Mysteria Nights

by P. C. Cast

  A hand went up. It was one of Jenny’s students, so she said, “What is it, Mr. Purdom?”

  “Does your class have to write the essay, too?”

  “Yes. I suggest you get busy,” Jenny said smoothly.

  There were a few muffled groans, but most of the kids settled down to studying the painting and taking notes.

  “I’m going to go tell Moxie to bring the bus around. Do you think you can handle it by yourself?” Jenny’s tone made the pronoun semi-suggestive. The sultry glance she sent Colin made it fully suggestive.

  “Yes, definitely. No worries here,” Summer said.

  Jenny met her eyes before she left the room and blinked a couple times in surprise before her face practically exploded in a smile. “You like him!”

  Summer felt her cheeks warm. “I don’t like him. I don’t even know him,” she whispered.

  “Okay, maybe I should have said you’re hot for him. Well, go ahead, girlfriend. He’s clearly more interested in you than me.” She winked at Summer and disappeared out the front door.

  Summer sighed and turned back to the room of sullenly writing students. Thankfully, Colin was on the far side of the room standing close to the painting. She could see that he was busy answering questions about it for some of the students. Good. That should keep him occupied. It also gave her an opportunity to study him. Goddess, he was handsome, but not in a typical fashion. What was he like? He reminded her of someone, and she couldn’t quite—

  Then, with a little jolt she did remember who he brought to mind. Her favorite fictional hero, Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre. Yes, that dark, powerfully masculine look of Colin’s would definitely fit in as master of Thornfield. You know you think Rochester is the sexiest of all fictional heroes, as well as your favorite, her mind whispered. No, she told herself sternly, Ken is really my type—all blond and sweet and gentle. He’s what I planned for my future. The Rochester type needs to stay where he belongs—in the pages of fiction.

  But she was still staring when Colin looked up from the student he’d been helping and met her eyes.

  Come to me . . . The words filled her—mind, body, and soul. Before she realized what she was doing, she was making her way around the group of students and heading for the vampire.

  Summer was only a few feet from him when she stopped and shook her head, breaking the stare that had locked their eyes together and getting control of herself. Oh, hell no! What was she doing? Imagining his voice in her head and then obeying that imagining? Had she lost it? Had the stress of trying to teach teenagers cracked her already?

  And then, not far behind her, she felt a too-familiar prickle up her spine. She knew even before she heard the whispered singsong words of the quickly uttered spell that one of the asshole teenage sorcerers-to-be had thought he’d be clever and whip up a little magic to see if he and his girlfriend could skip out of the assignment. Summer whirled around in time to hear the last stanza of the incantation. She opened her mouth to yell, No! Stop! Backing as quickly as she could away from the kids—and right into an impossibly hard, cold body she knew had to be Colin. She wanted to warn him. She wanted to do something—anything. But instead, the magic was already grabbing her, robbing her of speech.

  Me and my bitch get in the picture, yo!

  Somewhere our teacher can’t go!

  Where school and stupid essays ain’t no mo’!

  And it’s cool to get with your ho!

  Completely helpless, she did the only thing she could do. Summer closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around the pillar of strength that was Colin, and held her breath as she felt their bodies being wrenched, lifted, and tossed.

  When everything was still again and the nauseating sensation of wobbly, opposite magic lifted, Summer slowly opened her eyes.

  And looked straight into Colin’s dark gaze.

  “What the—” he began, and then his eyes widened in sudden fear. “The sunlight! I have to get out of . . .” The vampire’s words trailed off as he realized he wasn’t bursting into flame. Completely confused, Colin gazed down at Summer. “What’s happened to us? It’s day. I’m outside in the sunlight, and my skin is not burning.”

