Blood from Stone, chapter 9

Chapter 9

Jax raked his fingers through his short, dark hair in frustration. "What you're saying is that this whole random group poltergasm is some weird bloddukke thing. Something that there's no previous documentation for."

Leon shrugged, glasses resting atop his head as he flipped through several books he'd gone to retrieve from the library. They were spread on the carpeted floor before him, his legs crossed as he hunched forward, hunting for answers. "Unfortunately, that's all I can ascertain. If something like this has happened before, there's no record of it anywhere. There're also no records of any bloddukke having a negative reaction to a vampire's venom." He sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

The seven of them had taken up various perches throughout Liliana's room, the group of them poring through books and manuscripts. Draven tapped away on the keyboard of his laptop, scouring the internet for additional sources of information. He paused to glance over at Maverick and Liliana, the former looking more agitated with every passing moment, the latter still passed out in a climax-induced stupor. Rick's frosty brown gaze met Draven's, but there was something different in his expression. A softness Draven hadn't seen in years. He knew better than to say anything about it, so he turned his eyes back to the laptop screen.

Aubrey's uncharacteristic growl of displeasure caused them all to turn in his direction, Rick subconsciously wrapping protective arms tighter around the woman in his embrace. "We've been at it for hours, guys. Three hours, to be precise. I'm fucking starving. We skipped lunch because of this poltergasm, as Jax so aptly put it, and now it's nearly dinner time. I doubt we're going to find any answers immediately, and I'm about to gnaw off my own arm just for something to chew on."

The twins nodded their agreement. "I think a food break and a chance to rest our brains will do us all some good." Orion added, stretching his arms overhead. His shoulders popped in protest, so he rolled them to loosen the dull ache spreading in his joints.

Liliana yawned loudly, sitting up and knuckling the sleep from her eyes. "Did someone say food?" Swiping locks of hair that had escaped her braid back from her face, she jumped as she saw the entirety of the Winterbourne family gathered in her room. Taking in the irritation of the seven vampires and the various research items strewn about everywhere, she knew something had gone down when she was napping.

Eyes dropping the lingering clutches of sleep, Liliana scooted to the edge of the bed. Her fingers trailed down Maverick's arm before she broke contact with him, and she let her feet dangle off the mattress, toes just able to graze the carpet. "What happened while I was out?"

Glances were exchanged, nobody seeming to know how to put the event into words. Draven cleared his throat, drawing her attention. "I think you just set a new world record for a contact-less bukkake party, and the most simultaneous orgasms given in one go, Lily Guns."

Thrown by the interesting nickname and the perplexing combination of porn terms, Liliana practically choked on her laughter. "Um... What?"

Aubrey snickered, despite his dark mood. "Leave it to the baby-bat to make a bukkake reference." Draven promptly flipped him off without looking up from his laptop screen.

Leon exhaled heavily. "Although blunt, Draven has a point. Do you remember anything about what happened before you fell asleep?"

"Yeah. I followed music to Maverick's room, almost got chewed on, almost got choked to death. But I felt like I needed to tell him that it wasn't his fault. I think he knows what I meant." She looked back over her shoulder at him. "Next thing I knew, I felt this pang in my heart, like it skipped a beat. Then I was 'arriving' and so was he. He helped me down here and I passed the hell out. What did I miss?"

"So he didn't bite you, then?" Leon asked. Liliana shook her head and he sighed. "That unprovoked orgasm hit when Draven drank the vial of your blood. He was the last of us to consume it. And it didn't just assail you and Maverick. It struck all of us."

Liliana frowned, trying to wrap her brain around the whole situation. "That officially tops the list of freaky things I've done in bed." Her fingers toyed with the end of her braid. "That explains why you're all here, I suppose. I don't really know what to say."

Aubrey got to his feet, his brothers following suit. "Us all drinking your blood seems to have formed some sort of link between us, with you at the center of the web. But for now, forget about that. I could eat a whole cow, right now. We can get back to the task of deciphering specifics after we have something to eat."

You mean something other than me, that is? Liliana teased, a knowing smirk on her face. Aubrey didn't have his headphones on, so there was nothing to dull the edge of her words slicing into his mind.

His shoulders stiffened and his whole body froze. He held a finger up in warning, refusing to turn to look at her. A disbelieving bark of a laugh came from his lips. His words came out more like a predatory growl than speech. "Fucking masochist. Don't tempt me."

