Page 67 of Vampire's Choice
She noted the telltale quiver of Caleb’s arms, a reaction that swept through his body. It was time to dial it back. No matter his strength of will or abilities, he was human, and she didn’t want to hurt him. She wasn’t going to have Yvette after her for damaging one of her performers.
“Take a knee, Caleb,” she said, and murmured the reversal chant so her weight would reduce as gradually as it had increased.
He was reluctant, but no matter his pride, he was as conscious of his responsibility to protect himself as she was. He took the knee carefully, then brought her back to a sitting position on his shoulder, her hand braced on the other slick, bare one, her thumb against his racing pulse.
When she was standing on her own two feet again, Caleb put his hands to her waist and lifted her, verifying she was her normal weight again.
“My brother Adan taught me that spell,” she told him. “It’s really just a parlor trick.”
She’d surprised him enough to gain a brief window into his head. His expression was one she recognized. Now she knew why he preferred her title instead of a first name basis. That, and what he said next.
“Thank you. And if you need blood at any point, my lady…from the vein, you’re welcome to take from mine.”
He believed as everyone did, that all vampires were dominant. But when it came to the relationship between vampires and humans, she actually had no problem holding that upper hand. Even if she had some troubles with her own issues around the more dominant human servants, like Jacob or Gideon, knowing they were human made it far easier for her to dismiss that feeling and behave as she should. As she did now.
She placed a hand on his shoulder, showing appreciation of the offer. “And if you need help working out again, let me know.”
“I just got a delightful skit idea,” Buella told him. “You can be holding a barbell above your head while we do a line dance. Audiences love dance routines. As you turn, you could pretend to hit a clown on the head with the barbell, knocking him off his feet?—”
“And we could modify the line dance, make it something people could do sitting down,” the clown on his other side said. “Using hands, stomping their feet. Yvette would love it.”
Ruth left them discussing the matter. Caleb looked as if his mind was far away from what they were telling him, but she’d seen that same distant look when another complicated routine was being reviewed. On its first run-through, he’d done it perfectly.
Gods create universes while eating spaghetti and reading spy novels.
Adan had said that to her. He’d been absorbed in one of his books while they sat with the bobcat kits in the rehab area. Since she’d been complaining they needed more rabbits on the island, and he hadn’t responded, she told him he was ignoring her. He’d continued to read, but he’d picked up a handful of long grasses and woven them through his fingers, a seemingly idle task while studying his text.
A few minutes later, a rabbit made of grass hopped across the ground to her. Adan had put aside his book then and they’d made a game out of trying to get the rabbit to move fast enough to evade the kits.
Adan had eventually allowed them to capture and shred the doppelganger, hunting practice that prepared them for release. But that night, there’d been another one on her dresser in her room. Not animated, but that was okay. The memory would always be animated.
She knew Caleb’s gaze followed her as she left them. Thinking of other things she’d noticed about him, she recognized he was a submissive who would serve a Dominant of either gender as a matter of pleasure, and to meet mutual needs, but his preference was male. His attention lingered on acrobats like Nikolai and Karl in their form-fitting costumes with a different intensity, but when they looked in his direction, his gaze cut away.
Had he ever found a male Dom to top him the way he craved? Or did he fear that volcano inside him too much?
She’d been on her way to another smaller workout area for her own training, a spot located near Gundar’s smithy, the communal showers and cooking tent. When she started lifting, she used her earbuds and music player to keep her company.
She could easily lift hundred-pound weights, but strength only served her in a fight if she had the right control over it. As she did her reps with that precision, she hummed along to the music. The words made her smile, with a touch of more complicated feelings.
As if summoned, the cause of those feelings arrived to send a shiver across her skin. She tilted her head in Merc’s direction as he touched her damp nape, the shell of her ear, and plucked the bud from it.
“What’s making you smile?”
She knew he watched her, all the damn time. It had helped her feel somewhat better about him keeping his distance. If he was watching, he wasn’t disinterested. Just the opposite.
Lurking was a thing for him. When he wasn’t needed for anything, she’d deduced he regularly observed the Circus goings-on from his perches in different unseen spots. It was how he knew so much about so many things.
Putting down the weights, she turned and took the earbud from his hands, brushing his hair with her fingertips as she started to put it in his ear. When he drew back, his expression perplexed, she paused.
“Haven’t you worn earbuds before?”
He shook his head.
“Any moral objections to them?”
His lips pursed as he realized he was being teased, but he bent down and let her tuck it into his ear. “Listen to the lyrics,” she said. “They remind me of you. That was why I was smiling.” While at the same time feeling that sad twist at its potential truth.
As she started the song over, she put her hand on his forearm, half-closing her eyes to listen to Tim McGraw sing through the other bud she’d kept.