Zen and the Art of Vampires (25 page)

“I thought you guys didn't eat food very often,” I said in a low voice to Alec as the waitress toddled off.

He looked surprised for a moment, then sent Kristoff a rueful smile. “You told her who we are?”

“It seemed best,” was the curt reply.

Kristoff avoided my eye just as much as I tried to avoid his. I felt incredibly uncomfortable. There I was, fat, frumpy, and almost forty, a woman so desperate to find a man, she had to take a singles' tour, sitting between two of the most gorgeous men I'd ever in my life seen, men I'd engaged in sex with, and I was so uncomfortable, I seriously thought about just walking away from it all.

Only I couldn't. It wasn't just about me now. There were others involved, others I had to consider.

Alec took my hand. “I see. I'm sorry, Pia. I would have told you, but most women don't take well to the idea of Dark Ones, and I didn't want you to slip away from me.”

My level of discomfort rose significantly. I squirmed. “You're all right with it?” he asked, kissing my fingers again, gazing at me over them with pleading eyes.

I defy any woman not to melt in that situation.

“Well . . . I was a little taken aback, but I knew you couldn't be evil,” I told him, guilt interfering with my pleasure.

“I should have known you'd understand.” He kissed my knuckles again. “So what is it you wanted to tell me?”

I gently pulled my hand back, trying to find a sophisticated way to tell him. In the end, my mouth took over and just blurted it out. “Kristoff and I slept together.”

Alec froze, his smile fading. “You what?”

“We slept together.” I took a deep breath. Kristoff slid me a surprised glance. Clearly he hadn't been expecting me to reveal the truth about what had happened. For some odd reason, that hurt. “It wasn't intentional. That is, we didn't plan it. It just sort of happened. I was cold, and he shared his blanket with me, and one thing led to another, and . . . well, you can fill in the rest.”

Alec turned his gaze to his friend. “You slept with my woman?”

“Yes,” Kristoff said, an interesting parade of emotions passing quickly through his eyes. Surprise, speculation, and acceptance all passed by. “Yes, I did. As the Zorya said, it meant nothing.”

“My
name
is Pia,” I said through clenched teeth, hurt by his words. I hadn't said it meant nothing. Was that what he really thought? I wanted to curl up into a ball and sob for an hour or two.

“You
slept
with her?” Alec asked again, obviously having difficulty with that point.

“I'm very sorry if you're hurt,” I said, trying to focus on him and not the hateful monster sitting on my other side. “I didn't intend to betray you in that way. Obviously things can't be the same between us now, but I do want you to know—”

“You knew she was my woman, and you just . . . what? Thought you'd screw her while I wasn't around?” Alec interrupted me to ask Kristoff.

The two men glared at each other.

“It wasn't like that—” I started to say, but this time Kristoff cut me off.

“I just told you it meant nothing. We've had each other's women before—what's the problem now?”

“The problem,” Alec growled, jabbing a finger toward me, “is that she is mine. You knew that and you didn't care.”

Kristoff said something in what I was sure was Italian. Alec answered in German. The two of them started arguing in their respective languages, both clearly understanding each other, and I reflected for a moment on just how annoying it was that the only language other than English of which I had a reasonable comprehension was Spanish.

“Habla español,
anyone?” I asked, feeling hurt, abused, and left out, not to mention extremely guilty about trampling all over Alec's finer feelings.

You made your bed with another man in it,
my inner critic said.
Now you have to sleep in it alone.

“You want her? You can have her,” Kristoff suddenly said in English, his lovely deep voice sounding very frayed about the edges. He snatched up his leather jacket and, without a single look my way, stormed out of the pub.

I stared in amazement at the retreating figure of Kristoff, guilt rising with every second.

“Alec, I'm so sorry,” I said miserably, slumping down and wishing I could just melt into the floor.

He frowned. “Sorry about what?”

“About everything.” I waved a hand toward the door through which Kristoff had just made his stormy exit. “Coming between you two. Sleeping with him. Ruining our relationship.”

To my complete and utter stupefaction, he laughed, taking my hand again. “Sweet, adorable Pia—do you think I hold you responsible for Kristoff forcing himself on you?”

I goggled. I truly goggled at him, and I don't believe I've outright goggled at anyone before.

“I've known Kristoff for at least three hundred years. We've worked together for the council, you see, so I know well what sort of mesmerizing power he holds over women.” He glanced at his watch and pulled out a cell phone. “Stay here. I'll be back in a minute.”

I continued to be stupefied, and goggled a bit more as he strode off, and ducked outside the door.

“I've lost my mind,” I told myself, going back over the last couple of minutes, and looking up to ask, “Did he just say he didn't blame me?”

The waitress gave me a bit of an odd look as she deposited our plates. “I don't know. Are you to blame?”

I thought for a moment. “Yes. I wasn't forced, no matter what Alec says.”

“Well, then.” She nodded as if that settled the matter, and toddled off to deal with other customers.

“My life has become one long confusing situation after another,” I told my breakfast.

The door at the front of the pub opened. I glanced up, expecting to see Kristoff, but the two people who entered had me half rising to my feet.

“I'm so hungry I could eat one of those adorable Viking ponies we saw the other day,” Magda said, laughing up at Ray. He murmured something and was about to hold out a chair for her when she glanced at the back of the room, freezing momentarily when she saw me. “Oh, dammit, Ray, I left my camera back in my room. I'm so famished I'm going to faint if I don't get some juice or something. Would you mind horribly going back to get it for me?”

