CARNAL, The Beast Who Loved Me (28 page)

Rosie was stretched out on the bed with a book she’d picked up on one of her nocturnal errands to gather such things as girlie boudoir deco and soft socks. The knock at the door was distinctive and made her smile. Charming.

“Come in.”

Charming opened the door, took one running stride, and leaped, twisting his body midair so that he landed on the bed facing her.

“That was amazing.”

He grinned. “Thanks, but you’re not exactly a hard audience. It’s easy to wow you.”

Rosie smiled ruefully. “Is it now?”

Charming laughed. “Yeah. Don’t you know that?”

“Hmmm. Maybe.”

“What are you reading?”

“It’s an old book about witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft?” He looked excited. “You’re learning that shit? What are you gonna do?” He grinned. “I know. You could have the broom sweep the bar for you. And then the mop…”

Rosie giggled when “Fantasia” came to mind and she pictured Mickey Mouse in a wizard’s conical hat. “Calm down. Humans can’t really do witchcraft.” At least that was the party line that witches steadfastly maintained to keep humans from mucking about where they shouldn’t, making messes somebody else invariably had to clean up. “I’m just reading for fun.”

Charming looked at the book with suspicion. “Doesn’t look like fun from here. Where’d you get it?”

“Brought it with me. What do you want?”

“I want to know what you think?”

“About what?”

He chuffed. “About the whole let’s-move-in-with-humans thing.”

“I think it’s a good idea.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

“Why?”

“Keep your friends close and your…”

“Enemies closer. Got it. Is that all?”

“No. I think both humans and hybrids will benefit from a merger of culture.”

“Why?”

“Because fresh perspectives spark fresh ideas. Multicultural societies thrive with life and color, emerging art forms, innovation of all kinds. It can be exciting.”

He raised up, resting his head on his hand. “You talk like you’ve seen that firsthand?” She nodded. “Free seems to think you’re some kind of divine messenger.”

She watched the mocking smile tease at his mouth, then said, “Stop it.”

Charming turned his head toward the door. “He’s home.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

Charming laughed at her. “Come on. Let’s go find out how it went.”

She slammed the book closed and pushed up to follow him downstairs.

As they entered the kitchen, Serene reached up with the corner of her apron to dab at her temples. She’d been carving up the roasted haunch of some beast or other. She was smiling as Free stood pressed behind her, hands on her hips, whispering in her ear.

“Ew,” said Charming. “It’s the
kitchen
!”

At that Free grinned into Serene’s ear.

Rosie watched the exchange wistfully, thinking she wouldn’t mind having exactly that. A man like Free utterly devoted to her after thirty years. An unbidden image put her in a kitchen with Carnal smiling into her ear as their children complained about parents making out before dinner. It was a vision that was shockingly pleasing, especially since the last thing she’d ever imagined for herself was domesticity.

Free reached around Serene, grabbed a carrot, stuffed it in his mouth, and stepped back, smiling at Charming.

“We’re dying to know what happened,” Charming said.

“You don’t look like you’re dying.”

“Ha. Ha. Tell us.”

Free took his chair at the head of the table. “It went as well as expected.” Serene set a platter of meat and veggies in the center of the table and took her chair at the other end, looking just as curious and eager as Charming. “Carnal did a good job with the watcher schedule. Everybody’s been briefed. No human is to take anything away from any of the facilities and no hybrid is to leave a post without a replacement. All key buildings are covered.”

“I’m on duty tomorrow,” said Charming. “Been paired with Jagged.”

“Where?” asked Free.

“The lab. It’s in the city near the…”

“I know. I was there,” said Free.

“Oh yeah. Well, anyway. I’m supposed to watch and learn. And, like you said, make sure the humans don’t leave the premises with anything.” He put a chunk of meat in his mouth. “And I’m supposed to make nice with them.”

“Did Carnal tell you that?” Serene asked.

“I guess you could say he
told
me that. It was more like his highness
ordered
me.” Free and Serene both turned to look at Rosie when she giggled at that. “But what I really want to know about is the mating decree.”

“What mating decree?” Serene looked at Free.

“That’s what they’re calling it,” Charming said as he tore off a fistful of fresh baked bread. “Tag and I are talking about teaming up if we find a human girl we both like well enough. The only thing is I like small and perky,” he formed cups with his hands at chest height,” while Tag likes…”

As Charming was enlarging the space indicated by his hands, Serene blinked twice, then looked at Free with a darkening expression.

Seeing that, Free cut off the rest of that sentence. “Um, well, son, you make it sound like a much more casual proposition than what we were thinking.” He looked at Serene to judge her reaction to the direction his response was taking. When she nodded, he continued. “You have some maturing to do before you’re ready to, ah, team up.”

“Oh yeah. Well, sure. Gotta shop around.” He grinned.

Serene stared. “Right now, you’re concentrating on your education. Not ‘shopping around’.”

Charming grew instantly serious. “Of course,” he nodded. “My education.”

