A Mermaid's Ransom (23 page)

Dante slanted a glance at her.
"Porcupine?"

When she gave him the image in her mind, his brows rose further. "The seawitch comes to mind."

She almost laughed, but then she caught the bitter undertone to the observation and remembered Dante didn't make jokes. He'd changed position so he was next to the door, his back against the wall, and was continuing to keep her on the far side of him, where she'd be harder to reach by anyone passing by. Giving him time to assess his surroundings, she did the same.

About six sets of children with parents were working at various projects. A sugar cube castle, a knitting lesson, clay sculpting and a couple of paintings were in progress.

"You can create whatever you wish in here," she gestured. "Just like your garden, only here you have all the supplies you can imagine." Drawing him with her now, she took him to one of the cubbies and pulled out a fat wad of direction manuals. "Here are lots of ideas, pictures of the things you could do. Hanging out in here for a while, watching the kids and parents, will help you understand human behavior a bit more, and get you used to the noise humans can make in a relaxed environment. I thought the crafts would give you something to do with your hands, if you get restless. I can cram your head with a million facts, but it won't mean as much until you spend time seeing things in action, mingling."

"What is their purpose for doing this?" He nodded to the groups.

"It varies. Some people come here as a way to unwind. Or to spend time with their kids, or with friends who like to do crafts as well."

Spotting an empty place toward the back where they'd be in a corner facing the door, she gestured. "Why don't we sit there? You can watch and think about what you'd like to do."

He nodded. Halfway to their table, he stopped by the child and mother making a castle out of sugar cubes. The boy was adding glitter to the upper turrets while the mother cut out construction paper flags to put on the top ramparts. She glanced up at Dante, did a double take, and Alexis moved in smoothly to his right. "That's lovely," she told the child, a boy with rumpled red hair and long-lashed green eyes. "Is it your castle, or someone else's?"

He produced an action figure Alexis recognized from television. "Well, I think he'll be very happy with that."

When Dante squatted down to the child-sized table to touch the castle, it placed him well within the mother's personal space buffer. She inched away, but Dante ignored her.

He'd assessed her and determined her as harmless, Alexis realized. On top of that, he'd done what any dominant animal would do. Taken over her space and made her move, acknowledging his superiority. The child, not as attuned to such nuances, was across the table, studying him curiously. Dante picked up one of the cubes to examine it. Digging into the box of sugar cubes, the boy handed him one. "Eat this one instead. That has glue on it. Though be careful, cause if you eat too many, you can go crazy and drive your mommy into a loony bin. That's what Mama says."

"Will," the mother began, but Dante took the cube. When he did, his larger fingers closed over the child's smaller ones. He stopped, going very still, and then closed his hand over the child's wrist, turning the palm.

"Sir--"

"My friend means him no harm." Alexis laid a hand on the woman's shoulder, giving her a strong push of calming energy. She was a fortyish woman with green eyes like her son, and laugh lines. Lex sensed a busy life, stresses over money, childcare . . . in short, a normal human, well balanced between the forces of good and evil. She was a good parent. "My friend has been in a special home, and hasn't seen a child in a very long time."

"Why are your sunglasses so dark?" Will asked. "Are you blind?"

"No." Dante stared at a scratch on the small palm. "How did that happen?"

"School. I was playing kickball and fell down. But I kicked it really far. I get picked at least third when they're choosing teams. Try the sugar." He disentangled his hand from Dante's and extended it toward his mouth. "It's really good. I like sucking on it until it melts."

After a pause, Dante opened his mouth and let Will put the sugar cube on his tongue. Alexis was relieved to note the gesture didn't noticeably expose his fangs. He closed his mouth, and his jaw moved, rolling the cube over his taste buds.

"See? But remember, too many and you go craaazy." Will giggled. "Right, Mama?"

Alexis smiled at him. Dante rose and jerked his head at their table, moving away toward it. Lex nodded to the boy and his mother. "He doesn't talk a lot, but he's happy to meet you." With a last bolstering shot for Will's mom, so she didn't run to the front desk and tell them there was an odd adult male touching the children, she followed Dante.

