by Bangs, Nina
Kristin turned from the door. She wanted coffee, a shower, and some exciting gossip about hot sex in ye olde castle. Surely there was one employee who worked here willing to spill his or her guts for instant fame and maybe a small bribe.
Or not. Hours later, she’d grilled everyone who’d stand still long enough to listen to her broad hints about how grateful she’d be to anyone willing to point her in the direction of sex and sin. Sex and sin score? Zero. Dumb people. Kristin gave up for the day.
All she’d gotten for her trouble were some strange looks, a few giggles, and one pamphlet inviting her to visit the Church of Eternal Salvation.
Even more troubling was the fact that late afternoon was fading into dusk and Taurin was nowhere in sight. She was deep into denial. He’d probably been up for hours. Just because she hadn’t seen him didn’t mean he wasn’t doing his handyman thing somewhere in the castle. Or maybe it was his day off, and he’d stayed in his room to catch Oprah or Dr. Phil. Yeah, like she believed that.
Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. Her nerves were shredded. She’d walk on the beach to calm herself down, maybe run into Banan. He might answer a few questions if she was persistent enough. After all, the early mosquito got the blood. Ugh, blood. Nope, wouldn’t think about Taurin. Not giving herself time for second thoughts, she headed for the door.
“He’ll be down soon.” The deep masculine voice spun her around. The man was big, muscular, and smiling. “Sorry to scare you. I’m Conall, Eric’s brother. Asima pointed you out. I figured you were waiting for Taurin.”
Okay, going all defensive here. “Uh-uh, not me. I was . . . just looking for people to interview for my story. In fact, I have an appointment with Banan right now. I’m meeting him on the beach.” She offered him a plastic smile.
Conall frowned. “Banan? Maybe you should wait until Taurin gets here. He can go with you.”
Now see, he’d gone and said the wrong thing. “I can walk to the beach all by myself. I don’t need anyone tagging along. It was great meeting you.” Kristin knew he was still watching her as she escaped through the door.
It only took a few minutes to cross Seawall Boulevard and go down the steps to the beach. With darkness falling quickly, the beach had emptied out. Looking around, she spotted Banan sitting on the sand staring at the Gulf. Kristin walked over and sat down beside him.
“How’s it going?” She joined him in staring at the water.
“Decided to come after all?” He turned and smiled at her.
Nightfall made him look even more spectacular. Why wasn’t she tempted? Probably because he was still a scary guy. “Yeah, I needed to get out of the castle. Besides, there was always the chance that I could pump some info about the castle out of you.”
His smile never dimmed. “Wouldn’t count on it. Want to go for a swim?”
“Isn’t it a little late for that? No lifeguards around.” She didn’t miss the eagerness in his voice. “You must like the water a lot to sit out here all afternoon.”
“I love the seas. I have to be near them.” His voice had taken on a hypnotic singsong cadence. “Come with me and play in the water.”
“Uh, I don’t think so, but don’t let me stop you. I’ll just sit here and watch.” This guy was seriously strange.
He stood and glanced around at the empty beach. Kristin followed his gaze. Hmm. It was almost completely dark and they had the beach all to themselves. A prickle of unease suggested that maybe she should go back to the castle, that being here alone with a man—a man her instincts were telling her felt wrong—wasn’t too smart.
But she had a story to write, and he hadn’t said or done one threatening thing. This time she’d ignore her instincts.
She rethought that decision as he stripped off his shorts and T-shirt. No swimsuit underneath. Yikes.
The grin he turned on her was almost boyish. “I swim nude. I get off on the feel of freedom with nothing between me and the water.”
“Uh, good.” Kristin’s gaze skittered away from him. Great. She was here to write a story about sex, but when she found it, she did a dumb-virgin act. Get over it. She looked. Very nice.
“Do me a favor? Wade into the surf. You don’t have to go in past your thighs, but you can hand my shorts to me when I come out.” He laughed. And for the first time she didn’t feel the danger. “I don’t want to be stuck out there if a bunch of people show up.”
