A Vampire Bundle

by Alexandra Ivy

  “Fair enough.” She reluctantly stepped out of his embrace. “But promise me that when all this is through we’ll have some quiet time, just you and me. I want to laze around, soak in the bathtub, watch a movie on TV, eat a meal that doesn’t come in waxed paper.”

  “You bet we will.”

  “Good. So, what do we need to defeat a dragon? Do we need to collect some supplies? Holy water? Garlic?”

  “We need a miracle.” He took her hand in his, kissed her knuckles, and squeezed gently.

  “Great,” she said, following him into the hall. “I don’t suppose they’re on special at Meijers, and I’m pretty sure I’d completely exhausted my lifetime’s supply when I met you.”

  Chapter 14

  Sophie wasn’t sure what she’d expected a dragon’s lair to look like, but she knew for a fact that the little white bungalow with tidy flower beds filled to capacity with petunias was a far cry from what she’d imagined. Where was the forbidding castle? The moat? The rickety wooden bridge and “Danger, stay away” signs?

  When they stepped on the front porch and heard a young child’s playful shriek through the closed door, she asked Ric, “Are you absolutely positive we’re at the right place? Do dragons have flowers? And babies? And garden signs with butterflies on them? We’re not even out in the boonies. We’re in the heart of suburbia. Frankly, I’d expect someone’s grandma to live here.”

  “If this is the Guardian’s house, he’s no one’s grandma, or grandpa. Don’t let appearances fool you.”

  “Sure. Okay,” she said, not at all convinced.

  Ric adjusted his badge holder nervously and flipped the pages of paper they’d filled with fake names and arranged on a clipboard. “I just hope he buys our cover.”

  “Sure he will. You’re an expert liar.”

  He grimaced. “Not anymore, at least not to you.”

  “I hope you mean that.” She checked her own name badge—which displayed the name Sheila Potts—and went through what they’d rehearsed on the way over. The wig she was wearing to hide her hair itched. She poked a finger at her scalp and tried to scratch without knocking the wig off her head or setting it off kilter so she looked like her grandma after being caught in a windstorm. “Why aren’t you wearing a wig? This is terrible,” she grumbled. “Why aren’t you sharing my misery?”

  “Because they don’t make wigs for men. I wish they did.” He smoothed his fake beard, which matched his new hair color, deep brown. The new color looked great on him, gave him a dark mysterious look instead of the sun god, beach bum one. Both looks suited her just fine. “This is the best I could come up with. I’m not convinced it’s good enough but what can I do now? Ready?”

  Sophie nodded and Ric poked the doorbell. She heard the faint chime sound inside, then the not-so-faint bark of at least a dozen dogs. “Uh-oh.”

  “Don’t worry.” Ric donned a smile that made her weaker in the knees than she already was.

  She followed suit but guessed her smile looked a lot less convincing than his. “You don’t understand. I’m scared to death of dogs.”

  “I doubt they’ll come to the door.”

  A split second later, it sounded like all bazillion dogs in the house were digging at the inside of the door, trying to bust through to make her their lunch. Sophie backed up one, two, three steps until she was literally teetering on the edge of the porch.

  “Don’t you go anywhere. I need you here so they don’t get a good look at me.” Ric caught her sleeve and yanked at the precise moment the front door swung open, revealing a young, pretty woman with an armload of baby and surrounded by the hounds of hell. He gently shoved Sophie in front of him.

  The woman eyed them both with suspicion and said through the glass storm door, “Yes?”

  Sure those dogs would bust through that single pane of very thin glass at any moment, Sophie cleared her throat. “Hello, madam. We’re with the Humane Society collecting signatures to have a law recently passed allowing the shooting of innocent mourning doves to be rescinded. Would you care to sign?”

  The woman’s eyes went from Sophie’s face to some point behind her—Ric’s face, she assumed. He pressed the clipboard into Sophie’s hand. She offered it to the woman.

  “Okay. I guess I can do that,” the woman said. Balanced on her hip was the baby, a toothless grin and drool dripping down his chin. She swapped hips, settling him on the opposite side and pushed open the door a couple of inches to allow Sophie to pass the clipboard through.

