by Jessica Sims
“And this is the place on the far side of the world?” Rand chuckled. “Again with your stories.”
I just grinned and held his hand, rubbing his fingers with mine. Like we were a couple. “Just trust me.”
“You’re the only one I do trust.”
I swallowed hard. Other than Gemma, Rand was the only person I had. “I won’t let you down. I promise.” I gave his hand another squeeze. “But this means I’m probably going to need to load up on garlic for a while.”
Rand’s expression of distaste mirrored mine. Garlic, ugh. Why couldn’t vampires hate chocolate?
* * *
I tossed and turned in bed that day, unable to sleep. I was trying to switch my schedule to nights to sync with Rand’s, but between Gemma’s kidnapping, the destruction in the apartment, and a head full of worries, I didn’t sleep a wink. The fact that the old bed sagged on one side and had been slashed to ribbons on the other didn’t help matters. Those stupid jerks had destroyed everything.
When I finally dragged myself from the rickety bed at sundown, I dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and headed down the trash-strewn stairs. There I met a bright-eyed and hungry vampire.
He frowned at the sight of me, without makeup and my hair unbrushed. “You do not look well, Lindsey.”
I stared at him. “How am I supposed to feel when my best friend has been taken by vampires?” I gestured at the walls of the wrecked apartment. “You’ll forgive me if I didn’t dress up to clean house.”
“Clean?” He gave me an imperious look. “Have your servants do it.”
“What servants?” I gestured at my chest. “Who do you think was hired to clean this place up?”
His eyebrows went up. “You are a servant?” His gaze scanned up and down my form, and a hint of a smile curved his mouth. “I must say that if you are, I have rarely met a servant that smelled as good as you do. Your blood is positively succulent, fair Lindsey.”
Oy. “You know what? Let’s just table this conversation, okay?” I rubbed my forehead, staring at the wreckage around me. Where to even start? I moved down the stairs toward a torn box, picking it up half-heartedly.
Cool hands gripped my shoulders, and I could feel Rand’s big form press up against me from behind. “Let the chores wait another night, Lindsey,” he murmured against my ear.
“But I need to,” I began helplessly.
“It will not bring Gemma back any faster.”
Tears pricked my eyes. Was I that obvious? “But it’ll give me something to do. You don’t know me, Rand. I like control. I have to have things in order. That’s who I am.”
“Then tonight, you have no control,” he said, steering me toward the door of the apartment.
“I . . . what?” I sniffed. “What are you talking about?”
“We shall not begin our hunt for Guy just yet. Tonight, you will take your time and recoup your energy.” He brushed his fingers over my cheek, then moved toward the door. “We shall go out and explore Venice, yes? And I shall be your guide.”
“I . . . I don’t know.” I looked around the apartment helplessly. “Gemma—”
“Will be fine,” he said in a soft voice. His cool fingers touched my cheek again. “You can do nothing for her as of yet. You are heartsick and exhausted, and we will confront Guy when the time is right.”
“Why don’t we confront him now?”
“Because he will either expect us to charge directly to him or to wait for his instructions. For us to take our time? That he will not suspect.” And he gave me a smug look.
“Are you sure?”
“You must trust me, Lindsey. Do you trust anyone?”
“I trust Gemma.”
“And what has she done to earn that trust?”
I jerked out of his grip. “Are you kidding me? We’ve grown up together. We’re closer than sisters. I’d trust her with my life.”
“So you are friends—”
“More than friends,” I corrected. “We shared bunks in the home. We went to school together as kids and we graduated together. Gemma flunked a grade so she could stay with me. When I had no one else, I had Gemma.” My stupid tears were threatening again. “When we got booted out of the home at eighteen, Gemma and I got an apartment together. It’s always been us against the world.”
He nodded. “She sounds like a wonderful friend.”
“She is.” My throat ached with tears.
“Would she not want you to make the best plan to save her?”
“Well, yes—”
“And would she wish for you to drive yourself mad with worry?”