The metal chairs were far too small for his large frame, but he perched gracefully enough, reminding her of how he'd looked like a hunting raptor when he crouched on the wall in Mina's cave. Alexis sat next to him. Cupping the back of her neck, he drew her toward his mouth. Knowing he intended to weaken her knees and flood her mind with warm molasses, she had a brief thought to stop him, not wanting to incite any more interest in their presence. But she suspected he would never permit her to deny him on this, which actually weakened her knees more. When he teased her lips apart this time, though, his kiss was mild. For him. Merely incendiary instead of full conflagration. She made a surprised noise as he tumbled the partially melted cube of sugar onto her tongue, bringing sweetness with the heat. He pulled back. "It is a different taste. But I prefer your blood."

Alexis took in a steadying breath, wondering how many of those she would need before the end of the day. Hyperventilation was a real possibility. "I think meals should also be a private thing. Else they'll be calling the police."

She had to explain how law enforcement worked, then, which he viewed with great suspicion. Soon after, she had him distracted with other things. He investigated glue, felt, sequins, pipe cleaners, clay, yarn. As he took things out of the cubbyholes, he left them wherever he put them down, moving on to the next thing which caught his interest. Alexis patiently returned them to their proper place, except when he said that he wanted to use something. Then she took it to their table.

As she moved around, she noticed that when others came near him, even the children, he tensed, watching them closely and determining their intent before he returned to his own rummaging. In contrast, however she approached him, there was no tension when she laid a hand on his back or arm, as if he always was aware of her presence, no matter where she was.

Bemused, she saw a small girl slip into the child-sized space between his body and the cubbies to squat down and pull construction paper out of the lower area. He watched her, tension turning to curiosity as she bit her lip with the effort of pulling the yellow out from beneath the red and brown. The curve of her young back pressed against his shins. Unconcerned by adult presence as children were, she rose after obtaining her objective, returning to her table.

Shaking her head and holding on to her smile, Lex turned to organizing the items he'd wanted thus far in a way that ensured he had a clear work space. But when she returned to him, he'd changed tactics. He was putting away the things he'd been looking at while she was busy. As she approached, he looked toward an older girl working on a clay bunny. She gave him an approving nod, her multiple pigtails and bows nodding at different velocities.

"She told me I had to put away my own things." He gestured at a rule board on the wall. "Every person cleans up their own mess. Not mommy or daddy, or even my friend. You."

"Oh." She lifted a shoulder, not sure what to say to the faint accusation in his tone, even as her mouth quirked at his dutiful obedience to an imperious nine-year-old. "I like being considered your friend."

He gave her an assessing look. "My mother said vampires have few close friends. She said we do not trust easily, and we are very territorial. A close friend was someone who could be trusted, relied upon to help if there was trouble. When I asked why her close friends didn't help her now, she said they were too far away to help. That they might not even know she was in trouble, because vampires often disappear for long periods of time."

Looking down at the multicolored pom-poms he held, he closed his fingers over the soft give of the balls. "So far, it seems you are my friend."

Her humor gone, Alexis nodded, closing her hand on his forearm. "I hope I am. But a close friend also looks out for your best interests, even if you don't agree with them. They have to be brave enough to risk the friendship, tell you the truth when you need to hear it."

He gave her an ironic look. "So why didn't you tell me the rules? Why did you . . . clean up my mess?"

Alexis sighed, gave him a helpless shrug. "Sometimes a friend also knows when to ease up. When you need room to figure things out, without a lot of interruptions."

"All right." He digested that, turned toward their table. Before they got there, however, he stopped again, drawing her face up to meet his eyes. "A softhearted friend may give too much. Make herself too vulnerable, causing me to be more protective than she thinks I need to be."

Alexis narrowed her gaze. "I'm sorry, we're only psychoanalyzing
you
today. You're the one from an alternate dimension."

He raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything else, the nine-year-old piped up. "You can't fight in here. That's rule number eight." She pointed to the board for emphasis.

