Key to Conflict

by Talia Gryphon

  He knew she’d been a Captain in the United States Marine Corps from her curriculum vitae that he’d reviewed when the IPPA had sent him her qualifications as a potential therapist. She was used to standing out and being in command. Now, she was seated quietly, keeping her own dynamic personality tamped down, listening to his problems, apparently content in her more subdued role.

  She was dressed almost unobtrusively in olive drab cargo pants, a black turtleneck and hiking boots; she wore no makeup. As short as she was, she had curled up in the large chair, balancing her notepad on her leg as she wrote. Right-handed, he noted. Her nails were short and without polish, hands small and only a Gaelic claddagh ring adorned the little finger of her right hand.

  Watching her tuck her golden hair absently behind her ear, he saw the small diamond studs she word as earrings. Multifaceted, like their owner. Sparkling. His mind drifted.

  Aleksei wondered if there was anyone in her life, then snapped back to focus at her question. “This woman, Elizabeta, wanted to be reborn, but you refused because you thought she wasn’t serious about her feelings for you, is that what I heard you say?”

  He nodded slowly. Elizabeta had been his fiancée, strikingly similar in looks to the good Dr. Key. She’d been warm and silly and fun, but when he’d faced his greatest trial, dying and being reborn, she hadn’t “felt” serious about him any longer, though she continued to profess her undying love.

  His heightened perceptions had found that Elizabeta had a gold-digging little heart. She’d been a commoner; the Rachlavs were low-rung nobility, but the highest rung on the ascending rank ladder of royalty she’d ever be able to obtain.

  Aleksei wound up breaking the engagement and letting her go her own way. When she died two years later in childbirth while married to another minor noble, he’d been distraught at her loss. When he learned she’d died calling for him, his guilt had racked him through the centuries. Now was the time to face the truth of the situation.

  “Yes. Elizabeta didn’t want me, she wanted new experiences, new challenges, new worlds. She’d hated being trapped in the role women were confined to in those days. She wanted what I could offer her, Doctor, but not in the manner in which a true love wants something from their fiancée.”

  “You were a means to an end,” she softly noted. It wasn’t said in anger or in an accusatory fashion, but Aleksei’s temper stirred.

  “A Vampire sugar daddy, yes. That’s what she would have made me.”

  Gillian looked up; iron was in that velvet voice. He was blaming himself because he’d had an emotionally immature woman for a fiancée. He’d been honorable, not wanting to condemn her to his new dark life, and she’d looked to him for nothing but the freedom such a transition would afford her. Not the life they could have had together, even as Vampires.

  Aleksei suddenly stiffened almost imperceptibly. Gillian’s senses came on, full alert, her empathy flaring in response to his uneasiness and warning her of a potential threat. They both rose as one, her eyes on Aleksei and his eyes on the door. Ascertaining that he wasn’t the threat, she instinctively moved in front of him as combat training and experience switched to autopilot.

  Immediately she morphed from Dr. Key the psychologist and became all soldier once more. Though her mission was foremost in her mind, he was her client, and if there was something outside that made him nervous, blowing her cover was the least of her worries.

  Incredulous, Aleksei stared down at her, noting the subtle shifts in her demeanor, body chemistry and bearing as she stepped between him and the door. She was going to protect him? The reflexive gesture on her part struck a tender chord inside him. This would not do. It was his privilege to stand between her and harm and his duty as Master of this place. Soldier she might have been, but she was female, Human and in his domain, under his protection.

  Gently, he put his hands on her shoulders, intending to move her behind him and out of harm’s way. What he sensed outside was powerful, cloaked to his mental probe, almost surely Vampire and headed directly to the cottage.

  Gillian shook his hands off without looking at him. “I’m still a soldier, Aleksei,” she informed him in a quiet but authoritative tone. “If something outside is causing you concern, I am probably not even on its radar. That makes you the potential target. Please stay back. I will not allow you to be harmed.”

  Her hand went to a spine sheath where she kept a long stiletto blade made of sterling silver and drew it, automatically distributing her weight evenly on the balls of her feet. The silver would seriously injure any Lycanthrope and do enough damage to a Vampire to buy them a few seconds of time for Aleksei to get clear.

