My Little Ventrue Pt. 10 Ch. 07

"I guess that's better."

Garry laughed. "Though, at the Prince's parties, I guess it's both. She coming or what?"

"You know her."

"Right. Gotta be fashionably late and shit." Chuckling again, more than Jack had ever heard the man laugh at a ball, Garry looked around them at the empty space that'd been created. "You really scare people."

Jack reached under his shirt enough to pull out a sliver of his necklace for a moment. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine if a necklace is the only thing keeping you from going on a killing spree."

"I wou--"

"You wouldn't. The curse would. Sometimes I think I shouldn't have listened to Azamel, and just killed you instead."

Jack sneered at the man. "You would have anyway. She stopped you, remember? Unless you think you can kill me now."

Garry grinned at him and took another sip. "Nah. And besides, you got work to do, right?"

"I do." The ritual wouldn't stop itself.

"Gonna let me help?"

"If a problem comes up where I think you can help, I'll let you know. But it'll probably be a too-many-hands situation."

"If shit hits the fan, and I could have helped but you didn't get me, then I'll really kill you, you know."

Wincing, Jack looked out to the rest of the crowd. "If that happens, I'll probably already be dead."

Sighing, Garry took another sip of his drink, and pat Jack on the shoulder. Jack froze. He didn't expect physical touch. No one did. At least twenty vampires took notice, and stopped talking as they stared at Garry give Jack an almost buddy-buddy shoulder tap, before walking off.

Having Garry talk to him personally like that was weird, but it was weirder that he didn't ask about Mary. He wanted to, that much was obvious. Everyone at the party was sneaking glances at her, walking a little closer than necessary so they could see past the other vampires and check out the girl who got resurrected. A glance up showed the sheriff still watching her, Athalia too, so it wasn't like anyone was gonna try anything.

Thankfully, his mom was still with her, and entertaining people's questions. More vampires were happy to watch from a distance and not give away that they didn't understand how someone could ever get resurrected, but a few of the braver vamps were comfortable enough walking up to his sister and mother and actually asking. Jack couldn't hear with the music and crowd drowning him out, but the peeks he managed between the moving shoulders showed his mom deflecting questions as best she could.

Go over and help them? Maybe when an ancilla or elder decided to question them. Until then he--

"Garry chatting with you and patting your shoulder?" a woman's voice said. "That was odd."

Jack turned, and nearly jaw dropped. He didn't, because he'd gotten pretty good at controlling his expressions compared to who he was four years ago, but it was damn close.

Clara stood there in a white dress, her dark box-braid hair done up in some weird, top-heavy tower thing with a small metal rod stabbing through it to keep it up. The dress was very, very revealing, lots of lace straps that crisscrossed and held a couple white triangles over her breasts before connecting to a long skirt with two splits that went very high. White thong, very tiny, which according to the dress, she wanted everyone to know she was wearing. It all matched her tan skin perfectly.

"Jesus," he whispered.

Her smile brightened. Oh shit, he said that out loud.

"It's a nice dress," she said. "Elaine helped me pick it out."

"Of course she did. Did she, uh... accomplish her mission?"

"Mission?"

He gestured to her. "With you and Harcourt."

"She--oh. Christ, she's still trying to get us into bed?"

"Yeap. I'll take that as a no?"

"Nah, she hasn't succeeded. Yet. She's been flirting with me incessantly, and... after that time she Kissed me, I gotta admit, it's been harder to say no than I'd like." She grinned and scrunched up her nose like a squirrel. "And Harcourt is a guy. If I showed him another woman's tits, giant tits, in the palms of yours truly, I'm pretty sure he'd break instantly."

Jack gulped and looked around desperately for a drink. A server walked by, ten feet away, and Jack scooped up a drink, almost startling the server, before he went back to Clara.

"Elaine's pretty convincing." The memory of Elaine holding Clara's naked breasts and Kissing her in front of everyone was seared into Jack's mind. The thought of her riding Clara while Harcourt fucked them had naturally come up in his mind, too. The thought of Jack fucking Clara and Elaine together, instead of Harcourt, had come up a lot more.

"I hear she managed to seduce Mason," Clara said.

"Yeap."

"And, uh, I hear she even managed to get him to transform for her, for sexy times."

He choked on a laugh'. "She's pretty adventurous, sexually speaking. Every werewolf trying transforming now, for sex?"

"Most. I haven't."

"But..."