"No fighting," Dante agreed, glancing at Alexis. "You must accept my opinion, so we will not fight."

Alexis had a colorful response to that, but she issued it in her mind so she didn't break rule number four. His mouth twisted, and she waited, hoping she might see his first smile. Instead, he gave her a quick look over the top of his glasses, his red eyes glinting with the promise of a retribution so adult, it wasn't covered on the rule board.

"Behave," she whispered, though she couldn't help the shiver as he slid his knuckles down her arm.

Fortunately, he did for a time. While he tried paints, clay and other mediums, each scrape of a chair on the floor, a higher decibel of laughter, would earn a quick tilt of his head, a flicker of the extraordinary eyes behind the glasses. When five women entered, a craft club who wanted to work on their scrapbooking, there was a new level of chatter and gossiping to assimilate. As she hoped, he appeared to be analyzing how children and adults alike interacted with one another.

But none of that stopped the nimble movements of his fingers. He worked with the clay, then moved to drawing paper, becoming familiar with the pencils and charcoals. The weaving was pushed aside, unable to claim his interest after he figured out the way it worked.

As time passed, the hum of relaxed, creative activity spun its tranquility such that some of his guarded wariness relaxed, though it didn't abate the intense interest he was creating among all of them, particularly the women. While the presence of an adult male like Dante making crafts might be curious, it didn't explain her own fascination. So she wouldn't stare at him like a besotted idiot, Lex had chosen a foam cutout kit and created a cat out of the brown and orange pieces, complete with a pipe cleaner tail, big silly eyes and whiskers made out of fishing wire. She'd give it to Clara, who loved T.

When she was done with that, she perched on a stool behind him so she could lean back against the wall and indulge herself. Despite the flow of the poet's shirt, it stretched taut over his wide shoulders. He was used to dealing with his hair, for he'd used a black pipe cleaner to pull it back into a tail so the strands wouldn't slide forward into the paint or clay, or obscure what he was trying to do with the pencil. It let her see his profile better, the concentration of the glowing eyes behind the glasses, the hard press of his lips.

Oh, hellfire.
It was against her nature to restrain her impulse to touch what she wanted. She'd never felt any inhibitions about it before. It was natural to connect with other life. Keeping herself from it now was an impossible effort, because his scent, his appearance, the strength and grace of his body, the way his hands moved over his task, took it past pleasant indulgence into obsessive desire. Leaving the stool, she slid her arms over his shoulders and around his chest, pressing her cheek to his temple. He stilled beneath her touch. Where her breasts pressed into his back, she could feel his heart beating. When she stroked his chest, it accelerated.

You told
me
to behave.

This is just affection, not seduction.
But she suppressed a smile at his mental snort and made herself straighten. Studying his hair, she eased the pipe cleaner free, separated the strands and began to braid, imagining muscular Indians in war paint and brief loincloths. "What are you working on?"

Reaching back, he followed her fingers. When he glanced toward the young girl with braids, she was impressed, as always, with his quick connection. She was even more impressed when she looked over his shoulder and found the answer to her question.

A woman's face stared up at her from the pencil drawing. He wasn't as accomplished with the pencil yet, having never held one before, but it was still a lovely face, though the mouth was drawn tight, the eyes stark and darkly lined to show pain. She wondered if he'd drawn in the ice or muck of the Dark One world. Shifting her glance to the clay, she found he'd flattened the clay down and was pinching and stroking it into the woman's face, so the pencil drawing was a rough study for the sculpture. As he resumed that project, she bent forward and realized his eyes were closed behind the glasses, letting his mind guide his hands.

Her gaze drifted across the table. Earlier, he'd used tissue paper and created what appeared like the geraniums in front of her town house in vibrant fuchsia, blue and yellow, a scattered bouquet. Wire and his new knowledge of scissors had added stems and jagged leaves that looked natural due to their lack of uniformity. On another side of the table he'd formed a vase out of sugar cubes, using a razor blade available only to the adults to sculpt the edges and create a rounded surface on the outside. Studying Will's castle, he'd then employed glitter.