by Karen Ranney
I had the feeling that a super vampire was charming me a little, too. Not my knickers as much as my anxiety. In fact, I was finding it very difficult to remember why, exactly, I’d been nervous.
“You’re doing something, aren’t you?”
She only smiled.
“I’m a Were,” I heard myself say from far away.
She already knew that. It was one of the things I had to divulge on the application. But I’d never actually come out and said those words to another person I didn’t recognize as a Were.
“I don’t call myself a Were, though.”
She tilted her head a little and smiled at me again. This time, I didn’t feel a flood of warmth as much as curiosity.
“What do you call yourself?”
“A Furry,” I said. “Not those people who dress up like animals, though.”
I was so relaxed that I could have camped on the marble floor and taken a nap.
She turned to the wall, opened a compartment I hadn’t seen until now and pressed a button.
“Our guest has arrived,” she said. “Would you please see to her bag? She’s in the red suite.”
“Is that why you asked what my favorite color was on the phone?”
She smiled again. “That’s exactly why. I try to match the person with the color they like most.”
She wound her arm around mine and steered me to the stairs, a magnificent swooping example of architectural genius resembling an angel’s wing. It soared to the upper floors without any visible support. Maybe magic held it up.
When I said as much to her, she laughed again. “I will have to tell my husband that. An angel’s wing - what an excellent description.”
We didn’t speak for several steps, but then she said something surprising.
“I’ve been looking forward to your arrival so much.”
I glanced at her.
“Because of your essay,” she explained. “It reminded me so much of myself, at least in the early days. I was angry, but I didn’t have anybody to be angry at. No one had done it to me. I’d simply been born different. I was something I didn’t want to be.”
“What were you?”
Her laughter swirled around us.
“Let’s leave that for later, all right?”
At the top of the stairs she turned left. Since her arm was still linked with mine, I had no other choice but to go along with her.
Strange, I didn’t like to be touched by people I didn’t know. I wasn’t all that keen about being touched by people I did know, for that matter. But it felt like Marcie and I were old and dear friends. How much of that was just her personality, the circumstances, or whatever power she was exuding I didn’t know.
“Am I your first Were?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. You’re our second. And don’t worry, you won’t wake up the morning after the transfusion as a vampire.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
“Isn’t it? What’s even better is the fact that you don’t actually change all that much. You just get to be more you.”
I didn’t ask for clarification. I was taking this whole situation a little bit at a time. I still hadn’t gotten used to where I was, let alone what I might be doing. Emphasis on the might.
“Tonight, I’d like you to come to dinner with both of us, my husband and I. We’ll tell you a little bit more about my story. I want to make sure you know everything about the process before you start to undergo testing.”
I immediately felt that surge of warmth and knew, without a doubt, that it was coming from Marcie. Before I could question her, she stopped before a door and opened it.
“For now, just rest and relax. I know you have dozens and dozens of questions. Everyone does. We’ll address all of them tonight. I promise.”
“Could you just answer one now?”
She inclined her head.
“What’s FTFA? It’s the group that sponsored the lottery, right? I couldn’t find what it stood for.”
“It’s the non profit organization my husband and I started to administer the lottery. It stands for Fair Treatment For All.”
With that she smiled, reached out, and closed the door in my face.
I turned to find myself in a sitting room made sunny by a large window and a view of the lake beyond. A cushy red velvet loveseat flanked by tables and large lamps sat facing the window.
I stood there for a moment, looking at the teardrop shaped lake and the gazebo that jutted out into the water.
I walked into the bedroom to see a California king sized bed up on a dais. It, too, was covered in red velvet with a billowy white silk bed skirt.
The bathroom, if you could call such a magnificent space just a bathroom, was lined in brown stone, had gold colored fixtures, and porthole windows through which I could see the skyline of San Antonio in the distance. Ivy or some type of greenery hung from the ceiling and in planters on the wall. I would bet the floor was heated but you wouldn’t even touch it because of the acres of fluffy carpet.
One whole wall was taken up with the walk in shower. The toilet was in an adjacent room and right next to the bidet. But it was the tub that stopped me in my tracks. It had the shape of an old-fashioned claw foot tub, but that’s where the similarity ended. Made of marble and looking as if it had been carved out of one enormous piece of stone, it was large enough for two people to bathe in without touching each other. On the shelf above the tub was an assortment of bubble baths and gels, all in shades of red or pink.
Evidently, people ate a lot of Cluckey’s Fried Chicken.
I had the distinct feeling that I was being fattened up for the kill. But that might have been my normal Were sensitivities kicking in. We didn’t trust all that many people, especially outside of the clan or community. We Weres were xenophobic to a fault.
Until I went away to college no one was allowed in my life unless they were Were. The whole community, the collection of clans, draw into each other. We socialize with each other. We’re friends with each other. We marry each other.
Being among non-Weres made me conscious of how different my life was from normal. The longer I was separated from my roots, the less I wanted to return to them.
