The Accidental Vampire Plus Vampires Are Forever and Bonus Material

by Lynsay Sands

  “Thomas is in the bathroom,” she said abruptly. “We’ve been running all over Amsterdam following Marguerite’s phone and are about to check one more spot. If she isn’t at this new stop, we’re going to call it a night and wait until morning to try again. Hopefully, she’ll settle in one spot then and we’ll be able to catch up to her.”

  “Oh,” Bastien said, sounding somewhat startled.

  Inez grimaced, knowing it was her terse tone that had set him aback, but she couldn’t help it. She was a rotten liar. She hated doing it and didn’t do it well.

  “All right then. I guess that makes sense,” Bastien murmured finally. “Tell Thomas to keep me informed.”

  “I will. Good night,” Inez murmured and quickly pressed the button to end the call before he could say anything else. Muttering under her breath then, she slipped the phone in her purse and then opened the map to figure out where she had to go to get to the next location. It appeared Marguerite was heading farther away from the town center and into quieter residential streets. Curious about that, she headed out to the next spot.

  Ten minutes later, Inez found herself standing in a circle of light cast by a streetlamp on the edge of a dark, public park.

  Shifting uncomfortably, she peered into the dark tree-filled park, noting that a trio of young men were sitting on a bench near the center, laughing uproariously. They were loud, English, gregarious, and obviously drunk and she was reluctant to draw their attention by entering the park alone.

  Having Thomas here would come in handy right now, Inez thought and wondered how he was doing. Had he woken up yet? Had he found the bags of blood she’d left lying beside him? Had he healed? The only way to find out was to call the hotel, but Inez didn’t have any idea what the hotel number was. Exhausted as she was, it seemed a lot of trouble to her to figure out the number for information in Amsterdam, call, get the hotel phone number, and then call the hotel. It would be easier just to get this over with and head back. Besides, she knew she was just stalling about going into the park alone.

  “Coward,” she muttered under her breath, took one step out of the circle of light and halted again. Dark, empty parks weren’t exactly on the top of her list of safe places to go. After hesitating another moment, Inez suddenly pulled out Thomas’s phone. It was extremely quiet here away from the noisy town center and, other than the three men, the park looked empty to her, but if she were to call Marguerite’s number and her cell phone was anywhere around here, Inez thought she’d probably hear it ring and be able to follow it. She searched Thomas’s digital phonebook for Marguerite’s cell phone number, and was about to press the button to call it when she heard a scuffling sound behind her.

  Turning nervously, Inez found herself staring at an approaching man dressed all in black. For one minute she hoped it was Thomas, but then he stepped into the circle of light with her and she saw that he was the thin faced, dark-haired man she’d noted at one of the tables outside the restaurants earlier, the one who had looked familiar. She’d thought at the restaurant that she must have seen him in the airport, and she had, Inez suddenly realized, but not on the way to Amsterdam. He was the man who had stolen the taxi she’d hired to follow Thomas that morning after he’d left her standing in the airport, she realized suddenly and felt alarm begin to creep up her back.

  Surely it couldn’t be coincidence that she kept seeing the man? Inez thought, stepping back as he continued forward. And then her mind went blank.

  The ringing phone forced Thomas back to consciousness. The first thing he became aware of was pain. It was a pain he recognized, the full body agony of the hunger for blood, the acid sensation of the nanos infiltrating organs and tissue in search of what they needed. He then opened his eyes and saw red. Literally. Thomas’s vision was filled with red. It took a moment for him to realize he was staring at a bag of blood lying directly in front of his face. The moment he did, he felt his teeth shift and shot his hand up to grab the bag and shove it into them.

  A slow, relieved sigh slid around the bag in his mouth as he felt the blood rushing up his teeth and into his system. His pain began to ease at once as the nanos rushed back into his blood stream to collect the fresh blood entering. Thomas just lay where he was, ignoring the phone as he waited for the first bag to empty. The moment it did, he pulled the bag free and replaced it with the second bag lying there.

