The Trouble With Vampires (An Argeneau Novel)

by Lynsay Sands

  Frowning, Santo pulled back to look at Pet with confusion. She could not be licking his foot, she was sitting before him.

  “What is it?” Pet asked, skimming her hands over his chest. It should have hurt, but didn’t, and he peered down to see that the wounds and scorching were gone. His skin was unblemished.

  “Nothing,” he murmured, and then bent his head to kiss her again, only to chuckle against her mouth as she licked his foot again.

  “What the—?” Santo muttered, and glanced down the length of his body just in time to see a golden Lab lick his foot for a third time. The dungeon and Pet had been a dream. He was awake now and in bed in his home, he realized, staring blankly at the unknown dog as it sat down and let out a soft woof.

  “Good boy, Bear.”

  Santo sat up abruptly at those soft words and watched the dog pad over to the couch by the fireplace at the opposite end of his large bedroom. His eyes grew round with amazement when a sleepy Pet sat up on the couch to pet the animal.

  “Good boy,” she repeated, grabbing the golden Lab by the cheeks and rubbing the fur affectionately. “Good Bear.”

  After giving the dog one last pet, Pet stood and moved toward the bed. The dog immediately followed. When she stopped at the foot of the bed, the dog sat beside her and then peered up at Pet. Seeing that she was looking at Santo, though, he then turned to look at him too.

  “This is Bear,” Pet announced calmly as Santo took in the red tank top, black leather pants and black knee-high boots she wore. The heels had to be four inches high.

  “What are you doing here, Pet?” Santo growled, dragging his eyes back to her face and tugging his sheets and blankets up to his chin.

  “Bear is a service dog,” Pet said, ignoring his question. Glancing down, she smiled at the Lab and stroked his head. “I had a student once who was an army vet. Well, I’ve had many of them. But this one had a dog with him at all times. Her name was Jazz. She was beautiful and so well behaved. It turned out she was a service animal.”

  “Pet,” he growled in warning. “You need to get out now.”

  “No. You need to listen now,” she said unperturbed, and kept petting Bear as she continued, “My student suffered from PTSD. Anxiety, depression, and night terrors. Jazz comforted him when he was depressed, soothed him when he was anxious, and woke him up when he had nightmares. He didn’t go anywhere without her.”

  Leaving her hand resting on Bear’s head, she turned back to Santo. “Jazz was trained to wake him by jumping on his chest and lying down, becoming a warm, furry blanket of sorts. But that wouldn’t do for you. You might kill the poor thing.”

  Santo winced at the words, and then realizing he was clutching the bedclothes to his chin like a Victorian miss, he scowled and let them lower a bit as she said, “So we trained Bear to lick your feet, and if that didn’t work, bark.”

  “Who is we?” Santo asked, his voice a rough growl.

  “Your mother and Parker and I.”

  His eyebrows flew up on his forehead. “Mother is training both of you?”

  “Yes. She decided to train Parker because she didn’t think he should be around Quinn until we were sure she was handling everything okay,” she explained, and then added, “And she had to train me, because you asked her to and wouldn’t do it yourself.”

  There was no accusation in her tone, it was stated as a simple fact, but Santo flinched anyway. Mouth tightening against the guilt assailing him, he asked, “How is Parker?”

  “Good. He’s adjusted really well, and learned fast. He likes your mother,” she added, and then said, “So do I. If you care.”

  “Of course I care,” he growled miserably. “You are my life mate, Pet. I love you. But I cannot sleep with you and risk hurting you.”

  “And yet I hurt,” she said quietly, and then turned on her heel and headed for the door. “Enjoy Bear. He’s a good dog.”

  “Pet, wait!” Throwing the blankets aside, he slid off the bed and hurried after her. “Pet!”

  Catching up to her in the hall, he grabbed her arm to swing her around. Pet spun back all right, but Santo suddenly found his feet swept out from under him. He crashed to the floor with a grunt and then stared up at her with amazement.

