They both waved as I headed for the bar. “I need a drink before I call this ass-hat and ream him a new one for doing what he’s done to poor Ulfur and all the others.”
Kristoff grabbed my arm, stopping me. “You need rest. You’re exhausted.”
“Drink first, then reaming, then bed.” I eyed him for a second, aware of the growing hunger within him. “Or rather, drink, then feed you, followed by reamage of the Ilargi, and after that, bed, so I can molest you as you’ve never been molested before.”
“You need rest above all else. I can feel how tired you are-”
“There you are! We’ve been waiting for you forever! Where have you been?” Magda bustled out of the bar as I tried to peel Kristoff’s fingers off my arm. “Hello again, Kristoff. So, what’s been happening? Did you find Ulfur? Did you find Kristjana? Where’s your boy puppy? Oh! We saw your brother at the airport in Rome, Kristoff, but we gave him the slip, didn’t we, honey? Honey? Where’d Ray go now?”
Magda turned around in a full circle before spotting her boyfriend over at the reception desk, where he was unpacking several cartons of film and placing them into his camera bag.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I told Magda, giving her a little hug. “Good job on ditching Andreas. And yes to both questions, although the bit involving Ulfur is kind of long and . . . well . . .”
A lump suddenly clogged my throat as tears threatened to form at the thought of having failed Ulfur.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, making an effort to get a grip on myself. “I don’t normally cry.”
She eyed me with a critical eyebrow raised. “You look like hell, Pia. I mean that in the nicest way, of course, but you really do look like you’ve been put through the wringer. Maybe you need a little break.”
“That’s exactly what she’s going to get,” Kristoff said, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me to the elevator.
“Oh? Oh!” Magda grinned. “Gotcha. I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“You’ll see us tonight if you come with us,” Kristoff said just before the elevator door closed. “Blue Lagoon. We leave in half an hour.”
CHAPTER 11
I waited only until I’d changed into dry shoes before dialing the phone number Eve had given me.
Kristoff was on his cell phone to one of his cohorts, who evidently didn’t believe him guilty of the crimes so wrongly tossed at his feet, giving a concise rundown of the events of the last few days.
I tapped my fingers in irritation on the table upon which the phone rested, mentally going over the things I wanted to say to the bastard who had ripped Ulfur’s soul from him, but a click and the slightly mechanical note to the voice that spoke in my ear heralded voice mail rather than a live person. I listened with growing disbelief until the recording ended, then slowly hung up the phone.
Kristoff broke off in the middle of telling his friend about how we’d been charged with finding Alec, covering the lower half of the cell phone to ask, “What is it?”
“That phone number. It belongs to Alec.”
He frowned. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, waving at the phone. “The voice mail is his. His voice and everything. Kristoff, what the hell is going on? Alec isn’t the Ilargi. Is he?”
I slid down the wall into the chair that stood next to the phone table, my mind whirling with disbelief.
Kristoff said nothing to me, switched to Italian, and continued speaking to his buddy. By the time he was finished and had come to squat at my feet, his hands on my knees, I was a mess.
Why do you cry?
Because nothing makes sense. Because I was so deceived by Alec. Because nothing is what it seems. You’re not the horrible, evil monster I thought you were, and Alec isn’t the nice, loving man he appeared. Ulfur wasn’t happy we raised him as a lich-he was horrified. Honestly, Boo, at this point, I’m going to expect that Magda turns out to be the new Zenith, and Ray is her hired assassin!
Kristoff smiled into my head as he gently pulled me from the chair and into his arms, cradling me against his chest as I sniffled my tears of self-pity. “I do not believe your friends are anything but what they appear.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know, do you? Look at Alec, Kristoff! Even you were fooled! If he can be your friend for so many centuries, if I can sense nothing bad about him to the point where I slept with him-kind of-and if your whole entire Moravian group didn’t know he was an Ilargi on the side, then how on earth are we expected to know anything about anyone?” I wailed.
