Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

I laughed. No, she wasn’t. In fact, before I came along, Gertie had been the wild child of the long and mostly sane line of Pythias. Which was why she was the only one to offer to teach a demigoddess foundling raised by vampires anything at all.

Of course, she was probably regretting that decision now.

“I have to take a bath,” I said, to change the subject, and because it was true. The effects of my shower were long gone, and I had dried patches of Were blood burning all over me.

“I’ll bring you a nightcap,” Rhea promised, sliding off the bed.

“Non-alcoholic, please.” The room was spinning enough as it was.

“I’ll see if they have any hot chocolate. I used to make it for the little initiates all the time, to help them sleep. They were very restless when they first came here.”

“Or they just liked chocolate,” I

said dryly.

“Or they just liked chocolate.” She smiled. “I’ll see if there are any marshmallows. They still used the real thing in this era.”

She left and I fell back against the bed, a happy smile on my face.

This was why you had acolytes.

Chapter Twenty

Despite being filthy, I seriously contemplating just sleeping where I lay. The bed had one of those down-filled mattresses that grabs your ass like it’s trying to get handsy, and then draws you down into enveloping softness. It was cold in the room, and there was no duvet, but there were plenty of blankets thanks to Rhea, which created a nice, soft nest when I wadded them up a little.

But the Were blood was itchy and I knew I’d sleep better if I bathed first. So, I levered my lazy ass up and ran a bath. It did not require going very far since the tub was parked between the bed and the wardrobe, the house dating to a time when separate bathrooms weren’t a thing. The loo was down the hall, but if you wanted to get clean, you did it here.

It didn’t matter; it was still glorious. The heat seeped into my bones, and the light of the old-fashioned lantern on the bedside table—because the newfangled electric lights hadn’t made it up this far yet—glimmered on the ceiling. It reminded me of the night Pritkin and I had spent here, sharing this same room, this same tub.

For an instant, I had a flashback to golden light on water-slick skin, a warm mouth on mine, and the gleam of lamplight on wet blond hair. And, even better, the feeling of closeness, of assurance that, as long as we were together, everything was going to be all right. That we would figure it out.

Damn, I wished he was with me now!

But there were certain things I couldn’t tell even my lover. He’d have been stalking Mircea before I got half of the story out, and I did not want to see those two go at it. My life had enough drama already.

I slid a washcloth along an arm, and it was a warm, dragging caress, like steamy lips moving along my skin. The little waves lapping at my sides felt like fingers playing along my ribs. I relaxed back against the end of the tub, watching water bead on the mounds of my breasts, like golden droplets of oil in the lamplight, and wished that he was here to lick them away.

Stop it! I told myself. Pritkin wasn’t here and I was just going to get frustrated imagining him. Not to mention that he would have freaked out over what had just happened downstairs.

It seemed that Rhea and I had interrupted Gertie attempting diplomacy with a Were clan, who was in a quarrel with some of the local vamps. It hadn’t been going well, and our arrival didn’t help. With Lover’s Knot riding me, I had registered on Were senses as a vamp. The Were in question, already spooked by several vamp attacks on his family’s stronghold, and in a place where no vamps were supposed to be, had naturally assumed the worst. He’d thought an assassination attempt was imminent and . . . overreacted.

Some of his family, waiting outside, had also attacked when they felt him change, leading to what could have been a big problem. But while Agnes could be a bitch, she was never a coward. She’d gone to calm them down, and had ended up shifting a knife away from one, after it had been used to shank a court servant.

The war mages that guarded this place had arrived shortly thereafter, and quieted things down. And from what I’d heard, the servant wasn’t badly injured and should recover. But it had been a close thing.

If I was Gertie, I wouldn’t have been too pleased with me, either.

I shivered a little, although not because of Gertie. The bath was hot, but the cold air of the room sent goosebumps washing over any protruding skin. I ran more hot water into the tub, and clouds of steam billowed everywhere, as soon as it touched the air. It was like trying to bathe in a sauna.

But it felt sooooo nice. I stretched, wiggling my toes near the end of the tub, and felt a wonderful sense of lethargy seep over me. Maybe I’d just sleep here.

But parts of me, it seemed, weren’t all that tired.

My breasts were almost completely submerged now, with just the tips breaking the sudsy surface. They looked like tiny islands emerging from the sea, although they’d have to be volcanic islands, because they were getting higher and perkier all the time in reaction to the cold. Until the spiraling steam seemed to coalesce around them, banishing the chill, and relaxing the tiny muscles.

Before peaking them all over again, this time for a different reason.

What felt surprisingly like a warm mouth closed over the delicate flesh, causing me to jerk slightly in surprise, and to send a wave of suds splashing over the side of the tub. But the shock didn’t last long. It melted into a golden glow that suffused my entire body, as the phantom mouth tasted first one aching little mound and then the other, making me squirm and gasp and wiggle.