Now I was straddling both worlds but not comfortable in either. Was the answer for my dilemma to change my very nature? I still didn’t know.
The warm feeling had left me. I returned to the sitting room and plopped down on the loveseat, staring out at the afternoon.
Yep, I was scared to death.
Chapter Eighteen
My libido crawled out of its cave
I didn’t like eating with my fellow Weres. Their table manners were terrible. If you’ll pardon the expression, they had a tendency to wolf down their food. Even my father, who considered himself the epitome of all things refined, tore into his meals as if he’d been starving for a week.
Between the sound effects — all the snuffling and grunting — and the open mouth chewing, I was all for taking my meals alone in my room. I suspected, however, that dinner would not be the same in the castle that chicken built.
I hadn’t been advised to pack something formal, but I’d dropped my one little black dress in the bag just in case. Now I was grateful to have it.
After taking a long, hedonistic soak in the unbelievable marble tub, complete with rose bath salts, rose scented gel, and rose scented powder I found on the counter, I was feeling girly, rosy, and ready to get a little dressed up.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten my little black pumps. I had a choice. I could wear my blue pumps — which I’d removed within minutes of entering the suite — or I could just put on my pink and green sneakers. I chose the sneakers. Okay, so they didn’t exactly go with the simple black sheath that revealed my arms, a little of my back, and plenty of my cleavage. My big toes and heels were grateful to me. I may not be stylish, but at least my feet wouldn’t hurt.
I should’ve planned better, but I’d had Joey breathing over my shoulde
r, asking me where I was going, how long I was going to be there, and if my leaving had anything to do with him being a houseguest.
None of your business, three days, and no.
I followed the maid who’d come to lead me to the dining room. I was grateful for an escort. The castle was so large that I would have gotten lost on my own. Maybe I should have brought a ball of string with me.
“Have you worked here long?” I asked.
She glanced at me over her shoulder.
“Ten years,” she said.
“You don’t look old enough to have been working here that long,” I said.
She didn’t. She had curly brown hair, brown sparkling eyes, and an upturned nose. Her smile looked natural, as if she found life itself amusing.
“I’m an elf,” she said. “We don’t look old until were in our nineties or maybe older. I’m barely forty.”
I grabbed onto the banister, concentrating on my footing as I processed that information.
An elf? An elf? I knew about Santa’s elves. But she wasn’t wearing green and red and didn’t have pointed ears. The only things remotely elf-like about her were her pointed chin and her dancing eyes.
It was a joke, right?
Fool the Furry. Make the Were look like an ass. My imagination furnished the shape of a donkey with a wolf’s head. Come see Torrance Boyd, Furry Princess/Ass.
I descended the stairs, following the elf across the Great Hall.
We entered a corridor, turned left, then right, left again and down yet another corridor until I could smell the odor of food. I could identify roast beef or maybe quail. Fish, too, the scent floating below perfume, aftershave, and something else, a smell I hadn’t detected before.
Suddenly, I was there, standing in the doorway of the largest dining room I’d ever seen. I thought Graystone’s rooms were big. I couldn’t even count the chairs at the acres long dining table before I was announced by the elf.
“Miss Torrance Boyd.”
I guess I’d expected an intimate dinner with Marcie and her husband, during which I would ask questions and they’d answer them. I hadn’t expected fifty or so people to be milling around the table, some of them standing in front of a cold fireplace. You could put the entire Spurs basketball team standing in that fireplace and still have room for a boar or two.
I stood there in my black dress and my sneakers, feeling like an absolute idiot. Then, in the way of all gracious hostesses the world over, Marcie came up to me and said, “You smart woman. I think you’ll start a trend. How intelligent of you to wear sneakers. I hate high heels, don’t you?”
“It wasn’t intelligence,” I confessed. “I forgot to pack the shoes that go with this dress.”
“I could loan you some,” she said. In the next breath she added, “I wouldn’t take advantage of the offer if I were you. You’re no doubt more comfortable than every other woman here.”
“Who are these people?” I asked, conscious that it was a borderline rude question. “Who is everybody? Why are they here?”
I knew that she could feel my sudden fear. I was this close to turning around and trying to find my way back to my suite.
She smiled again and once more I felt that sensation of warmth. It didn’t work as well as it had earlier.
“Some of them are instrumental to our foundation,” she said. “Some of them have already received a transfusion. I thought you would want to talk to them after dinner. Some are friends, people you’ll meet in the course of the next three days. They’ll either serve you in a professional capacity or they’re here to make you feel comfortable.”
Of course I felt ungrateful and distrustful. Yet I was still scared. I was about to change my entire life. I was about to change my future. And who knows, I might be endangering myself as well.
Yet I still stood there in my little black dress and my green and pink sneakers and nodded as if I knew what the hell I was doing. Marcie continued to smile at me. She reached out and patted my arm as if she felt my uncertainty.
She probably did.
