by Tina Folsom
But tonight something was different about Isabelle. She didn’t look as confident as usual. She seemed rather nervous and looked uncomfortable. Was she having stage fright?
Katie glanced at the large wall clock. In thirty minutes the curtain would rise. This was not the time for anybody to get cold feet. She was walking toward Isabelle, when she heard somebody call her name.
“Katie? Got a minute?”
She pivoted and saw Blake pop his head in the door.
“You can’t come in here!” she chastised and rushed toward him.
He immediately retreated. When she stepped outside into the corridor, he was waiting for her.
“Apologies, but nobody heard me knock,” he said, grinning disarmingly.
A decade ago Katie would have rolled her eyes and accused him of using any excuse to ogle the beautiful young girls in the dressing room. Not tonight. Blake had changed in more ways than one.
He’d matured and grown into an utterly handsome man with short dark hair, the same blue eyes as his 4th great-grandmother Rose, and a toned body made of pure muscle. The family resemblance to Quinn and Rose, however, ended there. He looked older than his blond vampire forebears now. His ancestors had been turned into vampires in their twenties, while Blake had become a vampire at age thirty-two, twelve years earlier. Quinn had turned him at Blake’s insistence.
“What is it?” Katie asked, looking up at Blake who dwarfed her.
“I just wanted to go over security with you.”
“But we’ve already done that. I really don’t have the time. We only have—”
“It won’t even take a minute of your time, sweetheart,” he insisted, turning on his charm.
“Sweetheart?” She laughed. There was nothing amorous going on between her and the tall vampire—they both knew that. “You must be desperate.”
Blake chuckled, displaying his white teeth. “You know me too well.” He pulled a piece of paper from the inside of the trendy sports coat he’d paired with black slacks and sturdy boots. “Samson’s orders.”
Involuntarily she had to smile. Even dressed in elegant eveningwear, Blake was always ready for war.
“I have the feeling you enjoy being the head of Scanguards’ personal security detail far too much.”
He smirked and looked around the corridor, making sure none of the stagehands who were arranging final details could overhear them. “Providing ‘round the clock security for thirteen hybrid teenagers is no walk in the park. And don’t even get me started on the parents.”
Katie knew what he meant. Some parents could be overprotective of their offspring, and Samson was no exception when it came to his three children. Though he did have reason to be cautious. Scanguards had enemies.
“Driving you nuts, are they?”
Blake ran a hand through his hair. “You have no idea. And trust me, those kids have never been safer in their lives than since I took over their security twelve years ago.”
“Was that why you wanted to be turned? So the kids couldn’t run roughshod over you?”
Blake briefly glanced down the hall where a worker was carrying two chairs into the next room. “That, and the fact that I didn’t want to look older than my grandparents.”
His serious expression belied the light tone of his voice.
“Sorry I asked.”
Blake blinked and gave a sigh. “Katie, I don’t mean to—”
She lifted her hand. “You don’t have to explain yourself—”
“I love these people,” Blake interrupted, motioning to the wall. Behind it was the stage and beyond that the audience waiting for the performance to start. “I love the Scanguards family. They’re my family, and I don’t want to leave them. Had I remained human, one day I would have had to. I can’t do that.”
Katie put her hand on his forearm and squeezed.
He met her eyes. “And if you tell any of them about what I just said, I’m going to suck the life out of you,” he warned.
“Don’t wanna come across as a big softy, that it?”
“Because I’m not.”
“No, you’re not. And loving somebody doesn’t make you weak, it makes you strong.”
“Well, let’s go over this.” Blake pointed to the piece of paper in his hand, clearly embarrassed. “I marked at which points in the play Isabelle is going to be on stage and when she’s supposed to be backstage with the other actors. Does that look right?”
Katie skimmed the list of scenes and nodded. “You know your Shakespeare.”
He shrugged. “Rose makes me read all that stuff.”
She grinned. “Sure she does.” The sound of the door opening behind her made her turn her head to see who was leaving the dressing room.
She saw Isabelle freeze as if caught.
“Oh, hey Blake,” Isabelle said quickly and a little too cheerfully. “Are you gonna watch?”
“Like a hawk.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “I meant the play.”
“So did I.” He pulled her into a quick hug, placing a kiss on the top of her head, before releasing her. Then his gaze bounced back and forth between Isabelle and Katie. “Oh my, if we stuck you two in the same clothes, I swear you could be confused for twins!”
Katie exchanged a look with Isabelle.
“Twins?” they said in unison.
Blake held up both hands. “Okay, sisters. But, boy, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you two came from the same womb.”
“Okay, enough of that,” Katie said and made a shooing motion. “Don’t you have work to do? Because I sure do.”
Blake grinned and nodded to Isabelle. “Break a leg, okay?”
Isabelle smiled. “Thanks.”
“You, too, Katie. But then you’re an old pro,” he added and turned.
“Hey, who are you calling old?” Katie protested. “I’m still younger than you!”
Without turning back, Blake waved his hand at her and continued walking down the corridor, before marching through a door and disappearing from view.
“Men!”
