Born to Bite (11 page)

“John went home briefly after I’d taught him to hunt and fend for himself, but it was only a matter of weeks before he returned,” Armand continued and explained, “Susanna’s father was a baron too, but John was a second son with no likelihood of inheriting the title or property. He asked to work for me. I knew it was risky having so many of our kind in one place, especially since Susanna was pregnant and there would soon be five of us, but Susanna begged me to let him stay and in the end I said yes.”

“And they stayed on after Susanna died?” Eshe asked.

“Yes. Agnes was a great help raising Nicholas, and John was my second. When it was time to move on, I took them with me, and then the next time and the next. By the time I followed the rest of the family here to Canada, I didn’t even ask if they wished to join me. I just assumed they would, and they did.”

“If Agnes and John were with you, why didn’t Agnes raise Thomas as she had Nicholas?” Eshe asked curiously. “Why did you send Thomas to Marguerite?”

“They weren’t with me anymore by then,” he explained. “They both moved out when I married Althea. Agnes worried that Althea might be uncomfortable having my first wife’s family around. She also thought as newlyweds we should have time to ourselves, and she said she wanted to visit the old country.”

“England?” Eshe asked.

Armand nodded. “John took her back to England and they visited old haunts and then toured the rest of Europe. They returned to Canada when they heard about Althea’s death, but by then I’d already sent Thomas to be with Marguerite.”

“Why didn’t you just bring him back?” Eshe asked. “Couldn’t Agnes have helped raise him as she did Nicholas?”

“I considered that,” Armand acknowledged. “But it seemed unfair to Agnes to just thrust my son on her, especially when they made it plain they didn’t plan to move back in with me but were going to buy their own little farm in the next town over. Close enough they could visit, but not be a bother, John said. I realized then that he’d probably wanted to move out and have his own place for centuries, but had felt in some twisted way that he owed me.”

He grimaced and then admitted, “I still might have asked Agnes if she would mind, but then I went to visit Thomas and he seemed settled and happy and…” He shrugged helplessly. “It seemed cruel to tear him away from Marguerite. He called her Ma and hardly seemed to recognize me.”

Eshe considered that and then commented, “I’m surprised Althea’s parents didn’t want to raise him themselves.”

“They wanted to,” Armand admitted. “But they decided to move back to Europe for a while after Althea’s death. I think they wanted to escape the bad memories. With Thomas at Jean Claude and Marguerite’s I could at least visit him on occasion, but I’d never have seen him if Althea’s parents had taken him to Europe, so I said no.”

“So…Agnes and John were Susanna’s brother and sister and they were in Europe when Althea died, but returned and have lived nearby since after learning of her death?” Eshe murmured, mentally crossing them off the suspect list. They’d hardly have killed their own sister who had loved them enough to turn Agnes. And they had been in Europe when Althea died in the hotel fire.

When Armand nodded, she asked, “But they’ve lived in the area since then? Close enough to visit and such?”

“Yes. John learned from me while he worked for me. He’s been slowly buying up farms like I did. I think he owns five or six now himself and rotates from one to the other every ten years like I do. But all of them are in southern Ontario like mine. Far enough away from each other that he isn’t likely to run into people from the area once he’s left it. Although that’s becoming more of a risk as time goes on,” he added solemnly. “People tended to stick to their own towns when we used horse and buggy, but the more automated everything becomes, the greater the risk of running into people from the past who wonder why you haven’t aged as they have.”

“Will you have to start buying farms further away?” Eshe asked curiously, wondering how he would deal with the threat of being recognized by mortals from the past.

Armand was silent for a minute, his eyes on his now-empty plate, and then admitted, “Actually, I’ve been thinking about getting out of farming.”

Eshe raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

He nodded. “Perhaps it’s time for a change. I’ve been farming ever since moving to Canada and I find my interest in it waning.”

“Do you have any interest in something else?” she asked curiously.

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “I was thinking about going to university, maybe studying medicine or science.”

“All finished here, I see,” their waiter trilled cheerfully, appearing at the end of the table to begin scooping up their empty plates. “Can I tempt either of you with dessert?”