  “That’s Wing Chun,” Pet said calmly, her gaze sliding over his bare chest and the loose black pajama bottoms he was wearing. “It’s what I used with Patrick when he attacked me in my apartment. I couldn’t have defeated him with it alone, but it kept me alive long enough to grab a knife that did save me.”

  She took a step back when Santo started to stand up, and then added, “I like to tell people it was something I took up when I was going through my Everything-Chinese phase as a teenager, but it’s not true.”

  Santo smiled crookedly at that. “Your Everything-Chinese phase?”

  “When I insisted on studying everything that was Chinese,” she said dryly. “I studied Chinese writing, feng shui, Chinese architecture, wouldn’t eat anything but Chinese food, and studied the Chinese zodiac.”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. “The Chinese zodiac?”

  “Yes, you know, its origins, the twelve animals, and their traits. It was really interesting and very informative. For instance, from my studies I know that I’m the dog, and you’re an ass.”

  Santo blinked. “There is no ass in the Chinese zodiac.”

  Pet shrugged. “You’re still an ass.”

  For some reason that made him smile, but then Santo sighed and asked, “What is the truth behind your taking Wing Chun?”

  “I started training in it at six when I landed in America as a scared child who had watched her parents and sister murdered. I wanted to feel safe.”

  Santo nodded. It was what he’d expected. Running a hand wearily over his scalp, he said, “I am sorry, Pet. Truly, I am. But I want to keep you safe too. I cannot risk making love to you, fainting and then possibly harming you in my sleep. I am doing this for you.”

  “Well, that’s a lie,” she said dryly.

  “What?” he asked with amazement.

  “That’s a lie,” she repeated. “You’re a liar, and a selfish one at that.”

  “How can you say that?” Santo demanded, and suddenly furious, he roared, “I have done nothing but try to keep you safe from the beginning.”

  “I don’t need you to keep me safe,” Pet roared right back. “And you are a liar because you are not doing this for me, you are doing it for you. So you don’t have to feel guilty if you should accidentally hurt me.”

  While Santo stood blinking at her, Pet added, “And if you really cared about hurting me, you would care that you are putting me in pain by refusing to have me as your life mate, and you would do something to fix that. Because you did this to me. You wooed me and made me fall in love with you, and then you turned me and gave me hope, and then you walked away. And let me tell you, while a broken bone might hurt for a few minutes to an hour until the nanos fix it, my heart has hurt every single minute of every day of the last six weeks since you walked away from me.”

  Pet turned her back on him then and started to walk away.

  Santo stood staring after Pet, her words echoing in his ears, and then blurted, “How? How can I fix this?”

  Pet paused and turned slowly back. For one moment, she just stared at him, and then she walked back until she was a foot in front of him. “You stop pushing me away. You trust that I might be able to help you out of the dungeon by sharing our dreams, and that Bear will wake you up if you have a nightmare.” Smiling wryly, she added, “And apparently if we’re making love in our dreams.”

  Santo smiled crookedly too, but asked, “But what if those two things do not work and I hurt you?”

  “Then we sleep in separate rooms and I chain you to the bed when we make love, so you can’t hurt me, but we do not give up. We never give up.”

  Santo let his breath out on a long sigh as he gave up, not on her, but on fighting his need for her. He could not live without Pet. The last six
weeks had been hell. He had to try. Santo had waited too long for her to give up now.

  “Are you ready to stop being an idiot?” she asked solemnly.

  Santo smiled faintly. “I have been an idiot, haven’t I?”

  “Yes. But you’re my idiot,” she said, her voice husky. “I love you, Santo.”

  “I love you too, tesoro,” he breathed, closing the small space between them and wrapping her in his arms. “I’ll try not to be an idiot in future.”

  Pet shrugged in his embrace. “You can’t help it. You’re an ass in the Chinese zodiac. It’s in your stars.”

  “There’s no ass in the Chinese zodiac,” he said with exasperation, scooping her up and turning to carry her back toward the bedroom.

  “Who studied it? You or me?” she asked.

  Santo rolled his eyes. “You. Fine. There is an ass, and I am one.”

  “Yes.” Smiling, she cuddled against his chest. “But you are my ass.”