  It was as he waited for the second bag to empty that Thomas’s brain began to function properly again. His first thought was to wonder how the bags had got there, and then to wonder where “there” was, and what he was doing wherever he was. It only took a quick glance around what he could see of the room to recognize the hotel suite. He was lying on his stomach on the floor, seriously depleted of blood. The second bag was nearly empty when he recalled the rest of the night and how he’d ended up where he was.

  His own bloody stupidity was how he’d ended up there. No one had ever claimed horny men thought with their heads. Thomas could now verify this was true. He didn’t think he’d used his head since realizing he’d consumed a bag of S.E.C. Attacking Inez in the alley, and then attacking three drunken idiots in a fit of jealousy…

  First, he’d displayed his unnatural strength by lifting the blonde off his feet with one hand, and then he’d actually flashed his fangs!

  Fortunately, Thomas didn’t think anyone but the brunette had seen and no one was likely to believe the account of a half-drunk, half-stoned idiot.

  Now that he was beginning to think again, Thomas was concerned about other things. Like, where was Inez? And was the knife still in his back? All it took was a quick glance over his shoulder to see that the knife was no longer protruding from his lower back. He then saw it lying on top of a towel next to a stack of three or four more fresh towels and a small pile of blood-soaked ones.

  Obviously, Inez had removed the knife from his back and staunched the flow of blood, then retrieved a couple of bags for him, but where was she now? In her bed was his guess. She’d been exhausted and beginning to flag before they’d reached the small bevy of restaurants and bars where he’d had her sit at one of the tables to watch the entrances while he checked inside each.

  Sighing, Thomas pulled the second, now empty, bag from his mouth and got carefully to his feet. There was only the slightest twinge from his back, telling him it was mostly healed. And the acidy cramps that had been attacking him from head to toe were much eased by the two bags, but he’d probably need another couple of bags at least before they were gone entirely. Moving to the cooler on the table, he retrieved a third bag and popped it to his teeth and then stood there with another bag in hand as he waited for this one to drain. He was about to switch bags when the hotel room phone began to ring.

  Recalling that a phone’s ringing was what had woken him, Thomas tore the empty bag from his teeth and moved to the end table beside the sofa to answer it before it woke Inez.

  “Thomas!” Herb sounded relieved to hear his voice. “I was getting worried. I couldn’t reach you on your cell phone or Inez’s and was beginning to think the two of you had disappeared right alongside your aunt.”

  “No,” Thomas assured him quietly and reached into his pocket for his cell phone, only to find that it was missing from his pocket. Startled, he felt each of his pockets in turn, wondering if he’d put it in one of the others, but there was no phone.

  “Obviously you aren’t at the park anymore. Did you find your aunt there?”

  Thomas gave up looking for his phone and straightened, confusion flowing through him. “The park?”

  “I checked a map, the location I sent you both to after the Escape night club should have been a park,” Herb explained. “Did you go to the wrong place? Maybe Inez misheard what I said. It sounded like it was noisy where you were.”

  Thomas stood still for a minute and then barked, “Hang on.”

  Setting the phone down on the end table, he turned and strode into Inez’s room. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights, his night visio
n was exceptional and he could see the bed was still made and unslept in. Cursing, Thomas whirled to hurry out of the room, but froze as the bedroom door leading out into the hotel hall suddenly opened. Pausing, he glanced to the door. His breath came out on a sigh of relief as he recognized Inez’s petite figure stepping inside, then the door closed again. Thomas immediately moved to flip on the light switch in the room. Light exploded around them as he turned to peer at Inez, and then he saw her face and froze. It was completely blank, no expression at all and her eyes were empty.

  “Inez?” he said, approaching her carefully.

  She didn’t respond to either his presence or his voice until he was standing directly in front of her and then she simply moved around him, saying expressionlessly, “I’m very tired and have to go to bed now.”

  Thomas turned slowly and watched her walk to the bed. She immediately began to strip, apparently uncaring that he was there. He watched her undo and shrug out of her blouse, but then turned and left the room, his expression grim with concern as he returned to the living room and picked up the phone again.

