Sundown, International 4: Maneater Read online

  “You wanna swim with the dolphins?” he asked, leading me down the covered walkway in the sweltering July heat. He was sweating. I was not. Sirens don’t. Not when we don’t want to. Plus, hello, we come from an island in the middle of the Mediterranean. The desert heat was quite pleasant to me.

  “No,” I said, “I don’t really like dolphins.”

  His face fell. “You don’t? How can you not like dolphins?”

  I shrugged. “They don’t really like me.”

  “But our dolphins love everyone! Here, see --”

  He led me toward the pool, where a woman in shorts was talking to some kids and throwing bits of fish to a couple of cheerful, smiling bottlenoses.

  A couple of cheerful, smiling bottlenoses who were suddenly at the other end of the pool.

  “That’s strange,” said the female zookeeper. “They’re reacting as if they’d seen a predator.”

  Yeah, funny that.

  “Can we go see the lions?” I asked my friend, who hustled me onwards around the edge of the pool, which the dolphins were now trying to leap out of in their frenzy to get away from me. He led me past an enclosure with an elephant, who wasn’t in the least happy to see me.

  I mean, come on. I couldn’t eat a whole elephant. Not even a small one. What the hell was she so scared of?

  We passed enclosures of rust-colored tigers, who were lounging in the sun, and leopards, lounging in trees. Cats, I have noticed, are world-class loungers. When we got to the famous white tigers, one of them was just sauntering past the wire fence.

  “Hello, beautiful,” I said, and the tiger looked up at me.

  “I think he likes you,” said my guide, smiling in a patronizing way.

  The tiger regarded me for a second, then sniffed. I reached my hand out to press against the outer layer of fencing, and he came closer to snuffle at my fingers.

  “Careful,” the guide said, and we both ignored him. The tiger made that back-of-the-throat chirrup that domestic cats make when they’re saying hello.

  By now a small crowd had gathered, and several of them exclaimed over the tiger’s behavior. But I wasn’t surprised. When I was still quite young, eighty or so, I visited the personal menagerie of a Turkish king. While every other animal there was terrified of me, or in the case of the larger predators tried unsuccessfully to attack me, the big cats were reasonably friendly. By which I mean they acted like cats everywhere, and expected me to give them some reason to like me.

  I did now what I did then. I talked to the tiger, let it sniff me, and then I smiled at the zookeeper and asked him to let me inside the enclosure.

  To his credit, he initially refused. So I turned up the wattage of my smile, asked again, and soon found myself sitting on a rock while a large white tiger rubbed his cheek against my hand.

  “Do you have any food for them?” I asked my guide, who was standing outside the enclosure with several other employees.

  “Uh, ma’am, we’re gonna have to ask you to sign a legal waiver,” one of them -- a woman -- began.

  “Don’t be silly.” I waved my hand. “Give me something to feed my friend here.”

  Meat was procured, and I fed some to each of the tigers in the enclosure. One of the females came over and nuzzled me, purring. I talked to her, complimented her beautiful blue eyes and thick soft coat, then asked to see the lions.

  My guide self-importantly led me there. The crowd, which had grown substantially larger, followed. It still included the annoying woman who kept talking about legal issues and other boring human things, so before I entered the lion’s enclosure I turned and used my siren voice on her to say, “Shut up.”

  She shut up.

  So did everyone else.

  The white lions, as beautiful as I’d been told, raised their elegant heads and gave me languid looks. “Hello, gorgeous,” I said to the nearest, who allowed me to approach carefully. I mean, I’m not an idiot. And I’m not impervious to injury. But tigers and lions are an awful lot like their smaller cousins. They tolerate humans, so long as they’re doing something useful, like bearing food or compliments.

  You see, most animals can sense a predator, and that’s why they’re wary of me. But big cats don’t really have natural predators. And even if some giant fuck-off tyrannosaur came around they’d be like, “Whatever dude, just don’t stand in my light, I’m sunbathing.” You have to love that.