“You must trust this,” he said, sliding his hand into my bra, his hand warm on my breast.
“My boobs might like you a lot, but in general they’re not very insightful about people,” I said, sniffling.
“I meant you must trust your heart, which you well know. Being a Dark One or his Beloved does not mean we suddenly possess all knowledge there is to know, Pia. We cannot see the future any more than we know the truth that is in others’ hearts. Alec has served me as a friend for more than three hundred years, and although his actions confuse me, I am not convinced that he has become a traitor.”
I thought about this for a moment, idly kissing his Adam’s apple. “Your brother and cousin didn’t show any faith in you.”
“They must follow their hearts as well,” he said simply, hunger rising swiftly in him as I switched to nibbling his earlobe. “Beloved, if you start that now, we will never get to the Blue Lagoon, and I would very much like for you to see it.”
I sighed and released the earlobe I was sucking. “What are we going to do about Alec?”
He stood up, letting me slide down his body. “Rest first; then we will discuss plans.” He put a finger over my lips as I was about to protest. “Be assured we will take action.”
That was all I got out of him. He refused to talk more about Alec, repeating that I was exhausted and needed some rest and relaxation. So it was that a short time later I trotted down the hotel steps and stared with absolute surprise at the sight that met my eyes. “I don’t believe it. Have we entered some sort of a warp where time is standing still?”
Magda stood next to me and stared at where I was pointing. “Good Lord. I think we have.”
“What’s going on?” Raymond asked, coming up behind us, fussing with a camera. He looked up, a delighted smile blossoming on his face. “Is it another holiday?”
“I don’t know, but look! Dancing! Ooh, Ray! Let’s join!”
Raymond shot me a quasi-apologetic look as Magda grabbed his hand and hauled him off into the throng before us. The strains of “Unchained Melody” filled the soft summer evening air, reminding me of our first night in the nearby town of Dalkafjordhur. There’d been dancing the last time I was there, too.
“I just had a phone call from a friend,” Kristoff said as he emerged from the hotel. “He said that there has been a sudden increase of activity in the reaper headquarters in Los Angeles.”
“Sounds like something is definitely up. Extra security around Alec, do you think?”
He shrugged and tucked his cell phone away in the inner pocket of the soft leather jacket that I remembered him wearing the first time I’d seen him. “Possibly, but that assumes Alec is being held captive. At this point, we don’t have any solid proof either way.”
“But it does give credence to what Rick said about him being there. I guess we’ll be California bound, then. Although I wish we could stay here to search for the Ilargi who has Ulfur.”
“As the necromancer told you, he didn’t have to be physically near in order to summon a lich under his control.”
“I know.” My shoulders slumped.
“I’ve told you that we will find him,” Kristoff said, his gaze slightly critical as he examined me. “Later, after you’ve had a rest.”
“We all could do with a break,” I said, shaking off the glum mood. Kristoff meant what he had said-he would help me find Ulfur and his soul, so there was no use in giving in to self-pity again.
As the
music ended and people applauded, a memory flitted across my mind, the memory of him standing in the small square, cloaked in the shadows from a nearby building as he talked with Alec. For a moment, I was intensely glad that fate had thrown him my way.
“You look very pretty,” he said out of the blue.
“It’s the dress. Magda insisted I buy it before we left for Vienna. She said it was flirty and would make you want to ravish me on the spot. Does it?”
He looked at me again, longer this time, his gaze lingering on the swell of my breasts as they threatened to overflow the fitted bodice of the simple yet elegant white dress. His gaze continued downward, stopping briefly on my hips, before proceeding down to the full skirt that flared out in graceful folds, ending just slightly below my knees. Kicky summer sandals and delicate shell pink toenail polish completed the ensemble. I held my breath for some reason, wanting him to find me sexy, yet unwilling for him to think I’d dressed with such care just to meet his approval.
No, it doesn’t make me want to ravish you.
