blush slowly creeping up her delicate bronzed features, making her exotic dancer looks shine with a sensuality I hadn't noticed before. The slightly uncomfortable soft cough was enough to shake Rick out of the moment and he slowly rose up off her.
“You can never beat me and you know it,” he said with a lower voice than usual.
“ In your dreams, deadbeat,” came her reply, as she dusted herself down and walked stiffly back towards me, shoulders back, head held high. I couldn't help smiling to myself, Celeste was, for all her shark-like characteristics, all woman. None of us liked being shown up.
“ Come on,” she said as she climbed the veranda steps towards me, “we've laid a Hangi. We're feasting this arvo.”
A Hangi is a traditional Maori method of cooking. The food is wrapped in tin foil - it used to be big leaves, but modern technology has far reaches - and is laid on hot stones, then buried under dirt. It's left to cook for several hours. This one would have been started before dawn.
The food when retrieved is succulent and tender, like nothing you've experienced before. And there's usually heaps of it. Enough to feed an army, or in this case a ravenous pre-Rākaunui Hapū of Taniwhas. I love it. I can't deny, but I can never stomach as much as the others. I'm a bird in comparison.
“Need a hand?” I asked as I followed Celeste inside.
“ Na, she's right mate. Just come and have a natter while I prep some salad.”
Celeste lives with her mum. Her dad died several years ago. Cancer I think. Even Taniwhas have to face mundane ailments. Her mum must have been out with the other elders, because the house was quiet. Bare wooden floors led into the kitchen, the heart of the home. The kitchen bench was covered with salad ingredients and cakes and Pavlova for dessert. It was going to be a feast all right.
“So, how's it going in the city?” Celeste refuses to believe she lives in the city. To her the small parcel of wooded land around her home was proof positive that she was a country girl. I didn't have the heart to correct her.
“ Busy. Complicated. You know how it is?” I replied, whilst slipping into a seat at the bench to watch her work.
“ Complicated? That wouldn't have something to do with a particular Master of the City, would it?”
I don't usually go into much detail with Celeste. I consider her a friend, but we're not as close as Rick and I. Still, she is the only girlfriend I have and even hardened vampire hunters need to vent occasionally.
I let a frustrated breath out. “He's...” I paused trying to put into words the tumble of emotions Michel seemed to be able to elicit from me, “...persistent, aggravating, superior.” The list could go on, but I stopped before I got totally carried away and admitted more than just the negative emotions he managed to create in me.
She laughed. It seemed to be way more knowing and understanding than I had expected. “He's a male, Luce, they really can't help throwing their weight around. It's ingrained in them since birth. See a beautiful woman, make her yours. It's a compulsion they can't deny.”
“So, we should just accept it? Let them bang their fists against their chests and roar like Tarzan?” I asked, incredulously. No way would Celeste go for that. Shape shifter or not, she was a strong-minded twenty-first century woman.
“ Hell no, mate! You use it to your advantage. You let them think they own you, but you defy them at every turn. My mum always says, a woman should play hard to get. No man wants an easy target.”
I wasn't so sure I could play anything with Michel. He was the enemy. The idea of getting close enough to play sent an unwanted shiver of pure terror, mixed with a smidgeon of excited anticipation, down my spine. It was probably all a game to him , but I liked to think that the attachment of my head to the rest of my body was something more serious than just a game. I could never forget he was a vampire, that evil
“You can never beat me and you know it,” he said with a lower voice than usual.
“ In your dreams, deadbeat,” came her reply, as she dusted herself down and walked stiffly back towards me, shoulders back, head held high. I couldn't help smiling to myself, Celeste was, for all her shark-like characteristics, all woman. None of us liked being shown up.
“ Come on,” she said as she climbed the veranda steps towards me, “we've laid a Hangi. We're feasting this arvo.”
A Hangi is a traditional Maori method of cooking. The food is wrapped in tin foil - it used to be big leaves, but modern technology has far reaches - and is laid on hot stones, then buried under dirt. It's left to cook for several hours. This one would have been started before dawn.
The food when retrieved is succulent and tender, like nothing you've experienced before. And there's usually heaps of it. Enough to feed an army, or in this case a ravenous pre-Rākaunui Hapū of Taniwhas. I love it. I can't deny, but I can never stomach as much as the others. I'm a bird in comparison.
“Need a hand?” I asked as I followed Celeste inside.
“ Na, she's right mate. Just come and have a natter while I prep some salad.”
Celeste lives with her mum. Her dad died several years ago. Cancer I think. Even Taniwhas have to face mundane ailments. Her mum must have been out with the other elders, because the house was quiet. Bare wooden floors led into the kitchen, the heart of the home. The kitchen bench was covered with salad ingredients and cakes and Pavlova for dessert. It was going to be a feast all right.
“So, how's it going in the city?” Celeste refuses to believe she lives in the city. To her the small parcel of wooded land around her home was proof positive that she was a country girl. I didn't have the heart to correct her.
“ Busy. Complicated. You know how it is?” I replied, whilst slipping into a seat at the bench to watch her work.
“ Complicated? That wouldn't have something to do with a particular Master of the City, would it?”
I don't usually go into much detail with Celeste. I consider her a friend, but we're not as close as Rick and I. Still, she is the only girlfriend I have and even hardened vampire hunters need to vent occasionally.
I let a frustrated breath out. “He's...” I paused trying to put into words the tumble of emotions Michel seemed to be able to elicit from me, “...persistent, aggravating, superior.” The list could go on, but I stopped before I got totally carried away and admitted more than just the negative emotions he managed to create in me.
She laughed. It seemed to be way more knowing and understanding than I had expected. “He's a male, Luce, they really can't help throwing their weight around. It's ingrained in them since birth. See a beautiful woman, make her yours. It's a compulsion they can't deny.”
“So, we should just accept it? Let them bang their fists against their chests and roar like Tarzan?” I asked, incredulously. No way would Celeste go for that. Shape shifter or not, she was a strong-minded twenty-first century woman.
“ Hell no, mate! You use it to your advantage. You let them think they own you, but you defy them at every turn. My mum always says, a woman should play hard to get. No man wants an easy target.”
I wasn't so sure I could play anything with Michel. He was the enemy. The idea of getting close enough to play sent an unwanted shiver of pure terror, mixed with a smidgeon of excited anticipation, down my spine. It was probably all a game to him , but I liked to think that the attachment of my head to the rest of my body was something more serious than just a game. I could never forget he was a vampire, that evil
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