A Shiver of Shadows

by Hunter J. Skye

  We entered the spa beneath the balanced weight of a stone Cambodian god’s head and drifted into the warm, pulsing water. Small signs were posted among the jungle foliage reminding guests to not open the grapefruits.

  “Why grapefruits?”

  Bertrand shrugged. “It has something to do with the calming of the mind.”

  “This must be the serenity spring Mephos spoke of.”

  “Yes. It is a good place to unwind and calmly consider things.”

  “What am I supposed to consider?” It was a stupid question. Thinking things through wasn’t my strong suit.

  Bertrand stopped in front of me. The sluggish current pushed me into him. My legs drifted into his as he turned in the water to face me.

  “You are young with many opportunities to choose from.” His hulking body curved over mine as the water plastered me against him. His hard muscles formed an immovable wall in the middle of the river. I looked up with embarrassment into his faded blue eyes. Dark blond lashes hung low over the sandbar blue of his irises. Pale traces of scars marred his golden skin. They were a map of his conquests or maybe his defeats.

  The gently pulsing water stole my hesitation as I pondered the urge to touch those feathery scars. I lifted one hand and ran my fingertips along the wandering white lines. I could almost picture the knives and swords as they kissed his skin. Some were likely slight stinging slashes, while others must have bitten deeply.

  “Why did you fight? Was it really for God and country?”

  Bertrand’s shimmering gaze slipped from mine for a moment, then returned with something truthful.

  “At first,” he confessed. “But mine was an age of honor and glory. The only way to prove yourself was to swing a sword and hope that your soul would survive the devastation you wrought.”

  “Did your soul survive?”

  A sad smile slid across his hammered face.

  “I grew to like it, as many warriors did. I wouldn’t know where to search for my soul now.” His hand lifted from the current as if to touch me. His face lowered a fraction. Suddenly, I felt a magnetic urge to lick the smooth planes of his mouth. The pull to wrap my arms around his neck and melt into him was overwhelming. Somehow, the water let me know that if we did this, everything I was would change. I finally liked who I was, but I also liked the idea of his calloused hands gripping me, claiming me. Bertrand was beautiful and broken, a mixture I found hard to resist. A war of desire played out in my head as a cluster of grapefruits rolled past us and vanished around a bend in the canal. The citrus scent stirred a recent memory. The orange Grayford had eaten. The tangy taste of it on his lips. His perfect lips.

  “I can’t.”

  Surprise and muted disappointment played across Bertrand’s face, then a look of patience chased them away.

  “I understand.”

  Our moment was snatched by the swift water and carried away.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  For a pool with no deep end, I was in way over my head.

  Melisande

  “There you are,” Mephos called from the small wooden bridge that spanned the mouth of the little grotto in which we sat. It had been an excellent hiding place up until that moment. Celene’s low, lecherous giggle cut through our quiet conversation. After the tangled tension of our almost kiss, Bertrand had actually opened up a bit. We’d found a comfortable seat, and the knight had explained the Albigensian Crusade which had brought him to southern France in the early twelve-hundreds. Try as I might, I could not wrap my brain around a lifespan like his. There were lots of things to entertain in this world, but he’d likely enjoyed them all many times over. There was plenty of suffering too.

  Bertrand had explained that, after participating in what amounted to genocide, he’d walked away from the slaughter of the holy wars and fled to the Pyrenees with a small group of Cathar villagers. The rejuvenating water of Andorra had given him the cleansing he believed he could not receive from God. But the springs attracted other things in need of regeneration as well.

  “We’re headed to the hot springs,” they announced. I read their tone to mean they expected us to join them. “Melisande, I want you to understand what it is we’re trying to preserve.” He beckoned, then continued over the bridge. Bertrand and I waded back down the river of the Cambodian oasis and caught up to them at the waterfall in the center of the spa.

  We dropped down two levels into an arctic landscape. Glaciers of carved ice sparkled beside dark blue pools. A snow machine whirred from somewhere behind towering icebergs. The shimmering environment was cold and quiet and devoid of guests. I stopped to test the temperature of the still water.