The bloddukke scoffed, getting to her feet and stretching her arms above her head, her shoulders and lower back creaking in protest. Her body felt stiff from not moving for the entire duration of her nap, which had been about three hours long. She never napped. She never stayed still while she slept, either.

Draven let out a low whistle, closing his laptop and standing up. "Girls who play with fire end up getting burned, Lily Guns."

Orion and Oberon snorted in unison. "If it's Aubrey you're fucking with, it's more like they end up in the intensive care burn unit on life support." Orion added.

Leon waved an impatient hand in the air. "Save it. Let's go eat." Aubrey opened his mouth to speak and Leon cut him off. "And yes, I texted the kitchen almost half an hour ago. They'll have enough ready for us that by the time we've cleared it all, more will be prepared." Aubrey put a fist over his heart and bowed low to his younger sibling. Leon gave him an affectionate cuff on the back of the head as he walked past him.

"Hey! Don't fuck up my hair, ya dick. See if I bother being polite to your ass again," he mumbled the last.

The group of them started moving out of her room and down the hallway, Leon and Aubrey's conversation becoming more muted as they got farther ahead. Maverick walked beside her, the others lost in their own discussions. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, eyes blue again and purposefully studying his feet as he walked.

"You let Rick have the reins for quite a while, huh?" Liliana asked softly, curious but not wanting to force anything he wasn't ready to give up.

Mav shrugged; his eyebrows knitted together. "I've never had him take over in a way that was both protective of me and someone else before." He sighed, raking fingers through his already disheveled hair. "You telling him...Us... Me? That it wasn't our--my fault really struck a nerve. I still can't tell if it was a good one, or a bad one."

"Do you know what I was talking about?"

"I'd guess I came up in conversation with Leon and he told you about my mother." Liliana just nodded. "By merely existing, I caused my mother's death, Lily. You can attempt to justify all the reasons that isn't the case until the cows come home. Even if I can come to grips with some of it eventually, part of me will always feel guilty. Responsible. Betrayed..."

Liliana took Mav's hand in hers, wrapping warm, comforting fingers around his. She was honestly surprised when he didn't pull away, but instead gave her hand a soft squeeze in return. "You can talk about it if you want. Or you don't have to say a word. Trauma-ste, Maverick."

He arched a curious brow at her. "Trauma-ste?"

Lily smirked. "The trauma in me acknowledges the trauma in you."

They shared a laugh and Draven dropped back to walk next to them. Seeing their fingers intertwined, he put his arm around her shoulders and matched their pace. "Being at ground zero for the bukkak-alypse seems to have its perks, eh?"

Liliana snickered. "You're just full of the cum jokes, huh?"

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, biting the edge of his lower lip to keep from giggling. "I could make that into about ninety other jokes, each successively worse than the last. But it'd be too easy."

"Oi!" Orion called back to them. "Quit being gross! We're about to eat. No dick chat at the dinner table."

"Fine, fine." Draven replied with a sigh. "Fun suckers."

Liliana covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. Mav rolled his eyes and fought back a chuckle of his own. "The fact that you're the littlest brother is glaringly obvious, right now."

Draven scoffed. "Says the man who's half a foot shorter than I am."

"I meant younger, jerk."

"I knew what you meant," Draven said with a smile, reaching over to ruffle Mav's hair.

Liliana could feel the agitation rising in Maverick, so she elbowed Draven in the side. "I'm right in the middle of you. Mind not getting me killed?"

"Aw, come on, Lily Guns! You're just the right size to be a meat-shield."

Liliana seated herself in one of the large chairs at the dining table, lifting her glass to take a long swallow of cool water. Aubrey met her gaze from across the table, his sultry voice sliding through her thoughts. There are so many better things I can think of that you could do with meat. Mine, specifically.

Liliana choked on her drink, coughing and shaking her head as she tried to stop laughing and breathe at the same time. She grabbed a dinner roll and chucked it at the eldest brother, who caught it in his hand with reflexes that she'd never find less than astonishing. She narrowed her eyes and shook a finger at him. "Out of my head, or else!"

The vampire in question leaned forward slightly, elbow resting on the table as his icy blue eyes locked on hers. Don't threaten me with a good time, little blood doll.

Leon cuffed Aubrey on the back of the head, breaking his eye contact with Liliana. "Knock that off while we're having a meal. Mental dick talk is still dick talk. Not. At. The. TABLE."

