Sabrina's Clan (14 page)

From the corner of her eye, she saw Nyanther jerk his head at Miguel. The two of them moved into the sitting room and Miguel climbed the stairs to the next floor. Nyanther didn’t, though. He stood at the foot of them. It was a neat way of indicating he was standing by and that he did not consider himself a part of the conversation.

Jake glanced at Nyanther, then back at her. His blue eyes were steady. “It’s one of those freak coincidence things. You know about the hunting world. You’re half-way to living in it, here.” He glanced up at the ceiling.

Sabrina didn’t think she had any more capacity left to be shocked, but her stomach squeezed in protest as she put it together. “You’re a
hunter
?”

“Sort of,” Jake said. “I didn’t know hunters existed until the other day.”

Sabrina put her hand to her throat, wishing the muscles would relax so she could take a full breath. “You’re the one who killed the gargoyles, up by Buffalo.”

Jake nodded. “That’s how Ny and I met.”

She let go of the breath she was holding. “I
knew
you were hiding something.”

“So were you,” he replied. “And now we both know what it was.”

“They have breakfast served upstairs,” Nyanther said, speaking to both of them. “For everyone,” he added.

Sabrina pulled her cardigan in around her. “I probably shouldn’t—”

“You didn’t eat last night,” Jake told her. “You should have breakfast now. Come on, I won’t bite.”

He knew she’d not eaten last night because he had been in Nyanther’s room when she had come home. Sabrina could feel her cheeks heating in mortification. They had listened to her go to bed, while she’d had no inkling either of them were there. It was almost creepy.

Except that, without warning, an image flashed into her mind. It was drawn purely from her imagination and the subject was undeniable. Two male bodies twined together, flexing hard as they worked toward mutual pleasure.

Was that what they had looked like, Nyanther and Jake?

Sabrina let herself be drawn toward the stairs, trying to push the images away. It was like Pandora’s box. Now the box had been opened, she couldn’t shut down the images and speculation pouring through her mind. Sensual. Erotic. Even pornographic. She had never experienced such vivid fantasies in her life. They were making her legs shake.

“Did I hear Miguel say something about a daughter?” Jake asked her.

The question froze all her thoughts about sex and hard male bodies. Her belly clamped and her mind emptied. “It’s….” She really didn’t want to say ‘complicated’. “It takes some explaining,” she said quietly.

“That pretty much sums up this entire supernatural world, doesn’t it?” Jake asked easily.

She glanced up at him. “I’m not a part of this world,” she said sharply. She was barefoot, so Jake was taller than her right now.

“You’re just on the edges of it, the same as me,” he said.

They reached Nyanther, who watched them closely. “You’re not clawing his eyes out,” he said to Sabrina.

Her cheeks heated yet again. “We’re all civilized adults,” she said, more sharply than she intended, because everything inside her seemed to be rippling and pinging with uneasiness…while underneath was heated, prurient interest.

“I’m not civilized at all,” Nyanther said with a grin that spoke of serious mischief.

“Actually, I’m not either, until I’ve had at least two cups of coffee. I’m drinking yours, Ny,” Jake said and climbed quickly up the staircase, negotiating it with the ease of someone who had climbed them before. Most people clutched the railing and stuck to the broader outside edge of the curve.

Nyanther was studying her.

“I’m fine,” she said shortly.

“Your heart is racing,” he said.

Dismay filled her. “You can sense that?”

“I can hear it,” he told her. “And the sour smell in your breath is evaporated adrenaline. You’re covering it up, but this was a nasty shock for you.”

She drew in a breath and let it out. “There’s no such thing as privacy around you vampires, is there?”

“It saves a lot of time.” He held out his hand. “Up the stairs. You need food. It will help.”

She didn’t take his hand. “Is this…are the two of you…is it
anything
to do with me?” The resistance to speaking the question was enormous.

Nyanther dropped his hand. “Do you want it to be?” he asked curiously.

“God, no,” she breathed. “I was seriously off the rails at the beginning of the week. Something happened—it doesn’t matter what it was. It threw me off stride. I said things, did things, I wish I hadn’t done. Worse, I did them to other people, who have reactions of their own to my behavior. I’d hate for either of you to be reacting to anything I did.”