  “Herb, tell me everything that you know after I called you from the restaurants,” he said grimly.

  There was a moment of silence and then Herb said, “But you know what happened. I gave you the next location. It turned out to be a night club called Escape and—”

  “You told me? Or you told Inez?” he asked quietly.

  “Well, Inez. You were in the bathroom or something,” Herb said and then fell silent for a moment before saying, “You weren’t in the bathroom were you?”

  “No. I was here at the hotel.”

  “But you didn’t answer the first time I called. What—?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Thomas interrupted grimly. “Just tell me what happened.”

  Herb explained about the Escape club and then sending Inez to the next spot in the park, ending with, “I checked the location again while she was on the way there, thinking that if your aunt had moved on again, we should call it a night and try at sunrise when she should stay in one spot, but it came back as the same location. However, when I tried to call you back on Inez’s phone to tell you that, she didn’t answer. So, I tried your phone again, and then I thought to try the hotel.”

  Thomas was silent for a moment, and then asked, “Is this your second try calling the hotel or your first?”

  “First,” Herb answered, sounding curious.

  “The other call must have been Bastien, then,” Thomas muttered.

  “Inez didn’t find Marguerite at the park, did she?” Herb asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Thomas said, though he wasn’t sure at this point that she hadn’t.

  “Do you want me to check her location again and—?”

  “No,” Thomas said quickly. He had no intention of leaving Inez alone to go looking for his aunt. At least, not until he was sure she was all right. It seemed obvious to him that someone had taken control of Inez. But why?

  “No,” he repeated. “We’ll try again in the morning, at sunrise if that’s all right with you?”

  “That’s fine,” Herb assured him.

  “Good. Thanks, Herb. I’ll talk to you in the morning, then.”

  Thomas hung up quickly, eager to return to Inez to be sure she was all right, but he’d barely taken a step away from the phone before it began to ring again. Knowing it would be Bastien, and that he’d have to tell him what happened, Thomas grimaced as he picked up the phone and said hello.

  “Thomas.” Bastien sounded relieved and Thomas supposed he’d tried both cell phones before resorting to the hotel phone and—like Herb—had worried when he wasn’t able to reach them. “Was she there at the last spot?”

  Thomas hesitated, and then admitted, “I don’t know if she was or not.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Bastien asked with confusion. “Either she was or she wasn’t.”

  “I don’t know,” Thomas repeated and then explained the night’s events to his cousin, ending with, “Inez was blank-faced when she came in and all she said was she was very tired and had to go to bed now, and then she started to strip right there in front of me, her expression still blank.”

  “Someone took control of her,” Bastien said sounding grim.

  “That would be my guess,” Thomas agreed.

  “You don’t think Mother would have…?” He didn’t finish the question.

  “I don’t know, Bastien. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Why isn’t Aunt Marguerite answering her phone? She obviously has it on her. It isn’t walking around Amsterdam on its own.”

  His older cousin was silent for a minute and then said, “I don’t know, I’m too tired to even think right now.”

  “You should go to bed and get some rest,” Thomas said quietly. “You haven’t slept since I left Canada, have you?”

  “No, but—”

  “I don’t want to leave Inez alone right now. Not until I’m sure that coming in and going right to bed is the only order whoever controlled her put in her mind.”

  “I wish you could read her memory to see what happened,” Bastien muttered.

  “If she has any memory of what happened,” Thomas said quietly. “It may have been tampered with too. In fact, it probably was.”

  “Yes,” Bastien agreed on a sigh. “Okay, I guess I’ll go to bed, then, but call me as soon as you find out anything.”

  “I will,” Thomas assured him and the two men said good night and both hung up.

  Thomas finally slapped the fourth bag of blood to his teeth, and then a fifth. The bad news was he’d lost a lot of blood from the wound to his back. The good news was he’d lost a lot of blood from the wound to his back. Thomas was pretty sure the worst of the S.E.C. was out of his system. He certainly wasn’t feeling horny right now, or if he was feeling a little, it was easily overcome by his worry for Inez.

