Not Another Vampire Book (19 page)

“‘It
doesn’t
matter?
’”  Kara gasped.  She responded automatically, the words
instinctive and selfish.  “What about me?”

She
intended
that to mean, “What about me?  You’re the only thing in this
reality I can depend on.”  What would she do if she couldn’t get out of this
dumb novel?  What would she do if Damien didn’t help her?

There
were a dozen innocuous meanings to the words, all of which made perfect sense. 
But, as she blinked up at him in astonishment, Kara realized that what she
really
meant was so much more personal.  She’d just met him, and he was a
fictional character and a villain at that, but… What would she do without
Damien?

“What
about me?”  She whispered, again, feeling betrayed and abandoned in ways that
made no sense, at all.

The
question seemed to cut Damien a lot deeper than her anger over the kidnapping
had.

His
eyes closed in something like guilt or shame.  For the first time since she’d
known him, Damien completely lost his sardonic mask.  He moved away from her,
looking anguished.  “It’s too late.”  The words were delivered like a eulogy. 
“I’m sorry,
cari
.  You will never know how sorry I am.  No matter what I
tell myself, though, I know that I found you much too late.  It’s better that
you…”

A
phone rang from somewhere in the house, a disturbingly modern sound that made
them both start.

Kara
looked off towards the noise in annoyance and decided ignored it.  “Too late
for what?  What the hell is going on with you?”

It
seemed like Damien wanted to say something else, but he couldn’t think of the
words.  He finally just turned sharply and stalked off through a door at the other
end of the lobby.  It slammed shut behind him, without the use of his hands. 
His powers, again.  They should have freaked her out far more than they did.  But,
the man himself was a lot more unnerving than the magicks.

Karalynn
scowled.

If
Vlad was cooking up some plan of his own, it would lead straight to badness. 
He needed to listen to her before he got himself killed.  In that second, all
Kara’s efforts to restore the plot of the book meant nothing.  If Damien was
supposed to die in the original book, they’d just have to do a rewrite.

Fictional
or not, she didn’t want Damien dead and that meant delaying his showdown with
Slade.  It meant escaping Castle Greyskull here and fixing the damn book so
Damien lived at the end.

And
Slade stopped being a jackass.

And
Melessa woke up from her coma.

And
no more dragons tried to kill her with acid blood.

Right.

Damien
marched back into the lobby.  “I’m going out.”  He grabbed his hat off an
ornate hat stand studded with animal antlers, not meeting her gaze.  “Try not
to get struck by lightning or carted off by zombies while I’m gone.  God knows,
you attract trouble like a magnet.”  Obviously, he was back to being his normal
sneering self.

Zombies?

She
didn’t want to know.

“Where
are you going?”

“I
have a meeting.”  Lenore was back on his shoulder.  The bird glared at Kara
with furious red eyes.  Damien’s pet always seemed to appear when he acting
more like the villain.

Kara
glowered back at it and then at Damien.  “Why can’t I go with you?”

“It’s
not safe.  Besides, aren’t you babysitting the human?”

“So,
I
need to stay all kidnapped, while
you
and the
pterodactyl
head off to the office?  You’re such a hypocrite.”

He
jammed the hat onto his head.  “The Vampires aren’t trying to capture
me
to
be
their queen, are they,
your highness?
”

“No,
they’re trying to
kill
you, dumbass.”

He
rolled his eyes.  “I’ll be back in an hour.  Entertain yourself by plotting
ways to escape my vile clutches, if you like.”  He leaned down so their noses
just about touched.  “It won’t work, though.  You can’t get out of this hotel. 
It’s for the best that you know that.   Be resigned and just start hating me
for it.”

The
finality in his voice caught her by surprise.  It was like he thought it was a
foregone conclusion that she’d despise him for this stupid stunt.  Like maybe
that was his
point
in doing this.

Why
was he being this way?

It
certainly wasn’t going to work.

She
just flat-out wasn’t scared of him.

Kara
had been serious, earlier.  People got kidnapped in romance novels all the
time.  It wasn’t totally Damien’s fault that he was part of the system.  He
didn’t know any better.  Tanya cast him as the villain and being an evildoer
for several centuries wasn’t something you could cure overnight.

Deep
inside, Kara didn’t even want to cure it, entirely.  She liked his bad streak. 
There was kind of a decadent thrill in at least
pretending
to be the
helpless prisoner of a really hot guy.  Especially, since she was still the one
in control.  He wouldn’t hurt her.  Wouldn’t force her.  Wouldn’t toss her in a
dungeon.

Honestly,
it was hard to take this as anything more than a game:  How to escape and beat
Damien.  No.  Not even
escape
, because she didn’t want to
leave
Damien. 
She just wanted to prove that she
could
.  “Why would you want me to hate
you?”  She asked, quietly.

He
went back to her earlier assertion, not answering that.  “And it’s pretty damn
hypocritical of you to call me a hypocrite, you know.  In fact, I find it
amazing that
you’re
shocked and appalled by my behavior, at all.”

“What’s
that supposed to mean?”

“Think
about it.  Even if you do manage to get free, I doubt you’ll be able to carry
Millicent with you and you can’t leave her here.  He smiled pointedly.  “After
all, she’s
your
captive.”

It
was pretty easy to get his point.  “Me kidnapping Mel is a completely different
thing!”

“Oh,
obviously.”

“It’s
for her own good!”  Kara jabbed a finger into his massive chest.  “I’m saving
her from Eugene the accountant and Buffalo Bill.  She needs to be with Slade.”

“Very
inspiring.  Just be warned, if you leave that human woman here alone with me, I
can’t be responsible for how many pieces she winds up in.  She’s
your
problem,
not mine.”  He loomed there, trying for intimidation and not getting very far,
because his gaze slipped down to her mouth and stayed there.

