Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang(46)
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to finish; I just wanted to talk to you before I do, because if the speed with which you fell asleep a short while ago is anything to go by, you’re not going to want to talk to me after I finish up with you.”
I could see he wanted to protest the point, but he knew he hadn’t a leg to stand on. Grudgingly, he said, “What is so important you have to stop?”
“Two things, really,” I said, tapping the fingers of one hand on his thigh. “The first is something that bothered me a bit at the time, but I couldn’t tell why. Allie put a special emphasis on the fact that Christian was not going to authorize the release of Mattias and Kristjana, and yet she went out of her way to tell me where they were.”
He snorted and flopped back onto the pillows, his eyes closed again. “I don’t see what’s confusing about that. Christian made himself quite clear.”
“Clear that he wasn’t going to release the two reapers?”
A slow frown creased the spot between his silky brown eyebrows. “No. Clear that his hands were tied, but he fully expected us to use our own resources to achieve the goal.”
I gawked at him a minute. He opened his eyes enough to give first his penis, then me a pointed look. “You’re not going to continue?”
“Not until I’m through being flabbergasted. Are you trying to tell me that Christian . . . what, he mind-talked to you? Told you to go ahead and take Mattias and Kristjana?”
“We don’t have that sort of a mental link.”
“Then how . . . ?”
“It was clear that what he wasn’t saying was what he wanted us to do.”
“It wasn’t at all clear to me. I thought Allie was telling me to break them out, not Christian.”
He grunted and looked rather hopefully at his privates.
I patted his penis, still distracted by this new avenue of thought.“OK, I get that Christian wants us to take Mattias and make a break for it. And presumably then go to Iceland and do the same for Kristjana, which is fine, because I have to go there for Ulfur anyway. But why does Christian want that? He said himself that if I weren’t a Zorya, I wouldn’t be able to pump the Brotherhood for information about Alec.”
Kristoff was silent for a moment. “There is a traitor amongst Dark Ones, someone working for the council who is betraying our interests to the reapers. We have known about this for a year. Christian clearly expects us to uncover who this mole is in the process of discovering Alec’s whereabouts.”
“You think the two things are connected?” I asked, gently stroking his thighs.
“Possibly,” Kristoff admitted, his eyes darkening. “Although, as you pointed out to the council, it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a Dark One who set me up. But they no doubt believe it is the same person.”
“So we take Mattias and Kristjana, and what? Use them as something to barter for Alec?”
“That thought had crossed my mind,” Kristoff said, his breathing quickening as I dragged my nails gently up his thighs. “There’s no real other use for the two of them.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Mattias might know something. If nothing else, I can play the wife card. That seems to hold a lot of meaning for him.”
Kristoff’s body tensed. He glared down the length of it to me. “You are not his wife.”
I sighed. “We went over this that night in Iceland. In order to receive the powers of a Zorya, I have to be married to a sacristan. Mattias is the sacristan. I have powers. Thus our marriage, the one between you and me, such as it was, was obviously not the legal one.”
His jaw worked for a moment.
“Trust me, I don’t like it any more than you do, but obviously Mattias places a lot of value on the whole marriage, so we might as well use that to our advantage.”
He ground his teeth. His hands fisted into the sheets.
“Oh, stop acting like a big, scary, pointy-toothed, jealous baby, and start thinking up an escape plan.”
“I am not jealous,” he growled, his eyes lighting from within. He grabbed my hips and hoisted me upward until my breasts were smashed against his face. He took one nipple in his mouth and flicked his tongue across the tip. And he is not your husband .
I clutched his shoulders, my entire body suddenly turning into one gigantic erogenous zone. My mistake. Would you please . . . Oh, yes.
His hands slid down my hips, around my backside, and down into depths that he had so recently plumbed. I bucked against his hands, trying desperately to hold on to my thoughts.