She snuggled against him and tried to get her mind off the business with the wolf, the murdered vampiresses, Cliff and his buddies gunning for her, and Daemon's take on what his brother had done in declaring to her that he wanted her forever. She breathed in Atreides's scent and licked his chest. "Night, Atreides.
"Night, Selena." He smiled at her. “I love you.”
After making love to Atreides, Selena finally managed to doze off, heard what she thought was a whispered thought in her head, but she couldn't catch the words, and saw the wolf in her mind's eye again. The same wolf she saw when they were coming back from her apartment. The vampire knew she was staying with Atreides. Did he know she could even be staying with him for good if it worked out between them? Had he thought he could tempt fate in this way to make it happen?
The fog surrounded her, swallowed her up, made her see beings in the mist, not anything she thought she could recognize, then one form came to her out of the fog. Iconia, her simpering smile telling her that all was not well with Selena's conquest of her boyfriend. Then Iconia's fangs were exposed, and she hissed at Selena.
Selena thought she was above that. She thought she could control her anger better. But as soon as Iconia hissed at her, Selena hissed back, extending her canines, furious with the vampiress. Selena hadn't intended to. She had planned to keep her cool, look superior, that she wouldn't resort to scare tactics, but she couldn’t help herself. The fangs extended and the hiss followed.
And then she woke. Atreides was smiling at her.
"What?"
"You were fighting with someone in your sleep."
Selena ran her fingers through her hair. "Iconia. She bared her fangs first."
"Let me see." He looked at Selena’s small fangs. "Baby fangs. They'll get longer in a few days. But when you're newly turned, they have to work their way out and then they'll come out with ease. Practice a while before you bare them at another vampire. They're bound to just laugh when they see them if you’re angry with any vampire."
She smiled. But then she leapt out of bed and raced to the bathroom. She wanted to see them before they disappeared. Atreides was with her in the next instant as she peered at her enhanced canines.
He ran his hand over her back as if in trying to reassure her, and she suspected then he thought she was going to be upset, but she thought this was the coolest thing ever.
"Baby teeth. But I can't just extend them unless I'm angry?"
"Or hungry. We have sustenance in the fridge. You don't ever have to suck on somebody unless it's for the pleasure and they're mutually interested in it."
They heard a noise in the kitchen, and he said, "I'll meet you in the kitchen. Catherine is preparing breakfast but might not realize we still have a whole houseful of guests right now." Then he vanished.
It was so different now for her. Before when a vampire appeared and vanished, it would fill her with momentary alarm, worried the vampire would reappear somewhere else and attack.
Now she could do that. But she wouldn't be as arrogant with rogue hunters or rogue vampires. If she was in a confrontation with one and she was losing, she would vanish in retreat.
She dressed, transported herself and ended up in the kitchen nearly on top of Colt.
He stepped back in alarm, then realizing it was just her, he smiled. “You'll get the hang of transporting so that you can feel objects close to you, like the sonar in bats."
"What about shifting into other animals?"
"That takes more time," Atreides said. "Coffee?"
"Tea."
"I've got it, and everyone get out of my kitchen, please," Catherine said, shooing them out. "I'm glad you joined the clan," she said to Selena.
"Thanks. I guess I didn't have much of a choice."
"You could join the fringe groups," Catherine said.
There was a resounding “no” from Atreides and his friends.
"I'm really not a rule breaker so I think I'll be fine with the clan, but I'll have to learn the rules first."
"He's in charge," Catherine said, "when Daemon and Tezra are away. Tezra is still learning the ropes and there are still some who are having trouble accepting a huntress turned as our co-leader."
The same would happen if they learned Selena had mated Atreides, she figured. If she had ended up with a vampire who didn't have such a high status in the clan, she probably wouldn’t have as much difficulty being accepted.
"I still say things might be different for Selena," Atreides said, ushering everyone into the dining room. "Since she was turned against her will by a rogue vampire. Some will sympathize with her cause, and she did try to protect one of our own before that happened."
"I totally accept her," Colt said.
"Me too," Catherine said.
"And me. Basil says he does too," Renault said.
"But it's all the others who would have to," Selena said as Catherine served up the food, then left the dining room. Selena’s stomach was grumbling, and she couldn't believe she was just as hungry as she normally would be when she hadn’t eaten in some time in her pre-vampiric state. She served up some of the hash browns, passed the platter to Atreides, forked up several slices of bacon, three servings full of scrambled eggs and two slices of toast.
"I think we ought to go with you to the border towns," Colt said to Atreides.
"No, they're used to seeing me going into the border towns. If a bunch of clan vampires arrived in their towns, they would be sure to think we were coming for a fight,” Atreides said. “If one of you went, it would have been fine.”
After breakfast, Atreides and Selena went to the first of the fringe towns to see if they could learn anything about the vampire who had turned her. She was afraid that they wouldn't talk to them and give up one of their own. But Atreides knew a lot of them and greeted several vampire men and women and no one seemed to have any animosity for him. At least with the ones who came out to talk to him. Those who wouldn't? Who knew? Maybe they couldn't be bothered with the prince when they didn't care about the rules of the clan. Or maybe they didn't like him interfering.
She thought he was mostly going to ask about the vampire who might have bitten her, but instead he asked, "We're looking to determine if anyone living outside the clan has lost anyone due to rogue hunters killing their loved ones."
That was a good in. Rather than focus on a rogue vampire, concentrate on someone they might have lost.
A vampire suddenly appeared, and she thought she'd seen him watching them from a second-story shop window. He was black-haired and eyed, and his anger was directed at Atreides. She was glad the man was leaving her out of it for the moment. But she realized if he took an angry step toward Atreides, she would be showing her baby fangs to him. When here she thought she would flee in the face of imminent danger that she knew she couldn't win at.
"What do you care about those of us in the border towns?" the man asked.
They didn't call themselves fringe vampires, but border town vamps. The hunters who didn't live by League rules weren't allowed to hunt, and they considered themselves free hunters. But if they hunted a vampire down, they were considered rogues by the League.