By the time we finally stopped, at least a few weeks had passed. I was sleeping on top of Damon, completely safe and having some wonderful dreams. I woke up to him blowing in my ear. I'd always gone to the toilet somewhere in between, but the food wasn't needed, for example. We only needed each other.
I opened my eyes and looked into Damon's contented, dreamy eyes.
He said, "Miss, why don't we wake up and wash up, get something to eat, and then we can explore the castle more and think about our wedding? Don't worry, baby, I'll propose, and you'll say yes."
His voice was soft and warm, with a contentment I'd never really heard before. I turned to the side and let him go to the bathroom first. I lay in bed and just lounged.
Then Damon's voice said, "Come on, start showering, missy."
Fine, I got up then and went to Damon to shower, and well, we consecrated that too. Lustfully like we hadn't just fucked for three weeks straight roughly.
Damon said, " That's nothing. You still owe me for the rest."
I laughed in my head, wondering how much he'd calculated the debt owed and how hard I'd have to fuck him to pay it off.
When we left the shower, the gentleman picked out my clothes and did my hair and makeup. He himself was wearing a sky-blue silk shirt and blue jeans; the sleeves of the shirt were rolled up carelessly, and three buttons were undone. Oh, how he tempted me hard.
I wore a violet satin shirt, a white long flowing skirt, and bare feet like Damon. Then, at last, we got downstairs to eat. The kitchen was empty, and Adam's note was in the lobby where we landed. He had left almost as soon as we started fucking.
I didn't feel bad about the time I spent with Damon because I knew inevitably he might stray somewhere in between, and then I'd have the freedom to be with Adam. Besides, I was immortal; time was something I had and lots of it.
I walked over to the table, grabbed a piece of paper, and read it. Adam had had to leave when Bran had asked him to. There is some alpha crisis in America. He had taken the orders, though, and put most of them in the freezer.
I said, "Fine, we'll be here alone then if you still want to be here."
Damon laughed and said, " We have a big castle, a fucking debt, and no one will touch me now for a good year, as I'm a widow. It's a vampire thing. See, baby, despite Brianna's reputation and the fact that everyone knew she had me trapped illegally, Nick is my enemy, in a way, and I'm a vampire who lost his wife when an enemy killed her. That automatically gets you a mourning period among vampires, well in the old days, it was a time to get revenge, a year of vengeance. That vampire wasn't bothered by politics or anything because he was given a year to avenge that death, and then when that year was up, it was forgotten, and you can't go back to it."
I said, "I mean, like you said, I don't know anything about vampire culture or any of that stuff. I'm more of a wolf than a vampire, but still. "
Damon said, "Well, I don't know. Your vampire side is really strong; sure, Mimosa is strong, but Mimosa is not just your wolf's side. There's a little bit more to it than that."
Damon sat me down at the table as he went to prepare breakfast for us. It took him a while to find everything, and as if at random, he started moving things from place A to place B as if my order wasn't good enough.
I wasn't surprised at all. The octopus must have had to get everything just right, so that the cooking would be good. But when he started going through my frying pans to test the weight and the coating, I began to wonder; I'd bought all pretty damn top-of-the-range, but I'd never actually tried them on my own hands. I'd always just fried in one of the pans.
But Damon had already picked out a couple of pans that were left to use and about four pans; he lifted one up on the top shelf of the cupboard so that they were not in use.
He casually went through the pots and pans when he was apparently frying wagyu steaks for me and himself. He made the coffee himself after first finding out what coffee I had.
I had ordered large quantities of coffee beans from a coffee shop, and they were in quite large bags in the bottom cupboard. I had taken the beans in a smaller container to make them easy to dispense. Damon opened each can, sniffed, and was allowed to put x amount of beans into the brewer, making his own blend of coffees.
I just sat and watched. I didn't mind, and my analytical side enjoyed being able to observe and study. Moreover, Damon's movements were really beautiful to watch. You watched him just for the fun of it. I sat there admiring and wondering what Damon actually was to me.
Well, a pack member, boyfriend, ex-husband, mate. Boyfriend? Future husband? I actually didn't know yet. As perfect as our three weeks in bed had been, it had been sex. The thing I had then learned again with Adam. It was togetherness. But would we ever spend time together with Damon? Or do we just fuck wildly in bed? Is there any point in getting married then?
