She’d seen a PBS documentary on Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. It had been pretty cool, with stampedes and stagecoach robberies. It had been a huge, outdoor spectacle to entertain public with stories of a West that never really existed outside the imagination. As trains and farming closed the last of the frontier, the show had been like a child’s remembrance of that freer time. Annie Oakley had performed here. Sitting Bull had signed autographs. American popular culture creating legends from the ashes of expansionism.
But, of course, being another victim of Tanya St. Clair’s prose, Kara was quickly disappointed in the fake reality of it. It was outside the actual World’s Fair grounds, with multilevel, arena seating and a painted backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. That did seem historically correct.
However, Kara was fairly certain that the real preshow didn’t consist of two cowboys listlessly firing fake guns at each other over and over and over in the exact same way, like they were stuck on a loop.
Her eyes rolled up to the heavens. If she had to be transported into a book, why couldn’t it have been Pride and Prejudice?
Damien came up beside her, looking utterly unimpressed with all things human. “These cost me a half-dollar each. I hope you’re happy.” He passed her a blue ticket. “Thus far, the show is a disappointment.”
Kara’s first instinct was to snort at his whining over fifty lousy cents. Then, she realized that it was still fifty cents more than she had to her name. Here in 1892, she was flat broke. The Vampires had stolen all her money and Tanya hadn’t added any ATMs, so far. Kara only had a place to stay and food to eat because of Damien.
He glanced down at her when she didn’t say anything. The irritation and strange yearning had faded back into his usually sardonic wickedness. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m taking advantage of you.” She admitted, reluctantly.
“That sounds promising.”
“I’m serious. You were still wrong to steal, but if we were in reality, I would pay my own way. Really. You wouldn’t have to buy me stuff.”
Damien’s expression softened. A knuckle brushed back one springy curl as if he couldn’t help himself. “In any reality, I think I would wind-up buying you whatever you wished.”
That caught her off-guard. Kara stared at the perfect, ruthless angles of his face in surprise, but Damien was already moving, again.
He seemed annoyed that he’d said anything that wasn’t a death threat. His hand found her elbow, guiding her along. “So where would this Meleen woman be?” He demanded, totally expecting the humans to clear the way as he headed for their seats.
Which they did.
Kara hurried to keep pace. “Melessa. And I have no idea.” In the book, Mel had never gotten further than a box seat to the Wild West Show, so there was no way of knowing where she was in this new plot twist. “Just look for the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. That’s her.”
Damien flashed Kara a strange look, like that was the craziest thing she’d said yet. Even crazier than the time travel and romance novel stuff.
“Hey, it’s true. Just wait until you see her.” Kara was not looking forward to the Melessa reveal. Damien was going to want her. It was all documented in the book.
He was ‘dazzled’ by Melessa and ‘irresistibly drawn to her sweetness,’ despite his supposedly unrelenting brutality. Tanya St. Clair never really explained why the novel’s nefarious mastermind would want someone so angelic and good. It actually hinted at some deeper motivations for a man who Tanya clearly only intended to write as a one-note killer. But then, the plot never made a lot of sense, so why break the trend?
Damien would be captivated by Melessa.
It was right there in black-and-white.
The idea depressed Kara. She scowled up at him, like he’d already made a pass at Princess Barbie Doll. “Having the villain fall for the heroine is so clichéd.”
“I’m not a villain.” He retorted, not meeting her eyes.
“Sure you’re not.” Too bad there wasn’t a test he could take to see for himself. Like a Cosmo quiz, “Is He an Evil Overlord?” She arched a brow at him. “Do you ever sit around and devise plans to take over the world?”
Damien shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“No!” But, she was laughing as she said it. Nobody ever brought out the range of emotions in her that Damien did. She went from yelling, to total desire, to reluctant amusement all in a matter of minutes. He hadn’t said a single word of pure Tanya dialogue since the night before and, with the stilted language gone, his own personality was flourishing. Back in the cab, he’d even escaped the confines of his character’s idiotic motivations for a moment and questioned why he had that bird. It was very promising. Left to his own devises, Damien had actual intelligence and an unexpected charm about him. What a shame that he was stuck in a stifling prison like Eternal Passion at Sunset. He deserved more.