Kristin didn’t think a bunch of people would show up in the pitch dark. Sure there was some moonlight, but not much. She saw his point, though. A cop might come down to the beach to see what was going on. Banan wouldn’t want to chance an indecent exposure charge.
Besides, July in Galveston was damn hot, and night didn’t cool things down much. The wind was blowing, but it just pushed the hot air around. The water would feel good. “Okay, but don’t go out too far. I don’t do water rescues.”
He handed his shorts to her, and she followed him down to the waterline. As he raced into the water, she admired the rear view. Trophy-quality butt.
Banan had already disappeared into the surf by the time she waded out to where the water lapped at the hem of her shorts. Warm water. So much for heat relief. The waves were low and choppy, but she wasn’t in any danger of being knocked off her feet.
As she stood waiting for Banan to emerge, her thoughts wandered to Taurin. Would he show up at her door and wonder where she’d gone? Kristin sure hoped so. He’d promised her another fantasy to make up for last night. Funny, but the shiver that thought brought had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with awareness.
Besides, the whole vampire thing from last night seemed sort of silly now. He’d probably been wearing a pliable mask and she’d been too overwhelmed by Saffron to recognize it. He’d explain everything when she saw him again.
Where the heck was Banan? She hadn’t seen him surface. Kristin edged out farther into the surf until she was up to her waist in the water. Worry tugged at her. She hadn’t grown up around water, but she’d made up for that lack when she went to college in California. She knew the danger of rip currents.
As if on cue, a choppy wave broke over her and she felt the inexorable pull as the current dragged her out. Dammit, she should’ve paid closer attention. She should’ve recognized the warning signs. Kristin was a strong swimmer, and she knew how to escape a riptide. She let it take her and then began swimming parallel to the shore with the current. Had it gotten Banan?
Oh, God. Panic touched her. What if she’d lost him? Kristin raised her head to look around. Nothing but dark water. No, there was something.
A fin. Primal fear touched her, and she tried to swim faster. She almost cried with relief when she finally fought free of the current. Her breaths came in harsh gasps as she swam toward the shore. Suddenly, something brushed against her leg. Something huge. And she knew. Opening her mouth, she screamed.
The shark broke the surface right in front of her. Fear leached the strength from her, and for a moment she floundered in the water. A great white. In her mind, the theme from Jaws played counterpoint to the staccato beat of her heart.
Survival instincts kicked in as she remembered something from a TV program. Gathering all her strength, she punched the shark in the nose with every ounce of terror-driven power she could muster.
And the shark retreated. She couldn’t believe it. But she wasn’t going to hang around to revel in her success. She was doing a credible imitation of a windmill as she made for shore.
“Hang on! I’m coming.” Taurin?
She blinked the water from her eyes and saw him fling himself down the steps of the seawall and onto the beach. As if in slow motion, she watched him scoop his cell phone from his pocket and drop it onto the sand. Then . . . Then he was beside her in the water. What the . . . ? She blinked some more. He was wearing his vampire face. Oh, crap.
“Relax. I have you.” He wrapped his arms around her, and before she even had a chance to gasp for air, they were back on the beach. “Did he hurt you?”
The hell with the shark. Kristin started to reach toward his face, but before she could touch him, he became human again. No special effects, no trick of the light. Taurin was a freaking vampire.
“Did he hurt you?” He grabbed her shoulders and gave her a little shake.
Like that was going to make her better if she was hurt. “No.” She stared and stared and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t blink. “A vampire. Talking cats. Where’s the rabbit hole?” She glanced vaguely around. “Has to be a rabbit hole around here somewhere. Where’d you put the rabbit hole?” She was babbling, not a good sign.
Taurin dropped his hands from her and raked his fingers through his wet hair. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“No kidding.” Kristin felt a little woozy. But she’d be okay. She’d never fainted. She could take this. She finally blinked. There was something important that she knew she had to remember, something really important. Impatiently, she pushed at the mental fog messing with her thoughts.