"But Harcourt is open to the idea." She laughed and shrugged, and sipped her own glass. "I have no idea how it'd go, you know? I mean, with a guy werewolf and a normal -- or vampire -- girl, I can kinda understand. But a girl werewolf?" She held up her hands, created a ring with a thumb and index, and then penetrated the ring with her other index finger. Then she increased the size of the hole using her whole hand, and again penetrated it with just a finger, now much smaller by comparison.

Jack laughed until he had to reel it in before he spilled his drink.

"Maybe. You'll never know unless you try."

"I suppose. We're all pretty new to this whole sex thing. When transformed, I mean. There's something damn weird about this city, that we can transform and not feel a need to go berserk, assuming we transform where there's no fighting or hunting."

"Sure it's the city doing it?"

"Double sure. You don't understand, Jack. Gauru form is all aggression and a need to hunt, claw, bite, shred, and kill. It takes over you and--"

"Vampires have Beasts, you know." Not to mention Jack's unusual circumstance.

"Yeah but that's only a problem when you're literally starving, right?"

"Yeah, and when you get a little too used to... hunting, clawing, biting, shredding, and killing. Beast instincts get louder and louder until they take over. Then you're just a mindless draugr that needs putting down."

"Then I guess being draugr is kinda like Gauru form, mentally. It's not something you fuck around with." Clara nodded as she looked out to the crowd. "Never met a draugr."

"Pretty big Masquerade risk. No draugr in Dolareido while I've been a vampire, but they do sometimes pop up." And were taken down by vampires. Jack did not look forward to joining a hunt like that.

"Happier thoughts!" She sipped her drink and nudged him with her elbow. "Your sister's alive. No one saw that coming."

"No one tell you?"

"We knew. Matt and Art told us because Tash told them. But we were all a little... scared."

"You're telling me," he said. "Mom is beside herself with joy, and Mary is right behind her. They're both so happy, and all I can think is: this is too good to be true."

"I don't know about too good to be true. She was a ghost, right? And she has a body now, right? A ghost possessing a body isn't unheard of."

"I guess. It's... not really the same."

"I guess not. She really seems alive. And, um, excited."

Jack winced as he managed to get another peek at his damn sister. She was working on another glass, and was getting a little too close to a vampire that'd approached her. Zack, a Daeva in Isabella's troupe. Behind him was, speak of the devil, Isabella Leauvion and her lover Hella Vendram. Hella wore a nice white dress, but Isabella wore black, tight black, with a long tight skirt. Hell, she had a black under bust corset on, tight enough it'd be a breathing hazard for a human. She wasn't saying anything, just watching as Zack chatted up Jack's mom and sis, probably on his boss's orders.

And Mary was responding, giggling even as she smiled at Zack and nodded about something. She was flirting with him.

"You're nothing like your sister," Clara said.

"We're... similar in some ways, I guess. But no, we're not."

"Almost seems like Natasha would fit you better as a sister."

Jack laughed. "She's a lot more similar to me than Mary, yeah, but that's not really what you find in family members, you know? You're similar over... less obvious stuff."

"So where do you and Mary overlap?"

A deep need for honesty, even when it was dumb.

"I'd rather not say."

It was Clara's turn to laugh.

"Where's your harem?"

"I--it's not a harem! Veronica, Leilani, and Rachel are back at the mansion. I'll bring them to a ball when I feel comfortable about it."

With an evil grin, Clara nodded toward one of the nearby ghouls, a man, who was slowly getting herded toward the one of the tables by two women, looked blatantly nervous. Two Carthians having fun with one of their ghouls, and judging from the look on a man's face who was watching nearby, it was his ghoul. He was having fun letting a couple other vampires prey on him.

"You don't want your girls getting Kissed by other vampires?"

"No." In fact, the idea of his thralls being rounded up and herded by other vampires grated on him, badly.

"Typical man. Doesn't wanna share."

Jack raised a brow at Clara, but she just grinned at him as she sipped her wine. It couldn't have been her first drink, with the way she tilted a little when she sipped, and the way she was smiling at him.

A part of him was tempted to ask her about them, her and Jack, maybe say something about how much he wished it could have worked. But somewhere deep in his dumbass brain, a kernel of wisdom was growing. Let sleeping dogs lie, or something like that. She'd moved on, and judging from the way she waved at Harcourt when he peeked out from the crowd before striking up a conversation with Natasha, Clara seemed pretty happy with him. Which confused him, cause the man was clearly empty in the head. But maybe that was the better fit for Clara. No accounting for taste.

