by Terry Spear
***
Caitlin tugged her bags through the security check point at the Fort Lauderdale cruise ship terminal, but a teen sitting quietly in a wheelchair caught her eye. The longer she watched him, the more she realized he wasn’t as calm as he first appeared. His dark brown eyes watched nearly everyone and everything. Was he looking for someone? It appeared no one was with him. Maybe his parents were checking in their luggage, and he was worried about their departure.
Her foster sister, Alicia, snorted behind her. “Why would anyone bring an invalid on a cruise? What a waste of money.”
“Maybe he’s dying, and this is his last chance to take his first cruise or something, Alicia. You know, you could be nicer sometimes.”
“What’s not nice? How can he enjoy a cruise when he can’t do anything? Seems stupid to me. Haven’t you finished checking in your luggage yet?”
Caitlin could hardly take her eyes off the teen. He wasn’t the kind of guy she was usually interested in, long dark hair pulled back into a tail, dark eyes, more of a sleek panther look. She liked the kind of guys who were fairer and more muscular. Yet she couldn’t help worrying about him being all alone, unable to fend for himself.
“Hurry it up, will you?” Alicia said. “I want to get on the stupid ship and get with my friends.”
A redheaded guy joined the teen in the wheelchair and glanced her way. His wild, curly hair hung way down past his shoulders, making him look like one of the guys she had seen at a Celtic festival, though this guy didn’t have a beard. Still, it was the other boy who totally intrigued her. The redhead smiled at her, then said something to the dark-haired boy. He looked her way, his penetrating dark eyes capturing her, holding her hostage.
Alicia shoved Caitlin. “Go, will ya?”
She gave Alicia an annoyed look and glanced back at the teens. The redhead was pushing the wheelchair toward another security checkpoint. Satisfied he was taking care of the guy in the wheelchair, Caitlin hurried through the rest of the security checkpoint.
When Caitlin climbed the boarding walkway, Alicia walked beside her, repeating most of what she’d said to her on the short flight from Orlando to here. “I can’t imagine why my mom and dad wanted you to come with us, you poor thing. I think it’s totally cruel of them to force you to travel across miles and miles of open water when you’re so afraid of it.” She gave Caitlin a snide smile. “But don’t worry. If you feel uncomfortable, you can stay in our suite and sleep. That’s what I’d do if I were you. Me, as soon as they open the pool, I’m going swimming. So if you want to find me, that’s where I’ll be, either beside the pool tanning, or in it.”
“Pools don’t bother me,” Caitlin lied, determined to stick by Alicia’s side like she’d promised her Mildred and Thomas. “And I’m not afraid of the ocean anymore.”
Alicia gave a short bark of laughter. “Yeah, right. Oh, and it’ll be a while before we get our luggage so maybe you can find an inside lounge to sit in so you don’t have to see the water.”
“Thanks, I might do that.” Not.
“Good. We’ll get along fine if you do.”
Caitlin wasn’t interested in getting along with Alicia. She had a job to do, despicable as it was.
Alicia headed for some of her high school girlfriends gathered next to the railing on the upper deck. “Hey, anyone see Dylan yet?”
Unwelcome among Alicia’s clique of girlfriends, Caitlin chose to watch the people down below, loading food and drinks onto the ship, and the antlike parade of passengers walking up the ramp. The teen in the wheelchair caught her eye again. The redhead was still with him, and a blond and another brown-haired guy appeared to be friends of his, the way they stuck close and spoke to him. All wore ponytails, which seemed a little odd. Which school were they from? Which state?
An announcement on the public address system stated that a snowstorm had held up a flight of passengers from Chicago and would further delay the ship’s sailing. Not believing a cruise ship would delay departure for a few people, she shook her head. Though if she was lucky, it would be delayed for a week, and the ship would never leave the dock.
A deep voice penetrated her space. “You’re not really planning on chaperoning Alicia and me the whole trip, are you, Caitlin?”