“Why the hell did you go in the water anyway? Do you see a lifeguard anywhere?”
Kristin closed her eyes in an attempt to control a little spurt of dizziness. A second later they popped open. She’d remembered. “Ohmigod! I forgot. Banan is out there. We have to save him.”
Taurin stared at something behind her. “No, we don’t.”
She turned. Banan was striding naked toward them. He looked steamed.
“Why’d you punch me in the nose when I was trying to save you? I bet you lost my shorts.” He looked around. “Yep. They’re gone. You’ll have to go back to the castle and get me a new pair.”
Kristin stared at his bloody nose. Her brain wasn’t working at full force because her thoughts felt like they were slogging through knee-deep mud. “Why did I punch you in the nose?”
Nose. Punch. Shark. Naked guy coming out of water. Shark? Banan was a . . .
Kristin fainted.
Chapter Four
“Oh, shit.” Taurin caught Kristin as she toppled, and eased her onto the sand. “Why’d you have to scare her like that?” He glared at Banan.
“Me?” The wereshark looked aggrieved. “I was trying to save her cute little butt. You’re the one who charged into the water in full vampire mode. Using your preternatural speed to pop up next to her didn’t help, either.”
“Just remember, her cute little butt isn’t yours.” What was that about? He didn’t remember signing ownership papers on any part of Kristin Hughes. All he cared about was watching that cute little butt wave good-bye as she left without a story.
Taurin retrieved his cell phone from the sand where he’d dropped it and then lifted her into his arms. He started toward the steps.
“Hey, what about my clothes?” Banan had retrieved his T-shirt and was wiping the blood from his nose.
Taurin considered leaving the shark bare-assed on the beach. The thought brightened his night. And he’d be damned if he’d let Banan play out any sexual fantasies with her like they’d originally planned.
So why the change in plans? Why all the negativity aimed at Banan? After all, the guy hadn’t done anything to him. It was one of life’s mysteries he’d explore later.
Setting Kristin down gently, he handed his phone to Banan and waited while the shark explained his situation to Holgarth. Taurin grinned. Knowing the power of the wizard’s poison tongue, he’d guess Banan wasn’t getting off easy.
By the time Banan gave back the cell phone, he was scowling. “If he has a brain under that pointed hat, Holgarth will never go into the water again.” The shark’s expression said he’d love to catch the wizard in his world.
Taurin forgot about Banan as Kristin stirred. She blinked and stared up at him. Then she stared at Banan.
“What happened?” She frowned.
“You checked out for a few minutes.” Taurin watched her warily.
“I never faint.”
Taurin saw the exact moment she remembered the sequence of definitely not-quite-normal events that had led to her “checking out.” He expected her to scramble to her feet and make a break for the castle. She didn’t.
“Sorry I dropped your shorts in the water. I owe you a new pair.” As she stared at Banan, her expression turned calculating. “Maybe we should meet for lunch tomorrow. You could tell me how you change and—”
“He’ll be busy tomorrow.” Taurin scooped her off the sand, ignoring her startled squeak. “He has to spend the afternoon scaring the crap out of the tourists. Gives them something to tell friends about when they get home.”
She glared up at him. “I can walk. Put. Me. Down.”
“You’ll run away.”
“I know you’re a vampire. I know I should run. But self-preservation takes a backseat to a sensational story.”
He jogged across Seawall Boulevard with her in his arms.
“Oh, come on, you’ll embarrass me if you carry me into the castle.” She wiggled around in a vain attempt to free herself.
He hissed at her and, surprised, she shut up. “I’m not taking you into the castle. I’m taking you to my car, and then we’re going to a place where we can talk without any damn cats interrupting us.”
Before she could open her mouth to object, he set her down beside his car and unlocked the doors. “I won’t bite you. You’re booked for the week, and I never bite guests. But once the week is up, hey, all bets are off.”
