The door shut behind them with a deep, hollow boom. She heard the slide of a thick metal bolt. The motion sent a cloud of dust swirling around her knees. Her first instinct was to whirl around and pound on the door to get out.
“You grew up here?” she asked in a whisper.
“Generations of hounds lived and died in this place without seeing the outside. I was lucky enough to find an open portal and lead my pack through it. That was in the bad days before Mac took over.”
Talia scanned the endless maze of dark, spooky hallways. It looked like Escher meets Frankenstein. She tried to imagine Osan Mina, with her bright kitchen, or—worse yet—the hellhound children trapped in the shadowy desert of stone. You grew up in here. How is that possible?
All at once she grasped the long, long road Lore had traveled with his pack. They’d come from this and still made a functional community in Fairview in a few short years. That’s a huge, massive act of will.
“This way,” he said, steering her down one of the many identical, featureless routes.
He slowed his steps to match hers, and Talia realized she was all but walking backward. She felt weak and shivery, but how much was due to her wound and how much was the Castle’s atmosphere? She forced herself to pick up the pace.
“Once, the Castle was a living world,” Lore said in a tone that said he was trying to calm her down. “That was a long, long time ago, before it turned into a dungeon.”
“What happened?”
“One of the sorcerers who built the place went mad. To make a long story short, he robbed it of life. Mac gave up his humanity to give it the chance to recover.”
“What do you mean?”
“The world is rebuilding itself now, but it’s kind of happening in fast-forward. Just like on the Discovery Channel.”
Talia stopped. “Excuse me?”
Lore looked at her arm. “There will be time to show you later.”
“You dragged me in here. Satisfy my curiosity.”
He considered for a moment. “Look at this.”
He drew her down a short side corridor. A few yards along, the stone blocks stopped and grew irregular, piles of rubble clogging the path. The walls broke away, ragged as if something had nibbled at them. Instead of geometrical corridors, there was a clearing with a pool. Starlight glittered on the shadowed water.
Fascinated, Talia looked up. “There’s sky in here!”
In the clear, clean air, with no other source of light, the stars looked huge and sharp against the absolute blackness.
Lore gave a smile that held the memory of sadness. “A year ago, the sky wasn’t there. There’s still no sun or moon, just stars.”
“No wonder it’s so dark in here.”
“I didn’t see the sky at all until I escaped this place.”
Talia tried to imagine that, but couldn’t. She squeezed his hand harder, feeling his big knuckles under her fingers. Her childhood had been dominated by her father and his Hunter ideals, but there had also been plenty of normal stuff. Playtime. School. A warm bed in a regular house. Lore didn’t need her pity and wouldn’t want it, but she still had a lump in her throat.
“There’s something growing over there,” he said.
She understood what he meant by the Discovery Channel comment. Prehistoric-looking ferns, green despite the lack of light, drooped into the water. Between them were small pink and white flowers—a carpet of the sweet-scented blooms stretching far into the starlit darkness.
“Beautiful,” she murmured. “I’ve never seen these flowers before.”
“Not too long ago, there was nothing here but moss,” Lore said.
Talia’s teaching reflexes kicked in. “That makes sense. The Castle needed to put down fibrous organic material before something larger could take root.”
She felt another shiver, but this time it was the thrill of seeing something incredible and rare. This is an entire ecosystem building itself in fast-forward. Someone should document the phenomenon, share it, make others understand why it was so remarkable. I wonder if they would let the university students in here?
More to the point—would the students get out alive and still human?
“Come,” Lore said. “We can look around later.”
Reluctantly, Talia turned back, her mind spinning. “Would it be okay if I brought a camera in here sometime?”
“Ask Mac.”
They walked for another minute, meeting more and more people as they went. Lore waved to some, but kept moving until they met up with a young man wearing a leather kilt.
“Hey, Lore. Mac’s coming,” he said, stopping to give them a hello.