She turned to ask him something, but before she could, the announcer spoke up.

"Presenting elder Jacob, leader of the Circle of the Crone, and his witches Beatrice Damor, Jennifer Denver, Aaron Jones, and Othello Manu."

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~~Beatrice~~

The crowd stared at them, more than a few of them dropping their jaws. Every single witch, coming together, after what had no doubt become the biggest point of gossip in the whole city, would attract a lot of attention.

Jacob wore a suit that looked more like some sort of hybrid between an expensive business suit, and an Indian man's dress; the suit's jacket buttons were off to the side and the jacket was snug around his neck before reaching past his hips. Purple, which he'd taken a liking to lately. Combined with the sunglasses, he looked like some sort of rich Indian billionaire fashionado. It was actually kinda annoying how well he pulled off eclectic shit.

Othello wore some simple dress pants and a black silk shirt that he didn't bother to button, and Madison stayed snug at his side, wearing a classic open back red dress. Simple, but effective, and Triss could already see a lot of eyes going Othello's way.

Aaron wore a gray casual suit, no tie. No tie, because Jen had yanked it off and threatened to garrote him with it if he insisted on wearing the most boring possible clothes combination in the history of ties. She'd also undone the first few buttons of his shirt and forced him to keep the jacket undone, also under threat of violence. Eventually, the man submitted.

Then there was Jen and Triss. Matching dresses, because Jen wanted to make a statement: they came as a pair. It was Jen's way of being romantic, Triss supposed. For whatever reason, Jen wasn't exactly interested in romance herself, but despite that, she was basically Triss's girlfriend. It was a weird friends-with-benefits-but-more situation, and Triss was happy for it. The matching dresses were almost heartwarming in that light. And sexy as fuck, when considering it basically announced to everyone at the party that they came together for sexy times, too.

They both wore black, loose dresses that hung, open back with a long skirt, split all the way up past the hip, with the waist of the dress held snug with a tight strap. Opposite of the split, the dress didn't cover the arm or shoulder or anything, saving that for the side with the split, where the dress had a shoulder and sleeve. So, left shoulder covered, right leg covered. Right shoulder naked, left leg naked. And considering how little fabric actually went into making the dresses, it basically meant everyone got to see Triss's entire left leg and left ass cheek, no underwear, and most of the right side of her torso. They got to see most of her tattoos. If the dress had been any looser, her right tit would have been out.

Jen wore the same dress. Jen and Triss did look similar, crocodile teeth and green snake eyes aside, so it actually kinda worked. It sealed the 'pair' motif. And it pulled a lot of eyes, just as Jen knew it would.

The five of them -- er, six, with Madison -- stepped down into the pit of doom. Christ, she hated balls, and not just because they reminded her of Julias.

"I know you're all wondering," Jacob said, voice loud enough for everyone to hear, not loud enough to ruin the music, "but if you want details, I'm afraid you won't get them. Now stop bothering my girlfriend and her daughter." And like he'd just told a bunch of children to stop being noisy, he walked straight through the crowd toward Sam, and pulled her to him.

Cue big fancy kiss, complete with Jacob dipping Sam. Cue swooning sigh from Mary.

Triss and Jen shared glances and rolled their eyes.

"Boys," Jen said, looking behind her, "go have fun." Her two ghouls followed in behind, dressed in some casual suits not unlike Aaron's, and nodded with a couple of evil smiles before they moved into the crowd.

"You know some other vamp might try and poach them."

"Maybe. But after learning that the great Beatrice managed resurrection, I think most people will be a little hesitant to cross us."

"Heh. Fuck, people are going to bother me with questions, aren't they?"

Jen grinned as she nodded to the crowd, who were slowly recovering from Jacob's epic entrance. "If Samantha or Mary were stupid enough to reveal who was responsible, probably. Neither of them are exactly trained in controlling their tongue."

"I think Sam will be fine. Mary, not so much, but she doesn't know enough to be a problem. And I don't think she'll blabber... assuming she doesn't get too drunk."

Both girls chuckled, a little nervously, when Mary downed her drink and moved onto another. But surprisingly, Jacob stopped her from shotting the next one. A short exchange between them and Sam led to some laughter, and Mary nodded as she sipped the drink instead.

Damn, Jacob. The dude had no business being as suave as he was, or looking as good as he did in the clothes he wore.

