Primal Call Read online

  “A stake through the heart’s not going to kill a Prime, not unless it’s made from hawthorn wood—bad allergy to hawthorn. Also allergic to garlic, and silver.”

  “I thought it was werewolves that were allergic to silver.”

  “I’ll let Mimi explain to you about werewolves.”

  “Isn’t she your bodyguard?”

  “Yeah, but she’s helping on the script too,” he said quickly. “And sunlight does harm vampires, kills them if they’re exposed long enough. But here’s the twist, love. The vampires invested in a lot of scientific research and came up with medicines that protect them from the light, and all the other things that hurt them. Modern vampires take pills and shots—like diabetics or hemophiliacs—to protect them from the things that can kill them.”

  “Vampirism is a disease?”

  “It most certainly is not!” He was quite adamant. He sounded almost angry.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you, but you said they took medicine—”

  “Only the ones who want to live daylight lives. There are some vampires who say the drugs are destroying the species. They won’t touch the drugs. Very old-school nightlife types. There’re arguments that the long-term effect of the daylight drugs aren’t known yet. The drugs are part of the story, but let me get on to the important plot points.”

  “All this background is very interesting. You must have been thinking about this for a long time.”

  “For years and years. Since I was able to think straight at all, I guess.”

  “When was that?”

  “Maybe twenty or so.”

  According to his official bio James Wilde was twenty-eight. Eight years was quite a while to think through a story, especially one with the amount of world building he was presenting to her.

  “Go on,” Thena said.

  “Here’s the romance part,” he said. “Every story has to have a romance.”

  She sighed. “I take it there will be biting, blood, and sex scenes in this script.”

  “You bet there will.”

  She remembered the film clip of James naked on the Orphan set—though it was never far from her mind, really—and almost groaned in frustrated longing.

  “Vampires—who aren’t dead—having sex with each other?”

  “Not in this one. The romance is between a Prime and a mortal woman.”

  “A story just about vampires wouldn’t be very popular, I suppose. You need a human protagonist for the audience to identify with.”

  “You obviously haven’t seen the Underworld movies.”

  “I told you I don’t like vampires, Jimmy.”

  “I am so going to change your mind.”

  He gave a low, wicked laugh that sounded so filthy it nearly gave her an orgasm. How did he do that?

  “Back to our tale of love and adventure,” he said. “Have I mentioned that the vampires are telepathic? And so are some humans in this world.”

  “You don’t have to convince me about psychic humans. My Aunt Maria—Never mind. Go on.”

  “There’s a thing that happens to vampires, it’s called Bonding. It’s a psychic and physical link that forms with their soul mates—and yes, vampires believe in souls. Not all vampires find their bondmate, but when they do there’s nothing that can stop them from being with this person, be they vampire or mortal.”

  “What if the mortal in question says no?”

  “They can’t, if they’re a true bondmate. A bonding is a two-way forever mating. It’s true love. Why would anyone want to fight a bonding?”

  “Dramatic purposes,” she answered. “You have to have conflict in a story.”

  “‘Course. Have to have conflict. What? Excuse me, love.”

  She heard a brief, muffled, conversation, and caught mentions of lighting problems and tests. After a few moments, James came back to the phone.

  “I have to do movie stuff now.”

  She didn’t want him to go. “I’m enjoying your version of vampires—but we haven’t gotten to the plot yet.”

  “Soon.” The word was a promise. He hung up.

  Thena gazed out over the peaceful landscape for a few minutes, her thoughts far away from her quiet, regular life. Her head was abuzz with images of vampire heroes and all the bits of cultural baggage they brought with them that James had detailed to her.

  What sort of story could she make of this? Could they make of this, rather. She wasn’t used to collaborating. She didn’t know if she could do it. He made her want to try. James was making her want to try to feel and think all sorts of things she wasn’t used to. Well, not making her. It wasn’t like he was some telepathic force of will drawing her under his domination. He made her feel—brave. Yeah, that was it. She wanted to fly because of him.

  She’d worry about the falling part later.

  Right now, he wasn’t the only one who needed to get back to work. She left the porch to return to her computer. The words didn’t appear on the screen all by themselves.

  ###

  The lighting people were gathered around the director when James came onto the set. There was yelling going on. James was surprised, as this had been a friendly, civilized, and efficient set during the shoot. It was a pleasure to work on Orphan, even when all he really wanted was to get the job over with.

  Apparently, he wasn’t wanted just yet. James considered calling Thena back, then thought better of it. She needed time to absorb what he told her about his real world. She needed to think. And so did he—about his job. He walked over to where other cast members were waiting. He’d been spending far more time than he should in his trailer. He made himself make pleasant conversation and listen to pleasant conversation. What sort of an actor would he be if he couldn’t fake interest in anyone but his bondmate for a while?