Lore made the introductions. “Stewart is one of Mac’s new guards.”
Talia noticed that he was heavily armed, wearing a short sword, several knives, an automatic rifle, and at least two handguns. He also wore a thick leather collar around his throat, probably against vampires. It made sense. Stewart was human—she was too hungry to miss the scent of fresh blood—and the odds of survival weighed against him in a place filled with predators.
Most remarkable, though, was the creature perched on his shoulder. It looked like a tiny, feathery lizard, plumes of orange and scarlet mixed with pale gray bat wings. It gave Talia a glare and raised a colorful ruff, chittering. Adorably, it grabbed one of Stewart’s many earrings and held on with tiny, birdlike claws.
“What’s that?” she asked, wishing she could pet it.
“Dunno,” Stewart replied affably. “I found him in one of the cliff areas. He looked like he’d been dumped out of the nest. A few of the avian species seem to be laying eggs these days. It used to be everything in here was infertile, but not anymore.”
“Isn’t there a legend about feathered serpents in Mexico?” Talia asked.
Stewart grinned. “I’ll have to take him to Taco Bell and see if he gets excited.”
“Don’t you have a job to do, Stewart?” said a cheerful voice.
Talia turned toward it. So this is the infamous Conall Macmillan, the cop turned fire demon.
Mac was huge, dressed in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt and blue jeans. Blue tattoos covered his forearms. The most obvious sign of demonhood was the faint red glow in his eyes and the fact that the corridor warmed up the moment he was in it. Otherwise, he seemed fairly undemony to Talia.
Stewart excused himself.
“So what’s all this I hear about tunnels and giant arachnids?” Mac asked. “Caravelli leaves town for two minutes and you young hounds are running riot.”
He clapped Lore on the back with enough force that Lore had to catch himself. “And you gave me the boring job of first aid? Why didn’t you call us for the fight?”
“Your guards are spread too thin as it is,” Lore replied. “If you pulled them off duty here, we’d have bigger problems than Belenos running around Fairview.”
“I wish you weren’t right.” Mac guided them down the corridor. “I’ll forgive you, but I’m not sure Caravelli will when he lands tomorrow.”
“I’m sure Queen Omara will keep him busy.”
Lore and Talia told him everything that happened. By the time they finished, Mac had led them into a room with a low cot. He’d invited Talia to sit down as he laid out an array of first aid supplies.
Within a minute, Lore had maneuvered him aside and begun working on Talia’s arm. She caught the demon hiding a grin, and she flushed.
“You both look done in,” said Mac. “I’ll let Connie know you’re here. She’ll find you a place to clean up.”
“Thank you,” said Lore as he finished wrapping a bandage around Talia’s arm.
Connie turned out to be Mac’s wife, and a tiny Irish vampire with long black hair and deep blue eyes. Lore greeted her with a huge hug. She turned out not only to know Joe like a brother, but also to be the stepmother of Lore’s childhood friend. It was then Talia made the connection: This was the person who had taught Lore to read. She looked at the little woman with interest.
&
nbsp; Connie was the opposite of the stereotypical vampire. She was perky.
“The bad thing about this place,” she said, her words lilting along in a breathless flow, “is that no one’s ever taken a paintbrush to it. Stone everywhere. It’s depressing. No point in hanging curtains where there’s no windows. Now, I’ve been looking into this interior design course, thinking maybe that’s what we need around here. It’s hard to be morbid in Swedish modern.”
“I’m not sure how the trolls would feel about it,” Lore said. “I think they like the stone.”
“Well, what would you be expecting from them, anyway?” Connie said with disgust, stopping at a door set into yet another dark stone hallway. “If they had their way, this would be one big sports bar. Well, here we are. I did up some guest rooms.”
She had indeed.
As Talia stepped from the stone hallway into the thickly carpeted bedroom, she saw that Connie had an eye for design. The room was done in shades of green, the odd white accent giving it a clean, crisp effect. It was neither too fussy nor too stark, a series of abstract collages the main visual interest in the room. The bed looked sinfully soft.