  “No.” Bertrand laid a thick hand on my shoulder. “That experience is for another time.”

  “Why?”

  “Trust me. The waters of those pools come from a separate spring that runs closer to the gate.”

  I peered into the dark blue water. It seemed safe enough. I looked back at Bertrand’s patient face. I trusted him. If he said it was for another time, then it was for another time.

  We descended one more level and found that the party continued in a different portion of the complex. We followed the stream of guests down a glass-enclosed walkway to a completely different structure. Signs with glowing red thermostats warned of the hot spring’s temperature in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.

  “The water in the hot tubs and the river were pretty warm. You’re saying these springs are even warmer?”

  “You be the judge.” Bertrand waved a hand as we spilled into the underground cavern. The pool was Olympic-sized and shaped by the mountain rock into something resembling the top of a volcano. Red and orange lights glowed up from the bottom of the shallow water. Bubbles lifted through the water like rushing jellyfish.

  “I can smell the sulfur.” I waved my hand before my face.

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  Mephos helped Celene into the bubbling liquid, and she relaxed into a floating crucifix. All around us the raucous guests thrashed and whipped to the DJ’s music as Celene’s slender form drifted calmly to the center.

  I gave Bertrand a shocked look. Not one reveler crashed into her. No bodies even came near her as she floated sublimely on the rioting waves.

  “She’s in her element,” he explained and offered me a hand down the stone-carved steps of the pool.

  I noticed the difference immediately. The hot water slid along the skin like a thousand tiny tongues. The sensation was invigorating and arousing at the same time. When I realized I was clinging to Bertrand’s hand, I quickly let go.

  “This is the water from the deepest spring,” Mephos informed me. “It’s too warm for some people’s liking, but I think it is just right.” He fell backward and slipped below the surface. I lost sight of his form in a tangle of pleasure seekers lingering near the stairs. I waded past the group, and they turned their collective gaze on me. My almost nonexistent bikini was attracting too much attention.

  The hazy music, with its undercurrent of vibrating bass, certainly matched the mood in the cavern. The physical boundaries maintained in the larger pool melted away in the hot water of the underground oasis. Bodies slid together. Sensual looks turned to kisses, which turned to unabashed groping.

  I found a spot along the wall and diverted my gaze to the elaborate fountain-like faucets spilling heated water into the pool, fresh from the fiery bowels of the mountain. The energy was dizzying. The intense warmth relaxed my muscles.

  I’ll just close my eyes for a quick second, I told myself. A few minutes of rest would help clear my head. I gripped the rocky edge of the pool and tipped forward.

  Liquid fire unfurled beneath the surface of the pool. It tickled along my arms and legs seeking my secret spots. I raised my face from the fizzing madness and took in the ravening crowd. The fury of their passion traveled on the molecules of the burning bath. It folded through flesh and branded brains. This spa was very different from the others. I struggled to catch my breath a
s the heat squeezed my chest.

  “Are you okay?” Bertrand’s voice was at my ear.

  “Don’t touch me,” I ordered, but not because I didn’t want to be touched. I looked at the gilded knight in his battered, beaten glory. He reminded me of a boxer who’d been bludgeoned and pummeled into a stronger, more masculine form. I hated the fires that had forged him, but I loved the hardened result. He would be the perfect lover. I fought the urge to wrap my legs around his waist and seek the scorching depths of his desire.

  “Oh, God.” I staggered forward, and Celene rose from the water before me. For a pool with no deep end, I was in way over my head. She glided toward me in the caressing water. The waves darkened her hair to a less threatening color, but I knew better. She looked so young and beautiful without all of her artfully applied makeup. How old was she really? What had brought her to this life? Did she regret her path? Had someone chosen it for her? The water was confusing me. It diluted my fears and softened my concerns. It was opening me in ways I couldn’t understand.

  Celene came to a stop inches from me as I wobbled in the steam. She stared at me until I could almost hear her thoughts. Her knees bent, and she slowly lowered until her arms floated on the swaying surface. Hypnotized by her stillness, I sank back into the pool. Our chins rested on the water’s tingling, insubstantial surface. We were face to face. No words. No demands. Just a meeting of auras.

