A Girls Guide to Vampires

by Katie MacAlister

  "You know," I said to no one in particular, "I'm really getting tired of being called a cow."

  Raphael raised both eyebrows, giving me a look that could steam the wrinkles out of a prune. I contemplated ripping off all his clothes and molesting him on the spot before I remembered that such an act was sure to be an idea he planted in my head, not one of my own. I glared at him instead.

  "You are angry with me," Tanya continued as if I hadn't spoken. "You cannot mean what you say. I will forgive you this once, but you must not allow yourself to be influenced by her attempts to arouse your interest."

  Arouse—oh yes, what a very nice word that was. I looked at Raphael. He looked back at me. Several parts of me that weren't on public display brought out their pompoms and began cheering.

  "I begin to find you tedious, ma petite," Dominic told Tanya as he peeled her hand off his arm. He turned to his companion. "As I have no further use for her, she is yours if you want her, Milos."

  So that was Dominic's missing partner? I filed away that fact as I took a step toward Raphael. His muscles bunched as if he wanted to move closer to me, but he wouldn't allow himself. I grabbed my hips and ordered my legs to stop listening to his silent siren call.

  "Are you all right?" Christian asked in a low tone that felt like warm velvet brushing against my skin.

  "Fine," I whispered back. "I'm just having a bit of a control issue with a vampire trying to get me into his pants. Nothing to worry about."

  He looked startled. I smiled in reassurance.

  "I do not take any man's leavings, my brother, not even yours." Milos looked over Tanya with an implacable face. "I doubt she would sufficiently interest me."

  "Connard!" Tanya spat at him, and threw herself on Dominic. Milos didn't look at all fazed by her opinion on the marital status of his parents. In fact, he didn't look anything, not even bored. He was the most unexpressive, controlled person I'd ever seen. Raphael might put on an impassive face now and again, but I knew that it was just a mask covering a seething river of emotion. Unbidden, my gaze wandered back to admire his profile.

  "What's wrong?" Roxy hissed in my ear. "You look funny all of a sudden."

  "It's Raphael," I whispered back. "He's doing something to me. Something with his mind. He's evil."

  Her eyes got big.

  "Do not punish me this way," Tanya cried to Dominic, clinging to his cape. He snarled at her in another language and tugged his cape from her grasp.

  "You mean he's merging with you? Right now? This instant?" Roxy whispered her question, one eye on the unfolding scene between the two men and Tanya, the other on Raphael. "What's he doing?"

  I yanked my gaze away from Raphael, determined not to allow him to sway my mind without my permission, instead focusing my attention on Tanya's anguished face. Even knowing she'd tried to do me serious injury by kicking me on the stairs, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the horrible manner in which Dominic was treating her. It was a very small twinge, however.

  "What is it you are whispering about?" Christian leaned in to ask us.

  "It's Joy. Her Dark One is doing something to her mind."

  "Really?" he asked, examining my face. "She doesn't look any different. What is the vampire doing to her?"

  "It is all her fault!" Tanya screeched, mindless of the attention she was drawing to our little group. She spun around and pointed at me dramatically. "She has cast a spell upon you! You are doomed to fall under it unless I can reverse it. I, alone, have the power to save you from her!"

  I waggled my fingers at her. "Boogedy-boogedy-boo!"

  She turned red with fury.

  "She's having visions like before, aren't you, Joy?" Roxy tugged at my sleeve, dragging my attention back to her.

  "No, it's not like the visions," I whispered out the side of my mouth, too embarrassed to admit that Raphael could have such an effect on me with just a few lewd thoughts planted in my head.

  "Ma petite, you go too far. Mon ange has not the evil presence in her soul. It takes one who knows evil to cast spells."

  "You're not helping calm her down," Raphael told him at the same time I commented, "Ooooh, low blow, Dominic!"

  Dominic just smiled at me and made a corny bow.

  Raphael shook his head, raising his hands in defeat as he took a couple of steps toward me. I switched my attention to him, smiling victoriously as he moved closer. Two could play at this little mind-seduction game. I'd been willing him to come to me, and now he was.