A suffering sigh came from Isabelle. Instantly, Katie ran her eyes over her. “Something wrong, honey?”
“It’s nothing, it’s just…”
“Stage fright?” Katie prompted. “Don’t worry, we all get it.”
“It’s not that. I’m ready for the play. I know all the lines. Not just mine. I know everybody’s.”
Katie brushed her hand over Isabelle’s hair, pride swelling in her chest. Samson’s daughter had talent. “Well, that’s why I made you understudy for all the major female roles. I’ve never seen anybody who could retain so many lines in such a short time.”
Isabelle smiled unexpectedly and a little of the gloom lifted off her face. “I’m so glad you did. That’s why, you know, I was wondering… I mean… Do you think…”
Katie felt her forehead furrow. Isabelle wasn’t normally somebody to be nervous or tongue-tied. “What’s bothering you?”
Isabelle twiddled the ribbons below her empire waist. “It’s Cameron.”
For a moment, Katie didn’t know who Isabelle was talking about. Then it dawned on her. “Cameron, who’s playing Lysander?”
Isabelle nodded and avoided eye contact when she continued talking. “Yes, who’s in love with Hermia.”
A soft smile tugged at Katie’s lips. “Who’s played by me.”
Isabelle lifted her head. “And in the end you get to kiss Lysander.”
“And Helena, played by you, gets to kiss Demetrius.”
Isabelle nodded, but didn’t comment further.
“I thought you wanted it that way. Isn’t that every girl’s dream, to be pursued by two men? Like in the play how Helena is pursued by both Lysander and Demetrius because of Puck’s love potion?”
“Yes, but Lysander’s love isn’t real. It’s just an illusion.”
“But it’s a play. It’s all an illusion.”
Just like Hollywood had been an illusion. A pretty one. On
e that had made her wealthy, not wanting for anything. But nothing had been real in Hollywood: in the end she hadn’t even been able to trust the people closest to her. Betrayal had nearly cost her her life. It was the real reason why she’d returned to San Francisco five years earlier: to return to her family, where she belonged, and to be safe again.
She’d managed to buy back the old Victorian house on Buena Vista Park that had once belonged to her family. And she’d made it vampire safe, so that whenever Haven and his mate Yvette visited, they wouldn’t have to worry about sunlight hurting them.
“I’d much rather be Hermia, because Lysander’s love for her is real,” Isabelle continued. “And you said yourself I know all the lines. I’m your understudy. You know I can do it.”
“You want me to switch roles with you?”
“Please.”
“You really like Cameron, don’t you?”
Isabelle nodded.
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
“I don’t know whether he likes me.”
“So you figured if you kiss him at the end of the play, you might find out?”
Isabelle shrugged. “No harm in that.”
Katie reached for Isabelle’s hand. “Well, we’d better get changed then. I’ve got everything in my private dressing room.”
It wasn’t really a dressing room, more a combination office/prop room she’d managed to borrow from the football coach for the duration of rehearsals.
“You’re the best!” Isabelle said.
Smiling, Katie steered her to the second door on the right and entered the windowless room, letting the door snap shut behind them.
3
“Never did mockers waste more idle breath,” Katie said, dressed as Helena in the long blue dress that Isabelle had worn before the performance, while looking back and forth between the two students who played Lysander and Demetrius.
The lights illuminated the three of them on the old creaking wooden stage of the university. In the chairs below in the auditorium, vampires and their families mixed with humans, who had no inkling about the preternatural creatures in their midst.
Before the performance, Katie had peeked through the curtain and scanned the audience. Both her brothers were in attendance; Haven had brought Yvette and their son and daughter. In the front row, Samson and Delilah sat proudly, flanked by their sons, Grayson and Patrick. Zane and the entire Eisenberg family were sitting in the back, while Amaury and Nina and their twins, eighteen-year old Damian and Benjamin, sat near the windows, which were covered by thick velvet curtains.
Quinn Ralston and his clan, which included his wife Rose, his protégé Oliver as well as Oliver’s mate Ursula and their ten-year old boy, Sebastian, sat in the row behind Samson. Blake, who was also part of the Ralston clan, had taken up a post near the entrance door, scanning the room, while occasionally speaking quietly into his intercom and listening to the mic in his ear. Tasked with guarding thirteen Scanguards minors, ranging from ages ten to twenty, he definitely had his hands full, despite the fact that all of them were accompanied by their parents.
Gabriel and Maya were surrounded by their brood, two teenage boys and a girl. Maya was responsible for vampire females being able to conceive, though they were normally infertile. Her medical and research background had finally paid off when she’d developed a treatment that allowed a vampire female to become pregnant and carry a child to term. It had made waves in the vampire community.
Her mate Gabriel, a vampire with a vicious scar marring the left side of his face, was scanning the crowd. As Scanguards’ number two, he never forgot his duty. Mixed among the Scanguards people sat the families of the other student actors, as well as many friends who’d come to support their classmates’ thespian passions.
“Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none: if e’er I lov’d her, all that love is gone. My heart to her but as guest-wise sojoun’d; and now to Helena is it home return’d, there to remain.”