  She set the baby on the floor, signed, and then, smiling, reached for the door, but before she had it opened, Ric said, “Is your husband home too? We could use all the signatures we can get. It’s for a good cause.”

  “Oh.” One of the dogs gave the baby’s face a tongue bath and the child laughed gleefully. “That’s enough, Goliath.” The woman shook a scolding finger at the mammoth dog, now working at cleaning the infant’s hair, and scooped up the baby. “Sure. Just a moment.” She turned to take the clipboard into the interior of the house.

  Ric poked Sophie’s back. She glanced over her shoulder. “Huh? What?”

  Ric shook his head. “Wait!” he said to the woman. “We can’t let you to take that out of our sight,” he explained. “Sorry, it has personal information on it about the other signers. Phone numbers, addresses. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I understand.” As the woman passed the clipboard back to Sophie, several noses poked out, sniffing her fingers. Instinctively, Sophie jerked her hand away. The woman looked shocked at Sophie’s reaction. The dog that had groomed the baby growled and bared its very sharp, very long, very intimidating teeth. After giving Sophie a cautious once-over, the woman slammed the glass door shut and scowled at the beast. “Goliath, what’s your problem?” She held up her index finger to Ric and Sophie and disappeared.

  The dogs remained. An eighth inch of glass or so the only thing between their teeth and Sophie’s delicate skin.

  “They hate me. They want to eat me. Look at that one, he’s so hungry he’s drooling,” she whispered, pointing at the one with the smashed-looking face and strings of slime hanging from his loose lips. She gave Ric a nervous glance, but before he could respond, the woman returned, sans the baby, but with a very nice-looking man; a man, Sophie might add, who looked nothing like a dragon. He looked more like a movie star.

  “Hello, sir,” she said, prepared to recite the spiel she’d just given his wife, but she stopped at that point, distracted by the way he was staring at Ric. And the way Ric was staring at him.

  It was that “guy sizing up the foe” type of look. Not good.

  Ric glanced down at his name badge, breaking eye contact first.

  Clearing her throat, Sophie said, “Hello, we’re collecting signatures to send to our…local…representatives….” She stopped when the movie star shut the door in her face. “He knew?”

  “He knows something’s up.” Ric turned, walked down the front porch stairs, reading the wife’s signature. “For one, someone who works for the Humane Society isn’t usually scared to death of animals.”

  “Oh,” she said guiltily, following him. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. You can’t help it. Though if I’d known, I would’ve picked a different cover for us.” Continuing down the front walk to the shaded street, he added, “Hmmm. The last name’s right. We have the right guy. I tried to block him from my mind but he’s too powerful. I think he got a few things. I couldn’t get into his. It’s locked up tighter than Fort Knox. But he’s definitely an Immortal. He knows I’m one too. We’ve got to get into that house. Today. Before he moves his cache, or contacts some of his fellow Guardians and invites them to a party.”

  “How are we supposed to get in there? Those dogs’ll tear any unwelcome visitors to shreds before they get more than a foot in the door. Did you see them? They were vicious. Man killers.”

  “They were grooming the baby. How vicious could they be?”

  “That’s onl
y because they know the baby. We’re strangers.”

  “I’m not worried about them.” He stopped in the street in front of the tree sitting dead center in front of the house.

  “I am.”

  “They probably have an alarm system.” He turned around. She watched his dark-eyed gaze travel around the front of the house. “Maybe cameras too.”

  Admiring his profile—he had such a cute nose and there was this sexy little mole on his cheek—she circled him. “Do we really need to get in there? You’re not even sure if this Guardian guy has what we’re looking for. Think about it—a lamia sent us here, and an Ancient One tried to kill you. Why would they do that, other than to stop you from getting the shield and spear? It makes no sense.”

  “True. But if they know that we know who and what they are, then they would assume we wouldn’t go.” He started walking down the street. Long, purposeful strides carried him swiftly.

  “Huh?” She jogged to catch up, snagged one of his arms, and gave it a sharp yank. “Slow down! I don’t have five-foot-long legs like some people.”

