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could wait.
Last night had been difficult. Difficult and different. Zara so nervous her
whole body shook. And Raf . . .
? She took him to her room, something she'd done with no other man and
stripped to her thong in front of him, only losing her nerve at the last
minute. Having sent him to the bathroom, she killed the light and hid under
the covers.
Except that when he came back, all Raf seemed to want to do was lie in the
darkness and let the moment wash over him. Something impossible for Zara.
"This is not fair,"
she'd said suddenly.
And thinking he knew what Zara meant, Raf nodded agreement and in that
second's movement shut down his night vision until everything in her room
became outlines and shadow.
"It is now."
"No, I mean this.
"
And he knew then that Zara meant their lying in the dark, so much unspoken
between them.
"There's something I need to tell you . . ." Raf said tentatively.
"Let me guess," she said. "I'm not the first. In fact you've fucked your way
through an entire phone book of my friends. You have three children, well,
that you know about . . . You're only after my millions . . ."
"This is serious," said Raf.
"So was I," Zara answered. And pulled Raf to her and kissed him as her hand
slid under his rib cage and then both her hands locked behind his back, so
that Raf's full weight rested on her trapped arm.
She felt him go hard.
"You're naked," said Raf, the fingers of his right hand tracing the crease of
her buttocks, just to make sure he hadn't got that wrong.
He hadn't known, Zara realized. She'd been safely tucked under a quilt by the
time he returned to the room.
There'd been one night, months before, when she'd talked and he'd listened,
although she couldn't remember it and he could; but then, if Raf was to be
believed, he remembered everything, which was maybe not a good place to be.
"It's important," said Raf, holding her face between his hands. "And it
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concerns who I am. What I am . .
."
"You're you," said Zara. "That's enough."
"No," said Raf sadly, "it isn't. It's not anything like enough."
Zara wanted to know why, so Raf told her. Or rather he didn't. He told her a
fairy story instead. "Once,"
said Raf, his fingers caressing the side of her face, "there was a son of
Lilith . . ."
Raf took it as read that Zara knew Lilith's story. Adam's first wife, mother
to vampyres and djinn. A
woman expelled from Eden for fucking the snake.
"He was older than he looked because, although his days were as your days, his
nights were often longer, one of them so long that fir trees grew and houses
were built while he slept. Someone who loved him grew old and stopped loving
him, seeing her own life and increasing age reflected in the puzzlement in his
eyes every time he woke from the cold sleep . . ."
If Zara thought it was odd that Raf told her a folktale she kept this thought
to herself. Remembering stories Hani had told her. Small girl's stories. Of
the kind easily dismissed.
"He slept the cold sleep because that was the easiest way not to die. Until
one day he awoke and Lilith had died and her friends had forgotten him or no
longer cared if he escaped. So he did what sons of Lilith do, moved to a
strange country to live undetected as a human for seven years. For if a
vampyre or djinn can live undetected for seven years he will become as human."
"So Hani told me," said Zara.
"She did?"
"She's told everybody," Zara said. "It's in a book, the original story. About
how a son of Lilith can become as human. But the children will be born sons of
Lilith."
"Sons of Lilith, daughters of Lilith," said Raf. "In my case it's called germ
line manipulation. Whatever I
am my children will become."
"And what are you?"
Raf thought about it. "I'm not sure," he said finally. "I get voices. I see in
the dark. There are three extra ribs on either side of my rib cage. My eyes
hurt in the daylight. My memory is too distressingly perfect for my mind to
manage . . ."
"All of this is your mother's responsibility?"
"Or Emir Moncef's," said Raf, "but it gets messier." He felt the girl go still
and shifted gently away from her, giving Zara space. "I've opened the bags . .
. Secret files," he added, when he realized she didn't quite understand. "It's
like reading the technical specifications for a new type of car. One that
might not work."
"What's the worst?"
"Immortality. Or if not immortality, then longevity. How long I don't know but
longer than is now normal."
"You knew this when you refused to marry me?"
"Some of it," said Raf. He stopped himself. "More than some," he said but the
anger was directed at himself. "What I wasn't told as a child I overheard.
It's relatively easy to code for heightened hearing.
Less easy to understand the implications if one's own hearing is normal and
the subject is three rooms away."
"I'm sorry," Zara said. Her hand moved up to touch his face and came away wet.
She believed him implicitly.
"So am I," said Raf.
Later, when he hung over her in the darkness, both of them drunk with longing,
Raf bent forward and kissed Zara lightly on the forehead. There was something
else he hadn't mentioned. If he understood it
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right, then immortality was sexually transmitted; the act of being pregnant
infected both mother and embryo.
The second time they made love began slow and ended up hard and fast. It
started with Zara swinging herself on top of Raf and straddling his hips, her
face only inches from his. Outside their window, the city was expectant for
what would come the next day. Guards stood at the gates of the Bardo and
patrolled the streets around the palace complex. Major Gide and Raf having
agreed this as a matter of protocol only. Done because it was expected.
"Remember the boat?" Zara said.
As if he could forget. Water so blue it was almost purple. The scent of
rosemary and thyme carried on a warm wind across a bay. And then the return
trip. Hani safely asleep and Zara bringing him a beer as he sulked outside and
time and the ocean slid past.
"What boat?" Raf demanded.
Leaning forward, Zara put her mouth over his and bit, hard enough to draw
blood. "That boat," she said.
They kissed and, slowly and rather clumsily, Zara reached down to position Raf
against her. To Zara he was a shadow against white sheets, a watchful silent
silhouette; for Raf she was lit clear as daylight . . .
He could see her mouth twisting, eyes open and fixed on nothing, her breasts
swaying forward with each rock of her hips, impossibly beautiful.
Reaching up with open hands, Raf felt warm flesh overflow his fingers and
tried not to be offended when
Zara absentmindedly lifted his hands away and went back to her rocking. After
she'd ridden him in silence long enough for Raf to fade out his vision and
lose himself in the rhythm, Zara took his hand and positioned it on her
abdomen so that Raf's thumb reached between swollen lips.
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