Hot Summer Bites: A Castle of Dark Dreams Novella (A Penguin Special from Berkley Sensation) (6 page)

He drove in silence for a few more minutes before speaking. “Why should I tell you about myself? You might decide to use it.”

She tried to sound outraged even as her conscience made a cameo appearance. “We have a deal. You can trust me.” Her conscience looked suspiciously like her long-departed grandma Hughes. Grandma shook her head sadly. Kristin felt guilty. Grandma did guilt well.

Taurin seemed to consider her answer. “I was born in Italy six hundred years ago. My brother, Dacian, made me vampire.”

Kristin felt righteous indignation on Taurin’s behalf. “Bummer. Not much of a brother.”

“He was the best brother a man could have.” When Taurin glanced at her, his belief in his brother gleamed fierce in his eyes. “I was dying, and he made me vampire so I’d survive.”

Whoa, touchy subject. “Where’s Dacian now?”

“I don’t know. For centuries I thought he’d died in a fire that Eric had set. I stalked Eric, planning how I’d kill him. Turns out, Dacian used the fire to stage his own disappearance. If everyone thought he was dead, no one would search for him.” He shrugged. “I just got back from trying to find him. No luck.”

Kristin had never thought of herself as particularly sensitive to the emotions of others, but she recognized the hurt that lay beneath his casual shrug, a deep well of regret that the brother he loved had chosen to walk away from him. She felt Taurin’s pain as a surprising stab of sorrow in her own heart.
Not
what she wanted to feel. Lust was okay, because he was a spectacular male animal. But sorrow for his pain was a little deeper, a little more worrisome.

“Umm, I have ways of finding people. Maybe I could help.” Did she just say that? No, she wouldn’t be that stupid. But it had sort of sounded like her. Well, hell.

Hope flared in his eyes and then was gone. “Thanks, but if Dacian doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.” He parked the car, and they got out. “I’ll see you to your room.”

Kristin was the one who remained silent all the way to her door. He didn’t realize it, but he’d thrown down a gauntlet. Once she was alone, she’d get on her laptop and see what she could find out about Dacian. . . . “What’s your last name? You never mentioned it.” She unlocked her door, pushed it open, and then stood in the doorway waiting for his answer.

He stared at her for a little too long. A squiggle of unease worked its way up her spine.

She recognized the exact moment he decided to tell her. His smile was all wicked anticipation.

“My last name is Veris.” Turning away, he disappeared down the dark stairway.

Calmly, she stepped into her room, closed the door, and then leaned her forehead against it.

“Wonderful.”

Chapter Five

Taurin slammed out of his room and headed for the stairs
to the great hall. He’d messed up big-time. What the hell had he been thinking last night? Just for the momentary joy of watching the expression on Kristin’s face, he’d played his trump card. He’d told her his last name.

How dumb was that? Taurin didn’t think she’d leave. She wanted her freakin’ story too much. But she wouldn’t want to get it from him. He could see her taking practice swings with a lamp just in case he was crazy enough to show up at her door. Yeah, she’d be pissed. He’d made her life miserable after she wrote that vampire story. But she’d deserved it.

Somehow the she-deserved-it line didn’t make him feel any better. Taurin reached the great hall and looked around. He didn’t see any of his friends, but he saw something else that made him growl low in his throat—Kristin dressed in shorts and a sexy little top. And she was standing by the door talking to Banan.

If anyone had asked him right then what color those shorts and sexy top were, he’d have said red. Taurin was seeing lots of red as he strode toward the two.

He came to a stop facing Kristin and smiled at her. It probably wasn’t a great grin because he was preparing to duck. “Ready for tonight’s fantasy?”

The smile she turned on him was a mere lifting of her lips with no emotion attached. “Sure. Banan showed me around the park today, so I’m ready for the night.” Her gaze gave nothing away.

His sure did. He glared at the shark.

The shark smiled with all his teeth on display. “Yeah, Kristin and I had a great time. She said tomorrow night we could go for a swim because she wants to see me change.”

Over my undead body.
“Wouldn’t pencil that into your schedule just yet. The park has lots of attractions, and Kristin and I have to experience them all before she leaves.” Taurin fixed his unblinking stare on Banan. “She’ll probably be too busy to do much swimming.”

Banan looked amused. “We’ll see.” He turned his attention back to Kristin. “Today was fun. Looking forward to tomorrow.” Ignoring Taurin’s glower, he walked away.

“Fascinating man.” Kristin sounded thoughtful. “And a lonely man, I’d guess. He doesn’t have any close friends. Not many people want to get close to someone whose alternate form is a great white.”

“He’s a predator.” Taurin didn’t want her thinking about Banan, feeling sorry for Banan, feeling
anything
for Banan. The fierceness of his jealousy blew him away.

“So are you.” Nothing in her inflection hinted at her emotions.

Taurin figured she had to be ticked at him. So where was the temper? “Yeah, but I don’t sneak up on people and rip off limbs.”

