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  She shivered and it was agony when she finally broke away.

  Rose was remembering. How we’d been. Who we were. I felt it in her yielding. In her willingness to touch me and let me touch her.

  I brushed her cheek with my knuckles and she purred like a contented kitten would as she rubbed herself upon me.

  “Gods, I would raze the world to keep you with me, Rose. I would do all manner of vile and wicked things if it meant I could finally keep you forever. But I fear to hope. I fear to let believe, because believing and then losing you might well—”

  She pressed her fingers to my mouth and shook her head. “Then do not speak of such things. You say we have little time, then let us not waste it by speaking things that might never be. Remember, Dracula, any spell can be broken. Even an ancient and powerful one like this. But—”

  She moved her hand and I was loathe to let her go just yet. To have the freedom to touch her again, feel her again, it was overwhelming and not enough.

  I grabbed her hand and held tight, feeling anxious fury and energy rolling through me. The impotence of knowing no matter how powerful I was it’d never been enough to break our curse and also the finite hands of time—each second so precious because the next one wasn’t guaranteed for us—I felt all of that and more.

  She did not ask me to release her and for that I was grateful.

  “Davall’s sedge couldn’t have been the only flower she used. That’s not how a spell such as this would work. This curse is intricate. Delicate. Elegantly cruel, even. I need to know everything that was in that curse, Dracula. Everything she used.”

  “It was ages ago, Rose. How can we learn this now?”

  “And now it’s my turn to impress you.” She winked and shoved her sleeves up.

  My brows lifted. “You’ve not slept.”

  She snorted indelicately. “When your days are numbered sleep is entirely overrated.”

  Her laughter sparkled and I couldn’t fathom how this wonderful woman had come into my life all over again. Cursed we might be, but I was a most fortunate male.

  “Indeed, love. Adept reasoning if ever there was one.”

  Still wearing the smirk, she nodded with her chin toward the door. “I have to fetch my wand and then, Dracula, we’ll be taking a bit of a jaunt through time.”

  “You’re powerful enough to do that?”

  “Do you question me?” Her tone was light but I knew she tested me. I’d given her much food for thought and she’d accepted it with an easy grace that astonished me. How could I do any different?

  “To my detriment.”

  “Right you are. Now. I’ll be back.”

  I was grateful that I’d told Rose the truth. But I’d not told it all. Parts that didn’t matter to her and I, and I hoped for her sake that she’d not go too deep into our past to learn it. But I would not deny her the truth, no matter how much it might hurt me.

  Rose

  * * *

  I walked across the hall to my room. Giles had been extremely thorough; he’d just about brought me everything I owned, clothes wise. I didn’t know how long our trek through time would take, but I imagined that it would take a while. These sorts of things usually did.

  If Aziria was as good as Dracula said she was, which I had no doubt must be the case considering our currently cursed status, it would mean my needing to get in close to her, to gain her confidence just enough that I might learn all the ingredients she used in her spell, so that I might counteract it.

  I paused as I shoved a lady’s slip into my bag. I was going to meet Aziria.

  Not only the witch responsible for crafting this curse I now lived under, but also Dracula’s first lady. Well, before me anyhow.

  I frowned as I kept shoving clothes in, slightly more bothered by that fact than the whole curse thing. Which was crazy.

  I sighed and stared down at what I’d chosen. None of this was medieval garb, but with a very simple spell I could create the illusion of it.

  My sisters and I had often read about time trippers. Those who walked through the past, and I’d always thought it could be great fun. But Generva, fuddy duddy that she was, would never allow us to. Afraid of a butterfly effect.

  Not that she was wrong, there could be minor alterations to the future. But in my learning what I’d begun to believe was that if you were allowed to time trip it was only because that was the supposed to happen. Ergo if it was supposed to happen then everything that took place in the past once we arrived was also supposed to happen. Alleviating any huge time discrepancies.

  I’d come to that conclusion simply based off the tales of those who’d come back to share their stories. All had mentioned that very, very little had been altered and nothing of any true significance.

  Still, Generva would not be talked into it. And I knew that if I told my sisters what I was really about to take on Generva would very likely make it her life’s mission to come and retrieve me. Chastising me most thoroughly along the way.

  I shuddered to think it.

  I loved my sisters, but they often didn’t consider me mature enough to come up with rational and well thought out plans on my own. Even Myrtle who was known to be a bit of a scatterbrain treated me thus.

  No, the best thing would be for me to send them a notice and let them know I was well and would contact them by owl during my absence, but not to come find me or in any other way interfere with my plans.

  I quickly drafted up the missive and then used a birdcall to bring me a wild owl. The enormous barn owl came moments later, flapping its great big wings as it looked for a place to land on. I slipped my window open and held up the sealed note.

  “Take this to Generva, owl friend,” I whispered as I tucked the letter into his taloned grip.

  He gave a bird’s cry of consent. With a pat to his head I nodded with my chin. “Be safe, owl friend.”

  With one final cry he turned and with those massive wings of his silently flew off. There now, that was taken care of.

