To’kel chuckled. “He’s completely losing it. The Council of Elders was incensed that he hired the dragons and exposed our world to the humans. It was so gratifying. I never thought I’d see Slade publically censured.” He shook his head in amazement. “My cousin’s usually untouchable, but since his –your-- human arrived, everything has turned around. I swear, I’m even thinking clearer!”
“One can live in hope.”
“Oh yeah.” To’kel took a swig from a flash of holy water. “It’s everything we’d hoped for all this time. Speaking of which… how did we meet, anyway? When did we start planning all this? I tried to remember, but it’s all sort of a blur.”
Damien felt a chill. “I don’t know.” He admitted after a beat.
Why didn’t he know? Why didn’t he remember that? His gaze cut to the window of the tavern, where he could see the prematurely approaching twilight. Not only did it seem very early for sunset, but the sun had been setting for an hour, now, fixed in the same position in the sky.
Why was it doing that?
Why did no one else seem to find it odd?
How did To’kel manage to leave the Vampire Isle before complete darkness?
As they had since Karalynn arrived, countless questions filled his head. More and more things that made no sense, but that he was reluctant to investigate for fear of what the answers might be. Damien felt like if he started pulling at loose strings, he’d unravel something that could never be fixed. It unnerved him. Unfortunately, the longer Kara was here, the harder it was to ignore the inconsistencies and oddness he saw. The more he noticed the frayed edges.
What the hell was going on?
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.” To’kel shrugged. “Tonight Slade’ll be at the human ball and…”
Damien cut him off. “Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why would Slade go to a human ball with his Eternal-One missing and his kingdom in danger?” It made no sense.
To’kel squinted as if that hadn’t occurred to him. “I don’t know. He’s just supposed to go and so he is.”
“Who says he supposed to? The Council of Elders?”
“Oh no! They hate the humans. Especially after what Kara Donnelly’s done. I mean, she went willingly with a Wizard Warlock over a Vampire?! Everyone’s already ridiculing Slade for losing her to you. What kind of crazy, idiot human …?” He stopped short when Damien’s head snapped around to pin him with a deadly look.
“Do you really want to finish that sentence?” He asked, softly. “I only have one cari, but I can find plenty of other turncoats, if your heart was somehow permanently ripped from your chest.”
To’kel drew back a bit. “Fine.” He muttered sulkily. “We won’t talk about the woman. You’re the one who brought it up.”
“No, I brought up this ridiculous human ball. Why is Slade going to it? Who told him he was supposed to?”
“I don’t know! It’s just… the way it’s supposed to go!” The Vampire looked frazzled. “Don’t you get that?”
“No.” Damien glanced at the window, again, dissatisfied and unsettled. “I don’t get it, at all.”
To’kel gave up on him. “Well, that’s where he’ll be and that’s where we’ll ambush him.”
“We never planned an ambush.” Had they? It was such a stupid idea, but it was suddenly hard to be sure.
“Are you kidding? This is the perfect opportunity for us! Now, I gotta get back before anyone misses me. Here.” To’kel slid a package across the table. “It took some real finesse, but I got you what you wanted. Most of it, anyway. I earned my rubies finding it, too. If I’d been caught, Slade woulda killed me, ya know. He’s obsessed with the girl.”
Damien opened the lid. “I know the feeling.” Inside the package lay the odd pink purse that the Vampires had stolen from Karalynn.
The belongings were very much like the woman herself. Strange and colorful. He didn’t know what to make of them. Damien shifted through the box, unable to help himself. A wallet, silver earrings, a pen that glittered in the light and something called pepper spray. Interesting.
It took him a minute to figure out how to open the flower-patterned wallet. Some kind of two-sided fabric ripped apart as he pulled at the front flap. Damien winced, thinking he’d torn it, but it seemed to be designed with soft fuzz that hooked onto stiffer material.
Very interesting.
Inside, clear sleeves held cards and remarkably clear photographs. In color. Damien blinked. A very young girl, who could only be Karalynn, sat beside a human woman on a beach. Her mother. It had to be. The hair was exactly the same.
His mouth curved.