My heart dropped to the very same shell pink toenails.
It makes me want to worship you passionately, starting at your delectable toes and moving upward along legs that are both feminine and enticing to thighs that leave me feeling weak with need. It makes me want to take your essence into me. It makes the hunger rise in me until I’m nearly mad with desire. “Ravish” implies an impersonal act of sex. So ravish? No. Possess and consume and lose myself in you? Absolutely.
My heart, back in its accustomed place, melted into a great big puddle as I leaned into Kristoff, my lips teasing his. “I’m falling in love with you, you idiot man. You can’t say things like that to me and not expect me to swoon entirely.”
Passion flared to life in the depths of his lovely eyes. He took my arm, and I thought he was going to kiss me until he pulled me after him, stopping at the edge of the bodies moving in time to the music. I caught a glimpse of a woman with a white veil, and a couple of men in tuxedoes, before Kristoff twirled me around and pulled me up into a close embrace, his hands on my hips.
“I didn’t think you noticed the party,” I said, giggling a little as the music stopped again, ending our dance before it even got started.
“I may be distracted, but I’m not blind,” he answered, looking over the crowd to the band as they started in with a number from Dirty Dancing . Kristoff cocked an eyebrow as his gaze returned to me. Do you dance?
Not very well. But I love this song, and I’ve seen the movie about a hundred times.
A rare smile flirted with the corners of his mouth as he took my hand in his, putting the other on my waist.
You don’t think you’re going to . . . I stopped, suddenly breathless as he spun me away, pulling me back immediately, only to bend me backward. His mouth was hot on my chest for a moment before he pulled me back and started moving with the song, guiding me into dance moves that I never in a million years thought I could do.
Dear God, I’m dancing! I couldn’t help but laugh . I never dance! Not like this!
You never had me to dance with, he answered, sending me into another twirl. Part of me felt self-conscious and clumsy, well aware that I lacked grace and coordination, but the other part of me, the part that touched Kristoff’s mind, rejoiced at the spontaneous gesture on his part.
You’re an excellent dancer, I said, giggling again when he pulled me up tight to his hips, grinding them against me in a highly suggestive manner.
You should see me do the cinque passi, he answered.
The what, now?
It was a dance step very popular about five hundred years ago.
I twirled away again, then returned, struggling with the odd sense his words brought. You really are four hundred years old, aren’t you? I know you said you were born in the seventeenth century, but it just didn’t really hit me until now. You lived during the Renaissance. You were alive when Galileo was alive! You must have seen popes and kings and even countries rise and fall.
Galileo was an old man, blind and sick, when I saw him.
I stopped dead in my tracks as I stared up at him. You actually met Galileo? You saw him in person?
Yes. For some reason, I felt him emotionally withdraw from me. His body still moved in time to the music, but the joy had gone out of the moment.
But you must have been a very young man, I said cautiously, wondering why suddenly his mental barriers were in place again, excluding me from some of his thoughts.
Yes.
He said nothing else, and I debated pressing him for details, but I hesitated to do that. Neither of us had wanted this relationship, but he was clearly trying to make the best of it. I didn’t want to aggravate a situation that was starting to become more and more painful, at least for me, by pressing him when he wished to withhold himself.
The music ended. I stood watching him for a moment, suddenly sad at the situation. How on earth was I going to get through a lifetime of being held emotionally at arm’s length when just a couple of days had me wanting to shake him?
Behind me, women squealed and called out excitedly as a bride was helped onto a table in preparation for throwing her bouquet.
“Bah. Competition is nothing,” Magda said, fanning her face as she and Raymond returned. “I could blow those skinny Icelandic women down with one breath, but I don’t need a bouquet that bad. What’s wrong?”
She had addressed the last comment to me.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Let’s go before someone of the fanged variety spots us. Our plane leaves in ten and a half hours, so that ought to give us enough time to visit the hot springs.”
“Amen,” she said, taking Raymond’s arm.
