I was unnerved and fascinated by the sexual tension that arced between us. I didn’t have a lot of practice with flirting. I was more of a “let’s just do this and move on with our respective lives” kind of girl. This approach made rejection less painful.
With my gaze on Drake’s, I lifted the scone and took a bite. Drake’s eyes darkened with what could only be called raw lust. He reached over and flicked a crumb away from the corner of my mouth. That small gesture sent electricity racing down into the tingly parts.
“Wow,” said Dove. “And I here I used a napkin.”
Everyone laughed.
Then a tiny werewolf howl echoed into the room and cut everyone’s giggles short. We all turned to Drake, who offered a sheepish (that’s right, I said it) grin as he removed his cell phone from his jeans pocket. “Darrius gave me a replacement for the one stolen from me,” he said, “and he has a stupid sense of humor.” He touched the screen and put the phone to his ear. “Ja?”
He listened for a moment, and then his eyes widened. “We’re coming now.” He clicked the phone off and turned to Patsy. “It seems we do not have to go to the pyramid after all.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “Why?”
He glanced at me. “Because the pyramid has come to us.”
• • •
“Holy shit.”
The expletive pierced Dove’s lips, and echoed my own shocked thoughts. We stood at the base of a pyramid. Not a crumbling pile of stone that showcased workmanship and culture of ages past, but an actual, beautiful, complete pyramid. White limestone covered it like thinly spread cream cheese frosting, and the tip was covered in gold. That night in the desert I hadn’t had an opportunity to really study it, but here, in this field with the Oklahoma night sky stretched above it like a velvet blanket . . . it was beyond amazing.
“This is incredible,” I said. “I’ve seen renderings of what they were supposed to look like, of course.”
“Computer generated graphics are a poor substitute,” said Dove.
Patsy and her husband stood next to each other, and then to my surprise, although with not as much OMG, a dude sparkled into existence on the other side of Patsy. He was a good-looking, casually dressed gentleman with silvery-gray eyes, longish black hair, and a drop-dead smile. He reached out a hand toward me. “I’m Ruadan,” he said. “You’re a real blessin’, you are, Dr. Jameson.”
I blinked. A hazy childhood memory formed, the one so recently unlocked. A man with eyes like shiny nickels, sitting on the bed, placing a hand on my forehead, and whispering, “Déan dearmad.”
“Do I know you?” I asked. “I do, don’t I?”
“I was a friend of your grandfather’s,” he said. “He wanted to protect you.”
“There’s a lot of that going around these days,” I said.
Something flashed in his eyes, almost like sorrow, and that made my heart turn over in my chest. “You look like Patrick and Lorcan,” I said. “Older brother?”
“Father,” he clarified. Then he said, “And who’s this lovely girl?”
“Dove,” she said, offering her hand. “Just Dove.”
“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” he said. He kissed the top of her hand.
Dove blushed.
I had never seen Dove blush. Not ever. Not . . . well, ever. I was so stunned by the redness tinting her cheeks, I couldn’t think of a single sarcastic thing to say about it. Even so, she looked at me and said, “Shut up.”
“You shut up,” I said, because I am obviously mature and articulate.
We all turned toward the pyramid and gazed upward once more.
“So, we go in, survive the traps, and . . . what?” asked Dove.
“Wake up two Ancient vampires who haven’t had human blood in three thousand years,” I said.
“Oh, is that all?” asked Dove. She shared a look with me, and I noted that she looked particularly young in just jeans, a T-shirt, and ballet flats, especially without the kohl eyes, red lipstick, and goth clothing that usually hid her fresh-faced looks. It was all camouflage armor, small ways she’d learned to protect herself from the world. She rejected the world first, so it wouldn’t reject her. I wasn’t so much into rejecting the world with my clothing choices. I mostly just flipped it off or, when needed, punched out anyone who annoyed me. I wore khakis, a T-shirt, and hiking boots—clothing provided by Drake. New clothes, in my size, that had been presented right before I took a shower. I also had a flashlight, a Swiss Army knife, and two bottles of water tucked into the various pockets. I didn’t have my usual excavation tools because (1) I hadn’t had the opportunity to bring them, and (2) I wasn’t actually excavating anything.
