Chapter 9
Dyson passed her at a near-crawl and parked his car as soon as he rounded the first bend in the road. He made his way back on foot, at a run that made every stitch in his body burn anew and with a vengeance and stopped by the now empty Volvo. He poked his head through the nonchalantly wound-down window and inhaled, taking the light scent deep into his lungs, the scent he recognized from his incarceration misadventure, and the scent he had no difficulty following into the depth of the cemetery until he spotted the short figure stooped over a headstone.
The girl wasn't wearing black – skin-tight gray leather pants and a blue top could hardly pass for widow's weeds but there was something irrefutably tragic about her hunched shoulders, her deflated posture, her pallid face stilled into a tight mask of pain. Her huge crystalline eyes seemed almost transparent when ringed with a smudged contour of eyeliner and the wolf nearly forgot to be stealthy, caught in their silver depth. She squatted down to put the flowers onto the ground and even from a distance Dyson could see her hands shaking, could smell salt on the tepid breeze.
He had barely had time to duck behind a crumbling tall tombstone when she suddenly turned round and retraced her steps at a trot. She passed a couple of feet away from him and the whiff of salt became more distinct. "Whose grave could it be?" the wolf wondered, "A parent? A lover?" He followed her retreating back with his eyes and after a short hesitation, unable to resist the pull of curiosity, made a dash for the grave marked out by the fresh flowers.
The stone, however, turned out to be disappointing in its uninformative simplicity. Sasha Malikov was the name carved into it with the last year as the only date reference. No grand words, no loving memories, no mourning family mentioned. Dyson, who would've never figured himself for the sensitive type, was towering over the small stone, his nerve endings jangling, wrapped up in the sensation, an uncanny chill running up and down his spine. He felt like an intruder, like a callous boot tramping down a tender flower. "May your soul rest in peace," he muttered under his breath backing slowly away from the grave, then turned and rushed to the exit from the cemetery.
To his surprise, the girl's car was still there and she was inside, her arms on the steering wheel, her head cushioned on them, as if she were taking a recuperative break after a heart-rending experience, which she most probably was. That was neither the time nor the place for whatever approach Dyson might have in mind and, with a respectfully bowed head, he passed her by and went to retrieve his own car.
He followed the Volvo at a considerable distance, not exactly sure of his purpose, to a seedy little bar downtown, where she parked without a thought to the legality of the chosen spot and went inside. Out of all the possibilities the wolf settled for the only one that gave him a chance to see those tragically magnetic eyes again and leaving his own car he made his way into the unrespectably-looking watering-hole.
Lauren rubbed her heavily strained eyes and rolled the tiredness out of her shoulders. Two small warm hands planted themselves onto the white expanse of her lab coat and started on a slow finger-tip massage.
"You look wiped, my love," the succubus whispered tenderly, her lips almost touching the crown of the blonde head.
"I am," Lauren smiled, feeling her exhaustion seeping away under the strong confident fingers, "But it's so much better once you're by my side."
"Your research," the brunette asked peering over the white-clad shoulder onto the screen, "It's about my blood again? Do you need more of it?"
"No-no," the doctor replied hastily, "I can't draw any more for a couple of days, we need to give you time to recuperate, honey. I am actually worried about the effect your donoring might have on your health."
"Well, you know how to reboot my system, don't you," Bo's lips curled up with a mischievous intent and Lauren couldn't help a warm wet feeling spreading in the pit of her stomach and moving down.
"I am anyways looking for an alternative source, darling," she said softly, saving and shutting the document and turning on the swivel chair to face her lover.
"You said succubi are virtually extinct," the brunette shook her head with a slight frown.
"It is unfortunately so, besides, your unique properties are only partly due to your succubus nature," the blonde looped an arm around the other woman's waist and pressed her face against her stomach, "I am more interested in finding the other bloodline – the elusive Blood King. The magic in his veins might well be the answer."
"The legendary fae you found out about from the Ash's archives?" the succubus asked with bright levity.
"Yes, he used to be a prominent ruler of your kind who used the power of his blood to forge a peace between the warring factions of fae and stop the Great War, at the expense of creating a divide though," Lauren's voice was muffled by the soft fabric of Bo's top but she was unwilling to peel herself from its enticing warmth.
"From what I've found he might be your maternal grandfather, Bo," the doctor confided and suddenly hoped the succubus hadn't caught it.
But Bo picked on those words immediately and was visibly rattled. "You found someone of my family?!" she cried out, her brown eyes lighting up with glee, "My grandpa?"
"I haven't found him, I just found out of him," Lauren sat back and looked up into her lover's ecstatic face, "But my people are searching for him, have been for quite a long time. If that stubborn wolf hadn't escaped yesterday, I could've squeezed a lead out of him."
"I shouldn't have trusted Vex with him," Bo said regretfully and her expression immediately shifted to a wary one. "You haven't been searching for him for my sake, have you, Lori?" she asked what was more of a statement, a crease marring her smooth brow, "You need him for his blood."
"A bit of both," Lauren prevaricated, "I need his blood for both our sakes, I need my serum and I don't want to drain you, my love."
"You want to drain my grandfather instead," Bo remarked levelly, "But he, unlike me, might not be able to restore so quickly. You can kill him."
"I'll do my doctor's best not to," Lauren smiled thinly.
"He is my family," the succubus almost pleaded.
"And I am your Queen," Lauren rose sharply from her chair to her full height and caught the brown eyes with the most commanding stare she had developed so far, "Are you second-guessing my direct orders?"
"You are my love," Bo whispered never flinching, "And I am not supposed to always like your orders."
Lauren felt a chill creeping down her spine. The succubus was reacting not like any enthralled fae should have, she was showing the free will and the judgment of her own when she was supposed to be cowering before her Queen and taking her every word as unquestionable order.
"Impossible!" a panicked thought jolted Lauren. "But Bo is an impossible fae," her heart reminded her with a touch of pride. "Could she be developing a resistance to the thrall?" her reasoning mind inquired.
The brunette's eyes were already glistening, her expression acquiring a guilty puppy look as she circled Lauren's waist with her arms and put her head down onto her shoulder. "I am sorry," the succubus murmured, "You are my Queen, my everything, you know better what we should do and I will do it for you."
Lauren felt an iron grip relaxing on her startled heart – her lovely enthralled succubus was back to her submissive version so quickly that the doctor had to ask herself if she was reading too much rebellion into a chance phrase. The blonde hugged the other woman all the way back, reveling in the softness of her ample breasts against her own body, returning the heat and the tenderness she was receiving.
"I know all there is to know about the science of this, but the magic of it still eludes me," Lauren admitted out loud, "I don't know why my own sister is immune to the serum when there's absolutely no scientific explanation to it, no abnormalities in her system. And now I might be facing another enigma. I need the Blood King to understand the part that I cannot understand, I don't want to hurt him, Bo, not unless I have to."