People, humans, took so for much for granted. They threw away beautiful relationships because they were too much work or too hard. There was no time to put into a healthy, happy relationship. What she could tell them. But it wouldn’t do any good. How long had it taken her to figure it out? Only five centuries, give or take. If she was that dense, then it was only fair to cut humans a little slack. They rarely got one century to figure it out, let alone five.
She gazed into Adriana’s eyes and smiled. “Just thinking about the last time I was here and how much I never wanted to come back.”
Adriana kissed her. “Yeah, but you came back for a friend, and that speaks volumes about you, lover.”
“They might not be very good volumes.”
Adriana was shaking her head. “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re always putting yourself down, and I don’t get it. Maybe you were a bad girl once upon a time, but there isn’t a single person alive who would know it or remember it. What you’ve done for so long more than makes up for anything terrible you might have done with Rodolphe. Give yourself a break for once.”
A break? The only break she’d given herself was the day she surrendered to her love for Adriana. Truthfully, it was enough. For everything else, she’d be trying to make amends for as long as she walked the earth. It was a life sentence, and she was just fine with that. After all, she’d earned it.
“Come on.” She took Adriana’s hand. “Let’s go have a meeting of the minds with the others. We have a bit of journey to make and some plans to solidify.”
Much later, Riah pulled the rental car into the tidy parking area near the launch for the small boats that took the curious to Snagov Island. They weren’t alone. They parked their car next to another, cold and quiet. A black sedan. Just like the one Lura had left the hotel in. Trickles of unease that had been flowing through her since setting foot in Romania now intensified about a thousand percent.
She didn’t have to point out the obvious to anyone. The silent stares directed at the car told her everything. No one said a word, just moved toward the lakeshore.
Dusk was settling when they made it to Snagov Island. A rented boat, sunscreen, big coats, and wide-brimmed hats protected Ivy and Riah from the sun, not that it was horrible, considering the day was gray and overcast. Still, it was better safe than sorry. Ivy wasn’t anywhere near ready to tolerate sunlight, and Riah found it uncomfortable even if it didn’t kill her. Being an old one had some distinct advantages.
At least they had only two vampires to worry about at the moment. Tory had stayed behind with Naomi, Cam, and Kara just in case Lura returned to Bucharest. They’d all decided it wasn’t a bad idea to divide and conquer.
The little motorboat propelled them quickly across the open water, and when the boat bumped against the dock on the other side, Colin jumped out to moor it before extending his hand to help each of them to their feet. She walked down the gently swaying dock, stepping off where the wood planks met grass now brown with winter’s arrival.
The moment her feet touched the island’s soil, lightning shot through her toes to head. In an instant everything she’d been sensing up until now solidified into a terrifying reality. Something was very wrong here, and Lura was right at the center.
God, how she wanted to go home. Now.
“She’s here.” Ivy turned and studied the landscape. “She’s here somewhere, I know it.” Her words echoed what was in Riah’s heart and mind.
Colin was standing beside Ivy, scanning the rise and fall of the island’s terrain. “I don’t know, babe. It seems pretty deserted.”
Riah closed her eyes and concentrated. As if pulled by an invisible string, she opened her eyes, turned, and began walking, stopping only when she came to an outcropping of rocks. The buzzing had started minutes ago just before she began her trek across the long, open area, and the closer she got to the stones, the louder the buzzing became until it morphed into a deafening roar inside her head.
Though she didn’t look back to see, she could feel the others as they followed in silence. They’d worked together long enough now not to need explanations for every move, every instinct. When she stopped, so did the other three. As she stared at the blackness beneath the massive rocks, one word kept rolling through her mind: damn. Slowly she turned to face the warriors who had her back every day and every night. “We have a problem.”
*
He was a striking man whose presence seemed to fill the entire doorway. His features were sharp, hawk-like, with narrowed, menacing eyes. He looked remarkably like the pictures of Vlad Dracula she’d seen in different places since arriving in Romania; he had to be a much-removed relation. Amazing to think so many hundreds of years later, one of his descendants could be such a dead ringer for the guy. Again, the amazing authenticity of the castle and its period actors impressed her.
“Alexandru,” the man bellowed.
Alexandru stepped around from behind the two men who flanked him like twin towers and bowed deeply. “My Prince.”
Lura wondered where he’d come from. One minute the hallway was empty, and the next Alexandru was back dressed in a beautiful black topcoat thing that really set off his handsome face. He still had on those odd leggings, but since the other guys did too, she wrote it off to staying in character with the period of the reenactment.
“Tell me why you came in darkness, sneaking about like a criminal trying to rob me. You disappoint me, Alexandru Vizulea.”
Alexandru bowed even deeper and spoke in a soft, reverent voice. “My Prince, I meant you no disrespect. Our travels brought us here quite late, and I did not want to disturb your slumber. I intended to present myself at dawn’s first light.”
“And yet here I am, chasing you down, and this.” He pointed at her. “You bring a stranger into my castle? What right do you believe you have to insult me so?”
“Again, my Prince, no disrespect. The lady and I intended to present ourselves straight away. May I present to you Lady Lura Tappe. She is our dear cousin from London.”