  “True. But they’re oh so perfect.” He gave her a glittery-eyed grin that made her blush. “If Maggy knows we know she’s a lamia, then she might’ve sent us here on purpose, banking on the assumption we wouldn’t come check it out. And if she also knows—because she’d told Julian to let us in on the big secret—that this gentleman is a Guardian, then she might’ve been even more inclined to send us here, figuring we’d run the other way rather than take on a Guardian.”

  “Maybe. But why risk it? Why point us in the right direction at all? Why not lie and send us on a wild goose chase if the lamiae are trying to buy time?”

  “I don’t know. This may be a wild goose chase. There’s no way to find out if we don’t get inside. We came all this way. We should check it out.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. But if we’re wrong, we may not find out where the relics are before…before our time is up.”

  He clasped his hand around hers and continued down the street, this time at a much more comfortable pace. “Remember, the Ancient One doesn’t like to tell a lie. He can conveniently forget to tell us something important but he’s not likely to tell a lie. And he told us what?”

  “That this guy’s a Guardian,” she said, shuddering when his thumb stroked her palm.

  “What else?”

  “That Margaret Mandel is a lamia?”

  “And?”

  Sophie rummaged around in her brain, searching her memory banks. It wasn’t easy thinking with Ric giving her that look again—the one that melted her insides, made her all warm and wet and willing. “Oh, yeah. He said that we’d have to face a Guardian sooner or later if you’re going to get the harp and spear, and that the Guardian will fight us for it or try to steal it from us once we’ve found it.”

  “You see now? We need to know what he has, who his contacts are, and how powerful he is. Julian told me all Guardians have a weakness. Each one’s different. We need to find what this guy’s is,” he said. Then, tossing an arm over her shoulder, he added, “Don’t worry, sweetcheeks. I won’t put you on dog duty.”

  Sinking into him, and falling into step as they rounded a corner, she said, “Why does that not make me feel any better?”

  “Because you know me so well. Now let’s go make some plans. Your friend needs us.”

  “There’s a strange man at the door.” Sophie backed away from the hotel room’s peephole and turned to Ric.

  “What’s he look like?” Ric was sitting on the bed, a pile of papers spread out in front of him, printouts from the library.

  She took a second peek. Nice looking. Blond hair. Same weird browny-gold eyes. Same stubborn set of his mouth. “You. Kinda. No, a lot like you, before you dyed your hair, that is. Do you have a twin?”

  “Twin? No. Brother? Yes. You can let him in,” he said, not looking up from his reading. “He’s one of the good guys. I know that for a fact.”

  “Okay.” She unfastened the dead bolt and pulled open the door, stepping aside to greet the visitor with a friendly smile. “Hello there. Welcome to the insanity.”

  “Hi,” Ric’s brother said, looking down at her. His eyebrows were bunched together in puzzlement. “Um, do I have the wrong room? I’m looking for—”

  “Hey, Barrett. Get your little scrawny butt in here,” Ric bellowed from behind Sophie.

  Scrawny butt? Not!

  Barrett was every bit as big and bulky as Ric. Wide chest that would make most women drool. Tall, solid frame that looked like it belonged on a football field.

  Ric slung an arm over Barrett’s shoulder and poked him in the ribs. “This is my baby brother, Barrett,” he said, by way of introduction. “Barrett, this is Sophie.”

  Recognition dawned over Barrett’s handsome face. “Ahhh. Yes. Sophie.”

  “Whatever he told you, ignore it, unless he told you that I’m as beautiful as Angelina Jolie, with Anna Kournikova’s body and Albert Einstein’s brilliant mind.”

  “Actually, that’s exactly what he said.” Barrett flashed her a brilliant smile that told her he was lying through his vampire teeth.

  “Ric! What have you told this man?” She spun around to give him a scowl.

  He answered with a “who, me? I’m innocent” bat of the eyes.

  “Nice to meet you.” Barrett gave Sophie a shake of the head, then turned his attention to his brother. “What’s all this stuff about taking on a Guardian? You’re crazy. Besides, what do you care about a couple of crusty antiques? Your research is about the biological—”

  Ric interrupted him with an elbow in the gut. “Later.”