  The vampire had lost her haughty look. Her salacious, overeager energy was gone. She was just a woman, a person, a vulnerable entity drifting in the fluid that connected us all.

  I needed to wake up. I could tell something horrible would happen if I didn’t wake up. This was not what Celene was. She was a monster. I’d seen her true self at the cemetery, but now, as I met her calm, open, accepting gaze, I wasn’t sure. Who was Celene really?

  “Let me show you,” she offered, as if she’d heard my thought. Her breath steamed, and slowly she reached for me.

  “No…I can’t.” I backed away, but she moved with me. Her fingertips brushed my forehead, and hallucinations spun to life. Her feathery touch turned to silk-winged swallows fluttering against my cheeks. She brushed my lips, and tingling tarantulas tickled my mouth.

  Mephos appeared behind her. His sienna eyes were heavy with the promise of pleasure. Water clung to his lashes, clumping them into wet licks of chocolate brown. His thick brows clustered like storm clouds over a roiling sea.

  Celene turned to him and traced a finger down his smooth young cheek. The faintest shadow of a mustache darkened the skin above his lip. It matched the smudges of darkness on either side of his chin. The footprint of a fuller beard would not grow on a face so young. His jaw remained smooth and naked and clenching with teenaged strength.

  A touch hallucination whispered across my mouth as she stroked the shapely curve of his top lip. My lips parted to receive the finger she grazed along his plump bottom lip. Its loose swell invited her to kiss it, lick it, bite the glossy bulge.

  I took a sudden breath and realized I’d been so immersed in their intimacy that I’d forgotten to breathe. Their yearning mirrored my own desperate desire for Grayford. I understood the gravitational force that pulled them together. The ceaseless craving that was never truly sated.

  Pining pinpricks of passion bloomed along my skin as Mephos clutched her arms. My tongue tingled as their mouths met. The water joined us in aching need. I felt every grasp, every slide, every quiver between them. My blood rushed to tender parts as Mephos slid his hands between her supple thighs. My knees buckled as her fingers dove under his swimsuit. She freed the straining treasure of his column and skimmed her hand along its length. We liked the way it tossed in the water as if it were desperately seeking us. We’d had it inside us so many times, but each occasion was a different delight.

  Would he pull us up onto its stony length, or would he turn us around and bend us over so he could clutch our breasts and tease our tender points? Maybe he’d lift us from the water and pull our legs behind his neck.

  The water’s heat rolled over me and through me as I remembered his laving tongue.

  “No.” I shook my head. This wasn’t my body. These weren’t my memories, and yet the sensations trembled across my own skin. They trembled across everyone in the pool. We were ensnared.

  I turned to Bertrand. He knew what was happening. His eyes said he’d been claimed many times by the water’s wicked magic. Something about the set of his brow said he’d try to fight it, but the parting of his lips said he’d lose.

  The wet gold of his hair hung in ropes around his hungry face. His eyes glowed like the tail of a comet. They sparked like diamonds in moonlight. Sweat trickled down to his mouth. His tongue flashed out to catch the salty droplets. My insides twisted with Celene’s as she thrilled at the thought of Bertrand’s pressing, pounding weight against her. She reached one languid arm in his direction. He held his ground for one brave beat, and then his body answered her command.

  My breath caught in my chest as the hulking knight slid behind her and molded his muscled body to her back. I had no way to stop the building pressure between my legs as Mephos’s fingers played along Celene’s slick spot.

  Bertrand pulled the strings of her bikini loose and exposed her teacup breasts. He fit his hands over her creamy mounds, trapping her beaded nipples between calloused fingers. I bucked as she cried out. The rock wall of the pool pressed against my back, and Bertrand’s stone pressed against Celene’s soft bottom. He pulled his swimsuit down, and we arched our back to rub against him. His thick pillar stretched and throbbed with promise.

  Celene’s gaze darted to me. She moaned, and her smile was an invitation.

  “No,” I whispered even as my body ached to be taken. I was for Grayford. Only Grayford.