I frowned. Gemma was very much a a “seize the day” kind of girl. “That’s not who I am, though—”
Rand gave me a seductive smile and looped his arm around my shoulders again, guiding me toward the door once more. “Then we shall go out and you will learn to trust me, and you will tell me more about Gemma.” He tapped my cheek with cold fingers. “And bring your plastic money.”
Despite my protests, we went out after all. Rand wanted me to go blindfolded so he could surprise me, but I absolutely put my foot down at the thought. Hadn’t we just been ambushed in Rome? Instead, I wore a bandanna as a scarf to cover my gigantic, still-healing bite, and closed my eyes when he asked me to. He held my hand and led the way, though sometimes we took a water taxi to cross a canal. Each time we did, I murmured my “invite” to Rand to allow him to cross with me, and I noticed his face grew pale with strain each time. Running water, indeed.
He led me through the dark streets of Venice, talking about a battle he’d once fought. And he encouraged me to talk about Gemma—about how when we were kids, Gemma was dropped off at the state home by her prison-bound mother, and I, who was already at the home, welcomed her by sticking Play-Doh in her bright yellow pigtails. We’d been inseperable ever since, and I shared story after story of my bestie with him. Of the time that I didn’t get a date to prom and Gemma ditched her guy to be my date. Of the time we were caught egging the local church and Gemma took the fall for me because I couldn’t afford to miss school. Over and over, I thought of the ways Gemma had always been there for me.
Even now. And I resolved to be a better friend.
Rand was surprisingly good company, other than the one time he disappeared down an empty street and returned flushed with blood. I didn’t ask questions. But after that, he was easygoing and cheerful, encouraging me to tell funny Gemma stories and pointing out some of the buildings in Venice. He knew the area much better than I did.
“Now close your eyes once more, Lindsey,” he told me as we walked again. “If the building is yet here, it will be a pleasant surprise.”
Obediently, I closed my eyes and let him lead me forward. “Is it food?” We’d been stuffing ourselves with food from small cafés as we’d walked, and I was full.
“Not food,” he said, and gave my hand a squeeze. “Do you not trust me?”
“All right, all right,” I grumbled. And I squeezed his hand back.
“Ah,” Rand said after a long moment. “Here we are.”
I opened my eyes, expecting to see another pastry shop . . . and gasped. We stood at the entrance of an enormous plaza, lined with lit buildings that seemed to go on forever in an orderly line. Tourists wandered the area despite the late hour, taking pictures and chatting merrily. At the far end of the massive plaza sat a lit-up building next to a tower. The entire place looked like something out of a tourist guidebook. “What is this place?” I asked with wonder as Rand led me forward through the crowd.
“This is the Piazza San Marco,” he told me, giving me a boyish look of sincere happiness. “And it is still here. I am pleased.” His hand squeezed mine again. “This place was old even when I came through Venice last.”
“Really?” I breathed, surprised. Sometimes Rand didn’t seem old to me as much as just out of place. I wondered at how strange all of this must be to him—the electric lights, the motor-driven water taxis . . . I wondered what he’d t
hink of my hometown in Nebraska, full of cars, highways, and cornfields.
“Come,” Rand said, tugging me forward when my steps slowed. “They will have finished the basilica by now!”
Basilica? I perked up, and the eager history nerd inside me raced after him. When his footsteps sped up, I kept pace. We were running through the piazza like two drunk idiots, but I didn’t care. It was Venice by night, and it was gorgeous, and I was here with a mysterious, handsome man who wanted nothing more than to make me smile for an evening.
He’d accomplished that, for sure.
The basilica was breathtaking, with staged lights giving it a golden glow. “St. Mark’s Basilica,” Rand murmured as I stared in awe at the rounded frescoes above each door, the recessed carvings, the beautiful marble pillars. It looked a bit like the Taj Mahal. “It’s incredible,” I told him, and gave him a giddy smile. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”
He nodded, as awestruck by the sight as I was. “I’d hoped it was still here, but I did not know.” He pulled me against him and looped an arm around my shoulders, and for a moment, it felt like we were a couple. A shiver of desire raced through me.