  “It’s, well, because of my magic and that kid casting a spell. If I’m close enough to magic, it always messes up, and—” she began, and then her words broke off as what her eyes were seeing caught up with her mind. They were, indeed, outside. Actually, it wasn’t full daylight, just a lovely morning dawning in the east. They were on a balcony, surrounded by a perfumed profusion of flowering rose vines. Colin was there with her, but he wasn’t dressed in his jeans, black shirt, and cowboy boots. Here he was wearing an amazing crimson-colored outfit, rich as a king, or maybe even a god. She glanced down at her own clothes and gasped. She had changed, too, and was wearing only a soft, transparent chemise, which was cut low to expose her breasts to the nipples. She could feel Colin’s eyes on those nipples as she looked up at him. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think we’re inside the Romeo and Juliet painting,”

  Five

  “By the Goddess, I think you’re right! How could this have happened?” Colin said, gazing around them while he shook his head in disbelief.

  “It’s me,” Summer said miserably. “It’s because of me that we’re here.”

  His dark eyes rested on her. “How could this possibly be because of you?”

  “It’s my magic. Or maybe my nonmagic would be a better way to explain it.” Summer sighed. “One of the students cast a spell in the gallery—something about getting inside the Romeo and Juliet painting so that he and his ho,” she wrinkled her nose in distaste at the word, “could get out of the essay assignment.”

  “But what does that have to do with you? Other than it being your assignment?”

  “I was close enough to the stupid teenager when he cast the spell to have my own magic work on it. And my own magic is opposite magic—kind of. Actually, it’s more like sideways, opposite, totally screwed-up magic. The bottom line is that my magic messes up all other magic around me. So here”—she made a sweeping gesture, taking in the balcony and the pearly morning—“we are.”

  “In the Romeo and Juliet painting.”

  She nodded. “In the Romeo and Juliet painting.” Summer smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

  Colin shook his head in amazement and lifted his hand so that the red velvet sleeve slid back to reveal his muscular arm all the way to mid-bicep. The morning light gilded his skin so that for that moment he looked tan and unexpectedly young.

  “Incredible!” he said. Then he bared his other arm to the morning light, threw back his head, and laughed. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve felt the sun on my skin?”

  Summer couldn’t answer him. She could only watch as he transformed from intense and brooding to vibrant and amazing. He laughed again and, with one swift motion, ripped open the buttons on his linen undershirt. Colin faced the rising sun, arms spread, face open. He’d been handsome before—all Rochester-like and mysterious. But here he’d transformed into a man whose beauty went beyond his height and hair and bone structure. This new Colin was so incredibly full of life that he seemed to vibrate with it.

  “You did this?”

  He turned the force of his full smile on her, and Summer thought that the heat he radiated would melt her. She nodded a little weakly and managed a “Yes.”

  With another laugh, he lifted her in his arms and spun her around the balcony. “I knew you were special from the moment I touched you.”

  “It’s just my weird magic. I’ve been wishing I could figure out how to get rid of it or control it for years,” Summer said a little breathlessly as he finally released her.

  “Get rid of it? No way! And, take it from me, control is overrated. No! You’re perfect just as you are—and so is your magic.” He took her hand in his and, with dark eyes sparkling mischievously, he bent gallantly over it. “Thank you, my lady, for granting me a reprieve from unrelenting night and bringing me sunshine again.”r />
  Colin kissed her hand. As his lips met her skin, Summer felt a jolt of sensation that rushed through her body. His lips weren’t the cool marble of a vampire! They were warm and soft and very, very much alive. She gasped, “You’ve really been changed. You’re not a vampire here.”

  He didn’t release her hand. Instead, he lifted it and slid it inside the open front of his shirt so that it rested over his heart. Summer could feel the beating of that heart under the warm, pliant skin of his chest.

  “I don’t know how long this magic will last, but I’m going to enjoy every moment of it.”

  “You’re . . . you’re so different here,” Summer said, having difficulty concentrating on words with her hand pressed against his bare chest.

  “Different?” Colin smiled and shrugged. “I suppose right now I am more like I used to be.” He looked from her to the morning sky. “I think I’ve lived so long in darkness that I’d forgotten what it is to feel really alive.” His eyes met hers again. They were full of the emotion reflected in the deepening of his voice. “You brought me the sun.”