  She laughed, and Mephos cried out as her hand sped up and down his pumping shaft. I leaned back as his fingertips circled her tender mound. Their gaze locked on each other as they climbed the staircase of pleasure together. Her satiny moan echoed through the cavern, and a chorus of grunts and sighs joined in. She was riding us all to a sparkling, crystalline place of pounding, grinding madness.

  Bertrand yanked her bikini down and shoved the wide head of his ramming rod against her yearning entrance. I shook my head. He was too much. The frenzied look in his eyes meant he’d take us hard and fast. We wanted him inside us, but it was too much.

  Between a heartbeat and a breath, he slid his pulsing width up through our narrow doorway and into our tight hall. He breached us quickly and roughly. Our walls stretched wide. Our legs dangled in the water as he claimed us with one long thrust.

  Celene gasped. Mephos rocked back. I gripped the edge of the pool to keep from drowning. Bertrand gripped our hips and dragged himself down, almost out. We quivered on the tide of his mounting need. We whimpered. We begged. We cried to the night as he took us again, filling us, trapping us, invading us. He pounded us over and over, trying to break us, trying to teach us not to toy with big and brutal things. Our breasts leapt and bounced in Bertrand’s hands. He pinched and rolled our nipples until our mouths fell open and our panting filled our ears. We surrendered as Mephos teased our trigger to a tense, turgid tipping point. One graze of his finger. One thrust of Bertrand’s column. One brush. One push. We burst under the water like a phoenix, bucking and gyrating as Bertrand exploded and Mephos detonated. The steaming underground volcano pool erupted in rioting release as, one by one, the crowd climaxed in the magically charged spring. Power flooded through me. It filled the vampires to overflowing. Life force trickled through the water. I fought the urge to drink the heady elixir.

  A gentle tugging sensation pulled at my skin. It nursed and kneaded until my muscles relaxed again. Suddenly, I comprehended how they fed. The water was a conduit. It allowed them to take their share from their human guests and leave the visitors satisfied and able to visit again with their platinum credit cards and their endless addiction to the springs.

  Celene glowed with stolen life
force. Her sated smile spread through me. The happy grin had almost made it to my lips when screams erupted from the center of the pool.

  Bestial growls roared over the music, and the tremulous tones slid away. The pool frothed with savage movements. I woke up to chaos as the entire middle of the pool exploded into violence.

  “What’s happening?”

  “I’m not sure,” Bertrand answered, but he shared a knowing look with Celene.

  Screams of pain mingled with raging shouts. Arms slashed. Legs kicked. Teeth tore. I looked past the three immortals at the animalistic display before us. What had only moments ago been the pleading, passionate touches of welcomed lovers was now a carnival of furious aggression.

  “What’s wrong with them?” I asked, but Celene, Mephos, and Bertrand were wading into the fight. I stumbled toward the wall behind me and pushed myself up onto the edge. I threw a leg over the rough stone lip, but a hand caught my other leg before I could get free of the water. A man’s grimacing face appeared from nowhere. The surprise of it shot a wave of cataplexy through my muscles, and my grip loosened. With a vicious tug, I was pulled back down into the turbulence. I went under in a panicked churning of arms and legs. Hands pushed me down against the floor of the pool. A knee pressed into my chest, then hands locked on my neck. Panic flooded through me as I clawed at the man’s grasping fingers.

  I couldn’t call for help. What breath I had was escaping my lips in precious pearls. With no way to create resistance, I was seconds from drowning.

  Death. My constant companion. I let its icy touch sooth me. It calmed my staggering heart. I reached for that cold harbor and drew its frigid energy into me. Ice invaded my attacker’s skin from the spots where my fingernails bit into his arms. The man jerked, and his grip on my neck loosened. I didn’t fight his knee. Instead, I reached for the surface and wove a pair of thick chains. Even underwater, I heard the chilling hiss of the bitter-cold links as they shot from the steaming water. The numbing links wrapped around the man’s neck and tightened. He stumbled, and the weight of his knee lifted. I pushed to the surface and gasped for air. The crazed looks on the guests’ faces were chilling. Blood dripped from their hooked fingers. They bared their teeth and wailed as if bees were in their brains.