  When Alexius found me, I was sitting on the grass with my back against a rock, stroking the head and mane of a beautiful white lion as he sprawled next to me like a kitty cat.

  “Have I been replaced already in your affections?” Alexius asked from the other side of the fence.

  My heart sped up. The lion opened one blue eye and curled his lip at Alexius, who stood there looking more golden than ever in the sunlight. He wore a shirt the same flawless blue as his eyes, which were, dammit, currently hidden by shades. Flash git.

  “Well, I took a nap earlier, and when I woke up Spike was still here,” I said pointedly.

  Alexius took off his shades. “Spike?”

  “They gave him some silly African name,” I said, stroking my fingers through Spike’s deep mane and trying not to stare at Alexius’s baby blues. “Spike suits him better.”

  Alexius gave a grave nod. “Fair enough,” he said. “You ready for lunch?”

  My hand stilled. All right, so I was still a little mad at him, but then he’d found me anyway, at lunchtime. But, here was the thing. How had he found me? And why wasn’t he surprised at exactly where he found me?

  Who the hell was he?

  “Lunch,” I repeated, a little distracted.

  “Yeah. Midday meal. Usually involves sitting down, although we can go to the snack bar and walk around if you want.”

  “Snack bar?”

  “By the dolphin pool.”

  “No,” I said firmly, gently moving Spike’s head so I could stand up. The big cat looked up at me and yawned, batted my ankle.

  “Or we could bring food here and share it with your new friends,” Alexius said.

  “They’re lions, Flash, they’re not my friends,” I said coldly, signaling to the zookeeper on standby that I wanted to be let out. When I rejoined the regular visitors on the path outside the enclosure and made my way to where Alexius stood, people moved quickly out of my way.

  Alexius leaned against a bench, looking beautiful. I raised my eyebrows at him and said, “Lunch.”

  “No,” he corrected, taking my hand, “lover. Not lunch. Please don’t confuse the two. It could get painful.”

  My heart clutched, and then I realized he was joking. “Do lovers usually go off early in the morning without leaving a phone number?” I was being arch and I knew it, but dammit, I was annoyed.

  Alexius winced. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d be going anywhere.”

  “You thought I came all the way here to lie around in my hotel room all by myself?”

  “I thought you might be tired,” he said, his thumb caressing the back of my hand. “You seemed pretty exhausted.”

  Angry now, I snatched my hand away. “As impressive as your stamina might be, mister, you’re not so exhaustive a lover that a girl still needs rest after a full night’s sleep.”

  A few people sniggered.

  “It was after three when we --”

  “Are you bragging?”

  He gave me a measured look. Jeez, didn’t the guy ever get angry? “No,” he said carefully. “Can we start again? Where would you like to go for lunch?”

  “I don’t care,” I said, glowering. “I’m not hungry.”

  Which was a lie. My teeth -- the ones currently hidden inside the roof of my mouth -- were aching. I was angry, which always makes things worse.

  “Chloe --”

  I stomped into the hotel. “A steakhouse. You want steak? I want steak.”

  “Steak is good,” he said, following me, and kept quiet as I snapped at the hostess for a good table, which we got. I don’t usually h
ave such a great effect on women -- straight women, anyway -- but The Voice works on everyone.

  We sat down. Alexius sprawled elegantly in his chair, just like Spike the lion had sprawled elegantly across my lap earlier. He regarded me with his beautiful head tilted to one side as I ordered both a 16oz steak and the all-you-can-eat barbecue, and had the good grace not to point out that five minutes previously I’d said I wasn’t hungry.

  Silence reigned. The food came. I attacked it.

  “I thought you weren’t hungry,” he said, as I stabbed my steak with a fork.

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Are you…” He surveyed the table, groaning under the weight of all the food I’d ordered. “…capable of eating all that?”

  I skewered a piece of chicken. “Yes.”

  “Chloe, please don’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Yes, I am.” I threw down my knife with a clatter, splashing barbecue sauce all over the table. “You didn’t -- look, how did you even know where I was?”