  "Then what is it he's doing?" Roxy whispered in my ear, so low I almost couldn't hear her over the shrieks of anger Tanya was emitting at regular intervals as she lambasted Dominic for his nasty comment. "Joy? What's Raphael doing to you?"

  "Seducing me," I answered, taking a step forward and letting my eyes go all soft at Raphael. I thought he needed a little reward for giving in and coming to me once he realized I had an iron will that couldn't be swayed by a little mind-seduction. His amber eyes opened wide in response. I took a deep breath and inhaled that lovely Raphael scent that wrapped around him. The cheerleading team in my nether parts kicked into overdrive.

  Raphael, with one last look at me that I was sure would turn all the bones in my body to oatmeal, turned back to Dominic. Tanya was on her knees before him, pleading with him to listen to her.

  "If having a nightly catfight is a new attraction," Raphael told him, "you really should consider charging more for admittance." He nodded toward the people gathering behind Dominic and Milos. I turned to grab Roxy and Christian and make an escape while we could, but Christian had disappeared.

  Dominic stiffened and gave Raphael one of his pseudo-haughty stares. "You will not speak about mon ange in that manner."

  "Will you give it up?" I frowned at Dominic, interrupting the reply Raphael was about to make. "I'm not an angel, and I'm certainly not your angel. If I'm anyone's angel, I'm his." Of its own accord, my finger pointed at Raphael. I clapped a hand over my mouth a fraction of a second after the words left my lips. Raphael's eyebrows raised in an expression of sheer, unadulterated surprise.

  "You're not playing fair!" I accused him. "You made me say that! You're making everyone think I'm the one who's wild about you! I'll thank you to stay out of my mind, and stop seducing me!"

  "Seducing you?" he asked, ignoring Dominic as he frowned at me. "I am seducing you?"

  "Yes, you are, and you needn't try to look so innocent, we both know who you are and what you're doing, so you can just wipe that 'I haven't the slightest clue what you're going on about' look off your face, and keep your mind to yourself! If you want me in your bed, you're going to have to do it properly, you got that?"

  "Certainly. Perhaps you could tell me when and how you would prefer I seduce you? I would hate to catch you unaware at an inopportune time, or go about it in a manner that did not meet with your express approval."

  "Mon ange." Dominic separated himself from Tanya, taking my hand before I could stop him. "You are distressed and speaking in the heat of passion. What is this Tanya is babbling about rune stones?" He turned my hand over and pressed a red-lipped kiss to my palm. I made a fist.

  "You want a knuckle sandwich, buster, just keep it up."

  Dominic laughed and turned to Milos. "She is delightful, is she not? Do you not envy me my good fortune in finding her?"

  "Oh, for God's sake, I'm going to plant one on him…" I thought about taking a swing at him, but decided I wouldn't just a nanosecond before Raphael grabbed my hand, my entire fist wrapped firmly in his. I shivered at the touch and tried to keep the cheerleading squad in my womanly parts from breaking out into back flips.

  "She has spirit. She will be an excellent consort for me," Dominic continued, one hand holding Tanya down as she flailed at his feet, beating on his legs and screaming obscenities.

  "That's not spirit, it's just gas," Roxy spoke up, her arms crossed. I glared at her. There were times when I really didn't need her help. "Which, if you think about it, is a rather fittin
g comment on her opinion of you, don't you think?"

  "You will read the runes for me," Dominic said, releasing my hand when I jerked it hard enough to make him stagger forward a few steps. "No, no." He held up his hands when he saw me about to protest. "You must. Did you not hear Tanya? She has challenged you. You must avenge the insults she has made against your honor."

  I grabbed Roxy by the arm. "Thanks, but no thanks. We'll be on our way now. I'll see you later," I said meaningfully to Raphael as I dragged Roxy past him.

  He blinked. "Will you?"

  Dominic called something out to me. Tanya shrieked in response. I ignored both of them to stare into the loveliest eyes I'd ever seen. "I assume so. We have unfinished business, don't we?"

  He looked at my lips. I suddenly found myself wanting to lick his.

  "Yes," he replied, his eyes going molten. My breath caught in my throat as he reached out and brushed a strand of hair where it had flown across my cheek. "I believe we do have unfinished business."