  Last item of business was making certain that this party I’d been invited over to help cater in the first place would be delayed indefinitely.

  I winced. The entire point of coming out here had been to help keep the lights on with our business. This detour should not have happened, and yet it had, and the truth was it was far more important than potentially losing a business. This was my life. And his.

  My sisters would surely understand.

  I turned.

  And the man I saw looked different somehow. Yes, he had on different clothes. Clothes that looked taken right out of a vampire novel. Pants that seemed painted onto his svelte form. And a ruffled blouse that was gently knotted at the throat. He even wore a long black silk cape, he looked every inch the vampire. But it was more his demeanor than the clothing that made him seem bigger than he’d been just moments ago. He carried himself with an air of regal power that was absolutely mesmerizing to behold.

  “Are you ready?” Dracula’s deep voice moved through my body like molten lava, making me weak in the knees.

  I clutched at my lower stomach and softly stuttered a “ye…yes.”

  He gently smiled and held his hand out to me. I looked at him. “You know how to time trip?” I asked him, wondering if he’d ever had occasion to try this before.

  “I’ve seen it done once or twice in my long life, never experienced it myself though. Is it ridiculous of me to say that I’m nervously excited about this?”

  He sounded so hopeful and even weirdly youthful as he said it and it made my heart squeeze. I smiled softly. “No, dark prince, it isn’t. I too am nervously excited.”

  “Are we ready then?”

  I held my wand in my other hand. With a start, I quickly released him and grabbed my suitcase. I didn’t need it. Honestly, I could rewear the same thing every day I imagine that in medieval times they weren’t all that picky. But it was comforting reminder of home, I did not want to lose sight of why I was going and what my end game was.


  I nodded. “Yes. Though, the ball. Did you remember to—”

  He held up his hand. “Already taken care of. I instructed Giles to send out notices to all that we’d be suspending the ball until our return.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” I whispered.

  He stepped into me, tucking a strand of my long hair behind my ear and gazed deep into my eyes. I felt locked in place and hardly able to breathe from the intensity of his vampiric stare.

  “I would not trade you for the world, Rose. You must know this. Balls can wait. For if we can actually manage to break this curse, I would be content to never host another ball again.”

  “Well,” I grinned, “they’re not all bad, surely? The music. The food. You’ve yet to really taste my food.”

  “Oh, I’ve had my share of it. Through your many incarnations food was your one constant.”

  I grinned, somehow not surprised to hear it. But it was his words of praise that got me blushing.

  “You’re amazing at all you do, my love. But I would far rather have you as not. So, let us go and fix this terrible wrong. Together.”

  My smile took up my whole face. “Agreed. Together, Dark Prince.”

  Then his hands landed on my shoulders and his forehead pressed gently to mine. I held up my wand and whispered, “Take us to where we must be.”

  The flame of my magick shot up from within me, curling around us both with a snapping crackle. And then wind rushed through our ears as we sped through the very fabric of time itself.

  It was time to end this curse, once and for all.

  Chapter 7

  Rose

  We arrived. And I knew we were in medieval ages the moment my eyes lit upon the town. Or what could only pass for one way back when.

  Mud and filth lined the streets. The air reeked of unimaginable stench. Chimneystacks belched their black smoke. Homes that were little more than dried mud and thatch was all that met my eye.

  I curled my nose. “So much more romantic in movies.”

  He laughed and took my hand in his. “This way, love. I have a cottage tucked into the woods that the other me rarely visited. It’s more of a carriage house, small, quaint. I’d never have been caught dead there in this lifetime.”

  “Changed have you?”

  He shrugged. “I’d like to think so. For the better, leastways. Now, will you accompany me to my humble abode, my Rose?”

  His eyes danced and I grinned.

  His manners were more old world here and I couldn’t help but think that though times were surely rough in these days, there were parts of it I’d have enjoyed. Pangs of familiar longing settled through my bones.

  Seeing this place, its peoples, even smelling the godawful stench was dredging up even more memories. And it was odd, but it almost felt like returning home. I nodded.

  “Take me home, Dark Prince, I do not relish the thought of spending a night amongst the pigs and the muck.”

  His laughter flowed like living waters through me and I sighed. I really had come home, and now I could almost understand Generva’s reluctance to time trip. Because if one wasn’t careful, it could sometimes be all too easy to forget that though it might feel right to be here I was a witch out of time.

  But when we arrived at Dracula’s not so humble abode that rested just beside a lake that curled with fog and was thick with a dense screen of wild roses I suspected I might very well be in danger of forgetting why I’d come in the first place.

  He released my hand quickly, before then reaching up underneath the eve of the doorway and retrieving a heavy-looking iron key. It was old and deep black, not rusted as most keys of its like was in my time.

  With a boyish grin tossed my way, he quickly inserted the key into the lock and turned. I expected to hear the groaning of unused metal clicking into place, but again, this wasn’t an ancient lock. In this time it would be fairly new.

  “A lock on a door? Little ahead of its time for this day and age, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged, as the door swung open on silent hinges. The interior of the home was dark and the furniture covered in thick white drapes.