  “Beautiful woman, sitting in a cage and petting a fully-grown lion like he’s a baby kitten? News like that gets around.”

  “Does it?” I resolved not to be flattered. People call me beautiful all the time. I’m a damn siren. It’s my job to be beautiful.

  “I figured it would be you.”

  “How smart. Now riddle me this, Flash. How is it that you heard this rumor, saw it was true, found me in a lion’s den with Spike’s head in my lap, the head of a predator entirely capable of cracking a man’s skull in his jaws, and I’m sitting there completely unafraid, and you don’t mention it?”

  By now other people were starting to look at us.

  “You wanted me to mention it?”

  “No.” I glared mutinously at my plate and shoveled half a cow into my mouth. I can open my jaw pretty wide when I want to, like a snake.

  Probably you didn’t need to know that, either.

  “Well, then, why are you angry that I --”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Um, you look pretty --”

  I waved my fork in the air and said loudly, “Can I get more steak?”

  The waitress said nervously, “The kitchen is very busy --”

  “I want more steak.”

  She fled.

  “And I want it rare.”

  A crash came from the direction of the kitchens.

  “She’s probably going to put herself in the oven,” Alexius said, and his calm tone infuriated me.

  “No good.” I sawed at a sausage so hard the knife left grooves in the plate. “Too stringy.”

  “Are you really going to eat a pound and a half of steak?”

  “Yes.” I’d been created to eat whole humans at a time. A few pounds of steak was a mere snack to me. Especially when I was this angry. It went well for our waitress that she was skinny. More than a few spare pounds and I’d have eaten her there and then.

  I eyed Alexius balefully. There’d be good eating on a man his size.

  “Chloe, sweetheart --”

  “I’m not your sweetheart.”

  “Could you stop looking at me like you’re going to devour me?”

  That was it. I threw down my napkin, cutlery skidding off the table and bouncing on the floor, and grabbed him by the shirt as I crashed to my feet.

  “But I am going to devour you,” I said, and I couldn’t have stopped The Voice for love nor money.

  Alexius was a big strong guy and he probably could have stopped a normal woman from dragging him out of the restaurant without even breaking a sweat. But I wasn’t a normal woman. And I was angry. To make matters worse, I didn’t even really know why I was angry. Alexius was, at best, lying by omission. At worst, he was just lying outright. And he was being so damn calm about it. So bloody unflappable. He never fought me, never struggled to get out of my grip.

  It was only a tiny spark of humanity in me that prevented me from devouring him there and then in plain sight. Because I didn’t just want to devour him, I wanted to fuck him silly too. Then eat him.

  I was beginning to understand how my mother must have felt.

  I dragged Alexius to the nearest exit, and took off.

  Yeah. I really, clearly wasn’t thinking straight. In true form, I have an eagle’s body and a human head. And I look fucking weird. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to command everyone to shut their goddamned eyes before the feathers started sprouting.

  Alexius’s eyes stayed open. I grabbed him in my talons and launched into the sky.

  Chapter Four

  My clothes fell to the ground in tatters, wings beating the air as I rose up, burdened by the body in my talons and veering wildly across the road to the pink and blue columns of the Venetian, blinded by the shimmering glass and crashing through one full-height window. Alexius was hurled to the carpet of what was probably usually a beautiful suite but was now, unfortunately, a mess of jagged, fractured glass.

  I fluttered to the floor, wings shaking, heart pounding. Alexius’s shirt was torn, blood seeping from gashes in his exquisite torso, and he was breathing hard, sprawled on the floor. But still he was elegant, still beautiful, even when wrecked and bloody.

  I forced the wings and feathers away, forced my body to return to its human state. But my hands were still clawed, my mouth full of teeth. They made short work of his clothes and tore through his flesh. I tasted blood and skin and relished the meal, so much better than the stupid animal flesh in the restaurant.

  “Get up,” I said through my mouthful of incisors. “Why are you just lying there? Get up! Get up!”

  “I don’t want to fight you, Chloe,” he said, gaining his feet, his blue eyes flashing warily.