  The stunning Count’s eyebrows rose; he hadn’t known she was armed. It intrigued him that she had masked something from him. Curious, he asked her softly, “What do you sense?”

  “There’s something out there; you feel it and I feel it too, mostly through your perceptions.”

  Any further discussion would have to wait as the door drifted ethereally open. There in a swirl of mist, a tall, cloaked stranger materialized on the porch, radiating power and menace. Vampire. Shit. Gill would ask “what the hell?” later. She threw the knife with deadly accuracy and purpose.

  “My brother,” came from a deep, melodious, beautiful voice, a heartbeat before Gillian snapped the knife toward him.

  “No!” Aleksei’s voice thundered in the room.

  She checked her throw literally as she was letting go of the stiletto. The action threw her off balance, so she dipped her head and flipped forward instead of staggering into the new being. Regaining her feet like a cat, she found herself past the threshold, on the porch and nearly in the stranger’s arms.

  The surprise of a small Human female flipping nearly under his chin brought the stranger’s black-gloved hands out to steady her from slamming into his chest. Fingertips barely grazed her arms when she brought her own hands up violently, knocking his grip away and managing not to impale him on a silvery stiletto.

  “Back. Off!” Gillian barked, resuming a fighting stance, knife gleaming and blood in her eye. The first thing she noticed was that he was now between her and the door. Fabulous.

  The new male moved, nearly blurring with speed, to grasp the knife. Gillian noticed, chambered her leg and power kicked him in the chest as he enclosed her knife-wielding arm in a firm, vise-like grip. The impact threw him toward the doorway, but he took her with him, jerking her toward him as he fell. Stupid Vampire reflexes.

  He seemed to bounce off the open doorway, stopped by an invisible barrier, the hood on his cloak falling back. Gill wound up on her stomach, halfway across the thigh and hip of another Vampire male who rivaled Aleksei in pure, stunning male beauty. In fact, they looked quite a bit alike, as she discovered when she turned her head and looked up at a fabulously attractive face, which also looked extremely pissed.

  Damn, he was attractive. Dressed in retro-noble like Aleksei, the new arrival was a vision of the Old World. Black cloak, gleaming boots, tight black pants and a silk shirt of a lovely soft copper color clung to his tall frame.

  “Hello, Tanis,” Aleksei stated flatly before anything else could happen. “Dr. Key, may I introduce my brother, Count Tanis Rachlav, also a Vampire.”

  Lovely, thought Gillian. Just fucking lovely. But she fluttered the fingers of her knife hand at him from her position across his thigh. “Pleased to meet you.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  O H yeah, Tanis definitely looked pissed. Gorgeous but pissed, Gillian thought as she tried to contrive a way off him that just might resemble something in the dignified range. Shit, he really smelled good too, like pine forest and sandalwood.

  Aleksei discreetly covered his mouth with his hand, hiding the smile that suddenly widened on his face. He didn’t think Tanis had ever experienced being knocked on his rear end by anyone, let alone a small Human female.

  Gillian was watching him warily. She bet when Tanis was vertical he was as tall as Aleksei.
He had the same stunning good looks, same raven black hair, but his eyes were golden, almost like a lion’s, and they were full of fire, leveled on her. He still held her wrist captive and had placed his other large, gloved hand over the small of her back. Uh-oh. What to do, what to do? Getting angry back seemed like a good idea if he wouldn’t let her up.

  Aleksei saw what was coming and reached down to pluck Gillian off his brother’s lap and out of his grasp, taking the knife as a precaution. Setting her on her feet, he gave Tanis his hand, pulling the furious Vampire to his matching height. Both pairs of eyes oriented on the small blonde.

  “Dr. Key, may my brother enter your home?”

  Having some level of control unexpectedly put back in her hands, Gillian recovered instantly, now realizing why Tanis had hit that invisible wall when she kicked him.

  “Enter and be welcome, Count Rachlav, if you truly mean me no harm.” There. She knew Vampire protocol. Let him answer honestly.

