by Lynsay Sands
"No. He will not," Lucian said with finality.
Abigail stiffened in her seat, her eyes narrowing on the man with suspicion. "Why?"
Rather than answer, Lucian Argeneau glanced down as someone began to sing, "I'm so Tacky." He pulled a phone out of his pocket, read the display and answered, saying, "One moment, Marguerite." Pressing the phone to his chest then, he glanced to Tomasso and said, "Take your woman back to the villa and explain things before she becomes hysterical."
Much to Abigail's amazement, Tomasso stood and urged her to her feet to leave the table. She was so stunned by it, that they were out of the restaurant before she turned on him. "Are you kidding me? You just obeyed that man like a dog."
"No," Tomasso said patiently.
"Yes, you did," she insisted. "His telling you to take me to the villa is--Well, hell, he sounded like a father sending his kids to their room. And you just--"
"I did not urge you from the table because he said to," Tomasso interrupted quietly, taking her arm to get her moving along the pathway as another couple approached.
"Right. So why did you?" Abigail asked with disbelief.
"Because he was upsetting you," he said simply. "And I want to protect you as much as I can from upset and pain."
Abigail actually stumbled over her own feet at those words. Pausing, she turned to peer up at him on the dark path.
"And we are not going to the villa," Tomasso added, and then frowned and added, "Well, unless you wish to."
"No, I don't wish to," she assured him. Lucian had been upsetting her. Actually, she didn't think she liked him much. So avoiding him was fine with her. She did like Mary and Dante though, and even Justin. Still, she was content to not return just now, and asked, "So where are we going?"
Tomasso hesitated and then admitted, "I thought a nice walk on the beach would be pleasurable."
"Really?" Abigail asked with amusement. "It seems to me we spent four days trying to get off the beach. Now you want to walk it?"
"As I recall, we did not try very hard," he pointed out, and knelt suddenly to slip her borrowed sandals off her feet as he added, "I fear the delights tempted me to dawdle more than I should have."
"The delights?" she asked softly as he quickly removed his shoes too and straightened with both in hand. Rather than respond, he clasped her hand in his and led her off the path and onto the sand.
It was much darker on the beach than around the resort. There were no lights to help, but Abigail could actually see very well. Those nanos were giving her better night vision, she thought as they stopped at the edge of the shore and Tomasso let their shoes drop and turned to her.
Clasping her face between his hands, he tilted her face up and murmured, "You were the delight tempting me to dawdle."
"I find you delightful too," Abigail whispered, her hands rising to clasp his hips.
Tomasso closed his eyes briefly and murmured. "I want nothing more right now than to drag you down to the sand, remove your dress, and make love to you."
"Okay," Abigail breathed, a tingling starting between her legs just at the thought of it.
Chuckling softly, Tomasso leaned his forehead against hers, and then turned it slightly from side to side as if shaking his head no and muttered, "Stop that. You tempt me again."
"Hey!" she said defensively. "You're the one who brought it up. I was just being amenable and agreeing."
"You are right, of course," he agreed. Smiling, Tomasso bent to collect their shoes, and then took her hand to start walking again as he commented, "I like that about you."
"What? That I'm easy?" Abigail asked dryly, and then tacked on, "At least for you anyway."
"Si," he said simply.
"Hmmm," Abigail murmured. They fell silent briefly, but after walking several minutes, Tomasso stopped again, this time to urge her away from the water and up to a row of lounge chairs set in the sand.
She thought they'd each take one, but Tomasso had other ideas. Pulling her to a chair, he dropped the shoes again, and then settled himself on the lounger and tugged her down to sit in his lap. He took a moment to arrange her to his satisfaction, but once he had her seated between his legs and leaning back against his chest so they could both look up at the sky, he released a satisfied little sigh.
"This is nice. No?"
"Yes," she murmured, thinking it reminded her of their bath together. Only they were dressed and dry.
Tomasso was silent again for a moment, and then said, "Dante mentioned that we can read minds."