“You just drain them dry.” Some bitterness finally seeped through. “Or rip out their hearts. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“Rip out their hearts? Getting a little melodramatic aren’t we, sweetheart? Look, we have to go somewhere and talk about this.” So he’d messed with her career a little. He had to make her understand the damage she’d caused with her story.

She nodded and then followed him out of the castle. They walked in silence until they reached the Sea World Fantasy.

“We can start here.” He’d already made arrangements to use one of the mock mini-submarines for as long as they needed it. “This’ll give us privacy.”

Kristin didn’t say anything as she climbed into the small sub. Taurin climbed in after her, closed the hatch, hit a switch, and started the virtual descent into the equally virtual sea.

She didn’t notice when he opened a small panel by the hatch and turned a key. There, no interruptions until they were ready to leave. The sub rocked gently as water seemed to rise past the windows.

“Cool.” She wandered around the small area, inspecting the instrument panel and the two cockpit-type seats in front of it. Beyond the panel was a large wraparound window that gave a panoramic view of the sea and sea bottom. “Very realistic.”

Okay, time to start giving her the info she wanted. “Once a couple gets down here, they don’t pay much attention to what’s going on outside.” He took a deep breath. She wanted kinky, so he’d take it over the top. “I remember a woman who came in with three guys. They all squeezed into this one sub. Then—”

“You know you’re a slime-sucking toad, don’t you?” Kristin turned to face him. She used the same tone she’d use to tell him they were having asparagus for dinner.

Looked like the kinky sex story would have to wait. “Yeah, but you did a job on a lot of lives.”

“Give me a break. I didn’t
know
you guys were the real deal.” She flung her arms into the air as her voice rose. Her calm façade was cracking. “You almost ruined my whole career.”

Fine, she wanted mad, he’d give her mad. “Some of those vampires had lived in San Antonio for more than a hundred years, pretending they were their own children when people started to ask questions. Do you know how hard it was to pick up and leave a city they loved?” He was doing some shouting of his own now. “But what would you care? All you want is the story, no matter who it hurts.”

“That’s not true.” Her cheeks were flushed.

She was cute when she was steamed. Probably wouldn’t want to hear that right now. Fish swam past the windows, but she was too focused on her mad to notice.

“Could’ve fooled me.” Jeez, he was getting soft. He shouldn’t be thinking about cute and Kristin in the same sentence. “I bet even as we speak you’re scheming to double-cross me. You’re greedy. You want both stories to hawk to every sleazy publisher in the country.”

“I’m not.” Her denial sounded a little weak to him.

Dammit, he’d bet that’s exactly what she had planned. Without thinking, he slipped into her thoughts to verify his suspicion. Aha, he was right.

Uh-oh. He shouldn’t have done that. As he withdrew from her mind, he watched her warily. Eric could tiptoe into a person’s thoughts and go undetected. Not him. When he was in a mind he may as well be wearing hobnailed boots.

She narrowed her eyes, her anger beating against him. “I felt that. You were in my mind. You told me you couldn’t read people’s thoughts. So beside everything else, you’re a worm-eating liar.”

Yeah, she’d noticed. “Good thing I checked. Guess I’ll have to tell Eric to dust off that pink eraser.”

Kristin couldn’t remember ever being this angry. She was furious about what he’d tried to do to her career. She was ticked about him invading her thoughts. But most of all, she was upset that he’d exposed her plan to use both stories. Not because she wouldn’t get them, but because his accusation made her feel like the lowlife he thought she was.

When in doubt, attack. She moved in on him, nose to chest. Not too intimidating, but she’d have to stand on something to do the nose-to-nose thing. Kristin settled for jabbing him in the chest with her finger.

“Let me tell you something, bloodsucker. I—” She caught a glimpse of something moving just outside the window.

Turning her head, she stared into eyes as big as dinner plates. Holy cow! Monstrous tentacles waved at her. Even as she widened her eyes to take in the full horror of the thing, the super-sized octopus attached said tentacles to the window with a menacing
thwup
,
thwup
of its many suction cups.

And in the time-honored tradition of all kick-butt heroines, she screamed like a demented fire siren. “Aaiigh!” Then she flung herself at Taurin. Wrapping her arms and legs around him, she hung on. Hey, kick-butt heroines know about that living-to-fight-another-day stuff.

Taurin evidently wasn’t prepared for her . . . enthusiastic response, because he went down with her riding him all the way.

While her heart clawed its way up her throat, she tried to jump-start her brain cells.
Notreal, notreal.
Meanwhile, there was upheaval below. She looked down. Taurin was laughing at her.

“I
never
lose it that way.” She should move, but she was still shaking.

“Right. The same way you never faint.” Taurin’s laughter faded, and his gaze heated.

Emotion flooded her as she raised a shaking hand to rake her hair away from her face. “It’s every damn thing that’s happened to me here. All of it just balled up inside of me—vampires, shapes-shifters, and God knows what else—so when I saw the octopus I just came apart.”