  Those gold eyes should have been warm, but they were chilly. Tanis regarded her for a moment, “I mean you no harm, but you are sorely in need of manners, piccola.”

  Damn, his voice was as good as Aleksei’s. Too bad he’d just pissed her off. Gillian liked anger. It was better than being scared, except that it dropped her IQ by several points. It was times like this that her inner Marine Corps hardass went head to head with her inner Gandhi. Today the marine won.

  Fueled by adrenaline, her professional demeanor was shot to hell. “I beg your pardon, you ignorant ass, don’t lecture me about needing manners when you tried to barrel in here uninvited during a session with my client and scaring everyone half to death.”

  Gillian’s voice was hard and clipped. Her drill instructor would have laughed her ass off. Dr. Gerhardt, her IPPA contact, would have killed her on the spot. Major Daedelus Aristophenes, her commanding officer, would have laughed his ass off, then killed her. Oops. Her cover. Right. Dammit.

  Twin ebony eyebrows lifted at her audacity. Tanis had been around for the same four hundred years Aleksei had, but he had never met a woman as cheeky as this one. Certainly not a combat vet marine with a low tolerance for snarky chauvinists of any variety.

  “The women I am used to, Dr. Key, are less sarcastic to guests in their home.”

  “Obviously you’ve been hanging around with the wrong women,” Gillian snapped back.

  Silence reigned for an interminable amount of time. Nobody moved and Gillian started feeling slightly idiotic standing there with two very large Vampires between her and inside. Aleksei silently handed her back the knife, hoping that she would put it away before Tanis’s temper got the better of him.

  Aleksei’s familiar thoughts came to Tanis softly. “You are scaring my therapist, brother. Could you manage to look a little less threatening at the moment?”

  “She needs to be scared. You should have left her where she was: bent over my knee for a lesson in manners. You picked her up too quickly.” Tanis’s heated thought came through just as clearly.

  This was not going well. Aleksei thought that Gillian might punch a hole in Tanis with her shiny blade if he tried to make good on his threat. He did not want to think about what Tanis might do to the lovely Dr. Key if it came to that.

  Gillian resheathed the blade, then glanced at Aleksei and took a private vote on how to handle this. It wouldn’t do to skewer her client’s brother, not on the first meeting anyway. Swallowing her irritation—thank goodness for those anger management classes—she offered him her hand and went for polite. “Look, we’ve started off badly. I’m Dr. Gillian Key. Please come in, Count Rachlav.” There. That was so polite it made her teeth hurt. Stupid Vampire Rules.

  Tanis’s expression never changed and the lovely voice was chilly. He ignored her proffered hand. “Doctor, is it? Let us hope that your professional skills far exceed your social abilities or you will find yourself placed across my knee once more for a rectification of your appalling conduct.”

  He swept past her into the room, stopping by the massive fireplace to turn and look expectantly at Aleksei, still standing by the door.

  O…kay. Domination Dracula was just running his fanged mouth, so she’d let that go. Diplomacy, Gill reminded herself, blushing at his implication. Yup. Diplomacy. The art of saying “nice Vampire” before you found a stake and a mallet.

  She gritted her teeth and waited for the next glass coffin to shatter. Aleksei came to her rescue. “What do you need, Tanis? I am in the middle of a session with my therapist. And why were you cloaking yourself so completely?”

  Tanis’s golden gaze raked over Gillian then swept up to his brother’s eyes. “We need to talk, Aleksei. There are some things you should be aware of. Immediately.”

  Gillian thought that she might make herself scarce before decorum became any more broken. “Listen, Aleksei, why don’t you and your brother talk. We were about done for the evening anyway. I think I’ll just trot on down to the village. You did say there was a nice pub there, didn’t you?”

  Aleksei looked at her. In relation to himself and Tanis, she looked impossibly young and vulnerable, but that was illusion. She would be up to any problem she might encounter in the small village. He reminded himself that she was a successful combat veteran and would not be easily daunted or intimdated.

  He nodded. “Yes, the innkeeper, Radu, is a friend. Please tell him to charge your expenses to me.”

  Gillian gathered her things quickly as Aleksei stepped back from the door. “Thank you, Dr. Key. I will see you later then.”

