Chapter 15

Creature Efficiency

Christmas and New Year came and went. Athena had been invited back to Sept Tours to celebrate with the de Clermonts, but she couldn't face it. She'd managed to secure auditions for the first week in January, and she wanted to prepare a multi-skilled piece. She also wasn't content to celebrate a family affair when she no longer had any family to celebrate with. She certainly wasn't going to celebrate with her mother, whom she hadn't heard a peep from since their confrontation.

Baldwin understood, and he was reluctant to leave her alone to go to France, as well put in an appearance in New York. Ultimately, he decided to stick around for Christmas, inwardly worried that she'd rattle around in a depressed state until her audition. As it was, she kept herself busy with her choreography, and was a surprisingly dab hand at creating and altering her costumes.

Two days before her audition, she was making yet more changes to a simple costume she'd put together. She was trying to achieve a look that stated professional, but heavy practice.

"Why don't you just buy one?" Baldwin asked, dropping the morning paper down on his laptop.

"I don't have the money for that, given that I haven't worked in more than three months."

"You should have said. I could have..." Baldwin started to say.

"No," she interrupted.

Baldwin huffed. Her stubbornness infuriated him at times, but it also served to inflame him in other ways. She wasn't a woman to accept help without a fight.

"Athena, it's not as though I don't have the money to spare. I don't enjoy watching you struggle. Is it wrong to want to help someone less privileged than myself?"

It was a dirty tactic in trying to make her feel sorry for him, and one in reality he knew wouldn't work.

"Ben, you worked for your money. You've been alive a lot longer. Were I immortal, I might have the same opportunities. Is it wrong of me to want to work for my own money?" she countered with her own tactics.

He smirked. "Touché."

"It's not a lack of appreciation. You already put a roof over my head."

He was back to tapping hastily on his laptop as Athena made the final adjustments to her costume. The audition was at the studio she most wanted to work in. They catered to almost all styles of dance, and were never quiet when it came to recitals and public performances. The only downside was that it wouldn't pay a full-time wage. She'd need another small job to keep money coming in. The apartment might be rent free, but Athena had insisted on setting up all the utilities in her name and her account. Baldwin had tried to give her money to pay for the bills of course, but Athena had refused. Whatever their relationship was, and they hadn't really discussed anything in regards to that, she wasn't going to let him turn her into a kept woman. The most they had wordlessly agreed upon was the occasional sex they still found themselves drawn into, usually involving torn clothing and lots of hair tugging on Athena's part. Baldwin enjoyed tearing her clothes off, not just because it was fun, but because it gave him an excuse to pay her back for them, plus extra. Not something she allowed him to get away with often, but he was nothing if not persistent.

She was checking her ballet shoes to make sure they were still in good enough condition, when it occurred to her that he hadn't been back to Sept-Tours or his home in New York in months.

"I feel like I'm keeping you here unnecessarily," she remarked.

"Are you asking me to leave?" he replied, sitting back in his chair.

"No, but, I'm all healed and safe here, I have a job lined up, and any Congregation issues will be dealt with by Diana, won't they? I don't want you to feel you have to stay if you'd rather be home in New York dealing with your business personally."

"Would you prefer that?"

Athena huffed and sat back on the sofa. He was being evasive, and she couldn't quite determine if it was because he wanted to go home and didn't want to say so, or because he didn't want to leave her alone.

She gave him a pointed look, and they both knew a long-awaited discussion was needed. He took a breath and came to sit beside her.

"I think this is probably the longest you've ever been around a witch before, am I right?" she asked, tilting her head at him.

"It's not my usual day to day activity, no."

"Attraction and want isn't our problem. I haven't had a lot of luck in relationships. Most men find me far too strong-willed and independent. I'm never going to be meek and mild. I think you knew that the moment we met," she said, smirking.

"Meek and mild are certainly not adjectives I would choose to describe you, no. Even bruised and broken you were defiant. It was infuriating. And far more enticing than it should have been."

"Not your usual type..."

"Not exactly." He sighed deeply. None of this was part of his life plan.

Matthew had been regularly contacting him to ask after Athena and to taunt Baldwin over his growing infatuation that, until now, he had been trying to convince himself would dissipate with time.

"Not something we planned for..." she said.

"Judging by what happened with Matthew and Diana, these things are never planned."

"But, we're not them. Whatever we decide to do, will be for us to determine. I suppose the elephant in the room is, what do you want to do?"

His amber eyes were alight with his immediate intention, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in her scent. "I wouldn't say I was ready to give up... this... It took time to reconcile that witches weren't all the same. For centuries I hated them, as witches hated vampires."

"I didn't. I didn't really know enough about them, and never really met one to make a judgment. Seeing you back in that tunnel, hatred was certainly far from my mind in regards to you. I've felt more hate for my own kind than any other species." She shifted to sit on his lap, smoothing her slender fingers through his hair. "Perhaps we shouldn't be so concerned with labels at this point. We're not Matthew and Diana. People are always in such rush to define things, they forget to enjoy the journey."

"Is that a polite way of telling me to be quiet and kiss you?" he said, running his nose along her collar bone.

"Not just that, but it'll do for now..." she said, sighing as he followed his nose with his tongue.

No more words were needed as she shifted to straddle his thighs, her hands already unbuckling his belt as he groaned against her neck, hands tearing her trousers as he was freed from his, pulling on her hips so he could finally slip inside her. Sex with a warmblood wasn't foreign to him, but Athena ran unusually hot against his unusual coldness. Their contrasting differences only served to heighten their mutual pleasure. Matthew had remarked more than once that they were a perfect match. Baldwin had never really cared for perfection. He liked things to be efficient. For things to work. As long as they worked together, that was enough.

It amused Baldwin that Athena often felt sleepy after an orgasm. Women had been known to complain that men were the ones to fall asleep after sex, so he rather enjoyed the irony. He'd put her in bed, once again simply staying with her a while and letting her blood lull him into a semi-trance. Thankfully, it was still dark when he came back around, and he tried to busy himself with emails, including setting up a new savings account in her name. She'd hate it, but he wouldn't see her struggle just to spite him.

As dawn broke, he found himself thinking about her kidnapping. Athena was convinced that Della had simply been in the way and wasn't the main target. It seemed odd to him for Della to have simply been collateral damage, given everything that had happened with Peter Knox and Satu in regards to the Book of Life. A Seer would be the perfect target in gaining knowledge of the future now that the Covenant had been lifted and the so-called Prophecy was being fulfilled with the merging of creature DNA.

As powerful as Athena was, he couldn't see what use she would be to any witches still working towards vampiric destruction, unless they had intended to use her fire abilities to destroy vampires literally. It wouldn't be the most strategic or efficient way to do it. Whatever the truth was, he was certain Athena was still in danger, and knew they hadn't heard the last from her mother.

The Congregation was, of course, dragging things out. Athena had given a written testimony, and the post mortem on Della's body had supported what she'd witnessed. Unfortunately, they were having a harder time believing that Satu had played a part in the kidnapping and death, and without her presence, the arguments were daily occurrences between the vampires and witches. Diana was keeping Athena's part in Satu's death a secret, and according to Matthew, had even been working on a forgetting spell just in case she ever became the centre of questioning.

Athena for her part, felt no remorse. He couldn't exactly blame her, given just how many lives he had taken himself over the years. She hadn't been having too many nightmares either, and he was still sure that a breakdown would happen at some point. He was determined to give her whatever she needed, for however long she needed it for.