Kristoff held out his hand for me, his eyes bright with passion, but it was not his sexual interest I doubted.
That thought remained, even two hours later when I found myself in heaven.
“I don’t care how you ended up with this money. I don’t care if you get to keep it. I don’t care about anything right now, to be honest.” I heaved a blissful sigh and sank up to my neck in the warm, milky blue, algae- and mineral-laden water of the famed Blue Lagoon hot springs. “Other than the fact that we have three whole hours of this. Who needs sleep when we can soak here?”
“This is not a replacement for proper rest, but it is the best I can do, since you refuse to sleep. You will do so on the plane, however.” Kristoff’s voice drifted out of the private lounge he’d reserved for us. Although the Blue Lagoon covered a large area shaped by the surrounding volcanic rocks, the main section did not offer privacy. The spa offered a couple of areas (for a hefty fee) that not only included personal changing rooms and a lounge where one could relax on some very modern-looking furniture, but also a tiny private lagoon.
“You said I was immortal now that I’m officially your Beloved.” I wriggled my toes into the soft mud, allowing myself to bob gently in the water. I had read in the spa brochure that the water was famed for its therapeutic qualities, and that the white silica mud was much sought after for its antiaging properties. I reached down and scooped up a handful of the mud, letting it slip through my fingers. It was chalky white, but smooth, like very fine sand.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t need sleep.” Kristoff emerged from the lounge behind us. He was still fully clothed. I frowned.
“Why am I here, naked, in our very own private watery paradise, and you’re not molesting me as is my due?” I asked.
“We’re here because I thought you would enjoy it. Also because it is likely that the Dark Ones will be canvassing hotels in the area. But mostly because you need somewhere to rest and are too stubborn to do so elsewhere.”
“Boo.”
“What?”
“You know full well what I mean. Why aren’t you here in the water with me, naked, so I can ply my womanly wiles upon your fabulous, if still slightly too skinny, male body?”
“There are things that must be done, Pia. I have a few friends remaining upon who
m I can call, and I have done so.”
That got my attention. I bobbed my way over to the wooden planking that edged one side of our pool. “Call for what?”
Kristoff squatted and ran his fingers across the top of the water. “Information regarding reaper movements in California. And to track Alec’s last known movements.”
“Oh, excellent. What did you find out? Where did he go?” I asked.
He was silent for a moment. “Nothing has been discovered yet.”
I frowned. “Damn. What about the Brotherhood people? Is anything going on besides the fact that they’re hunkering down for a fight?”
“Nothing that I haven’t already mentioned.”
“Hmm. I was thinking about this on the ride out here.”
“You were not,” he countered. “You spent the trip out here fondling my leg and thinking the most erotic thoughts that a man can bear. And a couple I couldn’t.”
“I did both. I’m a woman-I can multitask. Anyway, I was mulling over the situation with Alec and the reapers, and I think I see the truth. It all comes back to Frederic.”
One eyebrow went up.
“You have the most expressive eyebrows. I love that about you,” I said, smiling before I continued. “See if you follow my reasoning, which I admit right now might be the teensiest bit flawed, because I’m a bit rummy from lack of sleep. One.” I held up my fingers to tick off the items. “Denise was protecting someone.”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“I’m pretty sure of it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Two, Frederic killed her.”
He nodded.
“Three, with the Zenith gone, the director of the board of governors is more or less in charge of the whole shebang.”
His nod was slower in coming this time, but it came at last. “There is a new Zenith, though,” he pointed out.
“Sooner or later, yes. But what if the later is much, much later? What if Frederic wanted to be in charge but, because he’s male, could never be a Zenith? What if he set up Denise, giving her some convincing line of bull that had her believing he was a good guy, but in reality he was setting her up for the fall? And then when she did fall, he shot her to keep her from talking? Voilà. Instant leader of the reapers, with no witnesses and no questions asked.”
Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang do-7 Page 17