He jerked the car door open and glared at her. “You can walk away from me now, but I guarantee if you do you’ll never get a story from this park.”
Obviously the threat of losing her precious story did the trick. Without a word, she dropped into the passenger seat. Good thing it was so hot, because she was still soaking wet.
She remained silent until he pulled into the driveway of the beach house. “Yours?”
Okay, one word was a start. “No. It belongs to the castle. Any of us who feel the need for some downtime can come here to stay for a few days. Deimos—you haven’t met him yet—is planning a midnight beach party here next Monday. You’re invited.”
He could slip into her mind, but not without her feeling him. Besides, he didn’t need to. She figured the invite meant she’d still be alive for the party. The big, bad vampire wouldn’t rip out her throat, suck her dry, and then leave her empty husk on the beach.
Taurin led the way around the side of the darkened house to the empty beach behind it. He found a spot well away from the water, yanked off his T-shirt, and spread it on the sand. “Sit.”
“Thanks.” She sat on his shirt before trying to finger-comb her hair. Then she lifted her face to the breeze. “That feels good.”
Taurin sat beside her. Where to start? May as well get straight to the point. “You can’t write about what you saw last night and tonight. No one will believe you. And you won’t have any proof.”
He could tell she was turning possibilities over in her mind. “You’re right about no one believing me. That’s not a problem, though. No one believed my story about werewolves in Minnesota, either, but lots of people tramped through the forests looking for them anyway.” She didn’t sound particularly discouraged. “Of course, I’d have to dodge Eric with his little pink mind-eraser. Even if I wrote the story, I couldn’t defend it if I didn’t remember what happened.”
“Mind eraser? Who told you about Eric’s power?”
“Asima. She thought I’d be comforted knowing that Eric wouldn’t take away my memories if I acted like a reasonable woman.”
Hah! Reasonable wasn’t part of Kristin’s vocabulary. And Asima stuck her snooty cat nose into everyone’s business. She was an equal opportunity pest.
“I’ll make a deal with you. You’ll get that sex story you want if you agree to forget about the paranormal stuff you’ve seen.” He watched her wiggle her bottom into a more comfortable position. Her hair lay damp across her shoulders, and the tempting lines of her body stirred him in a way he didn’t want to be stirred. Fine, so he wanted to be stirred, but not by her.
She turned to stare at him. “How’d you know about the sex story?” Then suspicion dawned in her eyes. “You read my mind, didn’t you?”
He tried to smooth the tension from his smile. “Nope, can’t do that. Only a few of the very old vampires, like Eric, have that power. Sorry. Another soulless bloodsucker myth goes down in flames.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “You’re right, it wasn’t you. You came to my room already dressed as a sexy handyman, so someone else knew about my story and decided to give me what I wanted. I wonder why?”
Uh-oh. He could almost hear her mental footsteps as she circled the question, studying it from every angle. Then the footsteps stopped.
Her smile was sweet and so wicked it shriveled his . . . heart. “Gotcha! Whoever is at the top of this conspiracy ladder somehow knew I was coming to the castle looking for a kinky sex story. They decided to give it to me so I’d focus on the sex and not notice all the interesting ‘beings’ living here. But you, Saffron, Asima, and Banan blew it.”
Slow and calm. Losing his temper wouldn’t help the cause. He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is your decision. What’ll it be: authentic tales of hot sex from an actual witness—who, by the way, is Italian and therefore appreciates all things sensual—or unsubstantiated claims of nonhuman entity sightings? People will read both articles, but one of them pays a lot higher dividends.”
She was thinking about her choices way too long. He was insulted. Her week’s tour through Live the Fantasy with him would be a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Six hundred years of learning what women wanted guaranteed that.
He pushed aside the uncomfortable feeling that he was pimping himself out with this deal. It wasn’t like he’d be having sex with her at every attraction in the park. He’d just be making up erotic stories about things that had never happened there. If he could preserve the Castle of Dark Dreams as a place where all his friends were safe, then it was worth it.