  Pulling the last bag from his teeth, he closed the cooler, and then quickly cleaned up the mess in the room, removing the knife and bloody towels. He’d have to toss the towels to prevent upsetting housekeeping, Thomas supposed. He retrieved the small clear garbage bag from the garbage can in his bathroom, put the towels and empty blood bags in, and then put his cooler on the upper shelf in his closet. Once assured that there was nothing left lying around to upset housekeeping, he went through the suite, locking all three doors leading out into the hall, the one in his room, the living room door, and finally hers.

  Thomas then moved to the side of the bed to peer down at Inez. She was sleeping peacefully and he peered at her for the longest time, his eyes just drifting over her face; from her closed eyes, to her sweet nose, to her full lips, and back, and then he eased onto the bed beside her, settling himself on top of the blankets next to where she slept under them. Thomas really wasn’t comfortable leaving her alone knowing that someone had taken control of her mind. He wanted to stay near to make sure it didn’t happen again, and also to be close by in case she needed him.

  Turning sideways on the bed, he watched her sleep, awed by the fact that he was lying there peering at the face of his very own lifemate. Despite the fact that Lissianna was four years younger than he and had found her own lifemate some years back, Thomas had expected to have to wait another century or so before finding his own lifemate. His male cousins had all been older when they’d finally found theirs. In fact, he was the youngest male Argeneau to find his lifemate that he knew of. And yet there she was. Inez Urso.

  Thomas smiled faintly at the name. Urso was the one word he did know in Portuguese. It meant bear. He knew that because he’d had a friend with the same surname almost two centuries ago. A mortal friend, the only mortal friend he’d ever allowed himself. It was too hard to watch them age and die when you knew you yourself wouldn’t. Thomas had grieved the man’s passing, but now wondered if he might be an ancestor of Inez’s. Whether he was or not, the name Urso suited her. She was like a little she-bear when in a temper. He actually liked that. He�
��d found it adorable when she was babbling away at him in Portuguese, her little finger waving. Mind you, he doubted he’d have found her quite as adorable if he’d understood what she was saying.

  Reaching out, Thomas brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek thinking she reminded him of an old painting he’d once seen, and that he’d be happy to wake up to that face every morning for the rest of his life. Thomas actually liked everything about Inez so far. He liked her feistiness and her intelligence. He even found her shyness adorable, and she was shy. He hadn’t realized that during their first meeting in New York. Inez had been the very personification of efficiency and command then, and she’d seemed to be pretty much in command and confident with him as well since he’d arrived in London, but he’d been coming out of the last bar when those three Brits had sat themselves at her table that night and her reaction hadn’t been what he’d expected.

  Thomas supposed any woman might have felt a little leery of having three drunks pester her, but Inez had been more than leery. At first, she’d seemed completely shocked that they’d chosen to bother her, as if she had no confidence in her attractiveness. And then she’d shrunk back in her seat as if trying to make herself disappear from view. He hadn’t liked seeing her so obviously scared and uncomfortable, and that had been part of the reason he’d reacted as he had, that and the fact that she was his.

  Of course, the S.E.C. probably hadn’t helped, it certainly hadn’t left him clearheaded enough to control himself and handle the situation as he should have. Or maybe he was fooling himself. Maybe his rage had been purely and simply because she was his lifemate. He had waited two hundred years for her and hadn’t liked seeing any other man trying to chat her up.

  Grimacing, Thomas ran a finger lightly over her cheek, smiling when Inez shifted sleepily and instinctively turned her cheek into the caress. It was something else he liked about her, her response to him. He liked the passion she’d revealed both times he’d kissed her; when he’d kissed her the first time in London and when he’d pretty much attacked her here in Amsterdam. Inez had more than met his passion. It boded well for their future…as long as he didn’t screw it up and scare her off with he-man outbursts at bars or attacking her in alleys. So far, Thomas didn’t think he was doing a very good job of wooing the woman. That was something he’d have to work on. She obviously had some issues when it came to her attractiveness and he’d work on that as well, he decided as his eyes slipped closed.