The taxi stopped at two large wooden doors recessed into the wall, flanked with torches. I got out, my mouth open, and my eyes bugging with amazement as I tipped my head back to try to take in all five floors of the building. “That is truly amazing. OK, I want my vampire to have a castle. I could so live in that.”
“Here is castle,” the driver said again, a bit more forcefully, and added, “Twenty-five euro.”
“Oh, sorry. Sure. Here, I think I have ... yeah. Here you go.” I doled out the appropriate money, gave her a sizable tip, and, with my suitcase in hand, approached the doors.
Each door bore a huge wrought iron knocker in the shape of a heart pierced with an arrow, but a discreet little button set beneath a metal speaker caught my eye just as I was about to pound on the door. I pressed the button, almost dancing with excitement. I was going to meet Aunt Roxy’s vampire! I had so many questions for him, so many things I desperately wanted to know after reading his steamy books. And now I was about to meet—
A voice spoke in Czech from the metal grille above the doorbell. I was momentarily disappointed by the fact that it was a woman’s voice, but pulled my wits together enough to answer what I assumed was a query as to who I was, and what I wanted.
“Hello. My name is Tempest Keye, and my aunt is a friend of Mr. Dante’s. She was supposed to let him know I was arriving.”
“Tempest?” the woman asked, the voice tinny and distorted. “Your name is Tempest? That is storm, yes?”
“Yes to both. Is this Allie? Roxy said she talked to you about me visiting.”
“Am Tilda. Am housekeeper. You wait.”
I waited, disappointment dampening my joy. “Stop being a baby,” I told myself. “Patience, virtue, and all that. Oh, hi.”
The door opened to reveal a small, dark woman with salt-and-pepper hair. “Come,” she said, taking my suitcase. “You have yellow room. Dante and Allie not here. Will come later. You go with me.”
I followed her up a staircase and across a dark-paneled hall complete with medieval weapons on the wall, banners hanging from the ceiling, and several toys of the Big Wheel variety. There was also a bike, a small doll’s house, and an elaborate Star Wars Lego setup. We climbed another flight of stairs, then went down a dizzying number of hallways until Tilda stopped at a door, and opened it to reveal a room done in various shades of yellow and red, with gorgeous Japanese paintings on the silk hangings.
“You wash, or go to library now?”
“A library in the castle?” I asked hesitantly, wanting to make sure she wasn’t shunting me out to the town’s local library.
“Yes, yes, Dante’s library. You come.”
I left my suitcase and hurried after her, afraid that if I lost sight of her, I’d be forever wandering the halls. We went down a flight and, after a couple of twists and turns, emerged into a large room lit by soft golden light that seemed to gild the spines of books contained in the massive mahogany glass-fronted bookcases. There were several low display cases along one wall, as well, but it was the sheer number of books that had me gasping in pleasure.
“You stay here. I bring tea, then I leave. Allie and Dante home soon,” Tilda announced.
“Oh. You don’t live here?”
“No.” She was gone before I could say anything more. I wondered if I was going to be nervous at being alone in a big old medieval castle, but then it occurred to me that I might not be alone after all. A place this size had to have a full-time staff.
When Tilda brought me in a tray containing a pot of tea, some cookies, and a couple of crustless sandwiches, I realized just how hungry I was. “Thank you for this. It looks wonderful. Oh, can you tell me who else is in the castle?”
She paused at the door and glanced back at me. “Who else?”
“Yes, whatever other ... uh ...” I didn’t want to say the word “servant,” since it sounded far too snobbish. “Whatever other staff is here?”
“Is me. I leave now. Dante home soon.”
The door closed on the last of her words, leaving me feeling, for a moment at least, remarkably alone.
“Don’t be stupid,” I chided myself aloud as I sat down at the table at which Tilda had set the food. “How many people get to eat a vampire’s sandwiches in his very own library? Not very many, that’s who.”