My train of thought started to become unnecessarily reflective again, and I tore myself away from my musings. I had learned to have a mate, and I was pretty unsure was Damon a mate or a fuckbuddy. Of course he had put several rooms, but we had done nothing together, not really.
I was about to say something to Damon when Mimosa's voice in my mind interrupted me.
As Damon was cooking breakfast, Mimosa said to me, " Now, Mimi, we just got a world-saving gig. So, this calls for a pack. Everyone has a role to play, but that's fine if Damon or Adam doesn't perform. It's just you and I have to do every single thing, make every single thing work. Otherwise, the world won't be saved. If this job fails, another pandemic will hit werewolves and vampires, so other species, like incubi, will take over, and believe me, you don't want demons and incubi in power."
I was shocked and amazed. The fate of the world depended on me. There is no pressure at all. Oh, for fuck's sake. So, I would literally have to save the world in an extraordinary way.
Mimosa told me more in my head. "So we have fight clubs, killings, then sabotage, frame-ups. They are essential mysteries. This can take up to a year. Then, finally, we have to go into the jungle to look for herbs from Borneo, Madagascar, and the Amazon. It's going to be a pretty damn tough job. It's a domino effect thing, so we have to prevent certain things from happening. They may be very minor, but they're crucial and then we have to watch again to make sure that certain things happen. Everything is connected to everything,"
I said out loud. "Damon, we can't have a pussy honeymoon. Mimosa just announced that I have to save the world. It's going to take the entire pack, and this can and probably will go on for a year, if not more."
Damon turned around, got the portions, and brought the coffee and food to the table.
We went to eat, and Damon said, " Tell me the entire story."'
I said, " Domino effect. The purpose is to prevent a supernatural pandemic that allows incubus and demons to take over. So I have to prevent some events in a certain way, just the right way, and then make sure other events succeed, including fight clubs. There are bad guys to kill and certain bets to fuck up. Every fight club has a little hook that's going to happen."
I told everything to Damon, who listened intently.
I went on with my explanation because he would have his own fight clubs and then vampire killings—the people who were destined to die in the fangs of the vampires. Damon would be busy. Adam would have fight clubs.
"You have to drink people to death. You have a comprehensive list; they all have to die in vampires' teeth. It's part of getting the designated people to still believe in the blood lust and the killing instinct of vampires because part of this pandemic is to manufacture artificial blood and castrate the vampires, so to speak. It takes away their powers, makes them people who have to drink blood even though they're immortal but sheep, no vampire wants power or is dangerous anymore."
Damon furrowed his brow and said, "Yeah, that's got to be stopped. It's not good at all."
Mimosa sent Damon a list of names of people to kill and the dates too. Mimosa had also contacted Adam, making him curse and curse hard. He was about to return to Italy to join us, but now that was impossible.
Adam had his own agenda. Mainly the fight clubs, several brutal ones, including getting Adam a more ruthless reputation behind him. It was time to Adam to stop being hero saving human and be the ruthless, dangerous alpha who did not let anything threat to his pack. He was supposed to show that he would put wolves before humans and be as example for others. Because one part of this epidemic was also downplay werewolves, making them seem like slaves that governments could use.
It was warped idea, and I could not help to think of my origins, was there a connection. I had found out a few things about that project and it was not good. I would have to find out but if these few scraps of information were correct, my origins would be probably one of the dirtiest secrets of history and there was a people in power ready to protect it.
Adam would boost werewolves reputation was fierce and powerful creature. Something what Bran would have just to accept. We were saving the world here.
Mimosa said to me, "If the men's fight clubs don't work for some reason, then you have to go through them. But you mustn't tell the men. This involves lessons from upstairs as well. Then some things have to do with balance; upstairs doesn't want to give the downstairs ammunition."
Oh, that's wonderful, but Mimosa told me not to tell anyone because other things are involved, like free will and how committed you can be. And heaven and hell really do exist. Oh fuck, it's nice to get news like this.
I ate my food. Damon was wondering about his victims, tapping away on his phone. So much for the fuck farm or our time together. We wouldn't get a chance to do that for now, and if this went on for a year or more, our fuck debt would only grow. Maybe it would be best not to think whole fuck debt.