Abigail stilled. "Yes. But you can't read mine, right?" she asked suspiciously.
"No. I cannot," he assured her, and then continued, "But I think there was mention made of mind control too?"
Abigail tried to twist around to look at him, but he held her in place with his hands and legs and calmed her by simply saying, "I cannot control you either, Abigail. It is why we are life mates."
"Oh," she said, relaxing.
Tomasso grunted at her capitulation and cleared his throat. "That is how they will calm your friend Jet and send him back to his life. They will read his mind, control him if necessary, and alter his memories so that he is content to stop searching for you and return to his life untroubled by worries for your well-being."
"Oh," Abigail said quietly and tried to decide how she felt about that. She supposed it depended on--"How will they alter his memories?"
"They will most likely make him believe he successfully completed his flight to Caracas, and spent these past several days there on the beach with you, where you met a handsome Italian and parted ways with him to follow me back to Italy."
Abigail snorted at the suggestion. "He wouldn't buy that nonsense."
"What?" Tomasso asked indignantly.
"I would never willingly abandon a friend to go traipsing off after some random guy I met on a beach," she assured him.
"You did leave him and land on a beach with me," he pointed out quickly.
"Not willingly," she countered. "Hell, I brained myself trying to get away, as you'll recall."
"Hmmm," he muttered, sounding a bit annoyed at the reminder. "You did."
"Yeah." Abigail sighed. "They'll have to come up with something better than that."
"Si," Tomasso murmured, and then began to toy with her hair and asked, "You do not mind?"
Abigail stilled again, sure she'd heard a frown in his voice. Wary now, she asked, "Mind what?"
"Having to give up your friendship with Jet for me?" he explained.
Abigail moved so abruptly, Tomasso didn't get to stop her before she leapt off the lounger. He followed quickly, but stopped when she whipped around and put up her hand.
"Why," she asked coldly, "would I have to give up my friendship with Jet to be with you? He is a friend, nothing more. Family really." Scowling, Abigail added, "If you think you can dictate who I can and can't be friends with, then we're going to have a real problem, buddy."
"I do not wish to dictate who your friends are," Tomasso assured her.
"Then what is this nonsense about Jet?" she demanded at once.
He hesitated and then said, "Mary has children and grandchildren."
Abigail blinked at the seeming change in subject, and then said, "Yes. I heard that part of the conversation."
"They think she died in an RV accident last week," Tomasso announced.
"No," Abigail gasped in horror. "Does she know that? We have to tell her so that she can--Why are you shaking your head? Of course we do."
"She knows," he said. "It is how it must be."
"What?" She stared at him askance, and then her brain began to work through the issues. Mary was sixty-two, but she had been turned immortal. Mary now looked about twenty-five. How did one explain a change like that without blabbing about immortals? Abigail was quite sure blabbing wasn't allowed, otherwise news of them would be all over the media.
Letting her breath out on a sigh, she nodded. "Okay, I understand why Mary has to let her family think she's
dead," she conceded and then bit her lip and added, "No wonder she cries then. And no wonder Dante feels guilty. She gave them up for him."
"Dante turned Mary to save her life as I did to save you," Tomasso said. "He has nothing to feel guilty for, but loves her so feels that if he had not entered her life, she would not have lost so much. That is where his guilt lies."
"I see," she murmured, and thought that was tough for both Dante and Mary, but they would no doubt work it out. Raising her chin now, she said, "I understand why Mary can't maintain a relationship with her family. But I'm not sixty-two. I don't look much different than I did before you turned me. Well, other than being smaller," she added wryly, glancing down at herself. "But we can blame that on the dengue fever. I thought that was the source of the weight loss when I first woke up anyway."
"Yes, we could do that," he agreed. "But what happens in ten years?"
"What do you mean?" she asked uncertainly.
"Your friend will start aging and you will not," Tomasso pointed out.
"Right," she said with a frown.
"It is up to you," he said mildly. "But eventually you will have to break ties with him."
