinned at the scowl this brought to Marcus’s face and shrugged. “As I said she was jealous. The chief listened to me when I advised him and allowed me to ride into battle with the men. I suppose she thought I’d slept my way into the chief’s good graces to be allowed to do so.” She smiled and then added, “Even if the chief was wrong and it did mean ‘she who keeps warm with us,’ it would be true. I shared their fire of a night.”
“You couldn’t have stayed with them for long. They would have noticed your not aging,” he said.
“There were different tribes of Comanche; the Yamparikas, the Jupes, and the Kotsotekas, and they all had different bands.” She shrugged. “I moved around the various bands for a while, but no, I wasn’t with them for as long as I’ve moved around with carnivals.”
“And before them?”
Divine sighed and set her fork down. “Marcus—”
“Tell me . . . please,” he added softly, and then offered, “If you do I’ll tell you about myself.”
She stared at him briefly, then nodded and picked up her fork again; gathering some casserole on it, she took a bite, chewed and swallowed and then admitted, “Before the Comanches I was with the Romani.”
“Gypsies,” he said softly and she nodded.
Divine smiled crookedly. “They called me Nuri. It means Gypsy.”
“So even to the Gypsies you were considered a Gypsy?” he asked with amusement.
She smiled wryly. “Well, I moved around even more than they did. I’d travel with a group for five or ten years and then leave and find another. I traveled most of Europe with different Romani groups before sailing to America.”
“I’m surprised they let you travel with them,” he said quietly. “I understood the Romani didn’t embrace outsiders.”
Divine smiled with amusement and reminded him, “I’m immortal, and we can be very persuasive.”
“Ah.” Marcus nodded. “A little mind control, a little influence and bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, you’re in.”
“Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo?” she echoed, eyes wide with disbelief.
Marcus flushed. “There’s a little girl named Livy who was staying with a friend while I was there and she had a thing for Disney movies.”
“Ah,” Divine said solemnly, but she suddenly had an image in her mind of Marcus watching a Disney cartoon with a little girl in pigtails. She had no idea if this Livy wore pigtails, but that was the image that sprang to mind. It was a beautiful image. She thought he’d be good with children. What would their children look like, she wondered, and then pushed the fantasy aside. He might be her life mate, but she could never claim him as one so long as he worked with Lucian.
“And before the Romani?” Marcus asked now.
Divine considered him briefly, and then said, “Isn’t it time you told me a little about yourself?”
Marcus paused and then set his own fork down with a nod. “Fair enough.”
She was glad he didn’t argue the point . . . for two reasons. She really did want to learn more about him, but she also wanted to eat more of the delicious food on her plate, which was hard to do while she was talking.
Marcus took a sip of the water beside his plate and then set the glass down saying, “Okay. My grandparents are Marzzia and Nicodemus Notte. They were a part of the group of original immortals, the survivors of Atlantis.”
“Atlantis?” she asked with bewilderment.
Marcus stilled and tilted his head. “Has no one taught you the history of our origins, Divine?”
She almost lied again and said yes rather than look ignorant, but then sighed and admitted, “No. I’m afraid not. My childhood was rather . . .” She frowned and glanced away.
“Unconventional?” he suggested gently, and the word made her snort indelicately.
Covering her mouth and nose quickly, she peered wide-eyed at him over her hand and then suddenly lost patience with herself. She was no shrinking violet. She had taken care of herself for millennia, and would be damned if encountering a life mate she couldn’t claim, and recalling a childhood that had been a horror all around, was going to reduce her to the state of a blithering idiot afraid to say what she felt or meant or wanted. Her history was her history and that was that. She couldn’t change it, and he could accept it, deal with it, or just get the hell out of her life if he didn’t like it.
Letting her hand drop she said, “Unconventional does not begin to describe my childhood. For one thing, my parents were not true life mates.” His eyebrows rose at that and she nodded. “My mother, Tisiphone, was older than my father, Felix, and she wanted a child. My father was apparently very likable and easygoing and so she decided he would do.”
Divine paused to take a drink of water before continuing, “While my father couldn’t read Tisiphone, he knew she was older so thought nothing of it.” She grimaced and added, “Until Tisiphone claimed she couldn’t read him either and they therefore must be life mates.”
“She was lying?” Marcus asked.
Divine nodded. “Yes. She could read him . . . and control him too. She used both skills, plus manipulation and drugs, to make him think he was experiencing the infamous life mate sex.”
Marcus frowned. “Was your father young enough to still eat?”
Divine shook her head. “I gather she used mind control, or perhaps drugs too, to make him think he was hungry and that the food was the most delicious he’d ever had and whatnot.”
“And she did all this for a baby?” he asked with a frown. “Why not just manipulate a mortal into impregnating her? Hell, she wouldn’t even have had to manipulate one. They’d have been lining up to sleep with her.”
When Divine raised her eyebrows at that, he explained, “We apparently give off some chemical mix of hormones that makes us seem ultra attractive to mortals.”
“Really?” she asked with interest. Divine hadn’t known that. But it explained why mortal men seemed always to be making nuisances of themselves around her.
“Yes,” Marcus said, and then added. “Even if that hadn’t worked, she could have easily influenced any mortal to think she was gorgeous. Although, if you got your looks from her, she must have already been gorgeous.”
Divine felt her face heat up at the compliment and rolled her eyes at her own reaction. Seriously? Blushing? She was too damned old to blush, she thought, and then said, “Yes, she could have. But apparently my mother didn’t want just any baby. She wanted the baby of a man from a powerful family.”
“And your father, Felix? He was from a powerful family?”
Divine almost bit off her tongue as she realized that she’d given something away that might be dangerous. Trying to act as if she hadn’t, she shrugged. “Apparently, although I only heard all of this from a servant. And my mother had been a servant herself before she tricked my father into thinking he was her life mate.”
“Your mother was older than your father, immortal, and yet a servant?” Marcus asked with surprise.
Divine shrugged. “That’s what I was told.”
Marcus sat back and shook his head at this news, apparently finding it hard to believe. She could understand why. As an immortal Tisiphone could have controlled and influenced any number of wealthy mortals into marrying her, and with them under her control, they would have let her do whatever she wanted with their wealth. Heck, she could even have just used mind control to make them give her their wealth if she’d been of a mind to. That was certainly no less dastardly than what she’d done to Divine’s poor father. But the truth was she’d needed the power of Divine’s father’s family to get her out of servitude. Because she’d been a servant to another powerful, immortal family to pay a debt she owed for causing the death of one of their children.
Marcus cleared his throat suddenly and Divine glanced to him. He was about to ask a question, and she knew exactly what it would be. What was the name of her father’s powerful family? She couldn’t answer that, so quickly said, “Of course, her lies and manipulations couldn’t hold up forever. I was four when my father eventually figured out that she’d used him. Once he realized that, he apparently snuck out a message explaining the situation and asking for help with one of the servants, who was ordered to take it to one of his brothers.”
“She could still control him,” Marcus realized with slow dawning horror at the predicament her father had been in.
Divine nodded. “And she could still read him, which she must have done. The night after the servant slipped away with the message, she barricaded the doors and windows of our home and set it on fire.”
“And then took you with her when she fled?” Marcus asked.
“Oh, she didn’t flee,” Divine corrected him. “She barricaded all of us in the house while we slept: myself, my father, the rest of the servants, and herself. She meant for all of us to die.”