That little pep talk kept me going a couple of hours while I perused C. J. Dante’s books. I was super excited to find he had a collection of not only his own vampire books but a large number by other authors, and happily dipped into several books that were new to me. By the time the little clock on a massive desk that took up one corner of the room chimed eleven, however, I was exhausted, no doubt due to residual jet lag.
I wandered out to the main hall with its toys, and wondered where my hosts were. “And should I stay up to be here when they finally roll in, or should I give in and go to my room to sleep, so they don’t find me slouched in a chair sound asleep and drooling on myself?”
The mental image of that was enough to drive me up the stairs, but not before I left a note on one of the tables in the hall saying that I’d arrived, but gone to bed.
“I hope nothing’s happened to them,” I murmured, climbing into the bed. I could imagine any number of horrible accidents that would keep someone from arriving home safely, but was comforted by the fact that vampires (and their mates) were very hard to kill, and even if they were in a car accident, they were probably fine.
The dream started with a bird flying around at night, zipping in and out of a forest of tall fir trees, his shadow flickering on ground lit by a huge silver moon. Just as I was enjoying the bird’s graceful moves, it swooped down toward a snake ... only it wasn’t a snake—it was a winding dirt road, and along it one man dragged another by his heels.
The two men stopped before a set of beautiful dark doors with hearts carved crudely into the wood. They were the doors to the castle, I knew, but oddly, the rest of the castle seemed to be missing. The mobile man dropped the other one in a heap at the door, and reached up to pound on the door.
I wanted to point out to him that there was no building to go with the doors, and all the man had to do was to walk around the doors to get behind them, but my attention was focused on the man lying brokenly across the stone steps leading to the door. I bent over him, distressed for some reason, knowing somehow that the man was about to give up his hold on life.
“Don’t,” I whispered, my nose almost touching his.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice deep and yet so soft I wasn’t sure I didn’t imagine it.
“Don’t die.”
The pounding continued behind me, irritating me.
“It’s not your time,” I said, irrationally determined to keep the man’s attention.
“I can’t help it.” He sighed then, a wordless expression of so much despair, it made me want to weep, but at the same time, I wanted to yell at the man behind me who was still beating on the doors. I looked up to tell him that he was wasting his time, but at that moment, the prone man grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t open the door,” he said, his eyes a beautiful indigo with little black streaks coming from the pupils, his gaze seeming to sear right through me to my soul.
“Why?” I asked in a whisper, leaning down over him so that my hair hid us from the man at the door.
“I am death,” the pretty-eyed man said, his body going limp, and his eyes closing. I knew he was on the verge of dying if I didn’t do something, and leaned down until my lips teased his.
“I’ll save you,” I promised, not in the least bit concerned with how I was going to do that.
His arms came around me, pulling me onto his chest at the same moment his mouth claimed mine—and it was a claiming, an act of dominance despite the fact that he was very nearly dead. His lips were hot and sweet and spicy all at the same time, and when his tongue ran along my lips in a silent plea, all my dark, secret parts seemed to come alive.
I gave in to needs that swamped m
y mind, kissing him back with everything I had, my hands tangled in his hair, my breasts sensitized and heavy as I squirmed against him. His hands swept up my back, causing me to move restlessly against him. I wanted more of him, more than just his mouth and hands, and pulled back to tell him so, completely oblivious to our surroundings.
I kissed the man’s jaw, his cheeks, even his closed eyes, wanting to bury my face in his hair, all at the same time he kissed a line down my throat to my shoulder. I shifted, trying to figure out what it was I needed to do to save the man, but a stab of pain interrupted my thoughts, pain in my shoulder that quickly faded away into the most erotic sensation I’d ever had. I was on the verge of an orgasm, spiraling up to it, desperate to meet it and yet not wanting the feeling to end. And just as I was about to burst into the light, into the glorious burning blaze of rapture, I woke up.