“Well, then,” said Patsy. “Let’s get to it.” She pointed at a small gold circle. The hieroglyph’s basic interpretation was simple enough: “Enter here.”
“You know what to do, Moira. You open it. We’ll follow you inside.”
Gabriel cleared his throat.
Patsy rolled her eyes. “Everyone else will go inside. I’m too busy being pregnant.”
I studied her expression, and decided she didn’t harbor the same knowledge that had been imparted to me via dreamland. I hadn’t mentioned the dream, not to anyone, especially not to Dove. She would’ve tied me to the bed and fended off anyone who tried to cart me into the pyramid with only her bad attitude and that blade she kept tucked in her boots. It was her bad attitude that was the more potent of the weapons.
In any case, I remembered the dream in detail, and knew, somehow, that it was real. At least, real in the sense of truth. And I’d made a promise. I remembered what the voice in my head said when I stuck my hand into the keyhole the first time. Love will lead you. Be worthy. I had no idea what that meant. Even so, I would enter the pyramid and be the first meal of Amahté and Shamhat. It wasn’t like I had a choice. I had opened the pyramid, and now I had to follow through with the whole sacrifice thing.
Yay, me.
I could only hope that Aufanie and Tark hadn’t lied about the ambrosia, or today I would be entering my last pyramid ever. “I will go first,” said Drake. He reached out his hand, but I stepped in front of him.
“The hell you will,” I said, looking at him over my shoulder. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Neither do you,” he said tightly.
“Oh, stop,” said Patsy, exasperated. “That’s the way it works, Drake. It’s her blood that opens the damned thing.”
He looked supremely irritated, but gave a short, quick nod.
I stuck my hand inside the hole. Something sharp raked my wrist.
We heard a rumble, and then a doorway appeared. It pushed back, inward, and then slid to the side. A blend of female and male voices invited, “Enter, chosen.”
“Step aside, Moira,” said Drake.
“She’s the one to go first,” said Ruadan. “She’s been chosen, Drake. You can’t change that.”
Ruadan looked at me. “Your destiny is what you make it, love. Remember that.”
“Fate can be a real bitch,” I said.
He laughed. “That is the truth, sure enough.”
I had every intention of getting out of this pyramid alive. Well, alive-ish. After snacking on some ambrosia.
I stepped inside, and smelled the dust of the ages in the suffocating dark. Drake followed, so close I could feel the warmth of his body against my backside. I had to stay in front of him, make sure he didn’t go around and set off the blood-drinking traps. I didn’t know if he’d be ejected out of the pyramid, too . . . or just get plain ol’ dead from trying. Sheesh. He really was as stubborn as Aufanie had said.
Behind me, I heard Dove gasp, and then her vivid cursing streak made my ears bleed . . . at least until the door shut behind us.
Drake and I turned around.
“That’s not good,” I said.
The door was completely gone.
“It only let two of us inside,” he said. “Why?”
“Well,
I’m the chosen,” I said with mock haughtiness. “So you’re probably screwed.”
He snorted a laugh. “We’ll see. Let’s get through as quickly as possible, shall we?” Drake said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Let me pass, o chosen one.”
Ha. As if. I slipped out of his grasp and move onward. The passage was so narrow that he wouldn’t be able to scoot around me unless turned and pressed my back against the wall. I heard his hiss of impatience, and then a string of German words that had the feel and tone of “fucking fuckety fuck.”
Then I heard the whoom noise made when a lit match strikes gas-soaked wood. Torches on either side of the wall lit up, one by one, stretching several feet down the hallway until they illuminated an intricately carved stone door.
“Ach,” said Drake. “Let me by, Moira. We don’t know the dangers here. It is better if I go first.”
“No, it’s not,” I argued. “I have more experience with pyramids.”
“Not this pyramid,” he said. “Move aside.”
“No.” I sprinted toward the door, hoping that the first trap wasn’t some sort of spike-infested pit, or spears spinning out of the walls in Indiana Jones fashion.