Kara playfully nudged him with her shoulder. “Face it. You’re the baddie.”
His head titled as he studied her teasing grin. “Then, why aren’t you scared of me?”
Flirting with him was a terrible idea. She did it anyway. “Maybe I just like the way you kiss.”
Damien’s mouth curved, again. The slow half smile changed the angles of his face, making him look almost boyish. He gazed at her like she was holy water and he was a parched Vampire. Like he wanted to canoodle her right out of her ridiculous dress. Like she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
The sorcerer was addictive.
Except, Kara refused to become hooked.
She glanced away. “Right.” The seats he got them were right up front. Kara quickly headed down the row of wooden plank style bleachers. “Hey, fifty cents buys you a primo location, though, Vlad. Look at this.” She flopped down and gave a nod. “There’s no way we can miss her from here.”
“Thrilling.” Damien brushed off his seat before sitting down. He clearly wasn’t happy with the accommodations. Black eyes scanned around for threats.
Kara ignored his attitude. The guy made her hyperaware of everything he did. It was very not good. Rather than dwell on his incredible hotness, or watch the repeating cowboys and their restless audience, she flipped open the manuscript, again.
They were up to chapter seven and way, way off track. She needed to hunt for clues on how to fix this mess. So far, the book was still meandering along with heartfelt Slade/Mel scenes and a lot of superfluous garbage about the Vampires origins in some other dimension and being cast out of paradise, along with all the other supernatural beings. Pages and pages of how sad it made him. It was very convoluted and flashback-y.
In other words, it was useless.
Kara was skimming along, wishing Slade would just shut up about his tragic past, when she spotted a section with Damien’s name.
Melessa looked out at the supernatural cemetery. “So many dead.” She murmured, sadly. “How do you go on, Slade darling, knowing that so many died fighting these wars? How sad it must be for you.”
“It does make me sad, yet I have no choice.” His golden hair blew out behind him, a ray of sunshine in the desolate spot. “I am the king of the Vampire race and I must prevail over my sadness. I must be the great leader I am. Only I can stop Damien.”
She gave a delicate shudder at the dreadful name. “I fear him so much. His cold, black eyes and aura of darkness. He has no heart. There is nothing he wouldn’t do in the name of vengeance. There’s nothing he wouldn’t sacrifice.”
“Now, now, my darling. You mustn’t be afraid. I will destroy him as I destroyed the other monsters of his kind.” Slade’s masculine arm engulfed her small shoulders. “See that?” He gestured towards one of the headstones. “It is one of the Wizard Warlock dead. He perished, like all other demons, beneath my mighty blade.”
Melessa knelt by the grave her delicate hand fingering the carved words as she read. “Joseph cari of Jasmina.” She glanced up at him. “You killed this man? But, he had a wife. Someone wh
o loved him.” Her innocent heart didn’t know how to accept such a dreadful thing. How could she ever grow accustom to the violence of his world? Her lovely hand came to her forehead, feeling her gentle heart break.
“He was not a man, Eternal-One. He was a creature, who could not feel or love as we do.” Slade’s granite jaw squared as he stared bravely into their uncertain future. Tempestuous clouds darkened their bright horizon. “For all of the good beings of this earth, we must wipe out the Wizard Warlocks forever. Else, we will never be safe. Never forget, a Wizard Warlock is merely an animal.”
“Must you keep reading that lie?” Damien demanded, not even glancing at the page. He’d refused to look at the book since the night before.
Kara jolted back to the present, a chill racing through her. Eternal Passion at Sunset was a drivel, but for the first time, Melessa’s melodramatic words echoed with logic.
There’s nothing he wouldn’t sacrifice.