Nyanther studied her. Then he smiled. “You found your dream again.”

She let out a breath. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, I think I have. It’s not quite the same as before, but it’s mostly still there.”

“Good.” He nodded. “Then neither of us has to worry we’ve damaged the other in either way.”

It surprised her. “You?”

“You think I can’t feel guilt?”

She glanced up at the top of the stairs. “You seem to have gotten over it, if you did.”

“As have you.”

This time when he held out his hand, she was able to take it without qualms and climb up the stairs beside him.

At the top, as they stepped into the big multi-function room that made up most of Riley, Nick and Damian’s apartment, she spotted Chloe, who was sitting on top of Nick’s chest as he lay on the rug, holding her up. She was laughing down at him, patting his chest between her legs, encouraging him to bounce her.

Stranger still, Nick was laughing up at her. Sabrina rarely saw him smile. Now he looked as happy and delighted as Chloe.

Sabrina hurried over to say hello to Chloe and Nick handed her over to Sabrina and got to his feet. “I have to talk to Miguel about the hunt, anyway,” he told her. “Take as long as you want with her.”

“Thank you.” Sabrina settled in the armchair with Chloe on her knee, to talk and cuddle with her.

There were a lot of people standing around the big, roughhewn table, where packages of prepared food sat steaming. It smelled spicy and inviting and Sabrina’s mouth watered at the aromas. Only it was so rare she got to see and talk to Chloe she had no intention of moving from the chair until everyone else had served themselves and she was forced to hand Chloe back.

Miguel was waving at the dishes, explaining what each of them were. Even after decades in America, his accent was still thick. There was a woman about Sabrina’s age standing next to him. She was a feminine, younger version of Miguel, so Sabrina felt safe in assuming she was Talia, Miguel’s daughter and the other female hunter Nick and Riley sometimes spoke about in admiring terms.

Talia was dark-haired and her hair was long. She had braided the sides of it and the top, so it would stay out of her face no matter what she was doing. The braids hung down her back, mixing with the rest of the long locks. Some of the braids had beads on the end.

She wore slim, figure-hugging pants that were possibly even leggings, that showed off slender, muscular legs. Her boots were low-heeled and loose around her ankles. Her shirt was hip-length and loose, with a scoop neck that showed off her breasts and a camisole that featured several straps, two of them crossing over at the front before passing over her shoulders, beneath the loose tunic.

A long necklace with some sort of pagan symbol in silver hung between her breasts and a smaller, shorter one above it held a coin medallion.

None of what she wore was new and Sabrina suspected the boots were secondhand. There were older scuff patterns in the leather that didn’t match the shape of her feet.

The woman’s dark eyes flickered in Sabrina’s direction as she picked out a tasty morsel from the table and licked her fingers. She knew she was being observed, then.

Sabrina had learned that hunters were wary, even when they seemed to be at their most relaxed. It was a part of them. They spent their lives looking over their shoulder and watching for enemies. Even in a room full of friends, they were alert.

So she bent back over Chloe and kissed her, diverting her attention away from the table.

There was a guy sitting on the sofa, his legs crossed, his jeans baggy and his breakfast plate balanced between his knees as he ate, with a fork in one hand and bread in the other. Because she knew who everyone else in the room was, Sabrina knew this was Connor. He had the same pale olive skin Miguel and Talia shared and the same dark eyes. His face was more rounded and his hair just as shaggy and long as Nyanther’s. He was concentrating on the food like someone who had not seen a lot of it lately.

It was probably not too far from the truth, Sabrina guessed. A typical hunter’s life was one of long days hunting down supernatural creatures, interspersed with casual and minimum wage jobs to pay the rent. Spare time and money were both hard to find. It was only hunters like Nick, who had lived long enough to accumulate an independent income, who could hunt full time and not die of starvation.

It was one of the reasons Nick and Damian threw open their doors to any friend in the hunting world, letting them stay in the apartments and eat their food for as long as they needed to. The very few hunters Sabrina had met seemed to have the same all-in-together attitude about their possessions and resources.