Flipping through the other sleeves, he saw more photographs; a flat, numbered object embossed with the words ‘American Express’; and another card with a small picture of her face. Damien slid that one free, a strange feeling gripping him as he stared at it.
It read ‘Illinois Drivers License’ and was made of some slick, durable material. It described Karalynn’s eyes and height, listed her address, and proclaimed her an ‘organ donor.’ None of it made any sense, but that wasn’t what made his stomach knot and a chill sweep through him.
It was her date of birth.
Karalynn wasn’t crazy or lying about being from the future. Damien hadn’t thought she was, exactly, he’d just had a hard time conceptualizing it. He accepted supernatural happenings as easily as he breathed, but this wasn’t the work of any magic he knew. He was holding the evidence in his hand and he still couldn’t believe it.
No wonder Karalynn insisted that this was all fiction. The world must be baffling for her.
This wasn’t her time.
The explanation was actually a relief. It explained how she’d just appeared and why she acted so odd; her clothes and her way of speaking and her confusion with everything she saw.
His cari had been born in a different time, so fate had sent her here to him.
Somehow.
Damien blocked out the questions that still plagued him and seized onto time travel as the simplest answer for everything that seemed so off. It was the only thing that he’d accept, because he knew –knew-- that he wasn’t just a character in a story. This was reality. It had to be. Karalynn being from the future smoothed some of the frayed edges of his world.
“Any idea what that stuff means?” To’kel asked. “Slade couldn’t figure it out.”
Damien’s thumb brushed over Karalynn’s smiling photo. His fate, his doom, his mate. The only being who constantly surprised him. His. He gave his head a rueful shake. “It means that my cari is very young for me.”
******
Locking your doors with nothing but magicks turned out to be a real bad idea.
Kara placed one phone call and she was free of her prison within twenty minutes.
It was easy. The helpful operator had connected her to Eugene Blanders’ accounting office. All Kara had to do then was tell the guy that his beloved Melessa had passed out at the World’s Fair Hotel. Eugene promptly agreed to come over and help resuscitate Sleeping Beauty.
That’s how you staged a jailbreak.
Kara smiled to herself, her feet swinging as she sat on the front desk. Poor Vlad was probably gonna wish Tanya had written a deadbolt on his door or that Victorian hotels had better security against their guests.
While she’d waited for Eugene, she’d amused herself by searching through Damien’s possessions, but the snooping didn’t take long. For someone so old, he sure didn’t have a lot of interesting stuff in his bed chamber. Like the rest of the hotel, it had the warm and cozy ambiance of Freddy Kruger’s boiler room. Tanya wasn’t a less-is-more kinda girl when it came to her decorating choices. Damien’s room was over-the-top black, with massive furniture and flickering candles. It didn’t seem safe to keep them burning, but maybe Damien was subconsciously hoping that the whole place would burn down.
He didn’t have any personal items, which disappointed her. No revealing diaries sh
e could flip through. No evidence of hobbies or embarrassing photo albums. The only interesting thing in the room was a painting hanging on the far wall of a dark haired woman in a white dress. It didn’t take the Eternal Passion at Sunset CliffsNotes to realize the portrait must be of his sister.
Amalie was lovely. Ebony hair and pale skin, with shiny black eyes that connected with you right through the painting. Her gaze had an impish light, the feather of the fancy hat she wore curved down over her cheek and she almost looked like she wanted to laugh and blow it away. A girl like that belonged in a Disney cartoon dancing with the seven dwarfs and marrying a handsome prince.
Only her life hadn’t had the fairytale ending.
It was crazy to want to cry as she looked at Amalie’s innocent face. The girl was just a figment of Tanya’s imagination. She’d never really lived, at all, so the Vampires hadn’t really cut her existence short. Logically, Kara knew that. Except it was getting harder and harder not to see these characters as… real.
The weirdness of her feelings had Kara abandoning her scavenger hunt through Damien’s room and returning to the lobby.
It didn’t take long for Melessa’s fiancée to arrive. When, Eugene knocked, Kara simply called, “Come in,” and just like that, she’d Steve McQueened her own Great Escape.
