"Ivy likes her new toy," Skimmer said bitterly. "She doesn't want to play with her old dolls anymore."
I didn't think we were going to get anything out of Skimmer, but Ivy stopped. Her head was down as she gathered her thoughts, and slowly she spun around to the angry, frustrated vampire. "You were never a toy," she whispered, pleading for understanding.
"No, but you were." Skimmer's confidence flowed back, and she stood before us tall and proud. "Once. When we first met. I turned you back into a person."
Her eyes were black again, and my scars, both visible and hidden beneath my perfect skin, were tingling. Backing up, I found the wall. I felt safer, a false security.
Skimmer moved forward as I moved back, and the woman stopped right before Ivy. "I want you to hurt, Ivy," she breathed. "I want restitution for what you did to me."
"I didn't do anything to you."
"That's the point, love," Skimmer said, hitting Kisten's accent perfectly.
Ivy took a breath and held it, frozen as Skimmer started circling her. "You aren't going to have one good thing in your life," the smaller vampire said, and I knew she was talking about me. "Not one. And I'm going to take her from you. Know how?"
"If you touch her," Ivy threatened, and Skimmer laughed.
"No, silly Ivy girl. I'm better than that. You're going to do it for me."
I didn't get it. Skimmer had already tried to warn me off Ivy, and it hadn't worked. There wasn't anything she could do, but as the slinky woman wound herself more tightly around Ivy, I wondered what the intelligent vamp was thinking.
The satisfied noise coming from deep within her set my scars warming in memory. Her motions sultry and slow, Skimmer stopped, facing me, with Ivy between us, draping her arms around Ivy's neck. Ivy didn't move, frozen, and my gut tightened. "You want to know who visited Piscary?" Skimmer asked, her eyes flicking over Ivy's shoulder to me. "Bite me."
My face went cold. I didn't think she meant it in the negative sense.
"Right now," the small woman said, "in front of your new girlfriend. Show her the blood, the savagery, the monster you really are."
I took a breath and held it. I knew how ugly Ivy could be. I didn't want to see it again.
"I told you," Ivy whispered. "I'm not practicing anymore."
A surge of panic rose through me, and I jerked from the wall. "Since when?" I exclaimed, pretty much ignored. "I want you to practice. God, Ivy, it's who you are."
Skimmer just smiled, showing a slip of fang. "But it's not who she wants to be." Watching me, she played with the hair behind Ivy's ears until my blood pounded in anger. She was toying with Ivy, and I could do nothing. Ivy couldn't move, couldn't bring herself to pull away. Skimmer was in complete control.
"I want you to bite me," Skimmer said, "or you get—nothing."
Ivy's hands, fisted at her sides, trembled. "Why are you doing this to me?"
Her eyes fixing on me, Skimmer wound even more tightly against Ivy, kissing her neck. "Please?" she whispered, soft and petulant. "It's been ages, Ivy. And you're the best. I'd kill for you."
I pressed into the wall, wanting to escape. Skimmer put her mouth on an old scar under Ivy's ear, and a rush of remembered ecstasy rose through me at Ivy's tormented intake of breath.
"Don't do this," Ivy whispered, her hands rising to take Skimmer's elbows, but she couldn't push her away. It was too much. I knew it felt too good, and I leaned against the wall, unable to look away as the pheromones lit through my own scars and dove to my groin.
"I'm not making you do anything," Skimmer said. "You want to do this. How bad do you want to know who killed that bastard Kisten? How much did you love him? Was it real? Or was he just another one of your toys?"
I clenched my jaw harder. My neck was flaming, sending tendrils of promised ecstasy down my long muscles, making them tremble. "That's not fair," I managed. "Stop it."
Skimmer moved to Ivy's earlobe. "Life seldom is," she said, and I watched, fixated, as she bit down gently on Ivy's lobe, her white teeth on Ivy's skin. "Push me away," Skimmer whispered into her ear. "You can't do it. You're a monster, my sweet, and only I will love you. Little Bo Peep will lose her sheep if the sheep can see inside her. You'll be all alone, Ivy. And I'm the only one who loves you."
I exhaled, but the vampire scent I pulled in after it only made things worse. My eyes closed and I held myself, almost rocking with the pain of not wanting to be here. Too late I saw Skimmer's plan. She was going to drive Ivy into biting her, thinking if I saw Ivy rip open Skimmer's throat in a release of blood lust that I'd abandon her. Or if it turned into sex, the same result. This was ugly. It wasn't love, it was manipulation, using Ivy's instincts against her will. And Ivy couldn't stop it.