“I’m glad it’s still here,” I told him. “For your sake. That the world hasn’t changed quite so much in six hundred years.”
“And I am glad you’re here with me to see it,” Rand murmured. He looked over at me and brushed a stray lock of hair from my face, and for a weird moment, I thought he’d kiss me. No teasing manipulation, no coyness, just a man wanting to kiss a woman. But then he gave me a crooked half smile and turned back to the basilica. “I cannot go inside, of course. Hallowed ground.”
“Of course,” I said, and didn’t point out that even if it was open to the public, visiting hours were probably long over.
“But I like the sight of it nevertheless,” he murmured, then gazed down at me again. “I like many sights in this time.”
I felt my cheeks heat with a blush, and I bit my lip.
Rand held me against him again, and I pressed my cheek to his strangely silent chest. “We’ll get her back,” he told me in a gentle voice. “You have my word of honor.”
“I trust you,” I said. Weirdly enough, I did. It was as if seeing the piazza and the basilica had cemented in my mind the notion that history could meet with the present and still be beautiful.
Rand was ancient, but he was still a warrior. If anyone could save Gemma, he could.
Now the only thing that needed saving from him were my girlish fancies. I blushed again as I pulled away from him, noticing that he touched my hair again as I did. “Think there’s a place to get a bite to eat around here? I’m full but I could make room for something sweet.”
“For you or for me?” he teased.
I batted his arm. “For me!”
THREE DAYS LATER
I parked my rental car on the side of the road, clutching the steering wheel as I gazed down into the valley ahead. A dark, ominous, deserted valley. “Is it too late to change my mind?”
“Much too late,” Rand replied, unbuckling himself and opening his door. “We must do this.”
“If we must,” I said, getting out of the car, too. Despite my big talk of how we’d prevail, I was scared witless.
We’d received no other information from Guy. Instead, we’d quietly packed a few things from the Venice apartment and rented a car once we’d crossed the ferry. Rand had said that his “sensing” of the other vampire worked a bit like a compass (well, once we’d had a discussion about compasses), so we’d decided to try to head in the same direction at all times in order to disguise just how close we were. If Guy could only feel a vague direction, maybe he wouldn’t realize we were coming after him. I drove, and Rand kept me on the path that only he could see.
And so we drove into the Alps in search of Guy.
I felt guilty as heck, but I’d had fun. Thoughts of Gemma niggled the back of my mind constantly, but I’d enjoyed traveling with Rand. Everything was new to him, and as we passed by scenery, he was fascinated by everything, from children on bicycles to the wildest sports cars that zoomed past us. He’d wanted to know more about how cars worked, so I’d pulled over at a rest stop in Switzerland and shown him a few driving points. He’d nearly torn the clutch off, and after that, I hadn’t let him drive again. With Rand, though, somehow even the smallest things were fun. We’d stop to get a bite to eat, and I’d have to explain each item on the menu in depth to him, along with what ingredients were in it. A burger struck him as ingenious. And when we stopped during the daytime to sleep, we’d share a hotel room and cuddle while Rand regaled me with stories of when he was a crusader, or his days as a vampire. He’d told me he was a warlord, but it seemed that a lot of his time was spent on what sounded like even more crusades, except this time his leader was the Dragon and not the Lionheart. He kept away from stories full of violence, though I knew there were a great many of those. Instead, he’d tell me small vignettes about life in the field, like how William had once spent hours polishing a sword he’d won from an enemy, only to have it break the first time he used it in battle.
The stories made me realize that the Rand of then was not so different from the Rand of now. He was flirty, cocky, confident, and amused by the world despite the dark things he’d seen. And I was falling for him. Little by little, I began to imagine a life with him. I could do the nocturnal thing. I could handle the “inviting into rooms” and “avoiding holy symbols” thing. I could avoid garlic.
