by Finley Aaron
Is he going to bite me?
I have no choice. I have to turn into a dragon and hope his teeth can’t pierce my scales.
But even as that thought occurs to me, before I can act on it, the green eyes go dark, like someone has switched off the light within. The vampire sort of deflates, dissolving into dust before my eyes.
I’ve been panting, but I hold my breath to keep from breathing in vampire dust.
The green-eyed dude’s cloak snaps backward.
Constantine has pulled it off the vampire’s dissolving back. For an instant, I see the wooden stake Constantine shoved through the vampire’s heart from behind him. Then the whole mess of him dissolves.
The orange-eyed dude grunts behind me as he leaps to attack. I spin, skewer in hand, and try again to impale him, only to have the stick snap in pieces like all the others.
“Your heels are wooden!” Constantine shouts as he leaps to where Felix is wilting under Gane’s grip.
I stagger backward a couple of steps, then leap toward the orange-eyed guy, pulling back my toes as I come at him with a fierce side kick, the heel of my sparkly shoe pointed toward his heart like an arrow.
It sinks into his chest.
He dissolves to dust, leaving his cape puddled atop a pile of ashes. I pull my shoe free once he’s mostly gone, and I turn to face Felix and Constantine.
They’re both holding cloaks.
“Did you kill Gane?” I ask.
Felix shakes his head. “He disappeared—teleported away, but I had hold of his cape.”
“What were you doing out here?” Constantine asks.
I’m panting and still kind of stunned. Guilt swirls inside me. “Gane tricked us.”
“Gane is the vampire who got away?” Constantine clarifies.
“That’s what he said his name was. Obviously he was lying about a lot of other things, so who knows what his real name is? Did you recognize him?”
“I didn’t get a look at his face before he disappeared.”
Felix offers, “He was the guy-in-the-navy-blue-jacket-formerly-known-as-the-guy-in-the-silver-jacket.”
“Still don’t know him.” Constantine gathers up the cloaks, snapping the one from the ash pile to free it of vampire dust. “Shall we get back to the hotel?”
Felix and I exchange looks, communicating as much as we can without telling Constantine what we were really doing. Yes, we were supposed to be running away from him, but that was only because Gane said Constantine was a murderer…and possibly partly because I was scared to face him after that kiss.
But I’m nearly positive Gane was lying to trap us.
And running away is clearly worse than facing Constantine. In fact, I’m insanely glad he showed up. “Yeah, let’s get back.” I take a few steps in the direction of the fence, but my legs feel like rubber after all those kicks, and I wobble unsteadily.
Constantine extends his arm.
I take hold of the sleeve of his jacket, gripping it maybe a little tighter than I need to, because I am so glad he’s here. “How did you find us?”
“I jumped to you. I expected to end up in your room, but this is where I rematerialized.”
“You jumped to me…even though you expected to end up in my room?”
“I’m not very familiar with your room—not nearly as familiar as I am with you.”
My heart is ramming inside my chest with a beat more frantic than when I was fighting the vampires. I kissed this guy earlier. I kissed him and I liked it.
And I can never kiss him again.
But I really, really want to.
Does he feel the same way about me?
“How did you get out here?” Constantine asks.
“We took the monorail,” Felix answers.
“And you’re wearing backpacks?” There’s a note in Constantine’s voice that I don’t quite recognize. It’s not accusation, nor is it suspicion, but it’s close to both of those things.
“We, um…Gane said you were…well, he was lying to us, obviously.”
We reach the stone wall as I’m struggling to answer. The light is brighter here near the street lamps.
Felix lays down the blunt truth. “Gane claimed to be an FBI agent investigating you for murdering pretty young ladies by slitting their throats. We were running away.”
Constantine’s expression transitions quickly from confused, to appalled, to hurt. “You believed him?”
“He caught me at a weak moment.” Right after I kissed Constantine—not that I want to talk about that right now. “You are a vampire.”
“That automatically makes me a killer?”
Felix comes to my defense. “Vampires are traditionally considered monsters.”
“So are dragons.” Constantine gives us a look that says he knows. He knows, and he’s not amused by subterfuge.
Still, I won’t let my guard down. “What do you mean?”
“I know,” Constantine states flatly.
In hopes there might still be room for interpretation, I clarify, “You know?”
“I know what you are. Dragons. I was waiting for you to tell me, as I told you precisely what I am. I thought for sure once I admitted that I am descended from dragons, that you would finally realize I hold no judgment against you, that your secret is safe with me, that I am on your side. I thought you would finally tell me.” He pulls his arm away from my hand. “But you ran away.”
It’s all I can do to stand there, facing him, trying to think of something to say, some explanation that won’t make it worse.
Remember how I really resent being lied to—even more than that, being deceived?
Right now, I’m the liar. I’m the one who deceived Constantine, or willfully held back the truth from him even while he was spilling his secrets to me.
I did the thing I most despise, and I did it to a person I care about very much, to a guy who has risked his life to be kind to me even when he knew the whole time there could never be anything between us.