Ray must have objected slightly, because Magda stood on her tiptoes and flicked her tongue on the tip of his nose. “It's not the same. I want
my
camera. You wouldn't want me worrying about it all day, would you?”

I wondered absently what it would be like to flick my tongue over the tip of Kristoff's nose . . . Alec's nose! I meant Alec's nose!

My inner critic shook her head at the slip.

Ray, putty in Magda's adept hands, hurried off to do her bidding. She waited until the door was fully closed behind him before making a beeline to me.

“There you are! I wondered what happened to you last night. I tried checking on you this morning, but you were gone, which really wasn't a surprise, because there's no way I'd stay in that room if the police could come barging in at any moment. Which evidently they did, since there were a couple of them in there when I looked for you. They were a bit rude about it, actually, and locked my door to the bathroom, so we had to use the one at the end of the hall again. Are you all right? Did you get your things? How did your wedding night go?”

“I'm fine, just a bit confused, but you know, it's becoming a familiar emotion. And yes, I got my things. The rest of the tour isn't going to show up at any moment, are they? If they are, I'd better leave now.”

“No, no, eat your breakfast. That waffle looks delicious. I think I'll get one once Ray comes back, which should be in about ten minutes or so. You skipped answering the question about the wedding night,” she pointed out helpfully.

I blushed.

“That good, was it? I have to admit, I don't go for the Viking type, myself, but Mattias seemed nice enough.”

My blush deepened. I tried to hide it by eating some of the delicious-looking breakfast that sat before me, but I was so filled with guilt, I couldn't swallow a single bite.

“Either you're having two breakfasts, or the new hub is here with you,” Magda said, pushing Alec's food slightly to the side so she could lean her elbows on the table. “In the men's room, is he? Don't worry, I won't intrude when he comes back. I know how it is with honeymooners.”

“For heaven's sake, Magda!” I finally snapped. “You know it's not like that!”

She laughed, whomping me on the arm. “Finally got a reaction out of you that wasn't an embarrassed blush. Of course I know it's not like that, but I couldn't resist teasing you. Although . . .” She eyed me a bit more closely. “You do have that air about you of a woman well satisfied.”

My mind drifted to the activities of the last evening and my face reddened even more.

“Ooh, I think I struck a nerve. So it wasn't all sacrifice for a good cause with the manly Viking, eh?”

“I didn't spend the night with Mattias,” I muttered, shoving my whipped-cream-drenched waffle around the plate.

“No?” Her eyebrows rose. “Oh, with what's his name . . . Alec?”

“No. Kristoff.”

Her eyebrows rose even higher. “Really, now. And you . . . ?”

“I didn't mean to,” I said hurriedly, desperately wanting a shoulder to cry on, someone who would understand what had happened. Someone who could make sense of it all for me, because clearly I was beyond that. “It just kind of happened.”

“Wow,” she said softly, watching me with sympathy in her eyes. “And now you feel guilty about it?”

I nodded. “Horribly so. At the time, it just seemed so . . . right. Kristoff was there, and he . . . he . . . oh, it sounds hokey, but I felt like he needed me. Me—not just a woman, but me. And despite everything, I gave in, and now Alec is back and he and Kristoff had a fight about it, and I just don't know what to do. Or think. I'm so confused about everything, Magda. I keep hoping that things will straighten out so I can make sense of them, but they just get more and more complicated.”

“Men will do that to you,” she said, patting my arm. “They mess with your head.”

“No, that's not what I mean. They're not playing mind games with me . . . at least I don't think they are. . . . It's just . . . Oh, it's so hard to explain. The reapers tell me the vampires are bad. I know they are—Kristoff killed a man right in front of me, and neither he nor Alec makes any bones about working for some murderous council that sanctions the killing of reapers.”

“So that pretty much cinches who killed the other Zorya,” she said quietly, still watching me intently.

I rubbed my forehead. I felt a headache coming on. “Not necessarily. They said they didn't. Or at least Kristoff said he didn't, and the damned thing is, I believe him. I believe—oh, hello.”

Alec appeared as if by magic, smiling benignly at Magda before turning his attention to me. “I hope I don't interrupt?”

“Not at all. This is my friend Magda. She's on the tour with me.”

“Alec Darwin,” he said, scooting in on the other side of me.

“I'm sitting in your seat,” Magda murmured, about to leave.

“Don't mind me; I'm just here to gaze with admiration upon the fair Pia,” he said, shooting me a positively steamy look.

Magda's gaze flickered back and forth between Alec and myself.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. I took a deep breath. “Alec, there's something I think you should know.”

“Another confession?” he asked, giving me a quizzical look before glancing toward Magda. “Are you going to tell me that she is your lover, too?”

“No.”

Magda stifled a giggle.

I didn't think it was possible for me to blush any harder, but I'll be damned if my cheeks didn't light up even more. Wearily, I held a glass of water to one side of my face in an attempt to cool it down. “She knows about you and Kristoff. About what you are.”

“Ah,” he said, eyeing her with a little less happiness. “Does she indeed.”

“I do,” she answered gravely. “I was with Pia for much of last night, you see. Well, not the part she spent with the other . . . that is, I was with her while she met with the . . .” Magda floundered a couple of times, stuck in a verbal dead end in her attempt to not broach the touchy subjects of my time spent with Kristoff or the Brotherhood folk. She gave a feeble smile. “Let's just say I was with her. I helped her get her things out of the hotel room. And I know about Anniki.”