  He wondered how much longer he would have to live with Athena thinking James Wilde was faking interest in her? He heard longing to trust, and fear of trusting his intentions, every time he heard her voice. Blast her strong shields, and the insecurity that told her Wild Jimmy Wilde wasn’t the man for her. Working on both was proving a delightful challenge. But if he didn’t get to touch her soon, taste her—

  Down boy.

  “Yeah,” he said to something. “You should do that,” to something else.

  Somehow, while he kept thinking about his bondmate, he talked and laughed with the actors and techs who stood around waiting for the argument on the other side of the set to wind up. It didn’t.

  After a few minutes, James jerked a thumb at the altercation. “What is that about?”

  “An electrician apprentice screwed something up. Now, there is or is not a safety issue, depending on which side is yelling at the moment,” one of the crew answered.

  “Why—”

  The explosion interrupted James’s question. An arc of white light sizzled toward the ceiling.

  A fireball erupted on the other side of the soundstage.

  James had the man on the floor and his burning clothes beaten out even as the man’s scream cut through the air. Primes moved fast.

  It only occurred to him that maybe he’d moved too fast after he stepped back to let the set’s medic have a look at the man he’d helped. He hadn’t thought, just acted on instinct—instinct being far too close to the surface in his current state.

  There were flames, smoke, people shouting and rushing around, piles of equipment between the scene of the rescue and everyone else—maybe no one had seen him move across the set like a…vampire.

  Please don’t let that have been caught on camera, he hoped. The Shagals will have my ass out of town by nightfall if those moves show up on the Net.

  Of course, if he was exiled from LA, he could finally get to see Athena.

  The AD came running up . “How’d you do that, dude?”

  “The fire’s out, but the studio fire department’s on the way,” the chief electrician said as he knelt next to the medic. “Are you okay, Sam?” he asked the victim.

  Sam
was sitting up, and trying to fend off the eager medic, who wasn’t used to getting the chance to do a lot of work. Sam looked up at James. “Thanks, Jimmy. You did that stop, drop, and roll thing on me pretty good.”

  “Did I bruise you?” James asked. “I think I tackled you harder than I meant to. Please don’t sue me.”

  Sam laughed. “I won’t. If you don’t tell anyone I screamed like a girl.”

  “Deal.”

  James had set his cell phone to vibrate. His hip pocket suddenly began to throb madly.

  ###

  Thena opened a new word processing file and stared at the blank screen. The beginning was the most terrifying and the most fun part of writing. She wiggled her fingers over the keyboard. Her head was full of all the things James had told her about his movie script vampires. So much background, but so little story. What to do? Whose story to tell? Okay, the hero would have to be a vampire, a Prime as James called them. A human heroine then.

  How did the vampire and the human have sex?

  What about kissing? How did lips, tongues, and fangs interact?

  Was there blood involved in a kiss?

  Actually, Thena found the thought of a bloody kiss something of a turn-on. Now, wasn’t that weird of her?

  Sex wasn’t the first thing Thena usually thought of when beginning a story, but then she’d never considered sex with one of the partners being a blood-drinker before. What were the logistics?

  She wrote: The kiss tasted of metal, iron and copper, hot with life and need. Succulent, he thought. Delicious.

  “Oh, my,” Thena said. She touched her lips. They felt like they’d been kissed. Okay, she had a vivid imagination. It was useful for making a living, but not so much for reacting physically to a brief sexual fantasy.

  She fanned her face with her hand. Of course she’d been thinking of James in the role of the hot kissing vampire, and she’d been the kissee. She did not normally put herself in her stories. Okay, this was a fantasy, not a story. But why get turned on by the thought of Jimmy as a vampire? He was quite hot enough just being James Wilde. Weren’t her growing feelings for him dangerous enough? And that was only the emotional connection she didn’t want to do without. Never mind the everyday, regular, increasing, aching lust. Still, that edge of risk vampiric powers added to the already steaming mix....

  Thena put her fingers back on the keyboard, looked at the screen, thought about making words. Went off into a reverie.

  He held his hands up to show her talons sharp as steel. She couldn’t breathe as his hands came closer. Her skin heated and tingled with anticipation. The tips of his claws touched the tops of her breasts. Needle-sharp points pressed as gently as feathers, caressing down and around, up and under the round globes of her breasts.

  Absolute desire rushed through her, but she still giggled.

  He responded with mock indignation. “My claws tickle you?”

  “Do it again,” she said.

  Instead, his mouth came down on one nipple while his thumb teased the other.

  Lightning shot through her. Fire pooled deep within —

  Fire. Flames.

  “Jimmy, no! Don’t!”

  He ran into the fire. A scream sounded, high-pitched and panicked.

  Athena stood up and shouted again. “Jimmy!”

  Again?

  She looked around wildly, recognized nothing. Where were the flames lapping up out of the shadows? Where were the people watching the fire in shock as James Wilde ran toward it?

  Except, he didn’t run. He went from here to there. She was the only one who saw what he did, how he moved.

