La Posada --Chapter 5 --PG-13

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librarian_7
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La Posada --Chapter 5 --PG-13

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Disclaimer: I don't own Josef. He thinks he owns freshie Lucky, but I do.

La Posada

Chapter 5

Three weeks later, Lucky thought despairingly that she could barely remember life back in L.A. She’d been emailing Josef every day, trying her best never to whine about how lonely she was. He must’ve known, though. He called, not every night, but often enough. He’d never let two nights go by without calling, and she appreciated that. More often than not, when he called, it was to vent to her about the vicissitudes of the markets, or the idiots (his term) with whom he was forced to do business. As far as she knew, he didn’t talk to any of the others like that, and it pleased her, made her think there was a need she filled that had nothing to do with her blood.

Three weeks. Resting, reading, taking part from time to time in the activities offered. Sometimes it was interesting just to watch the others. They all seemed a little lost, without having to jockey for the attention of a vamp. It was curious. Freshies had a reputation with the vamps, she knew, for being passive, submissive creatures, but she thought they had that wrong. Between themselves, the freshies tended to be highly competitive, especially the ones who managed to become blood exclusives. And once you’d climbed that particular mountain, there was the whole question of making sure the vamp who owned you didn’t lose you in the shuffle of all the others. It was impossible, and sometimes she wondered why she bothered. And then Josef would call, and she’d hear his voice, and he’d tempt her into playing some sexy little “let’s pretend” game on the phone, and everything would come roaring back.

She lived for it, even though she knew that as soon as they hung up, he would have no compunction about sinking his fangs into another freshie, that whatever they started, he’d finish with someone else.

And she’d be left, stretching her neck to the night air, offering her throat to the chill of a stray breeze that in the end was nothing like the cool breath of her vampire bending over her, to take her life within his veins.

On nights like that, she went out onto her private patio, staring into the night sky and trying to take comfort from the idea that the same stars she could see above her looked down from the blackness over Josef as well.

In the night stillness, all sounds were clarified, magnified, and it was not unusual for her to hear the sounds of weeping from other rooms.

It would have been unbearably lonely, if not for Sam. Sam, who sat with her at almost every meal, bringing his own plate to her table, ignoring the narrowed gazes of Marla and his own host until it became an accepted fact that the two of them took meals together. Lucky had gotten some worried lectures from Marla about it, and wondered if the woman had included that little tidbit in the reports Lucky was morally certain she was sending off to Josef.

Upon consideration, it seemed unlikely that Josef had been apprised of her growing friendship with a human male. Even if he might appear to be unconcerned, Lucky was well aware of his fierce territoriality. She decided more than once to have nothing further to do with the young man, but kept coming back to the reasoning that it was all perfectly innocent.

They shared conversation at mealtimes. They met at activities, and often sat together. An inveterate gossip, he kept her informed of the news of their small community. He took her mind off Josef, sometimes, and gave her the (slightly catty, she was forced to admit) pleasure of seeing the reactions of the other freshies at her having captured the attention of one of the few males available, even if he was human, not vamp.

And she had to appreciate that after deducing, or learning, who her patron was, he hadn’t spread it all over the Posada. After seeing the envious spite and insincere sycophancy Carmencita Diaz endured as the presumed best-connected freshie present, Lucky was very happy to be thought merely one of the crowd.

It was stupid, really, she thought. Everyone there was under contract to a rich, powerful vamp, and no games played here would change anyone’s status back outside in the real world. While she realized all the petty gamesmanship was born of loneliness, out of frustrated addiction, that didn’t make it the slightest bit better.

Getting a little attention from a gorgeous man like Sam Logan, however, did make her feel a little less alone. It wasn’t like anything was going on that anyone needed to worry about, she thought. It wasn’t like he’d ever tried to make a pass at her. She wouldn’t even allow him to see her to her room.

Then there was the star-gazing class. Lucky had been mildly interested, when she saw the notice.

“Oh come on, Luck,” Sam had cajoled, winningly. “There’s nothing else going tonight, and the stars are amazing out here. No light pollution. Or the other kind.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Out moping on your patio again?”

“Not every night.”

He gave her a shrewd look. “Is that before or after the cell phone rings?”

Lucky blushed and bit her lip. “Would you believe, both?”

Sam shook his head and laughed. “Damn, Lucky, you know there’s devoted, and then there’s just plain ol’ obsessed.” He paused. “Come star-gazing. Give yourself something else to think about.”

“Well—“

“You can bring your phone, you know.”