Kara
refused to be distracted.  “You’re threatening me with my own prisoner?  You’re
holding my hostage hostage in order to keep me as
your
hostage?”

“Absolutely.” 
He was smug, now.  “She can’t open the door, either, and my magicks are securing
it against every supernatural being there is, so I think you should just
surrender.”

Karalynn
smirked at the challenge.  “Fine.  Go and have good day of pillaging Middle
Earth, then, Sauron.  I’ll stay here and darn some socks for your return.”  She
leaned up a tiny bit, so their lips almost brushed.  “I’m completely terrified
of you.”

Damien’s
pupils dilated in response to her nearness.

Her
eyelashes fluttered.  Sucker.  “Will you bring back food, sweetie?”  She’d made
toast that morning in some weird looking toaster, but she had no intention of
touching that menacing antique stove or eating food completely produced through
magic spells.  Neither option seemed healthy.  Hopefully, she’d be out of there
by the time he returned, but if not… Well, no sense in starving while she
plotted her escape.

“Of
course.”  Damien swallowed hard.   “What would you like?”

“Anything
with a file baked into it.”  Kara lowered her voice to a seductive murmur, just
to mess with him.  “If I’m gone when you get back, though, don’t worry about
it.  It was super nice meeting you.”

“If
you’re gone when I get back, I’ll just track you down.”  He muttered.  “I found
you once and I can do it again, even if it takes another thousand years.”  He
gave her a quick kiss that sent heat washing through her.

Kara’s
heart slammed against her chest, at the brief contact.  His mouth was hard and
hot and felt so damn right.  She absolutely believed in magic when Damien
kissed her.  Her whole body lit-up like a Christmas tree around the jerk.

“Gods.” 
Pulling back before she could respond or hit him, Damien stared down at her and
shook his head.  “You’re so dangerous.”  He blindly reached for the door.

He
had
no problem twisting the knob and escaping.  It crashed closed behind him as he
retreated into the unscheduled “evening.”  Kara stood there for a beat, her
hand on her tingling lips, staring at the closed door.

Thinking.

So
the knob was still three dimensional, huh?  She and Melessa must be the ones
affected by the magicks.  Wasn’t that interesting?

She
strode back in to the front sitting room, snatching up the manuscript and
leafing through the pages.  Where was Damien going?  Chapter ten was up now,
told from Vlad’s point of view, only it was no more a clear picture of Damien
than one of those caricature drawings tourists posed for at carnivals.  It was
distorted and flat, glossing over all Damien’s better qualities.  His sardonic
sense of humor, and the way he kissed, and how he saved damsels in distress
from fire breathing dragon-men…

“That
bastard!”  Kara’s annoyance with the anti-Damien slant of the novel came to a
screeching halt on page 148.

Damien
swept into the human tavern, impatient to complete the next step in his
vengeance.  Al’s Bar was crowded and out of the way, guaranteeing them privacy
for their schemes.  Here he would meet his Vampiric spy To’kel, Slade’s evil
cousin.

To’kel
was next in line for the Vampire throne and he was glad to take the traitorous,
priceless rubies Damien provided in return for information about the beautiful
Vampire Kingdom.  He also headed a band of Dark Vampires, the men who would
forsake the noble code of their Vampiric ancestors and throw themselves into
evilness and darkness.

Slade
stood against these vile rebels, but the Dark Vampires numbers grew in secret,
thanks to To’kel’s constant duplicity and Damien’s endless evil.  They plotted
to overthrow Slade and enslave the humans.  They would reduce the glorious
Vampire Isle into a gigantic mine, ripping the precious rubies from the earth
for their own selfish ends.

If
Slade did not consummate his bond with his Eternal-One by his thousandth
birthday, he could not hope to rule the Vampires.  Without an Eternal-One, he
could not have heirs and, under their laws, Slade would be forced to step down
as King and To’kel, his cousin, would assume the throne.  That thousandth
birthday fast approached, the very next night.

Beautiful
Melessa had dashed all their hopes for an easy coup.  Damien had failed to
steal the beautiful human.  All Vampires knew that she was Slade’s Eternal-One
and that their beloved, heroic king would win her fair heart.  To’kel’s own men
were refusing to back the open rebellion which their treacherous hearts once
plotted and the vile plan was in ashes.

Something
would have to be done to capture the gentle human girl before she gave her
lithe body to Slade and their love was consummated, forever ensuring Slade as
the Vampire King and…

Kara
made a frustrated sound and slammed the manuscript closed.

“Son-of-a-bitch!”

Tanya
was changing the plot, introducing new information that had nothing to do with the
back story she’d setup previously.  It made no sense for Slade to try to give
up Melessa in chapter eight, if it meant sinking the Vampire Isle into industrial
despair in chapter ten.  Tanya was just making this crap up as she went along! 
Suddenly, Slade had an evil cousin?!  What the hell kind of stupid twist was
that?

Damien
should have warned her this was coming.

Didn’t
he understand that this was life and death?  Did he think she was
kidding
about the ramifications of Slade and Mel not
living happily-ever-after?

As
she fumed, a terrible thought entered Kara’s mind.

Wait…

Going
by the information in the new chapter, To’kel’s plan had been ruined because
Slade found Melessa, right?  Only, thanks to Kara, he
hadn’t
found her. 
So really… To’kel’s plan was right on schedule, now.  If Slade didn’t have an
Eternal-One then he couldn’t be king, and his missing Eternal-One was presently
passed out on Damien’s sofa, snoring softly.

Uh-oh.

Kara
had just ensured that Slade would lose his crown.

To’kel
would take over, probably executing Slade or something, and Kara would
never
get home.  Unless she got Mel and Slade back together in the next
twenty-four hours, the human race would be enslaved forever and Kara would
never see a television set again.