Demetrius’s delivery was a little wooden, but Katie had to admit he’d proven to be faithful to his character, and she was pleased with the performance so far. Even though she’d slipped into the part of Helena—and as much as she wanted to immerse herself in the character—she was still aware of her role as the director and teacher.
“Helena, it is not so,” Lysander responded.
“Disparage not the faith thou dost not know, lest, to thy peril, though aby it dear,” Demetrius replied and looked to stage left, pointing his hand in the same direction. “Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.”
Silence greeted Demetrius’s announcement.
“Yonder is thy dear,” he repeated, a little louder this time.
Katie’s pulse kicked up, while her eyes searched the darkness to the side of the stage from where Isabelle was supposed to reappear as Hermia, Lysander’s lover. But all she saw was one of her students dressed as a fairy waiting in the wings. She exchanged a look with the girl, but only got a helpless shrug as a response.
Isabelle had missed her cue! Embarrassed for her star student, Katie cringed. Had Isabelle forgotten her lines under the stress of the performance, or had she mistimed her next appearance on stage? Had she taken a bathroom break and forgotten the time?
From the auditorium, whispers drifted to Katie. The crowd was getting restless, sensing that something wasn’t going according to plan. Her gaze shot to the first row. She didn’t have to be able to see in the dark like the vampires watching to see Samson’s eyes, because they were glowing red now, pointing at her like beacons.
What’s going on? he mouthed, his entire face a mask of concern.
Katie had no problem reading his lips. It was a skill she’d learned during her professional acting career, when assistants off camera or off stage would prompt her.
She gave a quick shake of her head at Samson, then stared back at the side of the stage from which the actors entered. Still nothing.
An uncomfortable prickling sensation traveled up her arms. Something was wrong. Isabelle was a responsible person, despite her young age. She was an adult and didn’t flake out on her commitments.
The two students playing Lysander and Demetrius stared at her for guidance.
“What now?” Lysander murmured.
Katie didn’t reply. Instead she stalked to where the fairy waited in the wings, leaving the stage. She grabbed the chubby girl by the shoulders. “Where is Isabelle?”
“I don’t know.” Cindy choked down some food, powdered sugar rimming her lips. “She was here just a few minutes ago.”
“Go, run to the bathrooms and see if she’s there, quickly!”
Cindy instantly followed the command.
From the auditorium, more voices drifted to Katie. People were talking, wondering what was the problem. Just like she was.
“Where is she, where is Isabelle?”
Katie whirled her head in the direction of the voice and saw Blake rushing toward her, entering the backstage area from the corridor.
“I don’t know. She missed her cue. She might be in the bathroom. I’ve already sent somebody there to look for her. Maybe she got nervous.”
Blake pressed his finger to the mic in his ear. “Secure the perimeter. Find Isabelle Woodford. I repeat: secure all exits. Nobody gets in or out of this place without me knowing. Got that?”
Before she could tell Blake that he was probably overreacting, heavy footsteps came through the darkness backstage.
“Isabelle?” Samson pushed past Blake, his hazel eyes pinning Katie with a look that could have outclassed the Spanish Inquisition. “Where is my daughter?”
For a moment, Katie was paralyzed. The over six foot tall vampire made an imposing figure. He was power personified. She’d always known that, though she’d also seen his kind side, had experienced it personally many years earlier. But tonight he was something else: a concerned father.
“Check the dressing rooms and the bathroom
s!” Blake barked into his mic.
“I don’t know where she is; she was supposed to come back on stage,” Katie said, replying to Samson. She wrung her hands in front of her stomach, anxiety building inside her.
The sound of somebody running in sandals came closer and Katie peered past the Scanguards boss.
“She’s not in the bathroom,” Cindy called to her, an expression of regret on her face. “I can’t find her.”
Blake barked more orders into his mic, some of them so low that Katie couldn’t understand them. Past the curtain that separated the backstage area from the stage and the auditorium she heard people running around. Blake’s team was seemingly at work to search every corner of the building.
“Cindy, assemble all the other students in the men’s dressing room. Go!” Katie ordered. “And stay there until we know what’s going on.”
The girl looked frightened, but nodded and disappeared.
Samson looked at his chief of personal security. “Anything?”
“My guys are still searching. But there’s no sign of her in the bathrooms or the dressing rooms.”
“Maybe my dressing room? We were getting changed in there earlier,” Katie offered, desperate to be of help.
Blake charged outside.
“What the fuck’s going on?” a voice came out of the dark.
A second later, Grayson appeared from between the curtains. He was the mirror image of his father. His hair was as dark as a raven, though he’d gotten his eyes from his mother Delilah: green, just like Katie’s. Grayson’s green eyes were now flickering red as if he had a hard time controlling his vampire side. “Where is my sister?”
“We don’t know yet,” Samson said, his voice tight.
Blake came running. “Nothing in Katie’s dressing room. We also checked all the closets on this level. My guys are working their way up to the other floors.”
“And the exits?” Samson demanded.
“Nobody’s getting in or out of this building without me knowing,” Blake confirmed.