Connie watched Talia’s response with pleasure. “Not a palace but nothing too bad either, is it? The room has a full bath. There’s another shower in the next room over, if you need it. Watch the water, though, hot means hot. We pump it through the dragons’ fire cave. I’ll bring some extra towels and clean clothes.” With that, she turned to go.
Talia sat down on the bed, looking up at Lore. He lingered in the doorway, chatting with Connie in the easy way old friends do.
Talia blinked, feeling the ache of exhaustion in every bone. She was hurt, weary, and in an alternate dimension run by a demon cop and a vampire who thought she was on Home and Garden TV.
Weirdly, she was content.
Images ran through her head: Stewart and his lizard, Mac, their chattering hostess. The primeval ferns and the stars in the water. For a moment, she was too overwhelmed to know what she thought about any of it. There was fear in the Castle, but there was beauty, too.
A good, quiet feeling settled over her. She’d been through hell that night, but she’d reclaimed huge pieces of herself. She never need fear Belenos again.
Even better, they’d caught the Hunters. Darak had personally delivered Maxim and Mikhail Rostov to Detective Baines. It had been Talia’s choice. He’d offered to tear off their heads. Just part of the service, he’d said.
Let the police have them. As bad as her emotional wounds were, the Hunters owed justice to many, many families. She would testify. But her moment of truth had come when she’d finally faced her father in the tunnels and helped put an end to his reign of terror. Maybe her brother would have a chance to heal now.
There was more adding to her contentment. She had friends who didn’t care what species she was. No one was forcing her to do anything against her will. She had something to fight for—she’d realized she cared for Fairview and the people in it. She had a job here. It was home.
Plus, she had Lore.
Talia’s mood dimmed. The question was how long she got to keep him. The pack was going to want him back.
Chapter 34
Lore kept talking with Connie and then again with Mac, who wanted to set up security arrangements in Fairview for the rest of the night. The hellhounds and werewolves were battle-weary. Omara was sending some of her personal guard to keep New Year’s Eve civilized in Spookytown.
It was important, but Talia couldn’t think straight anymore. She was happy to leave this one to the others.
With no signs of Lore’s conversation winding down, Talia retreated to run a bath and get the blood and everything else off her skin. The water was blessedly hot, the soap and shampoo standard brands that she could buy at any drugstore. She lay back in the tub, trying to keep her bandage dry, and let her eyelids drift shut.
Lore. Daydreams aside, did she have a future with him? Would he be forced to choose between her and the rest of his people? She couldn’t replace all the bonds that tied him to his pack, nor should she. A person was supposed to grow by falling in love, not lose by it.
Take her parents. Her father was a Hunter. Her mother wasn’t. They’d been miserable, her mom cut off from everything she’d ever loved. Taking Lore from his people wouldn’t be much different—even if she adored him.
She remembered Osan Mina’s words about the Alphas and their reincarnated mates: Strong hounds find them. The weak die alone. Alphas must be strong. Finding mate is test.
Talia hadn’t had a moment’s breathing space to dwell on what the old woman had said, but now the words bit hard. Did Lore have a soul mate? Shouldn’t he be looking for her?
Mina was insistent that Lore mate one of their own. Apparently their collective reproductive cycle depended on it. The Alpha had to get it on or the pack got another Alpha in a bloody, violent fight.
She refused to be the cause of that.
Talia got out of the bath, her heart heavy with unease. Giving him up might be ethical, but it would be awful.
She’d lost so many things in her life, most recently Michelle. Her death had taken away the only family who had welcomed her as a vampire. Talia had lost the last good connection to her old life.
But then Lore had made her feel like a person instead of a void. His simple kindness, the fact that he’d accepted her help, the fact that he’d introduced her to his friends—that had made her feel like herself again. She’d been crushed down to nothing, but Lore had shown her that she was worth finding and forgiving.