She turned around and found Alicia’s latest boyfriend, Dylan, standing behind her. His spiked blond hair made his angular features and blue eyes seem harsher than normal. He lived on the edge, just avoiding getting into trouble with the police, but barely.
“Yep, I am. So be forewarned.” Caitlin knew there was little she could do about Alicia’s actions, but she had no intention of letting either of them know how she truly felt about her impossible mission.
Once they disembarked at the islands, beware. She’d be itching to use her powers, and anyone who gave her grief would quickly cease and desist.
Towering over her at six feet tall, Dylan gave her a smirk. “Really. See ya around then.” He stalked off toward Alicia and her girlfriends.
Someone stumbled behind Caitlin and bumped into her, dropping his backpack on her sandaled feet. “I’m sorry,” the blond-haired guy said, grabbing his bag.
She recognized him as one of the guys with the wheelchair-bound teen. “It’s okay,” she tried reassuring the poor guy as he nearly dropped his bag again.
Then she noticed the redhead, the brunette, and the boy in the wheelchair behind him. All smiled at her except for the one sitting in the wheelchair. Did he feel bad that he was confined?
He quickly looked away from her. Did he think she pitied him? Taking a deep breath, she realized at once that she did.
“Hi,” she said, not usually that outgoing with people she didn’t know. But there was something about them that made her feel more welcome than the group she came with from her own high school. Snobs, all of them. She was an outsider. A foster teen. Someone who didn’t belong. “You must all be from the same school.”
“They said they’d let us into our room early,” the one in the wheelchair said to his friends, ignoring her.
His voice was brusque, and again she sensed he felt embarrassed for being different. Disregarding his rudeness, she stuck her hand out to him, determined to offer her friendship. “I’m Caitlin MacEvin from Orlando, Florida.”
The boy ignored her. She took his hand and shook it anyway. But he didn’t shake her hand back, and she noted then he didn’t seem to have any strength. Horrified that he might be dying and wished to be left alone, she felt a twinge of remorse.
His brown eyes darkened to midnight when he looked up at her, then he turned to the redhead and said with an authoritative voice, “To my room.”
She stepped aside, and the boys continued on their way. Each of them glanced back at her, warmly smiling, except for the one in the wheelchair. Apparently, at least as far as they were concerned, they liked her and maybe hoped she could bring their friend out of his shell. Caitlin loved dealing with lost causes, except when it came to Alicia. But this guy, she was going to befriend. At least she hoped.
Maybe this trip wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Chapter 3
Levka shook his head as Ruric helped him onto the gaudy pink and orange floral couch sitting beside the suite’s large balcony window. The black, orange, and gray zigzag carpeting was enough to make him dizzy again. Two queen-sized beds covered in the same wild flamingo pinks, orange, and black, with touches of turquoise hurt his eyes. What was worse, black mirror tiles covered the walls and reflected the bright colors, making it appear there were double the number of brightly-colored couches and beds in the surprisingly spacious stateroom. The robin’s egg blue of the Applewood Bed & Breakfast Inn looked good about now.
Turning his attention to Stasio, Levka said, “I swear you dropped your backpack on that girl’s feet on purpose.”
“Not I.” Stasio grinned, opened the class door to the balcony, and looked out. “She’s pretty and she likes you. Good start, I should think.”
The sea bree
ze blew a tangy fishy smell into the air conditioned room.
“She pities me.” Levka held his chest to quiet the discomfort.
“She likes you.” Ruric unpacked a bag. “Do you want me to bring her to you so you can…feed later?”
Levka growled. “I told you already, I only want bottles of blood. And if I ever finish healing, I won’t even need that for a few days.”
“I’m going to check out the facilities and the girls.” Stasio waggled his blond brows.
Levka glanced at Arman.
“I’ll go with him.” Arman opened the door to the room. “After a while, they’ll be calling the lifeboat drill.”
“I’m not going.”
“Everyone has to go, Levka. Maybe Caitlin MacEvin will be assigned to the same boat.” Stasio shut the door behind Arman and himself.
Ruric turned on the T.V. “She was cute, you know. You haven’t shown any interest in a girl in eons, Levka. Maybe she would be good for you.”