Eshe sat back in her seat to avoid his arm brushing her breast as he reached for her plate, but shook her head. As lovely as dessert sounded, it had been years since she’d eaten. Centuries even. She had already stretched her stomach to capacity. If she ate another thing she would probably burst. Literally.

“No thank you. Just the bill,” Armand said, scowling at the waiter. Apparently he hadn’t missed the close call with the almost boob brushing, and from his expression, was thinking it hadn’t been accidental.

Eshe didn’t doubt he’d read the waiter’s mind and was probably right, but didn’t bother to read his thoughts herself. She had lived a long time and was used to men’s behavior, and really, it got a bit disheartening listening to their baser thoughts after a while. She didn’t know how or why, but a mortal male could completely and utterly love one woman and still have the most staggeringly disgusting lustful thoughts about others that got caught in his vision range. It made her glad she was an immortal. Immortal mates, at least when they were life mates, didn’t suffer the same problem. They might think another woman was attractive, but they wouldn’t act on it, because it simply couldn’t ever be as good as it was with their life mate. There might be some disadvantages in that an immortal could be incredibly lonely between life mates and that centuries and even millennia could pass before another was found, but the benefits of the shared pleasure and utter trust totally outweighed the disadvantages.

“Shall we?”

Eshe glanced to Armand to see that while she’d been lost in thought the bill had arrived, and he had dropped several twenties in the black folder it had come in, and was now peering at her expectantly.

Managing a smile, she nodded and slid out of her side of the booth to stand, surprised to find herself a little unsteady on her feet.

“You need more blood,” Armand murmured, his expression concerned as he took her arm to steady her. “I should have made you have a couple of bags at least before coming in rather than just the one.”

“I’m fine,” Eshe assured him. “I just probably shouldn’t have had the wine.” The alcohol wouldn’t have made her drunk, but it would have made her nanos work twice as hard to remove the alcohol from her system, using up the blood she did have flowing through her veins. She could use a top-up.

Armand ushered her out of the restaurant and to the pickup. He saw her inside, and then left the door open as he moved to the back of the pickup to the special cooler there. A moment later he was back with two bags of blood for her.

“Is this enough or should I grab another?” he asked as he passed them to her. “You probably need three or four, but I know it’s uncomfortable trying to consume them under the dashboard so no one sees.”

“Two is fine,” she assured him, taking the bags. “I can have more back at the house.”

Nodding, he stepped back and closed the door, then moved around to slide into the driver’s side.

They were both quiet on the ride home. At first it was because Eshe had the bags to her mouth and couldn’t talk, and then once those were empty, she simply didn’t know what to say to break the silence. She was terribly aware that they were headed back to his house, his empty house where they would be alone and could finish what they’d started earlier. The thought was like a great huge boulder in the middle of her brain, leaving her incapable of thinking of much else. With every mile they drove, her body grew more and more tense with anticipation and her tongue seemed to swell in her mouth, unable to form words even had her mind been able to come up with any.

She was so wound up with anticipation that the moment the truck stopped in front of the farm, Eshe was springing out the door and hurrying for the house. She was determined to get inside before he could touch her or say or do anything that might end in their rolling around in the front yard, and then passing out there for the animals to eye curiously.

Once in the house, however, she stopped running and turned in the hall to wait for Armand. Much to her frustration, however, he was following at a much slower rate. He also didn’t appear to be in the same anticipatory state as she was. A frown was carving his face, concern wrinkling his eyes, and his lips were a firm, grim line when he pulled the screen door open and met her gaze.

Armand stared at her silently for a moment, his eyes traveling her length with a hunger that was visible in the silver fire in his eyes, and then he forced his eyes away and said, “I need to check on the animals. Then I have to muck out the stalls and such.”

“What?” Eshe asked with blank disbelief.

“I’ll probably be out all night. There’s a lot to do now that Paul’s gone,” he continued, turning in the open door in preparation for leaving. “Mrs. Ramsey isn’t in on Thursdays so your sleep should be undisturbed. I’ll see you when you wake up.”

