Page 95 of Vampire's Choice
Merc had landed a few feet behind Ruth.
A very different energy wave happened then. Instead of his incubus vibes ensnaring everyone like a net, it was wafting outward, elevating the sexual play, increasing its pleasure, its intensity, whatever element the players wanted to augment.
An offering they recognized, albeit with surprise toward the offeree. She noted gazes moving toward Merc to warily acknowledge it. One Mistress even nodded her thanks to him before returning to her electrical play. Ruth noticed the sparks from her wand temporarily shifted from a white-blue color to a brilliant flare of silver-limned red. Like Merc’s eyes.
Clara swayed at the saturation of sexual energy. “It’s like a bubble machine, where the bubbles are full of pheromones. Every pop is like a mini-orgasm. Nice.” She shivered. “I’m going to mosey back to my quarters, in case Marcellus gets back earlier. Unless you need me to stay.”
She gave Ruth a direct look, then shifted it to Merc. A challenge. Clara had her back if Ruth didn’t want to be left alone.
When Ruth felt the gathering of his response, along the lines of what he’d unleashed toward that Master who’d asked if she wanted to play, she turned, her hand landing on his bare chest. “Don’t,” she said.
A brow twitched, as did a muscle along his throat and shoulder. Ruth had felt a range of emotions in his burst of energy, but his mien was as flat and forbidding as usual.
“Do you consider a friend looking after my welfare an enemy?”
That look dialed down. Offering not just an acknowledgment, but a certain level of acceptance.
Clara let out the breath Ruth expected she hadn’t known she was holding. Ruth clasped her hand. “I’m good. But thank you.”
Clara withdrew with a tentative smile. Ruth watched her join Charlie at the suspension scene, then dipped her head toward her shoulder. When she lifted a hand to her side, she smiled when she encountered feathers, and Merc didn’t tell her she couldn’t touch. His wings curved forward, his body close enough he formed that shelter around her she liked.
He was also wearing the jeans she favored on him, frayed and worn so thin they clung to him in distracting ways. She stayed in place, thinking if his feet were bare as usual, she wouldn’t want to step on them with the spike heels.
Unless he gave her cause.
When he closed his hands over her wrist, she shivered at the relentless pressure in his grip.
She tightened her muscles to see if she could withdraw, and when he didn’t allow it, the bolt of pleasure went straight to every erogenous zone, plus some other less physical places. She drank in the ripples of incubus energy, and the unique essence of Merc that flavored them.
“Trust is a difficult thing,” he said. “It comes in increments. Bite-sized. It’s difficult to change the habit of self-protection.”
He’d noticed her struggle. If Merc hadn’t disrupted the conversation, the Master noticing her desires would have startled her enough to withdraw. Maybe even shut him down with a display of vampire dominance that made him question what he “thought” he’d noticed. Even if she had to be rude and offensive about it.
“The desires and needs shown here don’t get revealed outside this tent, when that’s the wish of the one exercising them. Yvette implements a particular spell to reinforce it. If anyone here would do harm to another with their knowledge, no matter how inadvertently, when they leave the tent, that piece of knowledge leaves their mind. They don’t recall it.”
“She didn’t tell me that.”
“It’s not widely known, except from those who can detect the shape of the magic, and those who need to know. It also works well as a vetting test for newer employees, or those whose hearts might have changed. Yvette will have Gundar or Charlie ask them a casual question later, and if they don’t know the answer because they’ve forgotten, it tells her they are less trustworthy than she’d hoped. Soon after, they’ll be dismissed with a week’s pay and find themselves back in the world with no memory of having worked for the Circus.”
“She never relaxes her vigilance.” All highly placed vampires possessed a certain level of reserve, but Yvette’s made more sense than most.
“The Circus is her 24/7 job. Her passion, her home, and her place in the world. And not just for her. She never underestimates the importance of that.”
Yvette didn’t consider Merc a confidante, so what he was telling her came from those observation skills he’d honed so keenly. “So why do you think she didn’t let me know?”
“Perhaps she thought it better to let you decide on your own how much you wished to trust this environment.”
She hoped the roustabout would prove trustworthy. Though not what she was seeking, there were other submissives here tonight who would welcome his attentions.
Merc tipped up her chin. The opaqueness in his eyes seemed to be taking up more of the whites, the silver a glimmer on the edges of the dark irises.
“Tell me what you would do, if there was no fear of discovery. Tell me what you fantasize about, in this tent full of fantasies.”
She moistened her lips and began to shift her gaze. His grip tightened. “I didn’t tell you to look away. Answer the question.”
Nerves warred with defensive anger, but her gut told her he wasn’t going to tolerate a fight. He was threatening a decisive and quick ass kicking if she didn’t answer.
“I don’t know. There’s so much. And I can’t… Even knowing what you told me, my brain freezes. I’m too used to protecting myself. Everything shuts down.”