“Go, Ruric. Keep the others out of trouble. I don’t want to hear this nonsense from you or any of the others about this girl.”
“Do you realize whenever you begin to get better after you’re injured this badly, you’re an ogre?” Ruric grinned, then left Levka alone, like he wanted.
Levka had seen Caitlin MacEvin speaking to the blond with the spiked hair and hard blue eyes. What bothered him most was her words to him, “So be forewarned.” And the guy’s cavalier response, “Really. See ya around then.”
At first, he thought the guy was her boyfriend, but not after he heard the tone of their voices, or the words they spoke. Was he stalking her?
Levka stared at the T.V. but didn’t see the screen, his mind studying the memory of her, the way her blue eyes and lips smiled at him, the way the ocean breeze caught her black hair and caressed her cheeks, the warmth of her hand in his.
He snorted. She pitied him. Him, a prince of darkness and former prince of Wales. He who could barely stand—but had the strength of several grown men when he was uninjured—would not be pitied by a mere mortal girl.
The public address system crackled in his room: “The lifeboat drill requires all passengers to secure their lifejackets and go immediately to your lifeboat station. You must use the diagram in your cabin, and you must use the stairs as all elevators will be shut down during the lifeboat drill. The lifeboat drill is required of all passengers, and crewmembers will be inspecting passengers’ rooms, so no one can remain behind.”
Levka closed his eyes and rested his head against the sofa cushion. If any of the crew bothered him, he’d just wipe their minds, and they’d forget he was even here.
The ship’s staff repeated the lifeboat announcement over and over again, and Levka clenched his fists. “Enough already. Get it over with, all right?”
He glanced at his watch and wondered where his friends were. A knock sounded on the door, then a key twisted in the lock. The door squeaked opened, and three men came into the room, wearing the ship’s uniforms.
“Your friends,” the one said, “asked us to come get you because you were in a wheelchair. We’re here to take you up to your assigned lifeboat.”
They hustled him out of the room so quickly, he couldn’t focus on any one of them to control their minds.
He’d kill his friends as soon as he had the strength.
When he reached the deck crowded with passengers wearing their orange lifejackets, he saw no sign of his friends. Hiding somewhere else, no doubt, so they didn’t have to bother with this nonsense, or face his irritation.
A blond-haired girl stood in front of him in extremely short shorts and said, “See, I told Mom and Dad how stupid it was for them to send you with me. You’re shaking so hard you’re about to come unglued.”
“I’m fine, Alicia.”
He recognized the second girl’s voice at once. Caitlin MacEvin.
“You can lie all you want to me, but you’re going to be in a psychiatrist’s care before this cruise is ended. Oh, oh, Dylan!” Alicia moved away and headed for the guy with the spiked hair, the one Levka had thought was Caitlin’s boyfriend, or stalker.
Caitlin clutched her lifejacket with a death grip, her eyes round with terror. When she had said she was fine, she sounded so. But he could see now she wasn’t.
“Levka.” He stretched his hand out to her. Every effort, no matter how little, pained him. He tried not to reveal the agony he felt, but she turned and studied his face for a minute, her own terror forgotten, and she took his hand and squeezed.
“I’m sorry if I was so pushy earlier. I don’t have any friends on this trip and—”
Levka looked in Alicia’s direction.
Caitlin shrugged and wrapped her arms around her lifejacket; her eyes narrowing. “My foster sister.”
He looked at the guy with the spiked hair.
Caitlin turned to see who he was observing. “Her boyfriend. Her parents want me to keep her away from him as much as possible on the trip.”
Levka couldn’t believe the pretty girl didn’t have any friends on the cruise and was being made to baby-sit her foster sister.
“Are you from Florida?” she asked. “A lot of the kids are.”
“From…Texas.” He’d thought about naming some other place, but sticking closer to the truth often avoided problems later.
“Oh.” She offered the most charming smile. “A Texan. That’s cool.”
