Vampire Most Wanted(76)
Divine smiled with amusement and reminded him, “I’m immortal, and we can be very persuasive.”
“Ah.” Marcus nodded. “A little mind control, a little influence and bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, you’re in.”
“Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo?” she echoed, eyes wide with disbelief.
Marcus flushed. “There’s a little girl named Livy who was staying with a friend while I was there and she had a thing for Disney movies.”
“Ah,” Divine said solemnly, but she suddenly had an image in her mind of Marcus watching a Disney cartoon with a little girl in pigtails. She had no idea if this Livy wore pigtails, but that was the image that sprang to mind. It was a beautiful image. She thought he’d be good with children. What would their children look like, she wondered, and then pushed the fantasy aside. He might be her life mate, but she could never claim him as one so long as he worked with Lucian.
“And before the Romani?” Marcus asked now.
Divine considered him briefly, and then said, “Isn’t it time you told me a little about yourself?”
Marcus paused and then set his own fork down with a nod. “Fair enough.”
She was glad he didn’t argue the point . . . for two reasons. She really did want to learn more about him, but she also wanted to eat more of the delicious food on her plate, which was hard to do while she was talking.
Marcus took a sip of the water beside his plate and then set the glass down saying, “Okay. My grandparents are Marzzia and Nicodemus Notte. They were a part of the group of original immortals, the survivors of Atlantis.”
“Atlantis?” she asked with bewilderment.
Marcus stilled and tilted his head. “Has no one taught you the history of our origins, Divine?”
She almost lied again and said yes rather than look ignorant, but then sighed and admitted, “No. I’m afraid not. My childhood was rather . . .” She frowned and glanced away.
“Unconventional?” he suggested gently, and the word made her snort indelicately.
Covering her mouth and nose quickly, she peered wide-eyed at him over her hand and then suddenly lost patience with herself. She was no shrinking violet. She had taken care of herself for millennia, and would be damned if encountering a life mate she couldn’t claim, and recalling a childhood that had been a horror all around, was going to reduce her to the state of a blithering idiot afraid to say what she felt or meant or wanted. Her history was her history and that was that. She couldn’t change it, and he could accept it, deal with it, or just get the hell out of her life if he didn’t like it.
Letting her hand drop she said, “Unconventional does not begin to describe my childhood. For one thing, my parents were not true life mates.” His eyebrows rose at that and she nodded. “My mother, Tisiphone, was older than my father, Felix, and she wanted a child. My father was apparently very likable and easygoing and so she decided he would do.”
Divine paused to take a drink of water before continuing, “While my father couldn’t read Tisiphone, he knew she was older so thought nothing of it.” She grimaced and added, “Until Tisiphone claimed she couldn’t read him either and they therefore must be life mates.”
“She was lying?” Marcus asked.
Divine nodded. “Yes. She could read him . . . and control him too. She used both skills, plus manipulation and drugs, to make him think he was experiencing the infamous life mate sex.”
Marcus frowned. “Was your father young enough to still eat?”
Divine shook her head. “I gather she used mind control, or perhaps drugs too, to make him think he was hungry and that the food was the most delicious he’d ever had and whatnot.”