The gig would start the day after tomorrow, and I'd have to be in Portugal by then. We'd go through Europe first and then maybe go to Asia. One part of it was that I had to take out the Italian mafia, the Russian mafia, and the Yakuza.
I knew that after this job, I would probably require quite a long recovery. Because I had a ridiculous amount of fight clubs, I'd taken it easy so far, but if I didn't have time to recover, a club every day, it would be a real pain in the ass.
No problem. I was now 68 kilos when I started the gig, and it would be interesting to see how fit I'd be when the gig was over.
I called Adam, explained it as best I could, and got Hauptmann to swear and worry for me. He wanted so badly to help, but his schedule was tight, and we were literally halfway around the world.
Adam said, "When will we see you again?"
I said, "I just don't know. I'll try to keep in touch, but..."
Adam completed the sentence. He knew me better than I did when I noticed.
"The gig comes first,"
I grunted in response because this gig would be the thing I would focus on. Mimosa had already sent everyone the details of what everyone had to do.
Damon and I spent another intense day and night. I lay on Damon's chest in the morning, fucked and tired, but I knew I had to get up soon. I rolled over and let Damon into the shower.
He looked at me and said, "They say, baby, that you really don't appreciate what you have until you lose it; I know that. I really do. And this pains me so very much. Just when I got you back, I only lost you again."
I said, " The job comes first, then us. Nothing can be done about that. We'll see where we are when the job is over, you're a free man, we're not even engaged and you're more vampire than wolf so the mating bond is not as restrictive for you as it might be for Adam for example."
Damon looked at me and said, " Don't give up on us, baby. Listen, we'll have our wedding here one day; we've got forever."
I nodded. Damon's phone beeped. He cursed softly and got up, checked his message and went to shower. I tried to get myself into full gig mode, but oh my god, now that was hard.
I had just wanted to be in this bed with Damon, and now I knew that his vacation, when he didn't have to disappear like a ghost in the night, would pass with this gig. Someone in the universe hates me, but I got myself together.
Damon came out of the bathroom with his clothes on and said, "I'm going to do some more packing, get some stuff out of the car, and make some phone calls."
I nodded and then took a shower after he left the room. After the shower, I dressed and started putting my bags in order myself.
I was packing my bags when he came to the door and said, " Did you know that I'm going to try to do everything I can for this gig and, most importantly, help you in any way I can? Do you understand? I'll try. For some reason, I can't promise anything because you know me. I wish I could, but I know myself too well, and then if you need me and I don't show up..."
Damon left the sentence unfinished.
I knew why. That's probably exactly what would happen. I loved Damon; no amount of attitude could help that, but I knew we weren't on the same level.
I'm young in the eyes of vampires and I have my own experiences, but Damon, there's no comparison between us. Besides, he was free, really free, and I had no demands on him, nothing formal.
And it was so damn hard for me to remember that we were no longer married and that gorgeous creature was no longer my husband. I had noticed it already during the weeks we were together that I could always stop myself from calling Damon my husband in my mind.
I tried to put all emotion aside and just take a gig attitude. That's how we got through it. I would first have a bullfight fight club in Portugal and Spain. Not an easy one.
Because the bull is what you can't predict, a regular cage fight is fine because you have one target. One. But now watch out for the bull in it. I had always before watched and observed my opponents and used my pretender skills, but I couldn't make any contact with the bull.
As I said, challenges are ahead. I continued packing, and when I looked up, Damon was gone.
Damon was gone like a ghost. I suspected he had already left. We don't do goodbyes. When I got off the elevator, I carried my bag into the lobby downstairs. I was right; the castle was empty, and Damon's car was gone.
I sighed. I was the last one out of my castle, and I closed the door. It banged as a loud thumping sound echoed through the courtyard. There was nothing for it but to start saving the world.
I put my bags in my own car and went to the airport. This car would be fine for the trip, but I'd buy an SUV from Portugal because it would be miles to this gig. I wouldn't fly as much as I would drive.
I went for a drive to the airport and left my lovely Lexus there for safekeeping when I got on the plane. I didn't even know where Damon was supposed to go. I sat on the plane and prepared for my first world rescue mission, but it wouldn't be my last.