The reality of the last three days washed over her. Horrified, she felt tears sliding down her face. She opened her mouth to tell him she never cried, but then shut it. Like he’d believe her.

“Hey, it’s okay.” He clasped her shoulders and pulled her down until she lay flat on top of him. “No one blames you for feeling jumpy. You should’ve seen me when I first realized vampires existed. I hid in a cave for a week.”

Kristin looked down at his face, so close to hers, and she knew her eyes were still awash in tears. “Really?”

“Well, maybe not a whole week. Dacian dragged me out after three days.” As he spoke, he rubbed his hands up and down her back in a comforting rhythm.

Well,
he
might think it was comforting, but she was feeling something else entirely. Strong emotions fed other strong emotions. Now that she’d released some of her stress in that stupid outburst, she could appreciate her position.

Pressed flat against his muscular length, she felt every tiny movement of his body. As he shifted his position to pull her closer, her nipples scraped across his chest, immediately raising false hopes in areas farther south.

While her brain tried to convince everyone to calm down, that this was just a random meeting of nipples and yummy male chest, the rest of her body knew better.

So did
his
body. She felt his growing interest in the most basic way. Mmm. The instinctive upward thrust of his hips triggered pressure low in her belly.

Tentatively, she slid back and forth over
his
ridge of high pressure—who knew weather forecasts could be sexy?—forcing a gasp from him. There was so much pressure building that she just knew a storm couldn’t be far behind.

With a muttered curse, he put his hands on either side of her face and pulled her close to meet his kiss. She’d been right. The sexual wind he generated picked her up, sucked her into its vortex, and carried her away from life’s little concerns. Like if you kiss a vampire, will he respect you in the morning? More to the point, will you even be alive in the morning?

Too late for any deep thoughts about survival. She was into the moment. Her tongue tangled with his, and his taste was so hungry male that she clenched around the delicious pleasure it brought her. Oh, yesss. Without any preplanning, she checked for fangs with the tip of her tongue and found them. She smoothed her tongue over the length of each one. There was something wickedly sensual about the action.

Hey, if she got such a rush from sliding her tongue over just his fangs, who knew what erotic thrills awaited if she put her mouth on other parts of his body?

He kissed a path down the side of her jaw and neck. When she felt his breath warm on her throat, a teeny, tiny twinge of self-preservation kicked in.

She raised her head and smiled down at him. “Your eyes haven’t changed, just your teeth.”

He smiled back at her. “I’m hanging on to my control, sweetheart, but it’s tough.”

Was she weird for finding the implied threat of those fangs sort of a turn-on? Maybe she wouldn’t write about this scene in her article. “So sexual excitement triggers the change?”

May as well keep busy while she asked questions. Kristin sat up and then grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt. He obliged by lifting his torso so she could pull the shirt over his head. Then she scooted down his prone body so that when she leaned over, she had full access to that incredible chest. She sampled one nipple with the tip of her tongue. His groan was all she could hope for.

“Making love in vampire form takes the whole experience to another level.” He seemed to be having trouble wrapping his tongue around his words. No wonder, considering how hard his tongue had just worked.

“In other words, you have to bite someone to achieve complete sexual satisfaction.” Why was she talking? She had better things to do with her mouth—she ran her fingers lightly over his broad chest—and her hands.

“Uh-huh. But don’t worry. I’ve had centuries to learn control. You’re safe.” He reached up to slide the straps of her top off her shoulders.

Too bad.
Kristin blinked. That thought had surprised even her. No, definitely didn’t want him attaching himself to her neck with those shiny fangs. Teeth in neck would be a major owie.

Taurin pulled her top down to her waist and with what had to be an amazing feat of preternatural speed, whipped off her bra. It was her turn to groan as he rolled her nipples between his fingers.

Focus.
They were losing control.
Heeere, control, control.
She was
letting
them get out of control. In fact, she was a major contributor to their out-of-control state.

Before she could decide a wise course of action, he pulled her down until he could reach her breasts with his mouth. He circled each nipple with the tip of his finger, and then drew the first one into the heat of his mouth. And by the time he’d worked his magic on both with his teeth and tongue, she was whimpering.

To hell with being wise. She was planted on top of his erection. What was the old truism—use it or lose it? Made a whole lot of sense to her.

Reaching down, she fumbled with the buttons on his jeans. “It’s summer. Aren’t you hot in jeans?”

“I’m hotter without them.” To demonstrate, he reached down to help her with the buttons, and then slid them off along with his shorts.

Ohmigod! So long, so thick, so hard, so
wonderful
. Every sexual cell in her body contracted into a tight ball of want. He was temptation on a scale not seen since Eve ate that blasted apple. In fact, if Taurin had done the tempting, Eve would’ve shaken every apple from that tree and taken them all home to make applesauce.

Kristin had knelt up to give him room to shuck his jeans, but now she couldn’t help herself, she lowered herself onto his erection and ground herself into him. He pressed between her spread legs and only her shorts and panties kept her from impaling herself on him.