  Chuckling, he carried her into the bedroom, no longer afraid of making love to her. They had shared dreams, Bear, and if necessary, he had some chains in his garage somewhere. There were worse things than being chained to a bed while your woman made love to you, but Santo didn’t think that would be necessary. He was ready to let go of the past . . . especially if he had a future with Pet.

  An Excerpt from A Lady in Disguise

  Read on for a sneak peek at one of

  Lynsay’s classic historical romances!

  A LADY IN DISGUISE

  (formerly called The Reluctant Reformer)

  Coming July 2019 with a beautiful new cover!

  One

  London, March 1815

  Maggie shifted her feet slightly, trying to ease the ache her cramped position was causing in her legs. The small movement was enough to cause her to bang her knees against the door of the armoire she presently sat in, making it rattle. Wincing at the pain that shot up her leg, Maggie was busily rubbing the appendage when the cupboard door opened and soft candlelight spilled in over her.

  “Stop yer banging about, or ye’ll be givin’ away that ye’re in there.”

  Ceasing her leg-rubbing, Maggie managed an apologetic smile for the scantily clad young woman glaring in at her. “I am sorry,” she began in conciliatory tones, then paused and heaved out a breath. She straightened and began to step from the small closet. “No, actually, I am not. Er, Daisy, is it?”

  “Maisey,” the girl corrected.

  “Yes, well . . . Maisey, then,” Maggie said. The girl’s put-upon air was irritating, as were the wrinkles that Maggie was futilely trying to brush out of her gown. “This is all really rather silly, and quite beyond the information for which I was looking. All I really wanted was to—”

  The sound of a rap at the door made Maggie pause, alarmed. The young woman before her stiffened, then steel seemed to enter her eyes and she shoved Maggie firmly back into the armoire. Maggie landed on her behind with a grunt.

  “It’s too late to be changing yer mind now, milady,” she announced, bending to shove Maggie’s feet inside the closet before she could regain her balance. “Madame says ye’re to watch, and watch you will. Now keep quiet,” she said in a hiss. The door pushed closed with a decided snap.

  “Damn,” Maggie said under her breath, then struggled to a sitting position. The door rattled slightly, nearly covering the sound of a bolt being slid home. Pressing one eye to the crack where the doors did not quite meet, she saw Maisey nod with a grunt of satisfaction and whirl away to answer the door. Frowning, Maggie lifted a hand to push experimentally forward, but the door stayed firmly shut. The girl had locked her in!

  Well, this is just bloody beautiful, she thought irritably. Brilliant! I do tend to get myself into fixes, don’t I?

  Not that she could have gotten out now, anyway. Maggie considered herself a thoroughly modern young woman: highly intelligent, independent, and uncaring of what others thought of her—but only to a certain degree. Even she, thoroughly modern as she was, hesitated to deliberately draw the wrath and scorn of the ton down upon herself. Especially when she merely had to sit quietly for a short time to avoid scandal completely. Patience was not one of her natural virtues, but she had been attempting to cultivate it of late. Yes, she would simply have to look at this as a chance to develop herself. A learning experience, one might say.

  She had barely finished that thought when it occurred to her that she was crouching down in a small armoire in one of the rooms of the infamous Madame Dubarry’s—this was a brothel, for God’s sake! What she would learn in this room . . . well, she just shouldn’t know yet! What was more, she certainly couldn’t write about it.

  Good Lord, how had she ended up here? Madame Dubarry, of course. The woman had been slow to warm to the idea of allowing Maggie to interview her and some of her girls for a story for the Daily Express. Once the madam had agreed to the undertaking, however, she had become quite enthusiastic. The older woman had bustled Maggie from girl to girl, attending the interviews to be sure each girl told the juiciest stories; then she had rounded off this most peculiar day by offering Maggie refreshment in her own private drawing room. It was while the two had chatted over tea that Madame Dubarry devised this harebrained scheme. Clattering her teacup down in its saucer, she had sat up abruptly, her eyes on the clock in the corner.

  “What time is it, nearly seven? Oh, really, this is perfect timing! You must witness this, Lady Maggie. Really, you must. You shall thank me for it, I promise.”