I’m not really good at cocktail party chatter or the small talk needed when you’re introduced to lot of people in a short time. Thankfully, once a few people learned that I was a vet, they asked me questions about their dogs or cats. One interesting woman had an iguana and we discussed Max for a little while. I was more than willing to give some free vet advice if it meant that I didn’t have to stand there looking stupid.
Once we were seated, in a very discrete herding motion — so seamless that I didn’t even realize I was being led to my chair until I sat down — I took a look at my companions. The iguana’s owner was to my right. Marcie was to my left, her husband, Dan, to her left at the head of the table.
He was an attractive man with a slender face and bright green eyes that scanned the table. I had a feeling he didn’t miss much.
Across the table from me, smiling lightly, was my libido’s lust muffin.
I stared at him for what must have been a full minute before words occurred to me.
“I saw you at Dorothy’s house,” I said.
The table shouldn’t have fallen silent. I hadn’t said anything controversial. I hadn’t raised my voice, had only spoken at a conversational level.
He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t look away, either.
“What were you doing there?”
“He was doing an errand for me,” Marcie said.
I turned to look at my hostess. She smiled, but instead of explaining, she looked pointedly at her husband.
“If Ryan can eat Brussels sprouts, so can you.”
He grinned at her. “Ryan is only two. He doesn’t know any better.”
I waited patiently. I could be extraordinarily patient for my species.
Marcie glanced over at me.
I remained silent.
She looked at her husband then back at me.
“It’s important to know the character of the individual we bring to the castle. Can he or she be trusted? Will they keep their word? Can you keep a secret?”
“So you’ve been investigating me,” I said.
“Yes.” She glanced across the table. “Torrance, this is Mark Avery. Mark, this is Torrance.”
The guy on the other side of the table nodded at me and said, “Hello.”
One word and my libido crawled out of its cave, started jumping up and down and waving with both hands. Look at me! Look at me!
I nodded back at him, but addressed Marcie.
“There was nothing in the small print that said I was going to be investigated.”
I was very conscious that the rest of the table was being served, but there was still a silence that shouldn’t have been there, as if my words were somehow vitally important to all of the dinner guests.
“If there had been something about me that you didn’t like what would have happened?”
Marcie smiled again and began to eat. I noticed she tackled the Brussels sprouts first.
“We would have informed you that the lottery panel judged you unfit, but in nicer words, of course. When you arrived at the castle, you would have been given a very large check and then escorted from the property.”
“Has that ever happened?” I asked.
“Twice,” Dan said.
He didn’t elaborate and I didn’t think it my place to ask although I was curious. Had they been vampires? Or members of some other paranormal group? How many other paranormal groups were there?
Instead of asking I picked up my fork and began to eat. The roast beef was delicious. All the food was, as well as the wine, making it easy to concentrate on my meal and not dinner conversation. Oh, I put in a comment here and there about the traffic in San Antonio, the City Council’s plans to annex large swaths of territory, and the upcoming Fiesta.
When the dessert trolley was rolled around the table, however, I lost all semblance of polite behavior and gave into my lust for chocolate, taking two types of cake: German chocolate and a demure look
ing plain cupcake that I suspected was molten chocolate.
As long as I was taking Waxinine I had to watch my weight. Weight gain was one of the unpleasant side effects. But I rationalized that since I’d gone on the Hunt the other night, my metabolism had sped up a little.
The little cake was indeed molten chocolate. It was so good that I closed my eyes to savor it. When I opened them, Mark was staring at me.
I had to look away, either that or make an ass out of myself again. This time by jumping over the table, grabbing him, and giving my libido free reign.
I really should have had sex with Craig. At least it would’ve ended my dry spell. Plus I wouldn’t be feeling like I was right now, as if Mark were the answer to a maiden’s prayer.
I hadn’t been a maiden for a great many years.
Although he was probably one of the most handsome — if not the most — handsome man I’d ever been around, that was no reason for my heart to go all thumpety thump. Craig was good looking, too, yet his character left a little to be desired.
I’d rather have a relationship with a slightly uglier man who was also a good human being.
Relationship? Why on earth was I thinking in terms of a relationship? Mark was a private investigator. I’d been the subject of his investigation. Nothing more complicated than that.
My libido was still panting, damn it.
Chapter Nineteen
They’ll destroy it
To my surprise, when dinner was adjourned, Marcie led the way into an adjoining room set up with rows of chairs and a table on a dais. I sat where indicated, at the table next to Dan.
What was it about all these good looking guys? Or was it just my interpretation? Maybe if I hadn’t been so sexually repressed I’d see these men as simply normal looking.
I caught sight of Mark again and changed my mind. No, I don’t think that would happen.
Even with a bag over his head, he’d be someone who would snag your attention for his physique alone. Tonight he was wearing a midnight blue suit with a blue and red striped tie. I had visions of helping him remove his clothing, sliding the tie off, gently unfastening the buttons on his shirt, my fingers never fumbling. I’d be whispering naughty things to him the whole time, telling him what I was going to do to him.