Bete Noire (2 page)

The hand in her hair tr
ailed down until he slipped fingers into the collar of her top and traced around to caress along her collarbone. Ash’s eyes fluttered shut as a shudder tore its way down her back. He smiled that smile he had only for her. It held depth, longing and... something more. Something he didn’t dare give a name to. Not when she tried so hard to deny that same something.

Why couldn’t they just find a safe middle ground? Somewhere they could be comfortable with each other that wasn’t completely off, which was
pretty much how they were operating now. If he couldn’t touch her, get just a little closer to her, he was going to lose his mind. Or have to leave for good.

Tristan leaned in and whispered her name across her face. He could taste her
gentle scent, the delicate flavor of sweet oranges and creamy vanilla, she was so close, mouth hovering less than an inch from his. He could stick his tongue out and lick along her lip and he was dying to do just that. He got as close as his lips brushing over hers before she snapped her head back. She looked angry as she stepped away from him, shaking her head.

He let out a dismayed sigh and then
, then he got angry. “Why?”

Ash stopped at the door and turned to look at him. “Pardon?”

“Why do you keep pushing me away like this?” He realized, without even having to speak aloud, that on the other side of the thin paper wall, Yuki could hear him. He really couldn’t give a fuck. Two months of confusion were finally getting the best of him. He thought Ash felt something for him, but every action since moving in together said otherwise. Hell, she flirted more when Tristan still thought she was a he.

“If you cannot understand something so simple, perhaps we are better off—”

“Ash,” he snapped. “Don’t. Okay? Just don’t. I get it. I really do, but this isn’t the way to go about it.”

“I am sure I do not know what you mean.”

Tristan made an aggravated noise, hands in his hair. “God! Why the hell are you even here? I swear, you’re just—” He stopped suddenly, looking more than a little alarmed as his eyes darted behind her.

Ash frowned
, taking a step back. His thoughts cut off as sharply as his mouth. All she could hear now from him was a jumble of confusion and alarm. “What?”

His brow furrowed, eyes going towards the other room.
“What the hell is that?”

“What? I—” Ash took a step towards him, looking up at him in wonderment.

“That,” he said, pointing towards the other room. “What the fuck is that? Is there someone else here?”

Ash’s eyes widened. “You
can sense her?” Ash knew the moment she woke that Yukihime was in the apartment and not alone. But Tristan was only human. No, that wasn’t entirely right either was it? He was half Uruwashi, a virgin Uruwashi at that. While he could feel Yukihime, she was at the fringe of his ability, making her presence just a tiny little spark in his middle. And the other one… 

It was Tristan’s turn to frown. “Why wouldn’t I be able to feel a vampire?”
That’s what it had to be right? Too bad it really didn’t feel like one. The other was... more alive, warmer. Thicker and heavier.

“The other one is not a vampire, Tristan.”
Very
much the opposite. 

His frown deepened, not liking where this was going. “Well, I feel something.”

Ash licked her lips, expression guarded. “It is Lilith.”

He gave a start. “
The pythia
? Why the hell do I feel her?” He didn’t feel her the one time they met before… did he? Then again, he was on the complete opposite side of the lawn from her and half dead.

Ash shook her head. “I cannot say.”

“Can’t or won’t?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her. He trusted her, but didn’t entirely believe everything she said. She had this way with the truth and not telling it so clearly.

“I truly do not know.”

He shut his eyes and groaned, thinking he didn’t like the idea of feeling the pythia. That he was changing.

“Perhaps Shish
ō knows why.” Why else would she bring the girl?

“Great,” Tristan sighed. He really wasn’t having a good night and it’d only just started. “Listen, Ash about what I said before…”

“We should go out there. I do not trust her alone.”

He screwed up his mouth for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, yeah okay. I’d rather she didn’t do something weird like make a hat out of what’s left of my sofa cushions.” Besides, he wanted to officially meet the pythia, even if he was completely weirded out by being able to sense her.