Rosie looked down at her lap and snorted. Everyone heard it, but ignored it.

Free steered the conversation back to something more salient. “Stood next to Comstock while he told his people about the changes. Then Red and I started looking around for ideas about how to house Exiled close together in the middle of the city without uprooting humans who already live there.

“A lot of the taller buildings have upper floors that are unoccupied. They would never have been built if it wasn’t for elevators, but of course those are inoperable. Humans don’t like to climb multiple flights of stairs so the upper parts sit empty. Since that’s not a problem for us, it would work, but it would also be easy to trap us on upper levels. So we decided against that.

“Same thing for sublevels. Too easy to be trapped. We decided that our people need to be in ground level housing and, of course, that’s hardest to come by because that’s what everybody wants. There are a few buildings that are in such a serious state of disrepair that they’re not being used. Those are possibilities. If necessary we can also build temporary housing in the big park in front of City Hall.”

Serene cocked her head. “Why temporary?”

“Because, when we get everything up and running again, the elevators will work. Humans will move to upper levels and there will be more ground level space.”

She nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Have you come up with a timeframe?” Rosie asked.

Free glanced at her and back at his plate. “Tomorrow I’m taking Cage and Breaker with me to meet with the military brain trust and see what we think of their plan. Meanwhile, Red is taking his people to further assess what can be done about housing and how long that might take. We’ll have a better idea in a couple of days.”

Rosie looked across the table at Charming. There was no mistaking the fact that he was excited by the prospect of moving to the city and, in a way, that excitement was hopeful. It was certainly better than dread.

Rosie went to sleep reading by the light of an oil lamp. When she woke in the early morning, the oil lamp was off, her book had been left open to its place on a bedside table, and she was tucked under covers. It was cold in the early dawn. She rose to get to the bathroom before the household woke. When she opened the door and stepped into the hall, she noticed something was amiss.

Carnal’s door was never closed unless he spent the night, which was an occurrence so unusual as to be considered an event. But he was, apparently,
in residence
. She snorted softly at her use of the phrase. Apparently Charming’s description of Carnal as ‘his highness’ had resonated with her.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Carnal stood on the other side of the door looking sleepy in the most attractive way. Before she could form another thought, he pressed her back against the wall and passed his lips lightly over hers before urging her mouth open into a sensuous kiss that left no room for anything in her mind but the taste and feel of Carnal. Her awareness bounced back and forth between the hardness of the body bearing down on her, the implied danger of a touch of fang, and the ecstatic pleasure of his tongue tangling with her own.

At the very moment when she’d become pliable as a jellyfish with nothing more than a hazy notion of who and where she was, he let her go abruptly, stepped inside the bathroom, and shut the door. Left standing alone in the hall, wondering what just happened, she wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered, angry, used, or embarrassed, but after a few seconds she’d discarded ‘flattered’ as one of the options.

When she arrived downstairs for breakfast twenty minutes later, Carnal was licking frosting from a roll with an amused twinkle that only intensified when she glared at him.

“Morning, Rosie,” he said with annoying cheer.

Rosie’s responding harrumph caused Serene to turn around and look at her.

“Good morning, Serene,” she said sheepishly before giving Carnal another glare behind Serene’s back.

He wasn’t sure whether she was glaring at him about the ambush kiss or about leaving her barely able to stand on her own. Either way he was satisfied that he’d shaken her up, disturbed her complacency, and guaranteed that she’d be thinking about him all day. He wanted her to be experiencing the same pleasure/pain of not being able to get her off his mind.

After the freaky comment about not being shared, Carnal had done exactly as Rosie suggested. He’d gone straight to his father.

Free had sat back in his chair and chosen words carefully. “I’m afraid that idea is ripe for misinterpretation. I asked Rosie to point out possible pitfalls, problems that might be avoided if they’re anticipated. Most of the time we can put countermeasures in place if we know what’s coming.

“She said there’s a sexual math problem. Too many males, not enough females, and that the human females will choose hybrid over human.”

Carnal smiled. “For obvious reasons.”

“And,” Free said pointedly, “that will leave unmated human males with a powerful resentment toward hybrids that could turn into another conspiracy.”

Carnal’s smile failed as he narrowed his eyes. “And you suggested that problem could be solved by…”

Free sighed and looked away. “I said that two Exiled males might form a household with one human female, thereby solving the math problem.”

Carnal cocked his head at his father. “You didn’t say that.”

“I did. Cage and Breaker liked the idea. Charming seemed to take to it as well.” After a few beats Carnal started laughing. “What’s so funny?”

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen you blunder. When you do it, you
really
do it. I can’t wait to hear your plan for extracting yourself from this one.”

“We were brainstorming. It wasn’t intended to be a well-considered or serious solution ready for proposal.”

Carnal was nodding and smiling. “Serious. Solution. Wow.”

“You think it’s easy? Wait till it’s your turn.”

“My turn to what?”

“To lead.”