The blood thing, though. That was tricky, because no matter what I did, I’d never be enough for him. He’d always have to drink from someone else at some point, or risk killing me.
We didn’t talk about it. Every day, in the early predawn hours of morning, just before we were about to settle in for “the night,” Rand would leave me for a short time. He would return, skin flushed with warmth, and take a shower. I was pretty sure that all of the people he drank from weren’t hookers, but he showered nevertheless.
It hurt me that he constantly had to seek out others. I couldn’t feed him—we’d both decided that I needed to be full strength for our upcoming surprise attack, and even a hint of anemia on my part could work against us. So Rand drank from anonymous strangers.
And I tried not to let it get to me. I tried not to think about it at all.
Which meant, of course, that I thought about it constantly.
I wondered if they were all women. Were they pretty? Did the women swoon with an orgasm the moment he sank his fangs into them? Did he wipe their memories?
Did they taste as good as I did?
It was insane to think about these sorts of things.
Of course, nothing about our adventure seemed sane. It was all just . . . necessary. Like the fact that Rand had no identification, and the more we’d traveled and used public transport, the more it had been a requirement. At first, Rand had simply used his vampire wiles to make people ignore the fact that he’d had no passport or photo ID. But as the question had kept coming up, we’d looked up an office for the local American embassy and stopped there one night for an emergency passport renewal. I’d turned the other cheek while Rand had charmed and beguiled the girl working at one of the desks.
Two hours later, he’d had a drink and a temporary passport. He’d even gotten a photo ID with his name and a photo that sort of looked like him if you squinted hard. How he’d managed that, I wasn’t sure.
I’d been sitting in the lobby, jealously fuming. But what else could I have done? He needed the IDs. So I’d ignored my hurt feelings, and I’d ignored the fact that he’d made it up to me by showering me with attention and compliments as we’d ridden the train.
I hated that I’d been so weak to fall for all the compliments, but they had improved my mood. And as we’d talked and chatted and journeyed across the Alps and up to Switzerland, I’d grown more and more attached to my vampire. Sure, it wasn’t a ton of time, but it felt like we’d always been together. Rand had a wicked sense of humo
r and a flirty attitude that made his arrogance almost charming. As he and I grew closer, I felt more guilt over Gemma. It was my fault she was in danger, and I was starting to think that if it came down to a trade, I didn’t know if I could give Rand up. It was more than just friendship. More than just a sense of obligation.
My life was starting to be defined as Before Rand and After Rand. And I couldn’t imagine life without him. Without his awestruck smile as he saw a modern marvel that I took for granted. His chuckle as I told a corny joke. The way his hand played with my hair as we went to bed together. The cool touch of his fingers laced with mine.
We remained celibate, even though I knew we were both thinking about sex. It was on my mind every time Rand emerged from the shower, skin gleaming with damp, his body warm from stolen blood. I knew it was on Rand’s mind when he’d watch my mouth as I spoke, or the hot caress of his gaze when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
But we couldn’t. It wasn’t just that Gemma was at risk, though that was a factor. It was that Rand would drink from me if we had sex. He’d made that extremely clear.
And while Gemma was in Guy’s hands, we wouldn’t touch each other.
But after?
I found myself unwilling to think of anything but after. There would be an after. We’d get my best friend back and then we’d see what happened next.
Rand came around the car to my side and squeezed my arms, the look on his face encouraging. “Are you ready to do this, Lindsey?”
Was I about to get the medieval version of the pregame pep talk? “I think so.”
“Do you have your stakes?”
I shifted my weight and felt the press of the wooden stakes I’d velcroed inside the pair of calf-high boots I’d bought specifically for this. We’d made the stakes from a pair of broken antique chairs in the Venice apartment. It had hurt my soul to see the wreckage, but at least it was going to good use. And it was fitting that if I had to stake someone, it would be with a chair the vampires had destroyed. “Got the stakes,” I assured him.