He then walked out, leaving her staring after him with amazement. That was it? After the promise of passion in the office, and their teasing while shopping, he was just going to leave her high and dry and go play with his animals?

Eshe snorted at the very idea. If that was what he thought, Armand Argeneau had another think coming, she decided firmly. After a considering glance down at herself, she quickly pushed off her leather pants, struggling a bit to get them off over her boots. She then slammed through the door and out onto the porch in just her knee-high black leather boots, and the white satin baby doll and panties…only to pause at the top of the steps. Armand was nowhere in sight.

“I guess it’s true that you can take the girl out of the city, but not the city out of the girl, huh Eshe? ’Cause that sure as hell isn’t farm wear.”

Eshe gave a start at that comment from the darkness and turned sharply to peer toward the end of the porch where it had come from.

“Bricker,” she said with disgust as she recognized the man who unfolded himself from the rocker he’d been seated in and moved toward her. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Lucian sent me to watch your back,” Justin Bricker said, his teeth flashing white in the darkness as he grinned. “I can tell you appreciate the thoughtfulness.”

“Thoughtfulness my eye,” Eshe said dryly. “Lucian doesn’t have a thoughtful bone in his body. More likely the knowledge that I can’t read Armand made him decide he should send someone to be sure I didn’t let that affect my work.”

“You can’t read Armand?” Bricker said with surprise, and then blew out a silent whistle. “Well, that complicates things nicely, doesn’t it?”

When Eshe merely scowled, Bricker shifted his attention to what she was wearing. Looking her over, he asked, “So is this the latest fashion in farm wear now? Sort of slutty milkmaid or something?”

Eshe didn’t even think, she just punched out at him. It was instinct. When Lucian had agreed to take her on as an enforcer nearly a century ago, a female rogue hunter was somewhat rare. Not unheard of, but rare. He’d told her at the time that if she wanted the other rogue hunters to take her seriously, she couldn’t take any crap from them. Eshe had taken him at his word and spent most of her first year on the job knocking one rogue hunter after another onto his ass. She still did it roughly once a year. This year it was apparently Bricker’s turn.

Propping her hands on her hips, she glared down at him as he sat up on the porch floor, and growled, “Would you care to rephrase that?”

Bricker didn’t appear to be in a hurry to get up. Rubbing his jaw, he stayed sitting and let his eyes rove briefly over her black boots. He then glanced up the length of her to her face and raised an eyebrow. “Mike Tyson in drag as a slutty milkmaid?”

Despite herself, Eshe snorted with amusement at the suggestion. Sighing, she let her hands drop from her hips and then held one down in a silent offer to help him to his feet. Bricker didn’t hesitate to take it.

“I forgot how hard you could punch,” he muttered, still rubbing his chin as he straightened beside her.

“Yeah, well, don’t forget again,” she suggested dryly, turning to start down the stairs to the front lawn. Bricker was immediately beside her.

“Where are we going?” he asked with interest, matching his stride to hers.

Eshe paused and turned to scowl at him. “
We
aren’t going anywhere.
I
am going to find Armand.”

“You’re going to seduce him, don’t you mean?” Bricker asked lightly.

Eshe narrowed her eyes. “Are you reading me?”

“Well, dressed as you are I don’t really need to bother reading you to figure out what you’re up to, do I?” he asked wryly, and then added, “But yes, I am. You’ve got some hot thoughts wandering through that mind of yours, Eshe. Very impressive.”

Eshe cursed harshly at the knowledge that Bricker could read her. He’d never been able to read her before this, but finding a life mate often hindered an immortal’s ability to shield thoughts from others. She wasn’t pleased to know it was happening with her. Forcing herself to calm down, she said reassuringly, “Seducing Armand is all part of my strategy.”

“Oh, a strategy, is it?” he asked with interest.

“Yes. He’ll be set off his stride by it, vulnerable to my questions,” Eshe explained, wondering why it had sounded so much more believable when she was convincing herself earlier.

“Right, and this hot barnyard sex you’re planning won’t affect
your
stride. Right?” he asked gently.