Felix finds words before I do. “How did you know we’re dragons?”
“There is an abandoned castle in Romania. You and your family have stayed there many times, arriving and leaving as dragons. The castle was originally mine, but the government seized it along with so many other properties during the war. To get it back, I must either prove that I am descended from the original owners, or buy it from the government.”
“But you can fake IDs—” Felix reminds him.
“Yes, but I cannot change hereditary record. I cannot at the same time be myself and my heirs, nor would I want to place my family tree under scrutiny. No, it seemed far simpler to raise the funds and buy it back.”
“Is that why we’re playing blackjack?” Felix asks.
“Yes.”
But I’m still stuck on the Romanian castle. I mean, I love that place. It’s pretty much my favorite place on earth, and I used to explore every wing I could reach when I was a kid. “The tower that was always locked—”
“Those are my private quarters,” Constantine confirms.
“So you were there, hiding out in the tower whenever we came to visit?”
“Not always. I travel extensively. I was there when you were a child, then I missed you for many years—there when you weren’t, gone when you were—I never knew quite when to expect you. And then one day, four or five years ago, I was there when you visited with your mother and sisters.” Something passes over his face, a kind of pained affection that reminds me of how I felt after I kissed him.
“What?”
“Nothing. It is no matter, only that I followed you at a distance to Montana, saw that you were going to school, and then I left you alone. I traveled down the Rocky Mountains and came to Vegas. We vampires have a history with gambling—it is one of our most notorious vices, though the mythology does not often reflect it—and I soon realized the potential to raise the money to buy back my castle by playing blackjack.” He shakes his head. “But you have helped me against your
better judgment. I will not hold you to our agreement. You are free to go.”
“What?”
“If you wish to leave, you are free to go. You need not feel bound any longer by our agreement.”
“But I need you to translate the rest of the book for me.” Am I the only one who remembers I have a paper due—a paper that, up until a couple of weeks ago, was the most important project in my life?
Apparently.
“You have the most important information already. Combined with your other sources, you have more than enough material to write your paper,” Constantine predicts.
“But what about the vampires? What if they come after me again?”
“I think I know who this Gane fellow may be working for. It is safer for you that I go to them than that we wait for them to come to us.”
“What about Operation Bankroll?”
“It was a success.”
“You have enough money—”
“To buy my castle? Yes. I had hoped to earn enough to restore it, but it has waited many long years. It can wait a bit longer.”
“When would I see you again?”
“Rilla?” Constantine steps closer to me, close enough I can see his face clearly in spite of the night, so close Felix cannot see his face from where he’s standing, or read the message Constantine is silently communicating. “I realized…earlier…when I was unable to resist my attraction to you…it is best for both of us if we end our agreement and not see one another again.”
So that’s what it feels like to have a stake driven through your heart.
Not literally, of course, but ouch. Everything on Constantine’s face is apology and regret, tinged with a yearning he’s trying not to show.
Behind him, Felix clears his throat. “So, are we going home? What are we doing? The hours posted at the monorail station said they stop running at three a.m. on Sunday mornings, which isn’t too long from now. Even if we try to fly home starting now, we’re not going to get to Bozeman much earlier than tomorrow’s flight. I’m tired and cold and the hotel room is paid for. Can we go back and sleep and take the plane home tomorrow?”
Constantine asks me without words if I agree to the plan Felix proposed.
Since I don’t trust my voice, I answer with a tiny nod.
We climb back over the wall with Constantine’s help, and walk back to the monorail station without him. He teleported away to somewhere—either to the hotel or to find who Gane is working for, or somewhere else, he didn’t say. I’m feeling tired and stunned as we ride the monorail back to the hotel.
“What did Gane say to you about why they think I have the book?” I lean on Felix’s arm and whisper, since there are other people in the car.
“He said somebody gave it to you. Some name that starts with an m. Mircea?”
“That’s what I thought he said.” My heart is chugging inside me like the first grinding pumps of a train’s pistons as it gathers momentum to pull away from the station. “Didn’t Constantine say he was born in 1428?”
“That sounds right. Why?”
“That’s the year Vlad Dracul’s oldest son was born. Mircea.” I shake my head, but my heart doesn’t stop its crazy ramming.
“Which one was he?”
“War hero. At the age of sixteen, he ruled his father’s kingdom while his dad went to pay tribute to the Ottomans. But it was a time of war and unrest and his kingdom was attacked. Mircea fought valiantly in spite of being overwhelmingly outnumbered. He saved a major outpost from Ottoman control, only to have his father sign it over to the sultan. His own people rebelled against him and buried him alive at the age of nineteen.”
Felix raises a questioning eyebrow. “But as the son of a dragon, he was biologically immortal, right? He could only be killed with a stake through the heart, or by decapitation. If he was buried alive, neither of those would have happened yet, right?”
I don’t answer his question directly. My throat is dry. I speak in a faltering whisper. “Constantine gave me the book. Not to keep, just to have it translated. But he’s the one with the book. That’s who Gane was talking about, right?”