Drake cursed some more in German, and followed. I reached the door seconds before he skidded behind me. I studied the hieroglyphs, and puzzled out the meanings. I don’t know how much time passed, but as I crouched down to view the final set of glyphs, I heard Drake sigh.
“What does it say, Liebling?”
“Archaeology takes patience,” I said. I straightened, and peered at the carved hole in the middle of the doorway. “Basically, it’s a bunch of threats about being in this pyramid. Death-on-swift-wings kinds of stuff,” I said.
Drake stared at me blankly.
“Not a fan of The Mummy movies?” I asked.
He cocked an eyebrow.
“Ancient Egyptians often wrote prayers and threats on their tombs to protect their resting places. This one is a little different.” I pointed at the hole. “And then there’s this.” I encircled my finger around the images that surrounded the hole. “These are instructions. It says: ‘To know the beginning is to know the answer.’”
Then I stuck my hand into the hole.
Chapter 15
Dove
“Your knowledge of swear words is impressive,” said Patsy. “Still, don’t get your panties in a bunch. You didn’t get to go on the field trip. Suck it up.”
How could I explain to the queen of the vampires that Moira needed me?
Or that I felt completely weirded out being left in the company of vampires?
Or that Moira had abandoned me and it hurt. Even though she hadn’t done it on purpose. Probably.
I inhaled deeply. Oh, yeah. I needed to suck it up. Quick.
“What’s there to do around here?” I asked.
“Are you kidding me?” asked Patsy. “It’s Oklahoma. You can tip cows, skinny-dip in the pond, or watch reality TV.”
“Spectacular.”
“How do you feel about babysitting?” she asked.
I stared at her for a full thirty seconds. “How do you feel about dead children?”
She blinked, and then she snorted a laugh. “Jesus, you’re a pistol.” She looped her arm through mine. “C’mon, buttercup. We have plans to make and bad guys to defeat.”
I perked up. “Now, that sounds fun.”
Chapter 16
“Moira!”
Drake’s shocked exclamation made me feel guilty. Well, I had to be sneaky, damn it. He was trying to protect me, but I was saving the world. His parents had told me so.
I stretched out my fingers, wiggling for . . . ah, there it was. I felt a sharp, swift prick as I pressed my palm down onto the point. Blood welled, dripped, and then . . .
I passed out.
• • •
I floated. Like a feather tossed by the wind, I danced and whirled in the night sky. Another dream? Below me was a silver trailer, and I swooped down, lower and lower, until I melted through the metal roof.
Now I was in a white room.
Below me, a woman with brunette hair lay between the legs of a spectacularly naked man.
I kept floating, floating . . . until I sank into her skin. Melded with her essence. Became her.
I was a woman named Jessica Matthews.
And she was just waking up . . .
• • •
I was latched on to the velvety inside of a muscular male thigh, my teeth embedded in the flesh near his groin, my mouth soaked with warm, very tasty liquid.
After another minute or two of sucking on the stranger’s thigh, I felt firm, long fingers under my chin.
“That’s enough, love,” said an Irish-tinged voice. “You’re healed now.”
With great reluctance, I allowed the fingers cupping my jaw to disengage me from the yummy thigh. I sat up, licking my lips to get every dribble of blood smeared on my mouth.
So, I was Jessica. Only I was me.
And apparently, I liked blood.
Or was she the one who liked the blood?
Oh for—gah! Well, if I wasn’t nutballs before, this kind of shit should do the trick.
“Ssshhh. Everything will be explained.” He tilted his head, looking me over in a way that caused heat to skitter in my stomach. Or rather, Jessica’s stomach.
“So . . . with all the, uh, bloodsucking, I’m guessing I’m a vampire now.” These words were spoken by Jessica . . . and I was just inside her head, inside this dream, with her. It was a weird sensation to be inside another person, even if it was a dream, or vision, or . . . me, finally sailing over the edge of sanity.
“Yes. We Irish vampires call ourselves deamhan fola.” He grinned at me. “It means ‘blood demon.’”
“Oh. Well, that’s certainly . . . descriptive.”
