“An actual sub is much more likely to let things get carried away before calling a halt to it, even if they’re experienced. From what I heard, there were some guys who have tried to hook up with the house a ways back who didn’t pass muster because they weren’t good at being dominants. And you’re right, she isn’t that fond of doing it, but she did it and the first thing she wanted to do afterward was go talk to you about it. You, her best friend after only being here three weeks. Remember how you felt when you first started going through all this and you couldn’t talk to your sister?”
“I felt . . . lost,” Shamira replied. “I couldn’t get oriented. But Clara –”
“Clara isn’t perfect any more than the rest of us, and she’s had to adapt to some changes too. Imagine doing something you really didn’t want to do for someone else and then have that person not around to tell. How would you feel?”
“Angry,” Shamira said tiredly. “Or just plain frustrated.”
Renata helped Shamira to her feet. “Shane said that I’m in charge tonight, and my first official act is to tell you that you’re going to be in the ceremony. This way, Shane will have punished you, but you’ll still get to do what you promised. You should probably apologize to Shane, Sebastian, and definitely Clara.”
“What about Henry? Or you?”
“Screw Henry. You can apologize to me by letting me get some sleep.” Renata smiled and looked over the girl’s body. “You could even join me, seeing as I doubt that you’ve gotten much rest here.”
“Uhm, we are actually talking about ‘sleep,’ right?”
“Sure. That too. Assuming it’s okay with Clara.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re rooming with her until we come up with a more permanent housing solution. We’re getting eight new people and we were one bedroom short. Putting you in with Clara just made sense since you’re in there all the time anyway.” Renata’s grin was wide enough to scare small children by this point.
This was another moment when Shamira was glad that vampires didn’t blush.
The two of them walked around to the car, where Henry and Clara were sitting on the hood. Henry glanced at Clara, who had a flash of concern before it was forcibly replaced with snootiness. Or it tried.
Shamira sucked it up, walking up to Clara and meeting that glare. “I’m sorry for behaving stupidly. I got freaked out . . . again . . . by what happened with Sebastian, and then having to put a bullet through Tabitha’s heart . . . that I won’t feel less weird about until we’ve dug her and she’s standing in front of me. You know, so I know it’s okay.” She saw Clara’s gaze soften a bit. “I was embarrassed and I didn’t want to go home.” Shamira chewed her bottom lip a little bit and tried to convey a to-be-continued apology. She saw the tiniest bit of a smile play at the corners of Clara’s mouth.
Henry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s sticking by your guns, Clara,” he told his comrade.
“I just can’t stay mad at her!” Clara said in a teenager girl’s voice. “She’s so cute!”
“Now I feel like a puppy,” Shamira replied.
The car ride back up to the house wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as Shamira would have expected. It was quiet, but mostly because no one knew what if anything needed to be said. As soon as the arrived, Shamira found herself on her way to see Shane. She walked in and saw her boss sitting behind his desk and —
“Calm down,” Shane told her, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Sebastian. The hunky new enforcer looked like he had been woken up just for this meeting. Both men had stern looks on their faces, one sitting behind the desk and one leaning against a bookshelf nearby.
While Shamira’s skin started to crawl the second she saw Sebastian, there was something about the scene that tickled her. She was plastered to the wall, trying to imagine the man instead of the arachnid inside when the weird sense of deja vu cleared up and . . . Shamira started to laugh. It was a gasping, painful laugh at first as amusement warred with fear, but eventually she just toppled over laughing.
Shane was shocked. He looked at Sebastian and said, “I take everything back. She’s completely mad.”
Sebastian just looked baffled. “She scared me less when she was kicking my ass.”
It took almost a full minute for Shamira to compose herself enough to gasp, “I’ve been sent to the principal’s office! Again!”
“Yes, she’s lost it all right.” Shane had wanted this to be a more serious event, but it was hard not to smile when Shamira was so completely lost in her mirth. She needed to laugh more. “Shamira, please stop laughing and . . . Shamira!”