  I growled at him and swooped for a bite of that delicious chest of his.

  “Doesn’t mean I won’t,” he sighed, and deflected me, throwing me to the ground as if I really was only a bird. I landed on the glass, skidded, and snarled, licking the blood and skin from my teeth as I looked up at Alexius’s naked body and shredded torso.

  He threw me as if I was a bird…

  I sprang to my feet. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Alexius.” He shoved blood away from a tear on his shoulder. Already it was healing.

  “What are you?”

  He smiled, and it was a feral smile, the sort of smile Spike might give to his prey.

  “I’m a man you can’t eat,” he said, and I shrieked and flew at him. Sirens and harpies are cousins, and when we want to, we can scream just as well as they can.

  I screamed so loud the remaining glass in the penthouse shattered.

  Slamming Alexius into a table, I went for his throat, ripping through the flesh with my dozens of rows of teeth. He flipped me over, onto a sofa, and jammed his hand under my jaw.

  “Stop biting me,” he said. His eyes sparkled like sapphires. I clawed his back and shoved him onto the table with such force the thing splintered, and when he rolled me to my back the wood pierced my skin and I shrieked again.

  “You said you were human!” I screeched.

  He held me down by the shoulders, his legs pinning mine. We were both naked, and I felt his cock hard against my thigh.

  “I said my mother was.” I could see the arousal in his eyes. He was enjoying this! I kicked out at the bastard, slammed him onto his back and straddled his hips. His cock rose up before me, hard and ready, and I admit I salivated.

  “What was your father?” I demanded, and he struggled under me but I held him, pressed down with my hands and my hips and held him there.

  He growled and made to throw me off. But all he succeeded in doing was bucking that hard length against my pussy lips. It spoiled my concentration, but it did nothing to dampen my fury.

  “Answer me!”

  He did, but not with words. Pushing upwards with his hips, he slid that long cock against my pussy, stroking me with it. His eyes were on mine. His chest rose and fell. And
then without quite knowing what I was doing, I felt myself plunging down to take him inside me, take him deep and fill myself with him.

  Alexius growled, grabbing me by the shoulders and yanking me down for a kiss. Which proved he was mad, because all that happened was that I ripped at his mouth and went on to his throat, his shoulders, his chest. The wounds I’d already inflicted were healing over and I reopened them, mad with anger and power and lust and some definite form of insanity.

  We must have been equally mad at each other. Alexius flipped me over again and slipped out of me, but before I could grab him and get him back inside me again he had me on my knees and was surging into me from behind.

  “Stop bloody gnawing on me,” he said in my ear, gripping my shoulders as he slammed into me, bigger and harder than I’d ever felt him. “I’m not a chew-toy.”

  I couldn’t speak. All my energies were centered on the thick cock pounding into me, on Alexius’s body slamming against mine. Beneath my hands and knees the broken glass crunched, the splintered wood dug into me, but I didn’t care and hardly noticed anyway. Alexius was biting me now, not vicious tears to the flesh like I’d done to him, but blunt teeth sinking into my neck, marking me. His fingers found my clit and pinched and stroked as he fucked me, hard, and when I came I screamed a note so high it hurt my own ears.

  Still he pounded into me, fierce and hard, and I came once more before he did, shooting into my pussy and falling heavy against me, bringing us both down on the ruined carpet. We lay on our sides, breathing hard.

  There was silence, as much silence as you can get at the top of a high building with one whole wall of shattered windows. Then a voice, the deep rumble of Alexius’s golden voice, as his hands pressed me back against his chest.

  “My father was Apollo,” he said quietly. “He seduced my mother about two hundred years ago in Athens, where she was studying art.”

  He was still inside me. I stared at my hands, normal again with nails that needed a manicure.

  “Apollo,” I repeated, dumbly. “The Olympian Apollo.”

  “Yes.”

  The great Apollo. I was lying with the son of Apollo. My mother was a siren -- born of a muse and minor river god -- and my father was a human sailor. And the man whose penis was inside me was a demigod.