  What did it matter how? He was engulfed in flames! He needed her! He—

  Thena realized she was standing in her office. She was cold with shock, hot with terror. She was afraid. She was also certain of what she’d seen. Felt?

  She grabbed up her cell phone in her shaking hand and autodialed James’s number.

  ###

  “It’s okay, hon, the fire’s out,” James said as he answered the phone.

  He moved away from the group of people gathered around him on the set. A telepathic command kept anyone from getting any ideas about following him.

  “Calm down,” he said gently to Athena. “Take deep breaths.”

  “But—”

  “Caller ID,” he said before she could ask how he’d known it was her. He had known it was her because he’d known it was her.

  Thena was quiet for a few moments. James sent calming thoughts her way, but at the same time he couldn’t stop radiating triumphant emotions her way as well. Her shields against him were thinning, cracking. She was his and soon she’d—

  “What are you being so smug about?” she asked. “I was frightened that something had happened to you.”

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  “Your aunt is a medium,” he reminded her. “Maybe you have a touch of her gift.”

  A few more seconds of silence. “Let’s start again, shall we?” she said. “I was minding my own business—all right, I was trying to write a sex scene with a vampire—”

  “I’d love to hear that.”

  “—then I had the strongest image of you running into a fire. I know it’s a stupid question, but—did you?”

  “I did. Sort of. There was a bit of a flash fire on set. It’s out. Everyone is fine. Thank you for worrying about me. You have no idea how much it means to me that—”

  “But how did you know that I saw—”

  “We’ll talk about this later. I promise you we will.”

  Behind him, the director called his name. Damn it! Just as he and Athena were making the right kind of connection, just as her mind was beginning to open, he had to go.

  “Thank you,” he said again. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  ###

  Thena looked at the clock on the living room wall before she stepped onto the porch. She was surprised to discover it was only five forty-five, when it seemed as if this day had gone on forever. And it hadn’t just been Aunt Maria and vampires and James on fire. There’d been a long exchange of emails with her editor about cover copy and cover art for her next book—the one she wasn’t finished writing yet. There’d been a long call from her mother trying to talk her into leaving for the annual family trip to Greece earlier this year. Thena wormed out of her mom that the real reason wasn’t that grandpa’s not getting any younger but you need to get away from that younger man. Thena’s pointed out that they had these things called airplanes, so that if the younger man wanted to he could visit Okios. Not that Thena thought James would follow her across the world, or even as far as Missouri, but a girl could dream.

  Then, of course, her younger sister had been in a shoot-out. Lonnie was an FBI agent. Thena had seen a news crawl about FBI agents stopping a bank robbery in Washington, D.C. and had called her sister on a hunch that Lonnie was involved. Thena didn’t understand why she was suddenly having hunches and visions, but she’d acted on this one just as she had on the one featuring James Wilde. It turned out that Lonnie had indeed been involved. Shots had been fired. Lonnie assured Thena that she was fine. No one, including the bank robbers, had sustained any injury.

  “You lead an exciting life,” Thena had told Lonnie before they hung up.

  “Be grateful you lead a quiet one,” Lonnie had answered.

  Once upon a time, not so long ago, Thena had loved her quiet life, never wanted to change it, reveled in it. Now she wasn’t so sure making up and writing down adventures was enough for her.

  She chuckled at herself as she went out onto the porch, a glass of iced tea in one hand, her knitting bag in the other. She sat down in the rocking chair, put the tea on the table next to it, then glanced at the other items she’d put on the table earlier. Two telephones and a laptop. The communications types available to her were immense, all of it plugged in and charged up.

  She tsked. “All this because Jimmy said he’d be in touch.”

&
nbsp; She left all the tech on the table and took out her knitting. Along with the row counter, tape measure, cable needle, and the pattern she’d worked out for James’s sweater. Knitting wasn’t just two sticks and a string when working on a complex Aran Irish knit project with all its twists and bumps. She reveled in the challenge, and got to work.

  After a while, Ed Caven stopped by the porch. “Weather Channel says there’s a strong storm front heading through tonight.”

  Thena looked up from her knitting, past Ed, to the sky above the distant hillside where sheep wandered the pasture. The sky was clear and blue and quiet, but you couldn’t argue with all those weather satellites and radar and whatever the meteorologists used. Besides, she’d broken an arm in her youth, and the healed bone in her upper arm told her the Weather Channel’s prediction was correct.

  “Everybody sleeps in the barn tonight, I guess,” she said to Ed.

  “Sheep Mother won’t like that. She’ll get out.”

  The guard llama was an amazing escape artist. “We can but try to save her fuzzy butt from being scorched by lightning.”

  “Yeah, but she’s smarter than us.”

  Thena laughed, but her cell phone sounded Jimmy’s ringtone before she could answer the farm manager. Ed nodded and walked off as she snatched up the phone.

  “Meanwhile, back at vampires,” James said before Thena could even manage a greeting. “There’s so much more I need to tell you.”