Skin Deep

A/N: Sorry I'm way late on this update, I've been busy with real life stuff, getting my business off the ground, writing another novel, etc. and getting sucked into the Buffyverse…because Eric and Godric are smexy beasts but so are Spike and Angelus…

This is just a little something to bring me back into this story, a longer update is coming on Monday.

Chapter 26.5

Eric tossed Logan the keys to his big black SUV that his day man drove over while he and Godric died for the day. The mutants from Xavier's – including the devout Kurt – were to join himself and his mates at Fangtasia later that evening. This was due to no small desire on his part to completely discomfit Ice-Boy.

But first there was vampire business to see to – introducing Rogue as his True Mate along with Godric's dual claim. While their situation was rare to the extreme there were precedents for a multi-way claim.

He felt a burst of pride spark in his chest.

It would be a Mating for the ages, together there was nothing they wouldn't be able to accomplish – or conquer if that was their whim.

His preternatural senses picked up the sound of his Mate and Maker coming down the stairs as Logan gave him a mocking salute and wandered out of the house and over to the Stackhouse's home across the cemetery to start collecting his charges for their night out. Turning Eric stared in shock at the vision before him. Apparently his devious mates were trying to give his undead-heart a heart attack.

They'd dressed to match him – both in head to toe black. However that was were all similarity between the three of them ended. While he was in just a slightly nicer version of his normal club wear – silk T-shirt, finest leather pants and motorcycle boots, all topped with a leather motorcycle jacket, Godric was in head-to-toe silk. Silk button down, silk slacks, and a silk tie threaded with gold played off of his designer riding boots. Rogue's little friend obviously had a field day with his Maker's credit cards.

But as usual it was Rogue who stunned him and stole his non-existent breath. Black lace, as delicate as a wish, swooped and draped and clung to her curvy figure. Dipping low over her breasts in opaque panels that lightened to barely-there wisps from shoulder to wrist and ribcage to hips before darkening again to observe the conventions of modesty. The dream of a dress screamed to a stop at mid-thigh and scooped low over her spine, barely covering the swell of her ass. Fanciful laced sandals with three-inch heel had ribbons crisscrossing up her calves and tied off at her knees. On one hand she wore his ring while her bangle containing her dogtags had been turned into a cuff on her wrist with thin filaments dropping down and winding their way around her middle finger in a ring.

His torc was around her neck and a pair of emerald hoops dangled at her ears while her riotous hair was tussled into a mane of curls.

She was magnificent and his.

Well…theirs.

Amused at his progeny/Mate's transparent arousal, Godric stopped Rogue with one hand on her barely-covered arm, turning her to face him when she would have gone to their Viking.

Rogue cocked her head to one side with a smile as he took her hand, a vague idea of what he was about niggling at the back of her mind. Without a word, he slid a ring home on her right ring-finger beside the adamantium ornamentation she'd added for one night. Eric moved to join his mates, his own curiosity baited by the gift.

She caught her breath as she lifted her hand up into the light.

It was elegant – but bold – very much like the giver.

Smaller than Eric's green diamond rose ring, it was a radiant-cut bright red stone set in a plain white knotwork band. Looking up into his timeless eyes she asked a question that her inner-Remy was screaming at her.

"Is this…?"

"A diamond." Godric answered her, knowing the direction of her thoughts. "A three-carat red diamond. The rarest gemstone in the world. As rare and beautiful as you, my little light."

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes as she held up her hands, studying the concrete evidence of her vampires' love, devotion, and regard. These weren't simple pieces of jewelry. They were statements of value. Not of the rings themselves but of her. Anyone who meets her and sees these rings will instantly know that she is a person who would be missed and avenged if something ill were to befall her.

Eric took her hand, studying his Maker's gift as their Mate sniffed back her tears, allowing her time to bring her emotions back under her control.

"Är det vad jag tror det är?" (Is that what I think it is?) The Viking asked, recognizing the stone.

"Ja. Det kom från heliotrop på vår linje." (Yes. It came from the bloodstone of our line.)

The Viking gave a soundless whistle. The bloodstone of Cain's line was a piece of vampiric history, often thought to be only a legend. Cain himself, the father of their line, discovered it as a human before he was Made by the original Vampire. Lore said that it was originally a white diamond the size of a pomegranate but was changed when Cain's lifeblood bathed it during his turning. Whether that was the truth or merely a convenient fiction, only Cain himself knows.

And Odin knows that recluse isn't about to come out of seclusion to clear up any of the legends that surround him. Only Thanatos has seen him in the last thousand years, Eric himself has never met him. Though Godric clearly has as a piece of the bloodstone is only given to those who have met Cain by the vampire Lord himself.

Although in Eric's opinion pouting for five thousand years because one scribe accused him of killing his brother is a little much.

"Thank you." Rogue pressed a sweet kiss on Godric's smiling lips. Looking up into the faces of her loving Mates she smiled. "Both of you. These are…beyond words."

Swooping down Eric stole a quick kiss before ushering them out and to one of his cars, another one of his black SUV's. Corvettes, SLS's, and motorcycles just won't do when there's more than two of them now. Although they certainly are fun…