How could she not want to keep him?
She could be selfish for a little while longer, couldn’t she? After all, they had defeated evil that night. That had to buy some karmic credits.
She looked at herself in the mirror, pale and thin, her hair clinging in damp tendrils around her face, a big bandage on one arm. Not exactly centerfold material. She picked at the bandage, loosening the tape Lore had so carefully applied. Slowly, she peeled back the gauze pad.
Since she’d arrived at the Castle, her wound had tingled. Something in the place had neutralized the magic that had allowed the silver knife to wound her. Now her Undead healing abilities were at work. The wound had already scabbed over, days of healing done in a matter of hours. She patted the bandage back down, happy that at least her body was in one piece.
Her need for blood had also eased, apparently another benefit of the Castle.
If only her heart could be as easily cured.
She left the bathroom, drying her hair in a thick, thirsty towel as she went. The bedroom was empty. Lore’s absence gave her a twinge inside, part emptiness, part relief. If he wasn’t there, she wouldn’t feel guilty for loving him.
But then he came through the door wearing no more than a towel around his hips and a hungry look in his eyes. Obviously, he had gone next door to shower. She could only stare at him, stunned by a rush of desire.
“I want you,” she said. Even—especially—if there’s not going to be a lot of time for us.
Her body ached for him. It wasn’t that he was familiar—they hadn’t been together enough for that. It was the loss of never having the chance to know him, to learn all the things he liked. That took the luxury of hours for exploration. Hours they’d never have after he took a hellhound mate.
Lore was still damp from the shower, drops of water sliding down his biceps where the towel had missed. One little towel has to work hard to cover that much male. Talia delicately licked his skin, catching the drops with the tip of her tongue. She could taste the soap, a plain, simple brand.
I want you to come home every day, dirty from a hard day’s work, and shower with that soap. I want the taste of you in my mouth every night.
She took his mouth, teasing his lip with her teeth, being careful not to draw blood. There would be time enough for that later. She touched her tongue to his, fencing a little as he drew her into his mouth. He had used the same minty toothpaste as she had,
his taste echoing hers.
The mundane detail made her throat ache with the anticipation of bereavement. Stop it! Stop it. You’re not there yet. She pushed it out of her mind, determined to not let sadness destroy the moment.
He used his size to crowd her against the wall, pressing her close. The roughness of the terry towel she wore rubbed against her nipples, her arousal amplifying the sensation to maddening heights.
“How do you want me?” he said, his voice little more than a growl.
“Sunny side up?”
He gave her a scathing look. “Are you never serious?”
“I’m very serious about this.” She slid her hand between their towels, teasing his hard length with the rough cloth.
He caught her wrist. “Don’t end this before it begins.”
With his other hand, he tugged at the knot she’d made to hold her towel closed. It came apart easily and he backed away just enough to pull the cloth away. It dragged across her thighs and backside, its roughness giving her a pleasant shiver.
“That’s better,” he said, running a possessive hand down her bare flank. “You’re so beautiful. Like the starlight.”
How can you say that?
A moment later, he dropped his own towel with an impatient flick. It pooled around their feet, warm from the heat of his body. He pressed close again, his enthusiasm fully evident. Cupping her face with his hands, he kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her ears, taking possession of her an inch at a time, marking all of her with his lips. Making her feel as beautiful as he claimed she was. Finally, he dropped his mouth to her breast, rolling the nipple with his tongue.
Talia made an inarticulate noise, burying her fingers in his thick, dark hair. He finally released her, his breath cool on the wet, swollen tip. Her teeth ached, yearning to bite, but she held back, fighting for control. He took her other breast, giving it the same treatment. Talia gasped, praying for strength. She wanted to pleasure him as a woman before she took him as a vampire, but he sure wasn’t making it easy.
“Bed,” she groaned.
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