Zen and the Art of Vampires (9 page)

“That's really amazing of you,” I said, still rubbing my arms. “I don't know that I'd be able to do something so selfless.”

She gave me a tremulous smile. “You are not an ordinary mortal, Pia Thomason. I sense that about you. I have no doubt that you would do just fine as a Zorya.”

“Well, luckily, we don't have to put such a generous assessment to the test.”

Anniki murmured an agreement as she glanced at her watch.

“You must be wanting to go meet with your people and see your hubby-to-be,” I said, putting a couple of coins on the table before gathering up my things and standing.

“Yes, it is late, but I hope to find them before the sun rises.” She pressed my hand. “Thank you for guarding the stone so carefully, Pia. You are truly blessed by the light.”

“Thank you,” I said, wondering if that qualified as doing my good deed for the day. Somehow, casting my mind back over my actions of the evening, I had a feeling it wouldn't. “Good luck with your battle. Oh, the ghosts! There are two of them in the corner over there. Karl and Marta. Want me to introduce you to them?”

“Not yet. I will tend to them as soon as I have seen the Brotherhood. May the light continue to shine upon you,” she said, waving good-bye as she hurried off into the dusky twilight.

I glanced at the corner where the ghosts had been when we entered the café, but they were gone. I wondered if they'd given up finding their way, but decided it was Anniki's problem now.

I made my way out of the café at a slower pace, mulling over everything she'd said to me. I glanced around at the people strolling around the edges of the square, the center still being packed with dancers. Vampires! Wandering around pretending they were human! Who knew!

 

“Pia! What luck!”

Startled, I spun around, but it was a familiar voice that shouted out my name.

“Over here!”

My heart fell when Denise clawed her way over to me, one hand firmly on the sleeve of a balding man with a handlebar mustache. There was a look of desperation in his eyes that I wholly sympathized with. “This is Sven. Or Lars. Or something like that.”

“Oskar,” the man said, giving me a faint smile.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Still alone?” Denise asked, pretending to look around. “Aww. That's too bad, it really is.”

I bit back any number of retorts and just smiled a little smile. “I'm so tired, it's probably for the best. I think I'll go back to the hotel.”

“Night's young yet,” Denise said, grabbing Oskar with both hands and hauling herself up to him. “But suit yourself. I suppose if I was in your shoes I'd rather be by myself, too.”

I gave her victim a sympathetic smile and left Denise to her gloating, thinking with pleasure how her expression would change if she'd known about the two men with whom I'd spent the last hour, not to mention the odd, but now seemingly genuine, offer of marriage by Mattias.

“There you are! We've looked all over for you. Are you going to the hotel?” A hand descended on my arm, but it wasn't the hard, unyielding grip of Kristoff.

Magda emerged from the crowd, her face flushed, her black eyes dancing. Immediately behind her our fellow tourist Raymond followed, his look of anticipation a clear indicator of how he expected his evening to end.

“I am. I'm a bit tired, to be honest.”

“We can get a taxi together. If there's a taxi to be had,” Magda said, laughing as we wove in and out of the crowd toward the busiest of the streets. “I think everyone in all of Iceland is here tonight!”

“Certainly everyone in this town is,” Raymond agreed. “I'll see if I can find you ladies some transportation.”

Magda blew him a noisy kiss, taking my arm and walking slowly with me to the edge of the square. I listened with only half an ear to her giddy talk about how much fun she and Ray had during the celebrations, most of my attention being spent on scanning the people wandering around, but I didn't see anyone who resembled a fanged, murderous vampire.

I sat in silent contemplation of the evening as the taxi that Ray had found whizzed us up the hill to the top of the town, where our hotel resided. I thought we passed the street that led to the church I'd been to earlier, but was too distracted to pay much attention. Not to mention the fact that my brain was starting to feel fuzzy around the edges. Magda kept up a non-stop conversation that luckily required only the briefest of responses to keep going.

“. . . so outstanding, I never could have imagined anything so beautiful in a country that sounds like it's nothing but ice and snow. This is definitely the best money I've ever spent,” Magda said, shooting Raymond a mischievous look. “I hope you're having a good time despite that bitchy Denise. She's just horrible, isn't she? And did you see that poor soul she got her clutches into? That man had no idea what he was in for when she spotted him alone. I wanted to warn him, but eh. He is a grown man, and certainly should be capable of telling her he's not interested in what she has to offer.”

The memory of nearly identical words directed at me made me squirm uncomfortably on the seat. Is that what I had appeared like to Kristoff? A desperate, man-hungry woman who lacked self-control? I would have rolled up into a mortified ball, but the thought of Alec's smile and the warmth in his eyes gave me a little courage. So his friend thought I was the worst sort of hussy—what did that matter when Alec had a better impression of me?

What foolish thoughts. “It doesn't matter at all what they think,” I lectured myself as I got out of the taxi.

“No, of course it doesn't,” Magda said, calmly climbing the stairs to the hotel's entrance. She paused to shoot me a conspiratorial smile as Ray paid off the taxi. “You have something on your mind, dear Pia. Or should I say some
one
?”

My cheeks grew hot again, and I damned my Irish genes that allowed everyone to see my every blush. “It's been an interesting evening. Eye-opening, in fact.”

“Ah, like that, is it? Well, I don't doubt it'll improve. Ready for a little nightcap, Ray?”

I left them giggling and stealing kisses and made my way up to my room, emotionally exhausted by the evening's adventures.

