Page 6 of Vacation with the Vampire
“It is!” My whole life was on that phone; I couldn’t believe we’d just left it behind in the dark. Actually, why had he? Didn’t he need a light to see by? What maniac walked into a warren of dark tunnels without at least a light?
He retraced his steps with unnerving smoothness, barely seeming to notice the uneven ground beneath his feet. He definitely didn’t appear to need a light to see where he was going. When we reached the spot, he didn’t put me down either. He just bent forward, still holding me, so I could snatch my phone off the floor.
I clutched it like it was life itself. “Thank you,” I said, breathless, half expecting it to vanish into thin air, or to discover that the screen was cracked, or that damp had crept in and now it wouldn’t turn on. The light still glowed like before, proving that it was fine.
He glanced at it briefly, his brow furrowed in confusion. “I see. You meant your… flat lantern.” He twisted his tongue around that like it was my fault a phone was weird and he didn’t know what it was.
I stared at him, a sense of something very close to dread creeping up my spine. It dispelled the cozy heat that had just begun to seep through his musty jacket and the thin fabric of my tank top into my skin. “My phone,” I said, holding it up and angling the glowing screen toward his face.
He said nothing, and the fragile calm I’d built cracked again, shocking me into a stunned silence as the dread turned from creeping to near all-out panic, again. That wasn’t how someone talked, and that sure as hell wasn’t how someone acted. Was it?
My mind churned as I put together the many weird, lopsided pieces of this puzzle: the glowing eyes and his unexpected strength. The fact that he carried me like I didn’t weigh a thing, even squatting down while he held me so I could grab my phone. Then there was the bizarre fact that he didn’t know what a phone was. Maybe he just pretended not to, but why would anyone committhathard to a bit?
A chill slid down my spine and pooled in my gut. I tightened my grip on his coat, suddenly very aware of how solid he felt. Despite being a stranger with weird ideas and even stranger clothes, he was warm, firm, real. He was also very, very not normal. “You know,” I said carefully, testing the waters. “You could put me down.”
“No,” he snapped, the single word like it was a curse. His arms tightened around me without crushing. I was pretty sure his pace also picked up a little, but it was hard to tell, given how similar each tunnel wall looked to me.
“That wasn’t a suggestion?” I tried. My gaze caught on a nasty cluster of cobwebs hanging above our heads. The walls herewere roughly hewn limestone, the chisel marks obvious in many places.
“No,” he said again, but something curled at the corner of his mouth, shockingly lush against his pale face. It was almost a smile, and the cold dread in my stomach warmed with something like appreciation.
I huffed out a weak breath. “Okay. Cool. Sure, why not?” The sarcasm couldn’t be heavier, and he picked up on it, leveling me with a quick warning in his dark eyes. His lashes were long, curly, and black.
“You’re injured,” he pointed out in the mildest of tones. His eyes flicked to the bloody tears in my jeans. They instantly lit up with a glow, his lips thinning as he pressed them tightly together.
That glow, it wasn’t natural, but after how tenderly he’d gotten me out of my panic attack, I discovered I couldn’t be scared any longer. So I prodded, “I’m scraped, not dying.”
“And yet,” he said dryly, “you were moments away from suffocating yourself with panic.” That was definitely a tease, a taunt—not so much an insult as a bit of humor to lighten the mood. Dark humor, granted, but that seemed appropriate considering we’d just left an ossuary and were traveling through dark underground tunnels.
“Low blow,” I said, with a hint of a smile in my tone. I was definitely starting to feel much calmer, and I was relieved by that. Perhaps, with calm, some sense would come, and I’d stop enjoying the press of his firm, warm chest against my side quite so much. Fat chance.
“I am not a modern man,” he added, as if that explained everything. “I was taught better manners than to abandon a wounded lady to fend for herself.”
I blinked at him in surprise, and that hint of appreciation for his obviously impressive muscles beneath the musty waistcoat grew stronger. That was unexpectedly sweet. It was annoying, and it was definitely arrogant. Completely out of time, but sweet. Against all logic, a tiny, traitorous part of me melted just a little.
I shifted slightly in his arms, trying not to think about how comfortable this was. How easy it felt to let him carry me—and that was a very bad idea. Now it was all I could think about. The press of his biceps against my back, the size of his elegant, long-fingered hand against my ribs. The heat of his arm underneath my knees. Gah, he even smelled good despite the old-timey, weird clothes.
We moved quickly through the dark. Faster than I would’ve thought possible in tunnels like these, and faster than I could often anticipate the turns and the crossings we passed with my light. Raoul seemed to know exactly where he was going, and I was simply along for the ride. The darkness stretched on, twisting and turning, but he never hesitated, never slowed.
When I saw it, it was so sudden it caught me completely by surprise: light. Faint at first, but it rapidly became clearer. A pale glow at the end of the passage, cutting through the gloom like something out of a dream. My breath caught in my throat as relief rushed through me. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “Is that really the way out?”
“The exit,” he said. For the first time since I’d fallen, hope surged bright and sharp in my chest. I’d made it, against all odds—I’d made it out of this terrifying maze. Thanks to him. What I didn’t expect was the way he halted in surprise when he climbed to the top of the ancient stone stairs and came to a stop inside what had to be the lit basement of a house.
He froze, his arms tightening around me, his dark gaze widening, and his mouth twisting into something grim. Hope dashed, where the hell had we ended up?
Chapter 4
Raoul
The entrance was open, which was not unusual, but light leaked through it; pale and strange. I knew this passage like the back of my hand. Of all the routes threading beneath Paris, I had chosen this one because I had believed it would remain unchanged, even after all this time. The warren of tunnels and chambers beneath the city had always been home to creatures like me, and this place was a beacon, a home. Its final threshold led not to the chaos of the human world, but to something far more civilized. At least, that’s how it had always been.
I stepped through with Susie still in my arms, her soft body cradled gently against my chest. The sight beyond the stone doorway made me halt in my tracks. Shock so profound it briefly stunned me shivered through my flesh. This was not the den.
Sure, the bones of the room were still there, with its vaulted ceilings of blackened stone. Pillars as thick as tree trunks still held up the building, like Atlas carrying the world. Gone were the long tables lit by guttering candlelight and the murmur of voices that did not quite belong to the living. There was no longer the scent of old magic in the air, no tempting scents of wine and blood, nor the wildness of the shifters.
This was a room full of shelves and crates and a fine layer of dust: a storage room, and not even one for wine. I stared, momentarily certain I had made some grave error. Unfortunately, it was all too soon clear that I had not. There, etched faintly into the far wall, were marks as familiar as thepassage of time—old symbols, worn but unmistakable, carved by claw and hand alike. Those were wards once meant to conceal this place from prying human eyes. Wards of protection and wards of welcome for those like me. Their magic was gone, no longer reaching for me with the warm embrace of offered safety. This was the right place, but not any longer.
“Okay,” Susie said from beneath my chin, her voice tentative but threaded with her usual irreverence. “Please tell me this is a back room or something, because otherwise your whole mysterious vampire vibe just took a serious hit.” She was a whisper of warmth, a pulse of life, and her scent was somehow reassuring as my world shifted on its axis.