The woman in question set off on another peal of laughter. Shane sounded like her high school principal Mr. Keason when he was yelling at her that she almost died. Maybe Shane was right. Maybe she’d finally just snapped. But eventually she was able to get herself together, stand up straight and face them both with only an occasional snicker. A bit of the fear returned with her control, but it was diminished somewhat.
“Sir,” she said, directing her voice towards Shane, “I’m sorry for my outburst here. I’m . . . I’m a little out of sorts. And I’m sorry for ruining your party yesterday.” She looked at Sebastian, trying to quell the lump in her throat. “Suh- . . . Sebastian, I need to apologize to you as well. You see, I’m a bit scared, and by scared I mean terrified, of spiders. It is difficult for me to separate the creature from the man in this case, and . . . and you surprised me.”
“Surprised you? Miss Shamira, I haven’t been beaten around like that since my first trip into an African revolution. And quite honestly, the combatants there were a bit gentler.” He smiled at that part. It was a disarming smile.
“My behavior was unforgivable,” she said.
“Actually, it rather is forgivable,” Sebastian said. “Yes, you were . . . shall we say overzealous? Yes, that’s a good word. You were overzealous in you administration of physical harm, but Renata had told me that you were afraid of spiders. I should have been more careful.”
“Sebastian, you don’t need to apologize,” Shane said.
“But I’d like to,” the man replied smoothly. “Her punishment is up to you of course, but I hold no ill will towards her. Shamira, do you think that your fear is going to be a problem with us working together?”
“I think that I can control myself better,” she said. She paused, and then, “But at this time, I think that working together is all I’m comfortable with. I . . . I don’t think I could be . . . physical . . . with you. Not comfortably.”
Shane nodded. “I find that reasonable. No submissive in this house should ever experience fear during the course of fulfilling their duties. I expect you to continue working with Banshee as well as Sebastian on overcoming your phobia. And I’ve put Renata in charge of tonight’s dealings with the faeries.”
“I know, sir. She told me.”
“And you don’t have a problem with this?”
Shamira shrugged. “I would like it to still be my operation, but I’ll respect your decision.”
Shane didn’t trust her compliance for a minute, but he’d let Renata deal with it. “I may assign further punishment later. Now go get some sleep, and I mean ‘sleep.’ Don’t let Clara or anyone else start anything else. You look like you need the rest.”
‘Why does everyone think that Clara and I can’t be in the same room without getting it on?’ Shamira thought. She actually liked just being around her friend sometimes. Being naked and sweaty was just a bonus. “Yes sir. And sir?”
“Yes?”
“I know I shouldn’t be asking for favors, but could I be there to help exhume Tabitha? I . . . I really need to see her . . . to be sure.”
Shane nodded. He’d wondered how Shamira was going to react to that. “Absolutely. The funeral will be on Monday so the grave-robbing will occur on Monday night while the ground is still soft. We’ll make that a mandatory safe day for you as well. Now be off. You’ll be staying with Clara until living arrangements are finalized.”
Shamira nodded first to Shane and then Sebastian. He had been such a good sport about what Shamira had done to him that she felt even worse for having done it. She got to Clara’s room to find Renata asleep in the bed and Clara sitting at her laptop.
“How’d it go?”
“They were both very nice about it. Shane was disappointed, Sebastian was understanding, and I broke down laughing because it reminded me of the times I got sent to the principal’s office.”
“You did?”
“Yup. And Clara, I’m sorry to you too.”
Clara took her friend and lover’s hands. “What was it about me being with Sebastian that made you hang up on me?”
Shamira struggled with the words. “Since I got brought over, I’ve been trying to figure out how this world works. One of the rules is that you’re a dominant. The idea of you having sex and . . . and not really enjoying it weirded me out. And it being him, Sebastian I mean, just . . . it just made me really creeped out.”
Clara smiled warmly. “Shamira, were you jealous?”
Shamira wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. “Yeah, I guess I was. I guess I always am. I mean, it isn’t as bad when it’s one of the other subs, but . . . let’s just say I’ll be a lot happier when you’ve ‘tested’ all the new doms and get back to being you.”