Ta-da.
She hopped to the ground, as he pushed open the door. “Don’t move, Eugene!”
He stopped on the threshold, holding the door ajar with one hand. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t move!” She shoved the antler hat rack into place to prevent it from shutting, again. “There. Okay. Now, you can move.”
Eugene flashed her an odd look. “Are you the one who called me? I’m looking for my fiancée, Lady Melessa Fairview.” He edged out of the way, his blue eyes scanning the lobby in astonishment. Early House of Usher obviously wasn’t his favorite design period. Mr. Soon-to-be-dumped-for Slade seemed stunned by the hotel’s decorations.
It was a shame he couldn’t do better for himself, story wise. The guy wasn’t bad looking exactly. He was much bigger and cleaner cut than a ‘Eugene’ had a right to be. With a little work, he might even have been handsome.
Unfortunately, he’d obviously been cast as the blandest, most boring, blond character ever stereotyped. His slight British accent gave him a condescending air, his unruffled exterior made you want to lob mud balls at his clothes. On his neatly groomed head he wore a dorky looking bowler hat, which matched his tasteful plaid overcoat. Even though it was a clear summer evening, he carried an umbrella under his arm. And most amazing of all… He had a monocle.
A monocle!
Tanya was pulling out all the stops with Eugene.
It was almost impressive.
“She’s in the sitting room. Right over there.” Kara tried not to stare at the little glass circle covering his right eye. She’d never seen a monocle outside of a Marx brothers’ film. Part of her wanted to wave her hand in front of it. “Um… she’s fine. She just passed out from…” dragons “excitement.”
“She’s very high strung.” Eugene muttered, in a long-suffering tone. “We’re to be married, you know.” Eugene passed Kara his umbrella as he carefully removed his coat. “I had thought she’d call off the wedding by now, though. Did she mention that to you?” He looked almost hopeful.
Clearly, the Duke of Most-Likely-to-Succeed knew his marriage to Melessa was doomed and he was okay with his jilting. Poor guy probably didn’t understand what was happening to the plot, either. He looked concerned. Kara would have been too, if she’d just found out that she might have to actually marry Melessa, after all.
“Uh… Well, Mel did run away from your engagement party.” She offered in a ‘think positive’ tone. “So, I don’t think you’re destined for orange blossoms, but if you could just look after her for a little while, I know she’d appreciate it.”
“Does she need a physician?” Eugene passed her his coat and hat, like he just expected her to take them, and headed towards the sitting room. “I could summon one.”
“No, she saw a doctor.” A Wizard Warlock doctor, but a doctor none-the-less. Kara would trust Damien’s opinion over some nineteenth century quack who probably still used leeches. She carelessly dumped Eugene’s stuff on the front desk and followed him into the sitting room. “She’s just sleeping. It’s been a rough time for her.”
Eugene made an ‘umm’ sound. “Quite.” He started down at Mel, and Kara could have sworn he rolled his eyes. “I don’t suppose you care to explain why Lady Melessa is dressed like a mountain man?”
Kara winced. She’d forgotten about Melessa’s Wild West getup. “It’s a fashion statement.” She decided authoritatively. “All the rage in Paris, this season.”
“Very well.” Eugene was taking this all in stride. Or maybe he just didn’t give a damn. “I shall watch over Lady Melessa and her buckskin until she recovers. I suppose it is my duty until she breaks our betrothal.”
“Big of you.”
“Yes, yes. I try to honor my responsibilities like a gentleman.” He glanced back at Kara. “Have you called her father, yet?”
“Uh… Melessa wouldn’t want me to.” She lied. “She needs some time to think, away from home. Emotional space and all.”
“Hmmm. I presume that’s why she’s here in this… place?” He said it like ‘ninth ring of hell.’
“Yeah, she’s visiting me.” She just doesn’t know it, yet. “Mel needed a vacation.”
“I see. And who are you, exactly?”
“Karalynn Donnelly. I’m a… guest here.”
“Oh. I thought you were a servant. So, you chose to stay at this establishment deliberately?” Eugene scanned the displays of deadly weapons and the wallpaper that always looked like it was moving. “I assume you couldn’t afford better?”