London? Seriously, where did that come from? Left field, for sure, and he had to quit telling people that. She certainly couldn’t pull off an English accent, even under the best of circumstances. She was as American as it got. Saying she was a cousin was one thing. That she was a cousin from London, well, that just didn’t make any sense, and why did it matter anyway? Wasn’t like any of this was real. Nicoletta was squeezing her hand so tight Lura had the urge to yank it away. She didn’t. Despite the desire to step forward and speak for herself, to end the British-cousin charade, at the same time she had the feeling it was important for her to play along.
Something here wasn’t quite what it seemed. This might look like a well-scripted reenactment scenario, but it didn’t feel like one. In fact, it felt pretty damned real, and that sent a chill racing up her spine. So, if for the moment she needed to be the cousin from London, so be it.
“Lady Tappe?”
Nicoletta tugged on her hand again, and she got the hint. Lura bowed and kept her eyes low as she said in her best Romanian, “A pleasure to meet you, sir.” Hopefully he didn’t notice the distinct absence of a true English accent.
When he stepped forward and gripped her chin hard with strong fingers, she instantly thought, that’s gonna leave a mark. He yanked her head up until her eyes met his. He smelled of soap and musk, of a man strong and proud. Some might call him sexy, but she’d be more inclined to go with creepy. The kind of man she dubbed a step-back guy. Those were the type that made her want to take a step back without any reason other than instinct.
“My Prince,” he said slowly, his dark eyes intent on hers.
“My Prince,” she repeated, unable to pull her gaze away from his even though she wanted to run in the opposite direction.
He dropped his hand and turned his back on her as if the strange exchange had never happened. “You will come to the great hall after the morning meal.”
Lura resisted the urge to rub her face an
d, rather than say the wrong thing, said nothing at all.
Nicoletta, her gaze still on the floor, saved her from any further interaction with the man. “Of course, my Prince,” she said in a voice Lura could only describe as subservient.
The Prince, and the two with him, turned and strode away quickly, the slap of their boots against the flagstone floors loud in the quiet morning air. Lura straightened up and stared at Nicoletta and Alexandru. Both stared back, their faces pale and somber. A brief silence followed before Lura blurted out, “What the fuck was that?”
Chapter Nine
Nicoletta’s knees weakened as soon as the Prince was out of sight. It took a supreme effort not to crumble. She lowered herself to the chair and waited for the trembling to subside. The words the woman spoke were in a language she didn’t understand, but her tone of voice was no mystery. Trouble lurked just beneath her beautiful face. It was in her eyes, the set of her shoulders, the spread of her feet beneath the gown’s full skirt. Before she did or said something foolish, they had to make her see and understand. If not, all of their lives were in danger.
“Lura, please let us explain.” The pleading in her voice was not flattering. She hated ever sounding like a desperate woman. But it did not matter. She would use whatever she possessed to make Lura understand.
Alexandru came over and put a hand on her head. She pressed into the warmth of it, tears forming in her eyes. It had been so long since she had felt his touch, and until this moment, she had not realized how she had longed for it. While he had been away, she had no one she could confide in or turn to, even if she wanted to. Not a soul to hold her when her spirit was crushed.
“I will tell her,” he said softly. Then he cocked his head and studied her face. His intense gaze lingered on hers. “What is it, sister? Something is not right.”
How could she tell him? How could she tell anyone? Her shame was so great, even though she had been the one dishonored. It made no difference to her heart. She was ruined, and no one would have her now. Could ever love her. Her fate was set and nothing could change that, not even Alexandru and the power God had graced him with.
But this was not the time to discuss her or her failures. This was about the woman. Lura. The stars had told of her coming and of her saving them all. What was happening now was so much larger than one small woman who meant nothing, when the one who meant everything was here at last.
“All is fine, brother. Let us share the prophecy with Lura. Help her to understand.”
“Understand what?” Lura asked. She used both hands to rub her face. Nicoletta could clearly see the tiredness in her body. No, that was not right. Lura was not simply tired. Exhaustion was settling over her features like storm clouds rolling in for a bitter winter storm. Nicoletta felt for her and wished she could hold her in her arms and let slumber wash away the lines in her face.
“Sit,” Nicoletta said softly. “Let me brush your hair as Alexandru tells you what you must know.”
Lura shook her head. “I don’t need my hair brushed. I need to know what kind of shit’s going on around here.”
“Please,” Nicoletta said. “Sit. You will feel better.” It had always comforted her when their mother brushed her hair. She hoped it would do the same for Lura.
With a big sigh, Lura sank to the chair and did not protest further as Nicoletta removed the cap she had covered Lura’s hair with before the Prince came in. She ran the brush gently through her hair, careful not to pull. The silky texture of Lura’s golden tresses was heavenly against her fingers. If only they could sit here and pretend it was simply another day. How lovely that would be.
As she brushed, Alexandru stood staring out the window, and for the longest time he said nothing. His words when they came painted a picture that until now had seemed a fantasy. Yes, she had heard the prophecy before and thought that she understood. She had been living with it since the night Alexandru had disappeared through the rocks. Still, it had seemed like a dream; only tonight the dream became very, very real.