  "Good," I gulped, suddenly one big mass of tingling body parts that wanted an immediate introduction to all of his body parts. I tried to slam down a mental barrier between his mind and mine, but it did no good. The cheerleaders in my groin were setting up fundraising car washes to finance a field trip to his groin.

  "Hey! I don't want to leave yet! Just because you've got a witch all mad at you and a weirdo claiming you for his consort, not to mention a vampire just waiting to sink his fangs into you, doesn't mean I have to go back to the hotel room and twiddle my thumbs. I want to be where the action is!"

  I released Roxy's coat. "No problem. You might go find Christian and apologize for how the evening turned out. Poor guy must think everyone around here is a lunatic."

  "I'm sure he's in no doubt that some people are, at least," Raphael muttered. I squinted my eyes at him just in case he was talking about me. Was that any way for a Dark One to speak of his Beloved?

  "Later." I nodded to him.

  He made a slight bow to me, his rugged, manly lips quirked in an odd little smile.

  I ignored Dominic's demand to stay where I was, and skipped off into the night. When I looked back, Raphael had a hold of Dominic, and was speaking vehemently in his ear.

  I raced back to the hotel, in a bit of a swivet because of the dark promise Raphael had let me see in his eyes.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

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  It was one thing to prepare for a date, I mused as I walked briskly by the people streaming into the fair, but another entirely when the date one was preparing for was a vampire, and quite likely to feel a bit peckish at some point in the proceedings. I tried to decide if I was the type of woman who allowed a first date to drink my blood, and after weighing visions of me appearing the following morning covered in bandages against the erotic descriptions of lovemaking in Dante's books, I decided I'd just wing it.

  "I'm getting the hang of this believing-in-vampire stuff," I praised myself as I stomped up a grassy slope toward the hotel. "It's not so hard, really. You just have to carry around a really big grain of salt at all times."

  By the time I arrived at my room I had my game plan well in mind. First, I'd have a long soak in the tub. I knew Raphael wouldn't be able to seduce me properly until after two a.m., since his duties at the fair would keep him busy until then, so soaking time was not an issue. Following that, I would don an extremely sexy bit of nightwear, and lounge on the bed practicing provocative poses and seductive looks until Raphael arrived.

  An hour later, having had my bath, I paused as I was brushing my hair and stared into the mirror at my frowning face. Why hadn't the thought of Raphael's employment struck me before? Why hadn't I ever wondered why a vampire, a man who must be several hundred years old, was working for his living? Surely vampires were all independently wealthy. I knew the Dark Ones in Dante's books were. They never seemed to worry about money.

  "Just my luck," I told my reflection as I brushed my hair until it crackled with static. "I get the only poor vampire in town. Eternity on a budget… oh, happy day."

  If I have to admit to having one weakness in life—and in truth, I have many, my reaction to a certain amber-eyed Dracula for one—it's that I love slinky nightwear. I fully admit to being a negligee connoisseur; I must own more than a dozen of them, all silk and satin, with oodles of lace. I'd brought only two with me to Europe, however, so my decision of what to wear for Raphael was not difficult, but it still took time.

  "Do I want the Take Me I'm Yours dusty rose with the rosebud ties that will make him think I'm shy and innocent, or the midnight blue Touch Me And You'll Burn that tells him I'll steam the wrinkles right out of his shorts? Oh, decisions, decisions."

  Since I wasn't sure of what I wanted to have happen between us—certainly I wanted something to happen, I just wasn't sure how far I wanted it to go—I settled on the shy and innocent rose. I checked my hair, dabbed a little perfume behind my knees, and settled in bed with a murder mystery, figuring I'd read a bit before Raphael showed up.

  What does he do with his fangs when he isn't using them ?

  that pesky voice in my head asked as I was reading. I ignored it and read on.

  Where does he sleep? Is it in a coffin, like in the movies, or in a darkened chamber, like the Dark Ones in Dante's books use?

  I ground my teeth and read each word with deliberate slowness.

  If he sleeps in a coffin, does he have a coffin built for two? I gave up and put my book down. Fine, I'd play a round of twenty questions with myself if that's what it took to settle my mind.