Lucky just smiled, but she showed up at “dark-thirty,” warmly dressed, on the dining hall terrace. She was a little surprised at how few were present; besides herself and Sam, and the activity leader, only about eight others had turned out. She hung at the back of the small group, and Sam stood with her, smiling to let her know he was glad she’d come. And she had to admit the stars were breathtaking, twinkling in the blackness.

General greetings done, the leader announced, “Let’s start with something easy.” He was one of the hosts, a forty-something man named Lawrence, inevitably quite handsome. As always, Lucky wondered what his story was, how long he’d been with his vamp, how he’d ended up here. “Okay, Ursa Major. If you’ll please look this direction….”

She did manage to find the Big Dipper, but then that was one someone had pointed out to her as a child.

“”Everybody got that one spotted?” Lawrence asked, waiting for the murmurs of assent before launching into the story behind the constellation. At the conclusion of the story, he continued, “Great. Now, look in the ‘cup’ of the dipper, and follow the line of the two outside stars. They point toward the north star, Polaris.”

This was already confusing. Lucky frowned and muttered to Sam, standing beside her, “I don’t see it.”

“Polaris, in addition to being the north star, is the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor.”

“Here,” Sam said. He moved to stand behind her, and extended his arm over her shoulder as a pointer. “Just follow my hand.” Casually, he put his other hand on her shoulder, and Lucky was instantly focused on the unfamiliar touch. She took a deep breath, and tried not to tense up.

With Sam’s help, she managed to sort out Orion and his gleaming belt, the immense sweep of Scorpio, and its beating red heart, Antares. She relaxed enough to lean back a little, allowing him to steady her as the constellations moved higher in the sky. Lawrence droned on, and while normally Lucky would have found his re-telling of the stories from Greek myth that lay behind the names of the constellations, the tales of ravished maidens, monstrous beasts, and jealous gods, most interesting, just now the feel of a hand on her shoulder, a solid chest against her shoulders, overrode all else. She retained, barely, enough presence of mind not to lean her head to one side, stretching her throat as though for a bite, but it was all too easy to imagine that it was Josef standing behind her, not the very human Sam.

“All right,” Lawrence said, “now if you’ll look almost directly overhead, we’re going to look at the constellation Corona Borealis. The “Crown of the North.”

Lucky leaned back obediently, laying her head against Sam’s shoulder. She felt his hands tighten slightly on her, and assumed he, too, needed steadying. She turned her head towards him, whispering, “I don’t see—“

The shock of his mouth covering hers caught her by surprise, and for a moment, she responded to the greedy, seeking heat of his lips, the force of his tongue invading, beginning to explore her. His hands slipped from her shoulders to circle her in the warmth of his embrace as he turned her to face him. For the briefest of moments, she melted against him, luxuriated in the closeness of another, welcomed the gentle fire his lips and his hands had awakened in her. She felt a long loneliness she had barely acknowledged sliding away. Then she opened her eyes, and saw the pale shine of his eyes in the starlight, neither the crystal ice of the vampire or the rich brown of Josef’s masquerade. Suddenly the warmth of his body against hers felt overheated, suffocating. This was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Lucky moaned softly and twisted away, her gray eyes wide in the darkness. She didn’t trust herself to speak, just then, and she didn’t want to create enough of a stir that anyone else would notice. As she started to back away from him, he reached out and caught her elbow, pulling her close again. While his grip had none of Josef’s vampire strength, the habit of compliance brought her to Sam, near enough he could whisper in her ear.

“I’m sorry you’re upset,” he said, voice pitched low, almost like the vampire growl she’d heard so often. “But I’m not sorry I kissed you.”

“Let. Me. Go.” Her voice, too, was low, intimate, as she desperately tried not to be noticed by the others. Dimly she heard Lawrence’s voice, explaining something in response to a question. There was a cloud rising over the shoulder of the mountain to the west. They would all have to go in soon.

Sam gave one last searching look into her face, and released her arm. “Fine,” he replied, “but we need to talk. Seriously.”

Lucky looked away, then turned her eyes to him again. She nodded. “Not here, not now,” she said, and walked away without looking back.
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darkstarrising
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Re: La Posada --Chapter 5 --PG-13

Post by darkstarrising »

O crap!

Sam has just done the unthinkable :gasp: Even though he's not a vamp, kissing Lucky could cost him his head, literally, if Josef finds out. With all the oversight at La Posada, one of the hosts might have seen them.

Still, I'm intrigued...why would Sam feel the need to talk with Lucky later? Does he have a death wish?
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