The pounding noise was real. I thought at first it was my heart thumping in my ears as I tried to come down off the single most erotic dream of my life, but then I realized the dull noise had its source outside of my body.
“Christian Dante and his wife!” I said to myself, snatching up the sheer chiffon robe that matched my satin negligee. “Bet they locked themselves out.”
I ran for the stairs, mindless of my bare feet on cold wood and marble, racing down the hallways and stairs until I reached the double doors, one of which I flung open with an anticipatory smile on my face.
The man who turned to face me was a disappointment, not at all what I had expected C. J. Dante—and a vampire—to look like. He was dark, wiry, with spiky hair dyed pink, several facial piercings, and a rainbow flag tattooed on his neck. He said something in what I thought was French.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French.”
“You American?” He sounded oddly nervous. “This is for your master. He is not quite dead, although he should be since his blood was drained, but I didn’t think it was right to kill him just because he was a vampire, you know? So instead I brought him here to your master.”
“My what?”
The man turned around and hauled something up the couple of stairs to the door, laying it at my feet. “Do not tell anyone that I brought him here, or my master will have my head.” He glanced around fearfully. “You did not see me. You don’t know who I am. I was never here. You understand?”
I stared in horror at the object at my feet, dimly aware of the man at the door vanishing into the night.
“What ... who ... glorious grape juice! Vampire? Dead? Did you say ...” I looked up, but the man was gone. “Hey! Mister? Hey!” I stepped over the body and ran down the front stairs, but a white panel truck was barely visible zooming off down the drive. I ran after it a few yards, but it was too far off to see the license number.
With a shiver at the cool night air, I clutched my robe and dashed back into the house, hesitating over the body of the man. He was lying facedown, his black clothing matching his jaw-length hair.
“Now what am I going to do?” I asked, kneeling down and trying to rationalize what had happened while the wispy remnants of my dream still clung to me. “How do you bring around an almost dead vampire?”
Gently, I rolled the man over, stumbling back when I got a good look at his face.
It was the man in my dreams, the one who had told me he was death.
And now it seemed he was speaking the truth.
Chapter Three
“I don’t know ... oof ... how many people ... grape juice! ... have had to drag a full-grown bull vampire ... ow! ... any distance, but you, sir, are not the easiest weight to shift.” I straightened up from dragging the vampire, and rubbed my back. The man didn’t look like he was made up of anvils, but he sure felt like it.
“Well, I could leave you here, but ...” I glanced around the hall. It seemed so uncaring to just abandon him in a cold hall surrounded by a Lego Millennium Falcon. Even if he was dead, which Spiky Pink Hair said he wasn’t. Although he sure seemed like he was dead. I’d felt for a pulse and found none, nor was his skin warm to the touch. I frowned down at him. “At least your head is still on, so no one had pulled a Highlander on you, and there is no sign of blood anywhere. That’s two in the non-dead column, but if you’re still alive, why don’t you feel alive? Oh well. Dead or alive, I can’t leave you here like a bag of dog food that someone dumped on the doorstep. But how I’m going to move you is beyond me ... hmm.”
A glance around the hall didn’t show me any handy vampire-moving tools lying around, but I’m pleased to say that it didn’t take me long to realize an important fact: an antique Persian throw rug on a beautiful marble floor is the perfect vehicle for transporting almost-dead vampires across vast spaces.
“At least until the marble runs out,” I grunted, hauling the vampire-bearing rug down what seemed to be endless miles of hallway until I reached the library, a room that I knew had a gas fireplace. It was also fully carpeted, but after a quick examination of the handsome almost-dead vampire to make sure I wasn’t hurting him, I more or less rolled him across the short stretch of floor until he came to rest before the fireplace. “And now we’ll get you warmed up, since you feel like an icicle, and I’m freezing in this skimpy nightie.”