Abigail nodded in understanding and dropped to sit on the end of the nearest lounge chair. In truth, she supposed it wasn't so bad if she had to break ties with Jet. They could go back to writing as they'd been doing for the last couple of years. Still . . . "Wow. Complications, huh?"
"Less for you than for most," he said, settling on the lounge chair behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.
"Yeah," Abigail murmured, thinking of Mary. Leaning back against his chest, she smiled wryly and said, "This is the first time that not having family doesn't seem like such a bad thing."
"You do have family," Tomasso assured her. "Me. Dante and Mary, and the rest of my family. You will be a Notte."
Abigail sat up and twisted to look at him seriously. "Isn't it kind of early to talk like that?"
"Not for life mates," he assured her.
"Right. Life mates." Abigail faced forward again, snatched up her shoes and stood up. "Maybe we should keep walking."
"Why?" Tomasso asked, but collected his shoes and stood up as well.
"Because you still have some things to explain to me, and I suspect we won't get much explaining done on that lounger."
"Ah, yes," he murmured. Lacing the fingers of his free hand with hers, he started to lead her down to the water. "You wish to know about life mates?"
"Among other things," she admitted. "First I'd like to know who Lucian is. I gather he has some kind of position of authority among your kind?"
"Our kind," Tomasso corrected gently and then allowed, "He has some power here. He even has a little in Europe if only because the European Council members respect him."
"Council?" Abigail queried.
"A sort of government, I suppose," he explained. "It was formed ages ago when one of our kind, a madman, started building an army of his own progeny."
"Whoa, wait a minute," she said, drawing him to a halt. "What do you mean ages ago? There is no way this technology has been around for more than a decade or so."
"It was in Atlantis," he assured her.
"Atlantis?" Abigail asked, her voice barely more than a squeak.
Tomasso nodded. "Si."
"Oh jeez, all right, so you're saying Atlantis existed and had this kind of technology?" she asked carefully.
"Si."
Abigail eyed him with exasperation. "Stop saying si. Explain. Honestly, it's times like this your communication skills--"
A kiss ended her irritated rant quite effectively. Abigail was just softening into the embrace, when Tomasso lifted his head.
"Atlantis was an isolated state surrounded on three sides by water, and the last side by a mountain range between it and the rest of the world," he lectured, sliding his hands down her sides.
"Oh," she said, her fingers tightening around the straps of her borrowed sandals as she leaned into him.
"They quickly progressed beyond the technology of the rest of the world, and because of their isolation, or perhaps just because they were greedy, did not share it."
"Bad Atlantis," Abigail sighed as he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck.
"They eventually surpassed even the technology we have today."
"Smart Atlantis," she praised, tilting her neck and dropping the sandals to slide her arms around his neck.
"They developed the bio-engineered nanos now coursing through your body."
"Oh my," Abigail moaned as he nipped lightly at her neck where the blood was coursing full of those nanos.
"They had begun to test them on subjects when Atlantis fell."
"Fall down go boom," she muttered, tugging the top few buttons of his shirt open so that she could touch his chest.
"The test subjects with the nanos were the only ones to survive."
Blinking with surprise, Abigail pulled back slightly. "That's it? No one else?"
"No one," Tomasso assured her. "Lucian Argeneau and his parents, as well as my grandparents, were among the few who crawled out of the wreckage to join the rest of the world."
"That's it?" she asked again.
"No. There were others," he said, but didn't elaborate.
"Hmm," Abigail murmured. "When was this?"
"I do not know the exact date. Suffice to say a very long time ago. Before Christ anyway."
"Oh wow," Abigail muttered, "I suspected Lucian was old, but . . . just wow."
"Si," Tomasso said with amusement, and then continued, "That is when the fangs evolved. In Atlantis, blood transfusions were used to deal with the subjects' problematic need for extra blood. However, after the fall, there were no more transfusions. The rest of the world did not have the technology."