  So saying, the woman had stood quickly, grasped Maggie’s hand and dragged her from her chair, then hurried from the room and along the hall. Before Maggie could even collect herself enough to ask what she must see and why, they had reached this chamber. Madame Dubarry shoved her inside, installed her in the cupboard with admonishments to remain quiet and see, then had instructed young Maisey that Maggie was to witness the night’s proceedings. She had fled the room nearly as hurriedly as she’d ushered Maggie into it.

  Maggie, stunned by the abruptness of the event, had remained still and silent for a moment before the cramping of her muscles had forced her to shift positions and draw the wrath of the shapely young Maisey.

  Really, had she been a bit quicker, Maggie might have managed to flee the room before Maisey’s customer arrived. Now it appeared she was quite stuck. She sighed irritably and tried to ignore the murmur of voices from the room outside. Maggie had no desire to learn anything more than she’d learned in her interviews. And I won’t, she assured herself. I simply will not look through the crack to see who Maisey’s client is or what they are doing.

  She frowned as the voices drew closer. The man’s slightly deeper-timbered voice struck a chord of recognition within her. It sounded amazingly like . . .

  Her gaze slid to the crack despite her best intentions, and Maggie drew her breath in with a hiss. Good Lord, it was him: Pastor Frances. Her eyes narrowed on the man. She had just been discussing the fact that he was paying her court, and that she thought he might soon propose, when Madame Dubarry had rushed her up here. Maggie was distracted from further thought by an odd question from Maisey.

  “Who am I to be tonight, milord? Yer mother?”

  Maggie’s eyes widened in shocked dismay at that, but they nearly fell out of her head at Frances’s answer.

  “Nay. Tonight you shall be my dear Margaret.”

  “Sweet Lady Wentworth, is it?” Maggie was almost too shocked by Frances’s presence to notice the irony in the young prostitute’s voice. Almost. “The woman who personifies the very word ‘lady’? The woman who never sets a foot wrong? Who is discretion herself?”

  Maggie couldn’t help but wince slightly at the pointy edges of Maisey’s words. She also experienced a touch of alarm as she realized that, in her excitement, Madame Dubarry had addressed her by her real name when she’d brought her up to this room.

  She forgot all such concerns when Frances answered, “Aye: my sweet Maggie. I have decided to propose to her. I arranged to
take her to the Cousins’ ball tonight. I shall propose to her afterward. I believe she will accept.”

  “Oh, ’course she will, guv’nor, a great, strapping man like yerself . . .” There was no missing the irony in Maisey’s voice then. At least, Maggie caught it; the gibe seemed to slip right past the rather thin and emaciated Frances.

  “Fine. You be Maggie then, and I shall practice on you.” There was a moment of critical silence before he murmured, “You had best put something else on.”

  “Something else?”

  “Well, Maggie would never greet me so scantily clad.”

  “Not even if the house were afire,” Maggie agreed under her breath. Through the crack in the armoire doors, she took in Maisey’s costume—what there was of it. Sheer silk and red, it covered absolutely nothing. It was scandalous.

  There came a moment of uncertain silence; then Maisey heaved an impatient sigh. “Fine, then. Ye step on out into the hall, and I shall change. Give me five minutes; then knock.”

  “Why must I wait in the hall?” Frances whined.

  “Well, ye want it to be as if ye were proposing to Lady Wentworth, don’t ye? Would she dress in front of ye? Get on with ye. I’ll only be a minute, and this will seem more real.”

  Through the crack, Maggie saw Maisey usher Frances out of the room as firmly as she herself had been shoved into the armoire. The prostitute closed the door behind the pastor with a snap, then locked it. She was a no-nonsense type of woman, it seemed.

  “Thank God.” Maggie burst out of the armoire as Maisey unbolted it. “I thought I should suffocate in there. Now get me out of here.”

  “You know where the door is,” came Maisey’s unconcerned response. The young woman was digging through her clothing, picking up and discarding gown after gown.

  Maggie frowned and glanced from the door to the girl. “I can hardly exit that way. Pastor Frances is out there.”