Jesus, this guy actually made Slade seem like a dream date. Amazing. “Well, once you check in here, it’s hard to leave.” She grabbed the book that Damien had been reading and shoved it at him. “Here. Do some reading and stay out of trouble. I have to go.”
His lips pursed, scrutinizing the title on the spine. “This is a medical text. In Austrian. I don’t speak Austrian.”
“Damien knows Austrian?” Kara snatched it back and rolled her eyes. “That’s so annoying.” The guy got to be a scholar on top of his magical powers and off-the-charts hotness? Completely unfair. “Whatever.” She tossed the book aside. “Just add big numbers in your head or whatever accountants do for fun, then. I’ll be back soon.”
“When?”
“As soon as I kill someone. Don’t worry. It won’t take long. I know just the bar he’s hiding in.”
Eugene got a stuffy look on his face. “I find something odd about this entire arrangement.”
“Buddy, you’re preaching to the choir.”
Chapter Eleven
“You have stood against me for the last time!” Slade pronounced passionately. “You have betrayed our people and broken our grandmother’s heart!” His sword swung in a graceful arc and impaled his traitorous cousin. “Worse, you attacked my Eternal-One. No honorable warrior would let you roam free to try such actions again.” He stepped back as To’kel toppled over, the lesser Vampire gasping his last breaths. “Your plan was poorly conceived from the start.”
To’kel coughed as he collapsed to the ballroom floor. “You have killed me in front of the humans. You will be sanctioned.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps, I shall face the wrath of the Council of Elders. But, my Eternal-One is safe from you and that it worth any price.” Slade shook his handsome head. “You have no comprehension of what a hero will sacrifice to protect his mate and make her happy.”
Eternal Passion at Sunset- Chapter Eleven
Finding Damien was the easy part.
There was only one ‘Al’s Bar’ in fake-Chicago, so the carriage driver took her right to it. Kara stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked around. Obviously, Tanya’s idea of Al’s was more along t
he lines of an Old West Saloon than a corner pub. Kara wrinkled her nose at the swinging double doors and illuminated sign with cowboy movie font. Ragtime music blared from a piano, the stench of liquor made her eyes water, drunken men laughed too loud.
Damien had left her to come here?
Jerk.
Kara stalked into the bar, ignoring the surprised looks leveled in her direction. Al’s must not have a lot of female patrons in ball gowns. Too bad. It only took Kara a moment to spot Damien sitting in the far corner. In fact, he was the only person she saw. Large and dark, his presence dominated the entire space.
Damien’s head turned as if he sensed her standing there. Glowing black eyes found her unerringly through the crowd.
Kara arched a brow at him, waiting for some show of surprise or anger. The lowly human had outmaneuvered him in less than an hour. It had to be tough on a professional-hard-ass-with-magic-powers’ ego. She wasn’t sure what to expect really.
It wasn’t a smile, though.
For the first time since she’d known him, Damien genuinely grinned.
Kara felt her mouth part in amazement at his spontaneous, delighted expression. It softened the menacing edge to his mouth and warmed the ebony light of his gaze. “Hello, Kara Lynn.” He didn’t raise his voice, but she heard him just fine over the din. “How surprisingly unsurprising to see you here.”
She started in his direction, refusing to be dazzled by his supernatural hotness when he smiled like that. He was already egotistical enough without gaping at him. “What? No threats and swearing because I escaped your Fortress of Doom?”
“What would be the point? After all, you escaped straight back to me. Mind if I ask why you would do something so contradictory and utterly self-defeating?” Under his amusement, he was relieved. Kara could read it in his face as he got to his feet and held out a chair for her.
“I told you, I feel safe with you.” Kara stopped in front of him and arched a brow. “No more trying to screw that up.” She noticed the raven was missing again, which was always a good thing. Vlad was in a better mood as if her coming here had reassured him that she wasn’t planning an elopement with Slade the second his back was turned. “I mean it. I have a great sense of humor, but kidnapping stunts aren’t nearly so funny the second time.”
Not Another Vampire Book Page 17