  “On accident,” Summer whispered. “I didn’t really mean to.”

  “I smelled it on you when we met. Remember? I said you reminded me of sunlight and honey.”

  “I remember,” Summer said softly, completely lost in his gaze.

  “You drew me to you even then.” He touched her cheek caressingly. “What is your first name?”

  “Summer.”

  His smile was brilliant. “Summer! Perfect. Let me taste you, Summer. Let me breathe in your sunlight . . .”

  Summer knew she shouldn’t. She should step away from him and take control of this ridiculous situation and then fall on her head or whatever it took to break the spell. Instead, she felt her face tilt up to him as he bent to her lips. But he didn’t kiss her—not at first. Instead, his mouth stopped just short of hers. She could feel his warm breath as he seemed to inhale her. Colin nuzzled her cheek and whispered into her parted lips, “You are sunlight and honey, my sunlight and honey.”

  Summer shivered. One of his hands still pressed hers against his chest. The other slid down her back, holding her close to him. She molded to him; only the transparent material of the thin chemise separated them, and she could clearly feel every part of his hard body.

  “Do you want me to kiss you, Summer? Do you want me to taste you?” He breathed the words against her lips as he inhaled her scent.

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “Yes.”

  “Summer,” he moaned, and then he claimed her mouth. His kiss wasn’t gentle. It was rough and demanding. He possessed her lips, plundered her mouth, tantalized her tongue. His kiss engulfed her. It was the kind of kiss she’d always imagined she wouldn’t like. It would be too filled with unbridled lust, too overwhelming and uncontrolled. So it was with a sense of utter surprise that Summer felt herself responding, body and soul, to Colin. She wrapped her arms around him and met his passion with her own. White-hot lust speared through her as the kiss deepened even more, as she gave herself completely over to him and—

  —And Summer fell so hard on her butt that the wind was knocked out of her and she saw little speckles of light dance in front of her eyes.

  “Thank the Goddess! You’re back!” Jenny’s hands were patting her as if she was checking for broken bones. “Are you okay? You had me so worried!”

  Summer sucked air, blinked rapidly, and managed to nod.

  “Is she hurt?” a deep voice asked.

  “Colin? Oh, good. You’re back, too,” Jenny said briskly. “I think she’s just had the wind knocked out of her. Here, help me get her to her feet.”

  Strong hands lifted her, and Summer realized that it felt familiar and somehow right that he was touching her again, even though his skin had lost the flush of sun-kissed warmth and was cool and marblelike again.

  “Are you really all right?” Colin’s voice came from close above her.

  Summer looked up, finally blinking her vision clear. He was still holding one of her elbows, and he was watching her with the same dark intensity with which he’d studied her before they’d been magicked into the painting.

  “I’m fine,” Summer said. “At least I think I’m fine. I feel kinda—”

  “Let’s get you on the bus and back to school where the nurse can check you out,” Jenny interrupted. “Colin, keep hold of her.” And she marched off, leaving Colin to support Summer as they headed to the door.

  Summer glanced up at the tall, silent vampire. He was Rochester again, with his broody expression and his dark intensity. Had it just been moments ago that he’d been laughing openly and so full of life and joy and passion? Especially passion.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted, although she wasn’t sure what it was she was apologizing for.

  His gaze met hers as they came to the front door. “Don’t apologize. I don’t want to know you’re sorry about what happened between us.”

  Summer frowned. Well, she was feeling dazed and confused, but she hadn’t meant that. “No, I didn’t mean—”

  Jenny threw open the door, and a bright shaft of sunlight filled the entryway of the otherwise dark gallery. Colin dropped her arm and moved hastily back into the shadows, pulling his mirrored sunglasses from the pocket of his shirt and placing them on his nose so that he completed the metamorphosis from the charismatic man who had been seducing her on the balcony to the tall, silent vampire.