Triss spotted Jack, and she waved at him. He returned the wave. So did Clara. Holy shit she looked good in a pretty, slutty white dress. Like, more than good. Like, now Triss really pitied the kid being forced to pick between her and Antoinette.

Instead of going to talk to the kid, Triss did a little more recon at the base of the stairs where she was still considered 'not quite in the pit'. She wouldn't get swarmed by curious people as long as she stayed here, before she'd inevitably join the arena. Not yet.

She spotted the werewolves, mingling, getting drunk, getting horny. More than a few of them were either looking Mary's way, Jacob's way, or Triss's way. She spotted most of the vampires she knew, though Miss Tits and Miss Bigger Tits weren't here yet. Begotten? She spotted Fiona, showing off her ass instead of her tits tonight. Mark? No sign of him, thank god. Sándor? No, she didn't see him, but she knew he was either coming or already here. Fucker was probably hiding in the crowd, or maybe up on the balcony with--

Athalia. Oh shit. Triss nudged Jen's side, and both of them looked up to see Athalia and the sheriff on the balcony, looking down at Mary.

"Oh shit," Jen said.

"Oh shit, I forgot," Triss said.

"Forgot what?" Aaron asked as he stepped in beside her. He looked up. "Oh."

"Don't worry about it," Othello said, voice smooth and undaunted as he walked toward the crowd, arm over Madison's shoulders. "Athalia will be fine, now that she's getting some dick."

Jen and Triss both groaned as they watched the gorgeous idiot wander off.

"He does make a point," Aaron said. "Crude, but pointed. Athalia isn't the same woman she was before."

"Should we talk to her?" Triss asked.

"I... wouldn't. She's still Athalia, after all. Changed, but still her, and probably struggling with what she's seeing. Give her time." Nodding, Aaron the Wise walked into the crowd after Othello; probably to keep an eye on the moron and keep him from stirring up trouble.

He made sense. Athalia and Beatrice avoided each other, for the obvious reason, and now Samantha was getting to have exactly what Athalia was denied: reconciliation and reunion with her daughter. It must have fucking sucked to see that.

It didn't take long for Othello to find someone to talk to, with the obvious attempt of getting them in bed. Bella, the asshole. But she did seem a little receptive. Maybe it was because it was Othello, and the dumb bastard could disarm most people to get them naked. Maybe it was because Madison's red dress left little to the imagination, and Bella was looking at a tasty meal. Maybe it was because Othello was smarter than anyone realized, and he was trying to defuse the tension Bella was carrying out.

Nah, probably the first option.

Jen took Triss's hand, and the two walked into the crowd. Sure enough, people took interest in them. Plenty of them were a bit put off by Triss's mouth, but plenty didn't seem to mind, either. More than a few took a long time looking at her ass, and considering the dress left the whole left ass cheek completely exposed, they got to see a lot. No point in denying it, she liked the attention despite her words to the contrary, and Jen knew it. And, she had a fucking amazing ass.

So when she a caught a peek at Sándor in the corner of her eye, and the man was clearly looking at her fucking amazing ass, she grinned. But before she could go and flaunt a little more directly, some vampires closed in on her. A lot of vampires, all Carthians.

"How'd you do it?"

She spun around, and grinned at the bald bastard. Garry. Soft blue suit with a red shirt. It looked surprisingly good on the old fucker with all his scars and shit, almost like a retired fighter enjoying his fortune or something.

"I don't work for you anymore. I'm not telling you anything. Besides, you don't know if I did shit."

"Word is out. Beatrice the witch resurrected Mary the ghost."

She groaned and looked at Jen, but Jen shrugged. Neither of them had said a thing.

"Who--"

Garry shook his head. "It wasn't Sam or her kid."

"Then..." Slowly, Beatrice looked through the crowd with a piercing gaze until she found the culprit responsible. Jacob, still with Sam, talking and flirting with her. People gave him space, but at the same time, the dude was weaving a tale for all nearby listeners, and getting people's attention as Sam listened with awe. Probably about some witchy activity in a dark forgotten jungle or something. Probably preceded with a tale about how Beatrice resurrected Mary, the bastard.

Mary, standing beside her mom, listened with just as much awe. At least at first. After a while she drifted to the side a bit, and resumed her conversation with Zack and a few other vampires. She had a lot of people's attention, for multiple reasons, judging on where they were looking. And considering the girl looked tipsy already, she was already pretty damn receptive. If Sam didn't intervene, someone would have their fangs and dick in that girl before the night was over.