  Barrett eyed Sophie. “Got it. Sure.”

  Sophie felt her blood boil. What was that all about? More secrets? Always secrets! Secret research. Secret, secret, secret. She hated secrets!

  Two people who were facing life-and-death battles with dragons and lamiae and Ancient Ones had no business keeping secrets from each other. Two people who said they cared about each other, were falling in love with each other, had no business keeping secrets either.

  “Got a minute?” she asked Ric. Not willing to wait for his answer, she grabbed whatever body part she could get her hands on first and pulled, hard, toward the bathroom.

  Unfortunately, the part she grabbed—the waist of his unsnapped jeans—gave him the wrong impression.

  “You sexy little vixen,” he whispered, following her. “I don’t have time for this right now. Barrett and I need to make some plans….”

  “You’d better make time. Sit.” Trying to sound authoritative, so that he’d realize his assumption was wrong, she frowned and pointed toward the toilet.

  Why couldn’t he be honest with her? What was he hiding now?

  “There? Why?” he asked, looking confused. “I don’t need to go. Remember? I don’t do those things. And even if I did, I wouldn’t do it in front of you.”

  “Just sit down!” It took every ounce of self-control she possessed to keep her voice below shouting level. “I’m getting a stiff neck from looking up at you.”

  “Sorry,” he said, looking somewhat apologetic. He dropped to his knees, which left his head down around her midchest region. “Better?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Damn it, he looked so adorable from this vantage, all wide-eyed and sweet. And sexy. She felt her anger fading already. Secrets! Remember, he’s keeping things from you. Now is not the time to go all soft and girly. Be strong!

  “Hmmm. I’m liking this position.” He reached around, grabbed her butt and pulled until her pelvis was pressing against his face.

  Strong!

  He rubbed his chin back and forth over her mound.

  Ssstronnng…

  He slid his hand between her legs and rubbed her through her clothes. She felt her temperature spike. Had to be at least 110 about now. Her knees melted. Her brain was melting too, turning into a blob of gray goo.

  Ssssstronnnng…Oh, hell. Screw strong. I’m weak and p
roud of it.

  She decided to embrace her weakness for a moment and started rocking her hips back and forth, back and forth. Her sex rubbed against his hand, creating delightful friction. Little jolts of desire blazed through her body. It was a delightful reward. Weak was good. This was great.

  She glanced down at his face, peered into his shuttered eyes. Eyes that were hiding things from her.

  No, this was not good. Not at all.

  Summoning up the very last bit of strength she possessed, she pushed against his shoulders, attempted to put some distance between her body—which was ready to throw Ric to the floor so she could have her way with him—and the wicked, secret-keeping man in front of her. Unfortunately, Ric refused to let her go.

  “Oh, yes. This is perfect.” His eyes focused up at her face, he opened his mouth and bit down on her crotch through her clothes. Even with a thick pair of jeans and a flimsy bit of lace between her delicate parts and his mouth, the sensation was so intense she was ready to drop down next to him on the tile and invite him on board.

  Mad! You’re mad. Remember?

  “No, Ric.” She shoved again. “We need to talk.”

  “Oh.” He unfastened the button on her jeans. “Okay. Go ahead.” Her button open, he yanked down the zipper. “Oh, look! Black lace. Nice.” He pulled the crotch aside and said, “Hello, sweet thing. How about I have a taste? Mind a visitor? My tongue might like to come in and play.”

  Mad. Really, really…really…maaaad… She was losing control. Fast. She shut her eyes, dropped her head back, and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “I can’t talk when you’re doing that. You’re having a chat with my privates, for heaven’s sake.”

  He pulled at her jeans, tugging them down over her hips, down her thighs. “I like your privates. They’re sweet. And I think they like me too.”

  Dizzy, not sure how much longer she could remain standing, Sophie released Ric’s shirt, lifted her arms, and braced them against the tile wall behind him. Ric continued tormenting her, rubbing her sex through her panties. “They do. But that’s not what we’re in here to discusssss…ohhhh.” Her knees gave.