  “Thank you, Aleksei. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She nodded to Tanis. “Tanis, I hope you and your brother have a nice chat.”

  “Despite your shitty attitude,” she added under her breath and hustled out the door before he could reply.

  As she got into the small Opal, she saw that Aleksei left the porch light on for when she should return. Nice Vampire. Too bad his brother was a shithead.

  Soon she rolled into the town, which looked like a picture postcard from a fantasy movie like The Tenth Kingdom. Even at night it was lovely. She pulled up to what looked like an inn, judging by the rectangular sign that hung from the side of the building. It was a painted woodcut featuring a sleek, well-fed wolf lying on a hill overlooking a flock of fluffy white sheep. The sheep were positioned so that a couple were looking up, aware of the wolf as they continued to graze happily under its watchful eye. There was no sheepdog nor shepherd in sight. The wolf was the guardian of the contented flock.

  The carved letters were in Romanian, but Gillian got the gist of the meaning. Something big and bad watched over this village and its people and the gods help any who would interfere. She was betting it was referring to Aleksei and his family.

  After she freshened up, she went down to the pub and ordered food and plenty to drink. The owner/bartender came to sit at her table. He was attractive, like most of the men in the area seemed to be, and anxious to make sure of her comfort.

  “What else we can do for you, miss, to make you happiest?” His voice was heavily accented Romanian and his eyes were kind.

  “Who owns that compound back down the road?” she asked, wrapping her mouth around a delicious smoked sausage.

  “Ah, that is Count Aleksei’s guest home. You have met him, then?”

  “Oh yes, I met him. Him and his brother. Who are they?”

  The owner, Radu, grinned widely. “They are wealthy landowners. All of us in Sacele, in this province, owe them much. Their family for centuries have been here. You are fortunate to have turned there for help. You will be safe from the Nosferatu if you are their friend.”

  “Nosferatu? Vampire?” Gillian looked at his face, his eyes. He was serious, despite the grin.

  “Yes. Outsiders think these are legends only but they are real, miss. Too real.”

  Gillian settled back, lit a cigarette and let him pour her drinks while she listened to some very strange tales. She took no notes, relying on a steel-trap memory. In her room, late
r, she would enter it all on her laptop. Radu confirmed her guess about the sign. The direct translation was “watchful shepherd.” Well, it was fitting.

  Back at the Rachlav compound, agitation reigned. Tanis had started to go after her for her whispered comment when she’d fled but Aleksei had stopped him.

  “What is so important that you unexpectedly come here after being gone for the last twenty years and arbitrarily reveal yourself to a Human, Tanis? Oh, and welcome home.”

  His younger brother regarded him. “Our beloved Lord, Prince Dracula.” Five words. But it was enough. Aleksei’s expression couldn’t have been more shocked if Tanis had suddenly told him he’d figured out how to regain his Humanity.

  “How? He couldn’t have entered the Country without one of us being aware of him.” Aleksei’s voice was calm as ever, but inside his gut was churning with anger.

  “He has to have a plant, an accomplice in Immigration,” Tanis said flatly, starting to pace in agitation.

  Aleksei regarded his brother’s figure as he roamed the cabin like a caged tiger. Tanis was seething with barely controlled fury. Infinitely dangerous and an unpredictable predator, he was still the one person Aleksei trusted above all others. Neither had forgiven the Prince for decimating their family, for making them what they were. They hadn’t seen the warlord in over three hundred years. No one had, that they knew of. It had been assumed that he’d been killed by one of his many vengeful victims or by some miracle, had Faced The Sun.

  Raking a hand through his long, raven-black hair, Aleksei stated the obvious, “What are we going to do?”

  Tanis stared at him. “We are going to gather whatever reinforcements we can, brother, and defeat this ancient evil. Now, collect your little spitfire therapist and let us formulate a plan.”

  “What does Gillian have to do with it?” Aleksei wasn’t following Tanis’s thoughts; he was still reeling with the knowledge that Prince Dracula, the bane of all the Rachlav family’s and of most Vampires’ existence was back in the Country.