Primal Call

Primal Call

SUSAN SIZEMORE

Vampire Primes Story

Copyright 2011 Susan Sizemore

Cover Art: Dara England

Editor: Marguerite Krause

“I am not
reclusive,”
Thena said. “I have a deadline.”

“What do llamas eat? Never mind,” Carla Greene said. “All I want you to do is leave your critters for a few days and come to Los Angeles.”

Athena Blaise liked her secluded Ozark home just fine. “I—”

“Bring your laptop with you. You don’t have to be sitting at your desk to work on a book.”

Thena was currently carrying on this Skype conversation with the publicity person at her publishing house from her laptop while sitting on her bed. She
could
work anywhere, but she liked working at home the best. One of the things she loved about being an author was that she could work anywhere—but working at home was still the best, whether she was here in Missouri, or on Okios, the Greek island where she spent several months a year with her mother’s side of the family.

“You cannot say no to an invitation like this,” Carla insisted. “Think of the bump in book sales you’ll get out of this.”

“Having the guy’s face on a new edition of
Orphan
will do just fine.”

She’d had no choice in the actor picked to play Cole Alter in the film.
Her
Cole was a sturdy, Midwestern blond. The producers of
Orphan
had gone for a dark-haired Irish actor with nice muscles who could apparently fake an American accent well enough. He was also a notorious party boy whose face showed up in the tabloids as much as it did on movie posters.

“Getting your picture taken on the set of the
Orphan
movie, with—
the guy
—will sell even more books. And don’t tell me you’re not interested in meeting one of the most gorgeous men in the world?”

Thena laughed. “Okay, I won’t lie about that.”

She also feared doing or saying something stupid, and tripping over her tongue or having to wipe drool off her chin if she had to do more than say,
Hello. Nice to meet you
to the gorgeous young actor
.

“Then it’s settled. You’re going to Hollywood.”

Thena sighed, all too aware that she did have to think about things like promoting her books. She hadn’t done book tours for the last couple of
Cole Alter
books, but she liked engaging in podcasts and something called a blog tour and online interviews. It was such a fresh, high-tech approach. She loved the technology that could reach the world from the peaceful surroundings of her office. Her website, eblast newsletters, email, and postings on social media sites kept her in touch with her fans.

Thena already regretted agreeing to the trip as she went to her closet to hunt for something to pack. Normally, the first thing she thought about before she travelled was wondering what knitting project to take along with her. But now she had to—

She had to get her hair done!

She’d always wanted to try being a blond. Everyone was a blond in Hollywood, right?

Wednesday was two days from now. How was she supposed to lose twenty pounds in two days? She wore a size 10. A size 0 was fat in Hollywood, right? They didn’t let people who wore size 10 onto movie sets, did they?

“Oh, my God, I’m going to meet James Wilde!”

Did they make such a thing as full-body Spanx?

###

You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?

Hearing the voice in his head served to bring James Wilde back from inside a book he wasn’t even reading.

He smiled.

There were advantages to having a telepathic personal assistant. Disadvantages, too, but at the moment he was glad Gennie had intruded into his thoughts.

His head needed to be in the role, not the author’s words. He should be running through memorized dialogue, figuring out nuances for the character beyond the dialogue.

He’d been thinking about the book the script was loosely based on since he’d read it. He liked the author’s voice. She made him laugh, and think. The story stayed with him, her writing style even more so. It wasn’t a bad book, for a mystery adventure sort of thing. He’d downloaded the other six books in the series onto his ereader and had started reading the first in the series.
Orphan
, in which he was playing the lead, was book number three. He was glad he had the whole series to look forward to.

Gennie looked around Wilde’s on-set trailer.
Shhh...
she thought.
You never know when a camera is watching. Or when a bug’s in a room.

Don’t you have the place swept for eavesdroppers every day?
he thought back.

I do.

And do I not pay the Corbett twins a large part of my income to keep my privacy private and my persona in place?

You do. Accidents happen.

My bodyguard’s a werewolf. Let her eat the accidents.

He didn’t like having a security team surrounding him in the first place. If truth be told, he was the one people needed to be protected from if he should ever lose control of his temper. But movie stars had entourages. He had to be very careful to be exactly who he seemed to be almost all the time.

“Who were you asking about?” Gennie asked. She held up an iPad as though it were a crystal ball. “You wanted to know something about someone working on more. More what?”

He and Gennie shared a smile, both aware how incongruous it was for a Prime not to be interested in sex. Nothing fun in simulated set sex. It just made him crave the real stuff. It wasn’t good for a Prime to crave something he couldn’t have. Gave him toothaches.