Ash’s expression went dark. It bothered her just as much, if not more than him, that he could sense her. She had a close, personal understanding of the pythia and knew such a thing was, in a word, impossible. Without speaking any of her concerns aloud, Ash pushed open the panel separating the main living space from the bedroom. Tristan heaved a sigh, grabbed a shirt and followed after her.

The main room of the apartment was simple and way too small for four people to be in. The place was barely big enough for him, let alone two vampires, even if one was the size of a kid, and the pythia, who was a child
herself. Though, despite the small city he lived in, the apartment was considered a palace at almost 320 square feet. Being a gaijin, foreigner, he was lucky they even rented to him. Having money helped in the smaller towns.

Back in October, the place had been trashed when Malik’s people—read: vampires—had come looking for him. They went
batshit and tore the place apart, wrecking just about everything he owned including his laptop and iPod. The only thing that survived was a one-cushion sofa, the other cushion having found its miserable end at the hands of a mad vampire; a small computer desk with no computer and the room divider. The rest of the furniture consisted of a few cheap lamps he picked up to replace the ones they broke and a new bed mat. What was the point of buying more furniture if they were leaving soon? Well, he hoped it was soon. Apparently not soon enough to avoid a special visit from the thousand-year-old Master vampire,
Mizu no
Yukihime.

The old vamp had found herself a spot lounging on the remaining sofa cushion, arms laid out across the back like she owned the place. One thin leg was crossed over the other, exposing all of the bright white paleness of her skin from toes to hip. And Tristan could confirm that she did in fact remember her panties tonight.
Hurray for everyone.

She was perfectly at home, watching him with her eerie, crystalline eyes as he entered the room behind Ash. Tristan flinched, almost stopped in his tracks when his gaze found the pythia. Lilith stood in the corner, wrapped head to toe in a thick black velvet cape. Her face was masked in the deep shadow of the hood. She was like a mini Grim Reaper
lurking in the corner like that. It took everything in him not to stare and gape.

Ash on the other hand did stop and stare. This
was the closest she’d been to the girl in over fifty years. They had a past, these two, one that haunted Ash every day she slept and was left at the mercy of her own mind.

“
Kore wa
...” Yuki started in Japanese. She was searching for the least offensive word in English to use. “...
kawayui
—charming, little place you have here. I don’t understand why you two didn’t take my generous offer, Tristan.”

He snapped to attention on Yuki, but opted to stay quiet, ignore her bait. But Yuki wasn’t playing along. She never played fairly.

“Asta-chan, you of all people… sleeping in a
closet
? On the
floor
? How…
simple
of you.” Yuki talked as if the words were dirty, like they tasted bad on her tongue.

Shortly after the pair finished off Malik, Yuki
had so generously offered Tristan and Ash their very own, spacious suite in her home. They respectfully declined. While Ash had her own reasons, Tristan’s was far simpler. He hated them all. Yuki, Desmond, Lucien, that chick he ended up hitting and the dude who poked him in the ass with his boner… Every single vampire in that place was on his shit list.

That place was a total freak show. Besides, just walking in that home set his blood on edge. He knew now that the freezer burn, tingling,
near-arousal he felt when near Ash was what he felt when he was near any vampire, a device of his kind. But, being only half, or less, Uruwashi meant that the vampire had to be practically on top of him. But with so many in such close proximity, like in Yuki’s place, the feeling was exponentially stronger, always on. He’d never leave his room, trying to, ahem,
relieve the tension
. Ash wasn’t about to help with that any time soon either and she was the only one he was interested being anywhere near him.

Ash made a small noise of surprise and looked to Tristan. He blinked back at her, realizing she’d heard him thinking. There was nothing he could do about it and stopped caring weeks ago what she heard. He had nothing to hide anymore. Mostly.

Yuki was watching the two, the corner of her lips curled up in amusement. She knew exactly what Tristan and Ash were both thinking and thought they were being all around childish.