I turned on the gas fireplace, made sure the man wasn’t too close to the flames, and, clutching my gauzy robe, dashed back to the entrance, hoping that a car would be pulling up with the castle’s owner inside. He’d surely know what to do with a possibly dead vampire. Unfortunately, there was no one outside, not even a hunchback servant named Igor. All there was outside was a whole lot of inky darkness lightened only by a faint glow of the moon, and the still-flickering torches.
“Rat pickles,” I swore softly to myself, closing the door carefully before I made my way back to the library to check on the probably-wasn’t-really-dead vampire. “Where’s Igor when I need him? Someone has to be out there keeping those torches lit. Right. I’d better see what I can do with Mr. Handsome.”
I didn’t even bother asking myself if it was wise to take it upon myself to rescue the vampire lying on the library floor—ever since I’d read Dante’s books, it had been my greatest wish to meet a vampire, but hidden behind that was a secret desire, one so wicked that I hadn’t been able to face it fully. I did so now.
“I want to feed him,” I whispered to myself when I entered the library. The man lay exactly where I’d left him. “I want to feel all those things that Dante says women feel when they offer themselves up to their sexy vamps. I want to feel what it’s like to be joined with a man on a level that transcends primal. I want to do something that no one else can. Hey, mister.” I gave the vampire’s shoulder a little shake. “Do you want me to save you?”
There was no answer, of course, and as I sat on my heels next to him, I considered how best to go about saving him. I laid my hand on his neck. The flesh was cool, but not cold or clammy, and still without a pulse. I thought about that for a minute. Did Dark Ones have pulses? I wasn’t absolutely sure about that—Dante never mentioned it. I shook the man again. “Hello? Are you in there? Oh, grape juice, Tempest, that’s a stupid question. Of course he’s in there. OK. I need to get a grip. He needs blood. You want to give him blood. Therefore, you should just do it.”
I leaned down over the vampire’s face, pulling my curls back to expose my throat. “Bon appétit,” I said, pressing my neck against his lips, and bracing myself for the bite.
There was none.
“Hmm.” I sat up again, frowning. “Maybe I need to get the process going. Let’s see. I’ll start by opening your mouth.”
My tongue snuck out to the corner of my mouth while I carefully wiped my fingers on my negligee, then gently pried open the man’s lips. There were no fangs visible, which I felt was a bad sign. Everyone knew a vamp had to have his fangs out in order to feed. Feeling more than a little bit awkward (and not a little like I was baiting a lion), I carefully eased his mouth open an inch. With a quick prayer that I wouldn’t get my fingertip snapped off, I slid m
y index finger into his mouth to feel around for his tongue. I knew from a school first aid course that tongues had to be moved out of the way whenever oral aid was rendered, and was trying to remember what steps I should take next when I encountered a warm, moist blob.
“Warm,” I said to myself as I pressed the blob down. “Your tongue is warm, which is a good sign. It means you aren’t dead. OK, mouth open, tongue down. Now let’s get a little blood into you. Er ...” I put my wrist over his opened mouth. “I don’t suppose you’d like to take over from here?”
He didn’t care to. I sighed, and got to my feet to investigate C. J. Dante’s desk, returning with a wickedly sharp-looking letter opener. I held it over a finger, telling myself that a quick stab was all that was needed, but I’ve always had an aversion to blood, and I just couldn’t bring myself to draw my own.
“OK, you’re going to have to help me,” I said, wedging the handle of the letter opener into his armpit, so that the sharp end pointed up at me. I raised my hand over it, turned my head, and, bracing myself mightily, brought my hand down.
I completely missed the letter opener, of course. I tried again ... and again ... but some sense of self-preservation kept me from so much as glancing the tip of the opener off my hand.
“Oh, for mercy’s sake!” I said in exasperation, snatching up the opener, and of course, grabbing at a sharp, pointy object in a haphazard manner had exactly the result you’d expect. “Ouch! Rat pickles! Oh! Wait ... this is good.” I squeezed the tip of my finger to encourage the few drops of blood to grow, feeling vaguely sick at the sight of the welling mound of crimson.