  “Colin, I—”

  “Come on. You still look terrible.” Jenny’s hand replaced Colin’s on her arm, and the Discipline Nymph pulled her firmly from the gallery.

  Over her shoulder, Summer could see Colin turning away as the door closed on the bright afternoon.

  The kids were suspiciously quiet on the ride back to school. Jenny kept shooting them slit-eyed looks.

  “Detention does not begin to describe what Mr. Purdom is going to be serving for a solid week,” she muttered. Then her gaze shifted to Summer. “Do you think you’re okay? You’re still looking pale.”

  “I feel fine. I guess.” She lowered her voice and tilted her head to Jenny’s. “What did it look like to you?”

  “Well, I was just coming back into the gallery when the girls were screaming bloody murder, saying you and Colin had disappeared. I was trying to figure out what had happened—by the by, Purdom and his buddy, McArter, were looking guilty as hell, so I knew the little turds had something to do with it—when that damn nosy girl . . . oh, what’s her name? You know, blond, chubby, thinks she’s way cuter than she is, and her mom’s a witch with a B?”

  “Whitney Hoge.”

  “Yeah, that’s her.”

  “So Miss Hoge was pointing at the R and J painting with her mouth wide open, unattractively, mind you. I took one look at the picture, saw you two in place of the originals, and hustled the kids out of the room. I briefly chewed out Purdom’s ass—will do a more thorough job of that later—and ran back into the gallery at about the time you landed on your butt in the middle of the floor.”

  “So no one watched us inside the painting?”

  “Nope. No one was inside the gallery.” Her brows went up. “Was there something to watch?”

  “Sorta.”

  “Oooh! Nastiness?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Sorta and kinda are not answers. They are especially not answers with details.”

  “I know,” Summer said, and closed her mouth.

  A sly expression made Jenny’s face look decidedly nymph-like. “If I remember correctly, and I have an excellent memory—it’s part of the whole discipline thing—anyway, if I remember correctly, you said that the way your opposite magic gets broken is by you being shocked. Right?”

  “Right,” Summer said reluctantly.

  “Okay, then what shocked you so much the spell was broken?” Summer chewed her lip.

  “Look, you can tell me. I’m a professional.”

  “A professional what?”

  “Certified Discipline Nymph
, of course. We wear many hats: classroom disciplinarian, workout disciplinarian—yes, I’m hell in the gym—and, most especially, sexual disciplinarian. So, give. Details, please.”

  “It was his kiss,” Summer said.

  Jenny blinked in surprise. “Colin’s kiss shocked you so much that it broke the spell? Jeesh, was it that bad?”

  “No,” Summer said softly. “It was that good.”

  Six

  “No, Summer, I don’t have your purse. Sorry. I’ll bet you dropped it when that kid zapped you into the painting,” Jenny said.

  “Ah, shoot. I must have left it at the gallery.”

  “Could that have been a Freudian slip? Perhaps something that would give you a reason to see Colin again? You know you could just cancel the date with Kenny-benny, and go back there tonight,” Jenny said.

  “First, stop calling him that. Second, no, I’m not canceling my date. I’ll go get my purse tomorrow or whatever. As I already explained, this thing with Colin was just a fluke. He’s not my type, and he doesn’t fit into my plan.” A vision of Colin on the balcony, arms outstretched, head flung back, laughing his full, infectious laugh flashed through Summer’s mind, but she quickly squelched the memory. That wasn’t really Colin. The real Colin was much more subdued and uncomfortably intense, not lighthearted, fun, and happy. “The whole Rochester thing doesn’t work for me in the real world,” Summer blurted.

  “Huh? Who’s Rochester?”

  Summer sighed. “You know, Jane Eyre’s Rochester.”

  “Oooh! He’s yummy. What about him?”

  “That’s who Colin reminds me of, and he is definitely not my type.”

  “You, my friend, might be insane.”