Damien would do anything to have revenge on Slade. Kara didn’t need the backstory to tell her that. She could hear the hatred in his voice every time he said the Vampire’s name.
And to Damien, Kara was still Slade’s Eternal-One.
He didn’t really believe her about the mix-up. He considered her Slade’s bride. In his ongoing revenge plot, she was Damien’s trump card. She couldn’t forget that.
Kara felt safe with Damien on an unexplained, fundamental level. She trusted him, despite his general tendency towards badness. But, she’d never really dealt with a supervillain before. When the blood hit the fan, how did she know what he was capable of? He’d been locked into his ‘Death to Vampires’ plans like a nuclear warhead for centuries and he’d known her for one day. No matter how he made her feel, she couldn’t afford to underestimate him.
Kara slapped the manuscript shut and sat staring straight ahead. “Why did you kiss me?” Now that she thought about it, one surefire way to piss off Slade was to seduce her.
“Why?” It was a drawl. “You must be joking.” He scanned her body in a slow sweep.
“I mean it.” She refused to be taken in by his seductive voice. “If you think sleeping with me will help you get revenge on Slade, it won’t.”
“When I mate with you, it will have nothing to do with Slade.”
Kara’s eyes narrowed at the arrogance of that remark, but she pressed forward because she needed the truth. “Would you be helping me if you weren’t trying to screw over the Vampire?”
He shrugged. “You would be staying in my home, no matter who else thought to claim you.”
“No one’s trying to claim me! Jesus, I am not the woman you and Slade think I am.” How many times did she need to say that? “I am not his Eternal-One.”
“When Slade and I next meet, be assured, I plan to tell him just that.”
He just wasn’t getting it. He still believed she was Slade’s bride. Kara could tell. She tried a different approach. “So, you think I’m your mortal enemy’s girlfriend, but that has nothing to do with your attraction towards me?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Kara pulled out the big guns. “I don’t have any truth herbs, so I’m going to ask for your solemn vow, understand? I want your solemn vow, on your sister’s memory, that you did not kiss me to get back at Slade.”
Damien’s face tightened. He turned to study her for a beat. “And you would believe the word of a man who you think is villain?”
“I’ll believe you.”
Silence. Then, “I want you for myself. Slade has nothing to do with that. That’s the truth.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
Kara relaxed slightly at the vehemence in his tone. “I’m not Slade’s.” She needed him to understand that. “Really, I’m not.”
Something raw and untamed flashed across Damien’s features. “No.” He agreed, in an ominous tone. “You’re not his. Remember that.”
“Me remember it? You remember it. I’m not the one who’s been saying it all along, buddy.”
Satisfied that she’d gotten the last word in, Kara refocused on the show. Loud trumpets were sounding the Calvary Salute. Or maybe they were bugles. Whatever, they drowned out any more attempts at talking.
Some guy in buckskin stepped out and began a spiel about the wonders of the West they were about to witness. For a second, Kara was completely caught up in experience of actually sitting there and listening to him. Buffalo Bill Cody was right in front of her.
Amazing.
Damien’s arm came up to drape behind her neck, resting on the back of her seat with nonchalant propriety. His fingers caressed in her hair, toying with the curls and watching the show like a bored potentate.
Kara looked around in surprise. And not just at the territorial feel of his hand. There hadn’t been backs to their chairs a second before and Kara seriously doubted Tanya St. Clair was adding them, since everyone one else still sat on bleachers. She and Damien were the only ones who now had comfortable, padded seats.
It was impossible.
Magic.
Damien.
She flashed him a glare, which he ignored.
“You can’t do things like that.” She hissed. “You’re going to be caught. And nineteenth century humans won’t be happy to see someone casting spells in public.” They probably still burned people as witches around here. “You’re the one who was complaining about being inconspicuous, making me wear this glorified bridesmaid dress.”
“The humans won’t catch me.” He sounded amused by the idea. “And if you’d worn your own clothes, it would have drawn attention. I was right about that.”
“Magic tricks don’t draw attention, I suppose.”