It was why she had been included in this impromptu late breakfast. Even though she constantly reminded them she wasn’t one of them, Riley’s hunter friends involved her in anything that wasn’t actual hunting, if she was there. They did it as naturally and easily as they would include a member of their family.

Riley came over a few minutes later. “Ny says you haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon,” she said, picking up Chloe.

“What, he can smell that, too?” Sabrina asked.

“Ketones in your breath.” Riley smiled. “It’s annoying, isn’t it?” She leaned closer. “They know before I do when my period starts. I’ve given up being embarrassed about it.”

Sabrina sucked in a breath. “It’s so different…” she breathed.

Damian appeared by Riley’s side. He plucked Chloe out of her hands. “I heard that. You haven’t eaten either, Riley. Both of you. Up, go and eat. I’ll change Chloe. It smells like she needs it.” He took Chloe away.

Riley rolled her eyes and smiled. “See what I mean?” she said.

Sabrina followed Riley over to the table, where Miguel was still standing.

“I hope you like spice?” he asked her.

“Sabrina eats Carolina Reapers like candy,” Jake said, from the other end of the table where there was a tiny amount of clear space. “This won’t even make her blink.”

“What are
they
?” Connor said from the sofa, lifting his head up from his plate.

“Hottest chilies in the world,” Damian said. “Even the smell of them is scary. I chopped one up, once. I could
feel
it burning my skin and I don’t even notice the average jalapeno.”

Connor looked at Sabrina. “Wow…” he said, admiration coloring his tone.

“It took me a while to get used to them,” she admitted and picked up a plate.

There were enchiladas and Spanish omelets, fresh melons sliced up and lots of coffee. Sabrina took some of the omelet and fruit and poured herself a coffee.

“Protein, too,” Riley told her firmly, pointing at the enchiladas.

“There’s protein in the eggs,” Sabrina replied. “I’m not eating all that cheese.
Mom
,” she teased.

Riley grinned. In all the years they had been sharing apartments, Riley had been the arbiter of what a balanced diet consisted of, while Sabrina was more interested in the exercise element of staying healthy…although it had been a few days—make that weeks—since she had even
thought
about going to the gym, let alone actually working out. Life was simply too busy.

So she had tried to compensate by deliberately choosing smaller portions of food. Although, most of the time, she was too busy to notice she was hungry, until she was at the point of nausea or had the shakes. Then she tended to eat the first thing she could find. This would be the most nutritious meal she’d had in a few days.

“You two know each other?” Riley asked, looking from Sabrina, as she sat in one of the dining chairs and pulled the other around to rest her plate on, to where Jake sat at the other end of the table.

“My family’s corporation is a client of Sabrina’s company,” Jake said. “We met earlier this week.” He gave her a natural, easy smile and went back to his food.

“Oh.” Riley lost interest. Talk of business tended to do that with her, although five years ago, Riley had been as close to earning her MBA as Sabrina and just as gung-ho about it.

How things change….

Sabrina ate, realizing with the first mouthful just how hungry she really was. It annoyed her that Nyanther had spotted her acute hunger sooner than she had. What did it say about her self-awareness if she couldn’t even tell when she was hungry? What else was she blind to?

Talia, who had been eating an enchilada with her fingers, still standing by her father, licked off her fingers and wiped them with a pile of paper napkins, then grabbed a chair on the other side of the table and spun it around. She planted it between the sofa, where Connor sat and the armchair Nyanther had taken, the chair back facing the little grouping.

Nyanther was thumbing through Nick’s pile of books that always sat on the side table next to the chair. He looked up as Talia sat on the chair and rested her arms on the top of the backrest.

“My father says you were born in Scotland, before it was Scotland,” she said.

“I was,” Nyanther said easily.

“What was it called then?” she asked curiously.

“It wasn’t,” Connor said. “It was just a place with a lot of clans fighting each other.”

“Tribes,” Nyanther said. “The clans came later, when the Scots claimed the land and destroyed the last of the Pict tribes to do it.”

“You’re a Pict?” Talia said. “They’re the blue people, aren’t they?”

Nyanther didn’t seem to mind the interrogation at all. He undid most of the buttons on his shirt and pulled the sides apart, revealing his chest, with the swirling blue tattoos. “Blue was a favorite color,” he admitted.