We were in some sort of small white room. It had a long, uncomfortable steel slab sticking out from the wall and we were on it. About six feet from the steel slab on the left side of the room was a door without any visible knob or handle. That was it. White room. Steel bed. Naked man. Jessica was in some sort of white hospital gown and smelled like antiseptic.
Jessica was a vampire.
The guy who’d been the lifesaving snack leaned against the wall, his knees drawn up slightly. Raven black hair feathered away from his face, the ends of it curling on his shoulders. He watched me, or rather her, with the strangest eyes I’d ever seen. Of course, I knew this was Patrick. And his brother Lorcan looked exactly the same. As did their father, Ruadan. Following the vampire bloodlines was probably going to require a chart. And someone who understood how to explain charts to people like me.
I heard a steel scrape, then clang, clang, clang. Patrick had put his hands on his knees and revealed that he was chained to the wall. The chains, maybe as thick as those that secured bicycles, looked too delicate to hold him. Swirls and weird words emblazoned the silver cuffs.
“You’re a prisoner?” Jessica sounded aghast. “I thought vampires were super-duper strong.”
He chuckled. “We are very strong. But these little beauties”—he shook his arms—“have special charms on them. I cannot break them.”
“Special charms? As in . . .” Jessica wiggled her fingers in a bad sorceress impression.
He nodded. “I had to be bound, love. Because of that ring you’re wearin’.”
On the ring finger of my right hand—well, Jessica’s right hand—was a beautiful silver ring. I looked at it, as if doing so would make it clear why the vampire needed chains to protect him from it. “My claddagh ring?”
“It’s a fede,” said the man. “It’s made from the purest silver and it’s very old.”
• • •
I woke up with my face buried in werewolf thigh. I pushed up and sat back, staring at Drake in shock. My lips felt swollen. “What the hell?”
He seemed dazed. “You . . . were acting out something,” he said weakly. “I’m afraid I had no choice but to . . . do
as you wished.” He grimaced as he adjusted himself, and my gaze was drawn to his crotch.
He had a hard-on. A really big, delicious hard-on.
“Wow,” I said.
He looked down, then at me, and sighed. “You were nibbling,” he said. Then his gaze tracked down my arm, to my stinging upraised palm that I rested on my thigh. Did I mention the stinging? He frowned. “You are bleeding.”
My heart was pounding, either from the vision or from lust or from excitement. Maybe all three. I looked at my palm and noted that the first blood sacrifice had been minimal. More like a scratch. But yeah, the wound was still bleeding. I looked at Drake and batted my eyelashes. “Are you going to rip off a piece of your shirt and wrap it around my hand?”
I think my voice held too much hope. Drake offered me a wicked grin and then leaned to the side and dug into his front pocket. “Patsy gave me a handful of Band-Aids,” he said, pulling out said Band-Aids, along with a pack of peppermint gum. “She also wanted me to have fresh breath.”
I laughed. I went to take one of the bandages, but he said, “Nein.”
He chose a Band-Aid, stuffed the rest and the gum back into his pocket, and undid the wrapping, which he tucked into the opposite pocket. Then he put the bandage over my minor wound. He looked at me with that smoky gaze that made my stomach squeeze, and then placed a kiss on top of the bandage. “It is my understanding that kisses help boo-boos heal faster,” he said.
“I’ve heard that, too.” I grinned.
“Any other boo-boos?” he asked in that smoky voice. My thighs shivered.
“I’ll let you know.”
He cocked his lips into a half smile, a reminder that his lips could be on my body anytime.
“So, what do we do now, Moira?”
Well, I had some ideas (see: trembling thighs), but they didn’t involve pyramids, Ancients, or blood. Drake caught on to my line of thought rather quickly. Actually, he was probably already skating in the same direction, waiting for me to catch up.
Here I was, stuck in a pyramid, where my blood would be drained drop by drop, and all I could think about was getting horizontal with Drake. I hadn’t forgotten that he was a werewolf, either. I couldn’t imagine what the sex would be like. Oh, wait. Yes. Yes, I could.
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