“Not as much as me slaughtering men for looking at you.” He said it so casually that it actually took Kara a second to process it.
She opened her mouth to respond to that typically patronizing comment when her bizarre day went and got even stranger.
As a fake wagon train began lumbering along, a loud shriek sounded from the sky.
…And dragons attacked the Wild West Show.
Chapter Eight
“Gentle Melessa, how could you know of the suffering I’ve endured? The battles I’ve had to fight for the good of all.” Slade pounded a heartfelt fist against his massive chest. “You are a mere mortal woman. Young and innocent. For your own good, I must let you go.” He held up a hand when her soft lips would have protested his sacrifice. “No, my sweet love. Only a monster would seek to take something so pure and sully it with his own dark world. Farewell, my darling. My own Eternal-One. I shall see your heavenly face no more, save for in my lonely dreams.”
Eternal Passion at Sunset- Chapter Eight
So often, since Kara arrived, Damien had experienced twinges of wrongness.
Not with her, but with the rest of the world. His instincts told him that something was… different. Imbalance and disorder filled his senses. Like reality was terribly askew, but everyone just had to pretend not to notice and keep going. It was unnerving.
Off-kilter.
He’d never felt that sensation more clearly than when he saw fire-breathing monsters chase cowboys around the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
Damien swore as the four dragons swooped down, revealing themselves to the tourists. Looking remarkably similar to reptilian humans with wings, the mercenaries of the supernatural world descended like a primordial plague.
It was an unprecedented display. Since they’d entered this dimension, the supernatural world stayed hidden from the humans. It was their oldest law. One not even Damien broke, regardless of his small, public magick tricks. What the hell were the dragons thinking?
They weren’t even eating anyone, which he could have almost accepted as motivation, given their carnivorous appetites and generally poor planning skills. Instead, they seemed to be searching the crowd, watching as the Wild West Show attendees scattered in all directions. The humans were screaming and praying and making a hell of lot o
f useless noise, but the dragon weren’t killing them.
This was definitely not normal.
Beside him, Kara’s jaw hung open. She stood up, her hands braced on the railing as she gazed at the reptile men. Chocolate eyes went from the manuscript in her palm to the invaders and then back, again.
“This is so not part of chapter eight.” She whispered.
Damien ignored that and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting out the conflict. He hadn’t even wanted to come to this fiasco. He’d been humoring Kara, again, still not wanting her to realize how much of a prisoner she actually was. Giving into her peculiar plans to find this Melandra woman was such a small thing and it satisfied her for some reason.
As he suspected, the Wild West Show had been painfully boring, but he’d endured. It worried him what he would endure for this woman. And, after a few moments, Damien found that he didn’t hate the experience as much as he should. He sat beside Kara, watching her watch the humans in ten gallon hats cavort about, and it had almost been… peaceful.
Then, the dragons ruined it.
That was just annoying.
He had no idea what they were planning, but he wished they’d get on with it and go away. Let the bastards kill the humans or the humans kill the dragons. What did he care, just so they did it quickly?
Damien didn’t care about anything except vengeance.
The leader of the dragons landed, his crimson eyes siting on Damien. He gestured for his men to join him on the ground and take positions around the wide open arena. Nestor’s roughhewed face shone with triumph as he headed towards Damien’s seat in the stands. He plowed forward through the stampede of humanity, his huge body stalking towards his target.
Ah. Damien arched a brow. The dragons must have been looking for him. Not overly surprising. Damien was never surprised to learn that someone else wanted him dead.
And it wasn’t like he and Nestor had ever been close. The Dragon’s leader was even more amoral than Damien, his services for sale to the highest bidder. Usually, that involved gruesome slaughter and intimidation tactics. With their looks, dragons were good at scaring the locals. Nestor’s gold-colored pants clashed with the green hue of his scaly skin. His wings were large and bat-like. Like all the dragons, he wore his red hair long, so it hit the middle of his bare chest, barbarian style. All in all, he looked like a badly-dressed demon from hell.
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