He wondered if she’d think he was even cooler if she knew he’d run cattle on Goodnight’s ranch for a spell, fought Apaches, and cattle thieves, but worse, had to deal with stampeding longhorns during a thunderstorm? Being a real cowboy wasn’t as romantic a life as it was made out to be, but he and his friends were always first to try out new experiences.
The lifeboat drill ended, bringing him back to his current set of circumstances. Except for Caitlin and Levka, everyone moved en mass and returned to their rooms to ditch their lifejackets before first dinner.
“Where are your friends? Did you want me to take you back to your room?” Caitlin asked.
“No, thank you. You must look after your foster sister.”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “I’m afraid that’s my mission impossible. Are you sure you don’t want me to help you?”
“I’m sure.” He folded his arms across his chest and winced with pain.
“But I don’t see your friends.” She looked around the empty deck.
He would kill them. “Please, go. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
He wondered why she seemed so bothered that he’d be left alone. Defenseless? Helpless? Well, he was kind of that for the moment. But it didn’t bother him, too much, except for the part of being weak.
“What’s wrong, Caitlin?” With his vampiric gaze, he caught her gaze and held her captive. For a moment, he wanted to control her, to will her to take him back to his cabin, and offer her blood to him. Not in a hundred years had he felt the urge so strong to have a female companion.
“I…” She turned away from him, breaking the connection.
Not since Cassandra had been in his life had he ever met a girl who could break the bond he made between them. He seized Caitlin’s wrist, wondering if in his weakness he’d lost the ability to control a mortal’s mind now, too. “Caitlin, what scares you about my being alone?” He forged the connection with her mind again, but once more she resisted and pulled away. Again, he lost the ability to find out what troubled her, distressing him even more than being confined to the wheelchair.
“I’ll send a porter to help you. You’re right. I have to keep an eye on Alicia.” Caitlin hurried off, spoke to a man dressed in a white crew uniform, then dashed down a spiral staircase.
He felt he was seeing dear Cassandra all over again, except not light-haired and dark-eyed like her, but raven-haired and blue-eyed. The memory of Cassandra’s life slipping away as he cradled her head in his lap filled his vision. He wanted to cry out like he did then, kill t
he bastards who had murdered her, satisfy his need for revenge, but nothing would bring her back to him.
The porter headed in his direction, breaking into his morbid thoughts, but Ruric’s voice behind Levka heated his blood. “I’ll take him, thanks.”
Levka jerked his head around, sending another shard of pain through his chest. He glared at Ruric, who grinned back at him. “I knew you liked the girl.”
“Where were you guys?”
“Around and about. You know if this had been a real drill, we would have had you in the lifeboat already.”
“Where are the others?”
“Getting to know a couple of the girls. We’re supposed to be on a vacation, too. As soon as you’re feeling better—”
“What about Stasio? Is Arman keeping an eye on him?”
“They’re double-dating, sort of.” Ruric took Levka back down the elevator to their room. “I’ll baby-sit Caitlin’s foster sister so you can spend time with Caitlin.”
“Forget it.”
“She’s got the hots for you. I wouldn’t let her slip away.” When Levka gave Ruric another glare meant to make his friend quit this nonsense, Ruric smiled and unlocked the door. “Did you want to change for dinner? First night, we have arranged seating and—”
“We’re sitting together, right?”
Ruric wheeled him into their room. “Yes. We’re seated together. But there’s room for four others, eight to a table. A few small tables are reserved for couples. If you want me to make different arrangements for you and Caitlin…”
“I’ll get room service.”
“They don’t offer room service on this cruise.” Ruric flipped through the shirts hanging in the closet. “It’s a dress-up night. Which shirt do you want to wear?” He held out a white one and a pin-striped shirt.
“Got anything black?”
Ruric gave an exaggerated sigh. “Whatever His Majesty desires. She’ll think you’re in mourning. Or a Goth.”
“Quit it, Ruric. No more about the girl.”
Ruric handed him the shirt. “She’s like Cassandra, isn’t she?”
Levka glowered at him.
“Isn’t she?”