"No, of course not," she said thoughtfully, thinking of a pre-Jesus world which was before the iron age, before . . . well, hell, basically before most everything. "So the nanos fixed the problem with fangs?"
"And speed, strength, night vision," Tomasso added.
"Predator skills," Abigail said dryly.
"If you like, yes."
"To make it easier to run around biting us guys," she said dourly.
"You are immortal now," Tomasso reminded her solemnly. "And yes, at one time immortals had to feed directly from mortals. But they had no choice. However, once society advanced to blood banks, most immortals switched to bagged blood and shunned hunting and feeding off their neighbors and friends."
Abigail didn't point out that he'd bitten her, but simply arched an eyebrow and asked, "Most?"
"The North American council forbids feeding off mortals. They consider it too risky and fear discovery of our kind so have banned it."
"And the European council?" she asked. That was where Tomasso lived after all.
Tomasso glanced away and muttered, "They are traditionalists. Slower to change."
"In other words, sucking neck is still okay over there," Abigail said with disgust.
He shrugged helplessly. "Most shun it."
"But not all," she pressed.
"No, not all," he admitted.
"Hmm," Abigail muttered, thinking she might not want to live in Italy then. Not that she would probably need to fear getting bitten, but she would hate to make friends with someone and then learn they hunted and fed off humans like cattle. Pushing that aside for now, she said, "So you guys joined the rest of the world and . . . one of your guys started an army?"
"An army of his own offspring," Tomasso agreed. "He was a little different than the rest. He had not developed fangs and had to cut his victims."
Abigail's eyebrows rose slightly. She suspected he was leaving stuff out, but let it go for now as he continued.
"He was also insane. He had begun to kidnap and rape immortal women, but he had also begun kidnapping mortals, turning them into immortals like him and then forcing them to bear his seed. His army was quite large before the others got wind of it, but once they
did they got together to put an end to it. That was the first time they cooperated. It was also when they started making laws for all immortals to abide by."
"We have laws?" she asked with interest.
"Si," he said as if that should be obvious.
"Tell me."
"Each immortal female can only give birth once every hundred years."
"So no one could make an army," she guessed.
"If they are doing that, they are insane, or rogue and probably do not care about anyone's laws," Tomasso pointed out, and then said, "No, that law was to help keep our population under control."
"Oh," Abigail said with surprise, then commented, "I suppose lower numbers are better when you are trying to stay under the radar."
"It is also helps ensure you do not outgrow your food source," Tomasso pointed out.
"Oh, right," she sighed. Abigail really disliked thinking like that though. She was mortal, or had been until very recently. She didn't like to think that she had been as good as cattle to immortals before her own turn. Meeting his gaze, she raised her eyebrows. "Any other laws?"
"Each immortal can only turn one mortal in their lifetime."
"Once again, keeping the population down," she suggested.
Tomasso nodded.
"And you used your one turn on me?" she asked with a faint smile.
"Of course, you are my life mate. Most save their turn for their life mate."
Right, there was that term again, Abigail thought, but said, "Okay, so other laws?"
Tomasso shrugged. "That's about it."
Abigail gaped at him. "That's it? Like that's all you guys could come up with? There's no don't murder your neighbor, or steal from people, or--"
"We do have other laws, but those are the biggies that you can be executed for disobeying," he explained quickly. "Oh, and in North America you must stick to bagged blood, feeding off mortals is another one that can get you staked and baked. Unless it's an emergency," he added.
Abigail narrowed her eyes at that, and then pursed her lips. "So you could be executed for biting me on the plane?"
"Technically we were in Central America, not North America," he said with a grimace. "But it was an emergency anyway, and so, allowed."
"Yeah, an emergency like a midnight run to the nearest fast food place," she said sarcastically.
"No," Tomasso assured her. "I was very weak when I woke up in that cage. I needed strength to escape."
"Hmm," Abigail murmured and then sighed and said, "So you have other laws, but they don't carry the death penalty?"