Aubrey sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Papa Leon.” With a comical pout, he dug into his plate full of food.

Leon hadn’t been lying about their collective hunger. The seven men, and herself, cleared the table of food in an alarmingly brief amount of time. But as soon as the food was gone, more was brought forth by the servants. Liliana slowed her pace, grabbing some fruit and a slice of chocolate cake to top off her previously aching pit of a stomach. She took the time to carefully study a few of the servants as they scurried about. The Winterbournes were polite enough to them, but they may as well have been furniture with the way they were dismissed and otherwise ignored.

She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, gnawing her lower lip in contemplation. They obviously weren’t treated poorly. All looked healthy enough, and well dressed. But still… She vowed to herself that she’d ask the boys about it later. Liliana smiled a little to herself as she licked frosting from her fork. She hadn’t been under their roof for long, but she was really starting to feel a connection to the vampires. They’d been nothing but kind to her, which was so much less than she’d been led to expect from them.

Liliana caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to catch Draven mimicking the way she’d cleaned her fork in an exaggerated way that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but sexual. “You making fun of me, baby-bat? I’d fling frosting at you if it didn’t mean somebody would have to clean it up.”

Maverick chuckled on the other side of her, but Draven’s only reply was a teasing smirk that sent warmth curling in her belly. He leaned in close, voice dropping sinfully low, and murmured in her ear: “With tongue action like that, I wouldn’t complain if you wanted to clean me off, Lily Guns.”

Directly across from them, Aubrey tossed a dinner roll at Leon’s head, thumping into the back of his skull so hard that it knocked his glasses askew. “So you’re gonna let the ankle-biter talk dirty to her out fucking loud, but I’m not allowed to have the conversation where nobody else can hear it?”

Leon slowly tilted his head, swiveling it just enough to see Aubrey over his shoulder in his peripheral vision. “If it weren’t for the fact that I’m so stuffed with food that I could double as the Thanksgiving centerpiece, I’d knock you flat on the table and smear mashed potatoes in your hair.” Draven snickered at Aubrey’s expense and Leon cast a withering glare in his direction. “Quit the dick talk at the table, or you’ll both be up here with all that pretty long hair full of food that’ll take you hours to clean out.”

Draven’s cackles gave way to muffled chuckles as he clamped his hands over his mouth, nodding his emphatic agreement to the second eldest brother, who somehow held more of an authoritative position than the oldest brother did.

Liliana’s eyes were wide, but she knew better than to say anything. She had a feeling that even she wouldn’t be immune from Leon’s threats of food-based punishment. Time wore on and everyone had finally eaten their fill. She leaned back slightly in her chair, a heavy contented sigh escaping her.

“I’m gonna have to find something else to do to stay active other than my normal morning routine, or this kind of food on the daily will make me bigger than a house!”

Jax snorted from his place next to Leon. “Please, Lily. You’re in your early twenties. Your metabolism isn’t going anywhere for another decade or two.”

Liliana shrugged. “You’d be surprised at how quick it happens, when you don’t eternally have the metabolism of a teenager.”

Orion and Oberon crossed their arms over their chests in unison. “Guess we could take her down to the gym tomorrow. Maybe give her a tour of the rest of the castle, so she doesn’t have to just wander around aimlessly.” Orion met her gaze from down the table with a soft smile.

“Yeah!” Her excitement was palpable. “I’d really like that. Since this is supposed to be my home for the foreseeable future, might as well get to know the place, huh?”

“That is a good idea. We’ll make it a group endeavor in the morning. Before breakfast. Lord knows I could use a little exercise after this meal,” Leon added ruefully.

Liliana huffed with a little pout. “You’d think you were about to pop the buttons off that shirt, with the way you’re talking, Leon.”

He shrugged with a smirk. “Our metabolisms might be better than an average human, but we can still get more out of shape than we’d prefer, if we don’t watch ourselves.” Glancing at the clock on the wall, Leon stood and the rest of the group followed suit. “Thank you all for mostly behaving yourselves at dinner, especially considering the events of the afternoon. We’ll pick up the research in the morning after a workout and some breakfast. I think we’ll have a much better go of it with sated stomachs. I’ll leave you all to your own devices for the evening, but don’t do anything the servants will have a bitch of a time cleaning up. Clear?”

After confirming they understood, everyone went their separate ways. Liliana headed to her room to grab her jacket. The fall evening outside was likely chilly, and she needed some fresh air.