  Question number one: Did I want to sleep in a coffin? I knew from Dante's books that although a Dark One's Beloved was made immortal, she was not vampire, so at least I wouldn't have to worry about drinking blood, but could I honestly say I wanted to spend the rest of my days sleeping in a coffin?

  "Mmm… think that's a negative," I decided. What about sex? my inner self wanted to know. I knew that Dark Ones were fully capable of having children, which meant that any exchange of body fluids beyond the third step would have to be conducted while pertinent parts of him were clad in the appropriate scrap of latex. I made a mental note to buy a package of condoms the following day.

  "Just to be on the safe side," I told my toes as they twitched with pleasure at the thought of Raphael's pertinent parts. "Not that I'm anticipating needing them soon—he may intrigue me and melt my knees and make me want to do wicked things to him with a pair of those fur-lined cuffs Roxy was going on about, but that doesn't mean I'm going to right away. I have some standards. I do not jump into bed with the first amber-eyed vampire who makes me go all girly inside!"

  My toes didn't look like they believed me, which, I reflected with a sigh, was probably because my protestations weren't particularly convincing.

  "Fine," I scowled at my toes, "I'm loose as a goose when it comes to Raphael. Are you happy you've shamed me into admitting it? Come to think of it, it's probably not even my fault. It's probably an aftereffect of his mind-seduction. I'm just an innocent bystander, caught up in his smutty imaginings!"

  I shut up after that. It was a sad end when one was driven to defend one's virtue to one's toes, especially when neither toes nor self was buying the story. I fluffed up my hair, checked the clock, and propped my book up to read. Four hours was nothing. I'd just read until Raphael arrived to sweep me off my jaded toes.

  Beloved, the voice echoed through my head. I woke up enough to realize I had been sleeping. My body was heavy, bathed in languid warmth so pleasant it seemed a shame to even try to move. A breeze rippled down my length, almost as if unseen hands were stroking and caressing the air above me.

  A face shimmered, then solidified in my mind's eye. Raphael. He had come to me. I tried to open my eyes, tried to lift up my arms to greet him, but I felt pulled down into the softness of the feather bed, my body unwilling to respond to my demands.

  Beloved, the voice repeated, the world trembling in anticipation
of his arrival. I pictured him just beyond my door, dressed in his habitual black jeans and leather jacket, his muscled frame moving with the powerful elegance that sent shivers of delight down my spine. His pain filled my mind as he approached, drawing my awareness to his desperate need for me to soothe the blackness within him.

  Raphael. I knew every angle and plane of his face, knew the power in his eyes. I felt him seep through the door into my room, charging the very air with his presence, turning my small room into a warm, intimate sanctuary. I struggled to open my eyes so I could gaze into his amber fire, but could not make my eyelids move. Forced to rely upon senses I did not know I possessed, I shivered a delicious shiver of anticipation as the blankets melted off me, leaving me exposed to his gaze.

  Raphael. Warmth blanketed me as he hovered above, his long-fingered hands skimming me in a whisper of need. He opened his mind to me, filling me with images of stark longing and sexual need, erotic images mingling with the knowledge that I was created just for him. My body cried out for his touch. I turned blindly to catch the elusive essence that sank into my blood, but couldn't find it. A shadow crossed my mind as sudden hunger gripped him, a hunger for more than just sustenance, a hunger for my soul to merge with his, a blending of our life forces that would tie us together in a manner that could withstand the boundaries of time.

  Raphael?

  Give yourself to me. His demand rang in my head just as his mouth closed on mine, claiming me as his, urging me to surrender, swamping me with the rush of his hunger. A soulless voice cried out in my head with frightening intensity, making me call out in reply. Something was wrong; something was suddenly very wrong.

  Give yourself to me. The shadow of his thought swirled around in my mind as I tried to struggle against him, panicking as the shadow grew and took form. Peril. I was in deadly peril.

  "Raphael! Stop!" I screamed the plea at him, but he did not hear. His mouth moved over my neck, heading straight for where my pulse was strongest. I knew what he was going to do, and instinctively I knew he must not, that to do so would damn us both. I struggled in earnest, trying to bring my body back to my command so I could call out a denial.