And she was terrified.
*
The expression on Ivy’s face said it all: no Lura. Among the four of them, they’d quickly perused the island and hadn’t found a soul. Ivy wasn’t a happy camper. Join the club, Riah thought. The last place she wanted to be right now was here. Just being on this island made her stomach roll. Something disturbing and heavy weighed down on her shoulders, and she wanted to shake it off.
This wasn’t about her though; it was about Lura. If she just kept reminding herself of that little fact, things would go down so much easier. They’d track Lura, get her back to the States, and then she could go back to her normal life, such as it was.
Ivy put her cell phone back in her pocket and looked at Riah. A deep frown put lines in her face. “That was Cam. They flew over to Tirgoviste and checked around. Lura never made it there and she’s not here, so where did she go? And what the hell is that noise coming out of those rocks?”
Riah had heard stories even way back when about the singing stones. She’d thought it was all a bunch of crap when she and Rodolphe had been here. Written it off as silly superstitions of the poor and uneducated.
When the legends persisted through the years, she’d given it a little more notice. Maybe it wasn’t just something uneducated people came up with to explain a phenomenon they didn’t understand. A couple of times she’d actually dug into a bit of research, and that’s when she’d discovered wormhole theory. More specifically, traversable wormhole theory. In other words, a way to move from dimension to dimension.
She gave them a quick down-and-dirty of her research findings. She told them how a wormhole can connect two points in space time. Of how, in theory, a person could move through a traversable wormhole from one time to another.
“You’re not fucking serious?” This from Colin, who typically took anything strange or unusual in stride. Apparently she’d just located the point where he could no longer suspend disbelief. “You think we can time travel through there?” He pointed to the blackness between the stones.
Truthfully she didn’t have a clue. All she really knew was that the theories never went away, and while she hadn’t taken them too seriously before, now she wondered if perhaps she’d dismissed them too quickly. “I think it’s possible, and I think that’s what happened to Lura and the mysterious man.”
Ivy was shaking her head, though her eyes were on the suspected wormhole. “Why would she even consider going through there? It doesn’t make sense.”
She got the struggle going on in Ivy’s head, not to mention Colin’s and Adriana’s. This was a whole new logic to follow. She’d had a lot more time to digest the possibility, and all of a sudden she was asking them to blindly trust her.
Her gut instinct tracked back to her visit here with Rodolphe. The universe had a warped sense of humor, and it was taking her full circle. “He’s buried here, and I’m pretty sure he’s the key. The power has always radiated around him, even long after his death. If there was ever a place for a wormhole, this is it.”
“He…” Ivy’s face reflected confusion, but only for a moment. “Oh, shit. You mean he as in the king of bloodsuckers?”
Riah nodded. “Yes, Vlad Dracula.”
“Fucking A,” Ivy muttered. “That’s all we need.”
“I don’t like it either,” Adriana said as she leaned close to the rocks and peered between them. “We’re on shaky enough ground as it is, with you vamps here, but throw in the king of them all, and I don’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling. See what I’m saying?”
“Indeed I do, and trust me,” Riah told them. “There was nothing warm or fuzzy about Vlad the Impaler. Not a real charming man.”
“You knew him?” Ivy looked stunned.
Riah shook her head. “No, he was gone before I ever made it here, but he hadn’t been gone long enough to erase his legacy. I saw what he did, felt him in every breath of air I took here. He was both a savior and a curse, and I don’t think any of that d
ied with him.”
Ivy seemed to think about what she’d said and then asked, “So why do you think he still figures into the mix?”
For that one, she didn’t have a very good explanation. “Call it a hunch.”
Colin put an arm around Ivy’s shoulders. “Good enough for me.”
She felt like she still had to justify what she wanted them all to do. “This is territory I’ve walked through before. If this place is telling me something, then we should all listen.”
Ivy relaxed and nodded. “You know, I think you’re right. As much as I’m in favor of following Lura’s itinerary, I’m inclined to give your hunch a try. Something’s wonky here, and we need to find out what it is. Maybe it’s Dracula or maybe something else, but let’s track it down whatever it is.”
Adriana likewise threw in. “I’m in, and I say let’s roll. The sooner we do this thing, the sooner we can go home. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t really like it here. This has got to be one of the strangest places we’ve gotten sucked into yet.”
Riah inwardly sighed in relief. They had to step through, the draw too great to ignore. She didn’t know what was on the other side of those rocks. But she was about to find out, and she just hoped at least some of them lived to tell about it.
Chapter Ten
“So, you two are trying to tell me I’ve just traveled back to the court of Vlad Dracula, as in the real Dracula? Did I get that correctly?”
Alexandru and Nicoletta nodded in unison. Lura looked from one to the other, searching for signs of the madness that surely had to lurk beneath their otherwise normal-looking exteriors. She didn’t see anything, and she was a licensed professional. Alexandru was still handsome and bright-eyed. Nicoletta, still beautiful. Not a hint of insanity in either one of them. Of course, she’d been in practice long enough to know mental illness didn’t always show on the outside.
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