“I guess. When I asked Constantine if he sleeps in a coffin, he said—”
“Not usually.” We recite the answer in unison.
I add, “He didn’t deny it.”
Felix looks at me with wide, almost frightened eyes. “Do you think Constantine is really Vlad Dracula’s older brother?”
Chapter Eighteen
I don’t even know Constantine’s room number, so I call him as we’re walking from the monorail station to the hotel. He answers the phone with hesitation in his voice. “Rilla?”
“Mircea?” I ask. When he doesn’t respond right away, I tell him, “I’d like to talk to you.”
“I can meet you in your room.”
“Thank you. We’ll be there shortly.”
Felix looks at me with a dozen questions on his face as I close the call.
“He didn’t deny it,” I confirm.
“What does it mean if he is?”
I shake my head and shrug, my throat too full of emotion to permit words to escape just yet.
“We already knew he was alive back then, we knew he was a key player. He never really explained what type of vampire he is. He said it’s complicated.” Felix is whispering close to my ear as we enter the hotel lobby and head for the elevators.
“I need to know. I need to know all of that.” I punch the button for an up elevator.
We ride in silence.
Constantine opens the door to our hotel suite the moment my fingers fumble with the lock. He looks wary. Once the door is closed solidly after us, he asks, “How did you figure it out?”
I lower my heavy backpack onto the coffee table and kick off my shoes. “Gane claims I have the book. He said Mircea gave it to me. You were born in 1428.”
Perhaps because he’s tired, Felix falls into his awkward habit of asking juvenile questions. “Were you really buried alive? How long were you down there?”
Rather than give Constantine time to answer Felix’s questions, I ask something important. “Why didn’t you tell us? You told me your original name was Constantine.”
“That was my first alias, and my most common alias since.” He turns to Felix, ignoring my real question. “I was buried alive for eight months until my brother dug me up.”
“How did you survive?”
“I could not die.”
“But I mean—air, food, water. Weren’t you injured?”
“Yes, I was injured—they tried to kill me with pitchforks. I went into a dormant state like hibernation. Those who buried me feared I would arise from my grave, so they rolled heavy boulders atop my coffin. These landed in such a manner that they did not crush me, but allowed spaces for air and even a bit of filtered light to reach me. Rain also trickled down, and I drank what I could.”
I’m listening, cringing to think this actually happened—to anyone, let alone to a man I care about. “Some of the historical sources claim your eyes were put out by a red hot poker.”
“Ah, yes. So many witnesses believed.” As he speaks, Constantine reaches up and pulls darkened contacts from his eyes, revealing their true deep red color. “We had a rudimentary eye lens even then—our naked eyes frightened people. But my lenses were knocked out as I fought to free myself. It is not surprising that those present thought my eyes had been burned from their sockets.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I repeat the question he still hasn’t answered.
Constantine places his hands atop his head, fingers knit together, and paces a path across the room. He’s wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. He’s barefoot and hunky and, with his arms above his head like that, his biceps are displayed impressively.
Not that I should probably be looking.
Still.
He lowers his arms and shakes his head. “It’s complicated.”
Felix bellows with exasperation, “It doesn’t sound tha
t complicated to me.”
But I can tell from Constantine’s face that’s not exactly what he meant.
“There’s more than what you’ve told us?”
He closes his eyes and stands perfectly still, neither nodding nor shaking his head. “It is difficult for me to talk about. I do not wish to tell it. You have kept your secrets from me. Let me keep mine.” By the end of the speech he opens his eyes and looks at me with pleading.
What can I say? I’ve been demanding everything of him while withholding the truth about myself, even when I should have known it was safe to share it.
So for a couple of minutes we’re just staring at each other, communicating wordlessly. I’m mostly saying I want to know everything about you, while he’s telling me that’s not going to make this any easier.
To which I might have pouted something like it’s not fair. I care about you and I’m attracted to you and I don’t want to lose you.
And his unflinching response is there can never be anything between us. There is nothing more to gain. We both need to walk away now.
While we’re doing that, Felix digs around in his bag, pulls out contact lens solution, and removes his contacts, revealing his scarlet-red eyes. “Want to take out your contacts?” He hands me my lens case, which had been tossed in his bag with the rest of the bathroom stuff in our haste to leave.
I remove my lenses and catch my reflection in the mirror. My hair is sort of disheveled, but still curled. My makeup is faded but still far more impressive than my usual chapstick-and-spot-concealer combo. And my dress matches my eyes.
Perfectly.
“No more secrets,” I tell Constantine, for the first time looking into his real eyes with my real eyes, unhidden. “Ask me anything about myself.”
He only shakes his head. “I need to go. I’m going to track down Gane and stop the vampires from hurting you. Please don’t call me. The number I gave you doesn’t work in Europe, anyway.”
He’s going to leave. I have hundreds of questions and he’s going to leave. There are so many answers I still don’t have. Before he teleports away, I blurt out the first question that comes to mind. “You said you followed me to Montana years ago, then left. So why were you there two weeks ago when you rang my doorbell and told me I had a bat?”