“Who am I lunching with?” he asked.

Gennie took her iPad back, checked notes. “The author of
Orphan
, A. S. Blaise, and some—”

###

“The film we’ll be showing you is what’s known as
rushes
or
dailies,
” the woman showing Thena and Carla around the studio explained. “This is rough, unedited footage, but it will give you an idea of where the director’s vision is taking your book.”

Thena didn’t really want to do this. She’d sold the rights to
Orphan
. The money had gone into new fencing for the sheep/llama pen. She had absolutely no say in what the filmmakers did with the book. She’d already decided she wasn’t going to see the movie. She gave her guide a pleading look, but supposed there was no polite way of getting out of sitting down and cringing through the show.

“Are you feeling all right, Ms. Blaise?” the guide asked.

Her name was Marki Something, and she’d introduced herself as a producer. Marki was slim and lovely, but her hair was red with silver streaks rather than blond. It was a very striking look. There were a couple of young men along on the tour as well. Thena could remember neither their names nor titles. They were handsome and smiled a lot. Nice teeth.

Thena had been shown sets, talked to someone called an AD, sat across a desk from a man who praised her books, but didn’t seem to have actually read them. She’d had her picture taken with this man.

“I’m fine, thanks,” she told Marki. She stiffened her spine and sat down, ramrod straight. Let’s get this over with. “I’m looking forward to this,” she lied.

Someone said, “Roll ‘em.” Which was silly, since what actually happened was a button was pressed on a laptop to get digital images streamed to the screen in the front of the room.

Thena considered closing her eyes as the show started.

The set was of a bedroom. There were cameras and lights and people. A woman with a sheet pulled up to her bare shoulders sat on the bed. Thena realized this was footage taken by someone filming the filming. Then the camera pulled back to show the soundstage beyond the bedroom set. She saw the naked man lounging against a wall on the right side of the screen, and couldn’t have taken her eyes off him if she tried. Her face flamed, and she went hot all over.

Oh, good God, all mighty!

Thena managed—just barely—not to shout these words aloud, thereby saving what little coolness cred she had with these people.

She managed not to lick her lips or clear her throat before she said, “I don’t remember that in the book.”

“Sorry about that,” Marki said, although she clearly wasn’t. “Mr. Wilde insists on sharing any embarrassment his female co-stars have doing nude scenes. He’s really sweet in the way he treats women. He says if they have to be naked for a scene, he’s going to be naked too, even if he isn’t on camera.”

“He doesn’t look like he minds, though,” Thena observed. She was aware of, and surprised by, the sharpness of her tone. She managed a faint laugh. “I think he’s just showing off.”

Marki laughed too. “He is shameless.”

Probably because he knew very well that he had nothing to be ashamed of. Hipless, closer to a twelve-pack than six-pack abs, perfect width to the shoulders, sculpted arms—Thena had a thing for sexy arms. Hung like a—

“Imagine how fine he’d look in a well-tailored suit,” Thena said. “Is this bit of film on the Internet yet?” she asked.

“I’m sure it will be soon,” Marki answered. She was totally unconcerned.

But then, the producer hadn’t written
Orphan.
So why should a bit of porn with a title mentioning “From the set of ORPHAN” going viral bother her?

Thena tried to conceal her fury at James Wilde.

“Shameless man,” she muttered. Gorgeous, reckless, stupid, gorgeous shameless glorious reckless man!

The action on the screen switched to showing the actual scene being filmed. Thena had no idea what happened during the few minutes of action she was shown.

###

The woman was angry with him. James could tell that about her some seconds before she stood and reached out to let him shake her hand.

The psychic heat of her mood boiled over him the moment she looked his way as he approached the lunch group. He took it personally—he basked in it. Her emotion warmed him more than the sun outside. He thought it might be just as life-giving, and dangerous.

He grinned, and almost showed a bit of fang as he did so. Oh, my, but this was nice!

A couple of women at nearby tables sighed at his expression, so he quickly reined it in. He would save it for the woman.

He noticed her the moment he waded through the usual crowd of photographers outside and stepped into the exclusive little restaurant. He noticed her even before he saw the people waiting for him at the table in the back corner. Lucky for him that she was one of them, or he’d have ignored the meeting to find the woman whose aura sent a tingling buzz through all his senses. He had only a moment to look at her, saw she had the hawk-featured ancient beauty of a Homeric queen, her angular features softened by huge amber eyes. Her face was framed by blonde hair. He thought thick dark curls would suit her better. He got the impression of lush breasts beneath the draped fabric of her teal silk blouse. He would like the feel of silk on her skin, as he took it off. Silk and flesh made a wonderful combination.