“Could this day get any longer?” I asked my empty room as I closed the door and leaned against it, sagging with the aftermath of far too many emotions felt in a very short space of time.

“Is that a rhetorical question, or an indication you're too tired to feature in the starring role of my fantasies?” a male voice asked, causing me to shriek and clutch the door in fright.

Alec emerged from the bathroom. A naked Alec. A
very
naked Alec. I stared in utter and complete surprise.

He paused for a moment, striking a pose of which I couldn't help but approve. “Did I startle you? It seemed much more discreet to let myself in and wait for you rather than alert everyone in the hotel to the fact that I sought your company.”

I stared some more.

“Pia?” An amused expression flitted across his face.

“Hmm?” My eyes wandered over his body. I felt a bit dirty ogling the man so obviously, but then, he came out of my bathroom that way. Surely he intended for me to ogle?

“You're staring.”

I swallowed a couple of times before I could speak. “I know. I'm sorry. I can't seem to stop. I'm trying, but you're naked. All of you. I mean, really naked.”

“Yes, I am. I . . . er . . . realize that we parted in a less than satisfactory manner. I hope you won't hold Kristoff's determination to seek justice against me.”

“Justice? Is he looking for vampires, too?”

Alec smiled. It was really a very nice smile, one I greatly enjoyed. “We are working together, but I can assure you that I mean you no harm. Quite the opposite, actually,” he said with a little waggle of his eyebrows.

“Well . . . I did kind of think you didn't intend for me to get away when we were at the bookstore,” I said, trying hard to keep my eyes from wandering. It wasn't easy. “I rather thought Kristoff was going to drag me off despite the fact that I'm not the person you're looking for.”

“Ah, but how do you know you're not?” He took a few steps toward me, with a glint in his eyes that had my palms suddenly sweating. His hands cupped my breasts. “How do you know that you're not exactly what I'm looking for?”

I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn't that sort of a girl, wasn't interested in him, and he could just take his extremely gorgeous body to hell, but the thought of saying anything so obviously ludicrous left me with the urge to break into hysterical laughter.

“You have a really impressive penis,” I heard myself saying, and immediately slapped my hand over my mouth, appalled that I could speak without thinking.

His hips rubbed against me. “I'm glad you think so. I'm fond of it, myself, but I am naturally biased. Would you like to touch it?”

“I'd be lying if I said that wasn't suddenly at the top of my to-do list. Um . . . would you mind if I asked how you found me? And is Kristoff going to burst in here at any moment in order to drag me off to be a Zorya?”

His thumbs flicked across my breasts, leaving me gasping. “Let us leave discussions of all that for later, shall we? As for your first question, I followed your scent, your sweet, feminine scent.”

I stared at him in complete befuddlement.

“I didn't think you'd buy that,” he said with a wry smile and a faux sigh. “Actually, I took this while we were searching the shop.”

He held out the hotel pamphlet with a map of the area that I'd received when the tour group checked in.

“Oh. So you really want to be here?” I asked, having a hard time believing that idea.

A look of doubt crossed his face. “Did I misread the signs? I thought you were just as interested in me as I am in you.”

He couldn't be serious, could he? He didn't actually mean what I thought he meant, did he? I banged the back of my head on the door a couple of times, just to clear the cobwebs that so were clearly muddling my brain.

“Pia? Are you so distraught that you are trying to beat yourself senseless?” he asked, eyeing me in a manner that was definitely not of the romantic ilk.

“No, just trying to unscramble my brains. Alec, I'm . . . I'm . . . oh, hell.” I gave up trying to reason, and flung myself on him. As I've mentioned, I'm not insubstantial by any stretch of the imagination, and the force of me plowing into him sent us both sprawling backward until we hit the bed, the two of us going down in a tangle of arms and legs, and one extremely naked penis.

He laughed as I stammered out an apology, his arms coming around hard behind me to hold me in place.

“I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you? Am I squashing you? Can you breathe? Oh dear god, I've killed you!”

“You didn't hurt me, and I can breathe just fine. It takes a great deal to harm me, you know,” he answered, his voice once again warm and filled with sensual promise.

I pushed myself off his chest so I could look down at him, well aware that I was straddling him in a manner that would have probably constituted the definition of actual sex if I hadn't been fully clothed. “I'm dreaming, aren't I? I hit my head on the door when I came in, and I'm dreaming all this.”

“I assure you, I'm very real.” He laughed again, and suddenly, I was on my back, his chest warm against my hands as he leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose. “I take it you don't have objections after all, despite my friend's rather determined efforts to coerce you?”

He slid off me. I couldn't help giving a self-conscious grimace. “I told you before that I'm not the Zorya—”

“Hush.” He stopped me by putting a finger over my mouth. “You need not protest your innocence with me, my love.”

My eyebrows rose at both his words and the endearment.

“I believe you are who you say you are, Pia. That Kristoff still harbors suspicions to the contrary pains me, but you need not have any fear that I will allow him to act against you. You are too honest—as sweet as the honey you taste of—to mislead us as he believes.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. “I'm so glad you see the truth, but I have to say that I met the Zorya earlier—”

He stopped me talking again, this time with his lips in a much longer, much hotter kiss. “We decided not to speak of Kristoff or the Zorya. This night is for us.”

My brain was squirreling all around with any number of thoughts, not the least of which was an appreciation for his ability to kiss. “That sounds like a good idea, although I have to say that I don't generally fling myself on a man I've just met.”