Ash rallied herself, a task she’d done more times in her three-hundred-forty years than she could count. “Yukihime,” she started out in a harsh tone then softened it. “
Shishō, what can we do for you this evening?”

The old vampire smirked, her clear eyes going to Tristan. She looked him up and down, taking in his tall, lean, shirtless figure. Her smirk spread wider, growing until she flashed the tip of one of her long, saber-tooth fangs. The look was one he was quickly becoming accustomed to from her—didn’t mean he liked it. She was thinking about what she’d do to him if Ash weren’t around. He stifled a shudder. And for the
dozenth time, his gaze was drawn to the figure in the corner. She really moved that time, didn’t she?

“
Chibi
-san,” Yuki said, waving her hand at the pythia. “You are making Ryōshi-san nervous. Please, come sit.”

The
caped figure moved, appearing to glide across the tatami. Tristan’s pulse suddenly jumped. Sweat started along his hairline, though it was anything but hot in the apartment. Lilith lifted a hand slowly. It was then that he noticed she was holding something in the other against the front of her body, a glass jar. Her hood slipped back, finally revealing her face. 

This was the same child Tristan remembered seeing that night he killed Malik. She was the one Desmond had been escorting around like a
rock star. While she looked to be only ten, that wasn’t her true from or age. The girl was several hundred years old, the privilege of being a pythia with an arsenal of spells at her disposal. Her brown hair was thick and curled around her porcelain face like a doll. And her eyes, they were a brilliant blue, the color of the sky on a cloudless day. Something about those eyes haunted him, came to him in dreams. And yet, he had this overwhelming sense every time he remembered those eyes to see them again. But now, instead of getting a glimpse of blue there was only a strip of black cloth, blindfolding her.

For some reason, he felt compelled to touch Ash. He reached out, stretching his arm to her and found her hand. She didn’t protest when he pulled her close, fingers still meshed together. “What is this?” he
whispered to her.

For once, she couldn’t read his mind, the mixed jumble of thoughts
, and shook her head. “What is—”

“Problem, Ryōshi-san?”

Tristan licked his lips nervously, shot Ash a look and then looked back up to Yuki, trying hard to not look at the little girl now sitting on the low side of the sofa where the cushion was missing. His breath came out shakier than he would have liked. “I… I knew there was someone here, when we were in the bedroom still, something—
someone
not human. But this is nothing like what I feel with you vampires. She’s... I don’t know.” He stopped, rubbing at the back of his neck nervously. He wasn’t sure he should have even been saying any of this. “Warmer. I can just feel her. It’s making me dizzy, nearly nauseous. I can’t remember ever feeling like this in my life.” He looked down to Ash again and whispered, “Is she really a pythia?”

Ash’s face was dead expressionless. She nodded once.

“You’re sure?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Yuki?” he asked looking to her. “Care to explain?”

She put her arm around Lilith’s shoulders. “You are an enigma in yourself, Ryōshi-san.”

“That’s not an answer,” he grumbled. He looked to the little girl even though she couldn’t see him through that blindfold. Why was she even wearing it? “Do you know, Lilith?”

The little brunette said nothing, only moving her head up and down slowly once.

“Really?” Excited, he took a step towards her, Ash heavy on his arm since he refused to let go of her hand—a comfort of any. When Lilith said nothing more, he asked, “Well, um, do you mind telling me?”

“Sorry, Ryōshi-san,” Yuki said, “she will not speak.”

“Since when?” Ash asked a little too quickly.

Yuki tilted her head to the side,
lips tight with something that might have been apprehension. “Shortly after I took her from Malik. The child spoke a cryptic message of crow, night and death... Since then, not a single word has been uttered...” Yuki reached behind the girl’s head, untied the blindfold and let it drop away. Ash and Tristan gasped together, their clasped hands squeezing tighter. “Two days later, I found her like this.”