  “I was a vampire king in a human world rife with superstition and mysticism, I could ill afford not to be a tad paranoid.”

  I nodded. “True enough.”

  “Help me with the drapes, Rose. If you don’t mind.”

  We quickly set about folding up the sheets over the furniture and setting them aside. I was surprised at how tasteful everything was. I’d expected extremely rustic furnishings, but then this was Dracula and he had a king’s coffers with legendary taste to boot.

  The furniture wasn’t by any means modern, and the cushions weren’t filled with fluff, yet they were comfortable. I sat and watched as he quickly built a fire for us in the massive hearth.

  As a hearth witch I very much enjoyed a flame, but I was surprised to see him share in my enjoyment of it.

  “Don’t vampires detest fire?”

  He snorted as he poked at the barely glowing sparks within. “It gets cold, Rose. Fire is a necessity in these parts.”

  His voice sounded amused. He turned on his heel, still kneeling with the poker in his hand and glanced at me, eyes sparkling with good humor so that I knew he teased me. “I also don’t mind crosses. Or blessed water, if you’ve a mind to kill me during my sleep.”

  At that I did laugh. “Garlic too? Because I was planning to slip in a barrel-full during our shared meals together.”

  “Bloody hell, you are a mercenary woman.”

  I laughed. With my entire frame, shook with it really. Grabbing at my stomach at our silliness. Why was everything so easy between us?

  I sensed his staring and when I wiped at the tears and looked back at him he was no longer smiling but looking at me with a kind of heated intensity that caused my toes to curl.

  “Ohh,” I said on an exhale and he cleared his throat, before looking back at the hearth and prodding the now glowing flames with the iron poker, his back ramrod straight.

  I cleared my own throat and picked at my skirt with tingling fingers, nervous of a sudden. “So how do we do this?” I asked, mostly to fill the silence now fraught with tension between us.

  He sighed and his shoulders slumped. “If I’m correct, then tomorrow there is to be a ball at the king’s palace. That is when we first meet.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t intend to take us back that far. I need to get into Aziria’s hut and learn the—”

  Setting the poker aside, he turned back to me. Still in his kneeling position with a long arm hanging carelessly across his knee, he made me think of a lion in repose and I wouldn’t lie, it made my pulse do crazy wonderful things within me.

  “—Aziria isn’t trusting at the best of times, Rose. She certainly wouldn’t trust a stranger to learn all her truths in one night. I believe we likely arrived at this time so that you could build up trust with her. Slowly. That is the only way something like this could be done properly.”

  My brows gathered tight. “That would mean us being here for weeks, possibly even months. My sisters might worry. And if they come looking for me, Dracula…”

  He stood and glided over toward me, taking a seat beside me before casually resting his arm across my shoulder. I couldn’t even begin to describe how wonderful it felt.

  I turned into his body, burrowing myself into his side and taking three long inhales of his scent. He smelled of the night. Which wasn’t a smell easy to describe, but it was darkness and sensuality all wrapped up in one.

  His fingers glided over my skin, breaking me out in a wash of goosebumps.

  “Then go back and forth through time, reassure them.”

  I leaned back so that I could stare him fully in the face. “You would be okay with my leaving you here in the past?”

  “Okay, no.” He shook his head. “I loathe being apart from you, Rose. You are my entire reason for being. Literally. But more than that, I crave you. I need you with me. Always. I am not whole
without my heart. But I would never demand that you not be yourself. Your family matters to you, therefore they matter to me. I want our curse lifted, but I also want you happy. Above all else. Your happiness is my joy.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him any longer. Reaching up, I cupped his cheek in my cold hand and with a nudge urged his lips to mine. He came with a hungry groan, but our kiss was gentle. Soft and full of yearning. We were relearning one another, and I felt myself falling madly for the male that I apparently had only ever loved.

  We finally parted only because I needed breath. He placed his forehead against mine and we breathed in one another’s air.

  “I will do as you say, and I also promise you, that I will return.”

  With a last kiss to my forehead he leaned back on his seat. “You always do, my love.”

  “So tomorrow night,” I said, trying to keep my thoughts focused on what really mattered at the moment, necking could wait. For now. “Will we go to the ball?”

  He shook his head. “I cannot be seen. I exist as two persons in this time. But I will get you in and keep my eye on you.”

  I shook my head. “But how will I know who to go up to?”

  A resigned look touched his face. “Aziria was always by my side. Look for me and you will surely find her.”

  “I get the sense that you’re bothered by something?” I dared to speak my mind.

  Pressing his lips together, he nodded slowly. “I’d never wanted to tell you this, Rose, but the night of our meeting hadn’t been a good one. I met you on the very worst night of your life.”

  “Do I want to know what happened to me?” I asked with a sick knot of dread forming in the pit of my stomach.

  “Sadly, what happened to far too many women in this day. Your lives were rarely your own and your beauty was renowned.”

  It wasn’t hard to figure out what he meant. “I was raped, wasn’t I?”

  His eyes closed. “My only regret was that I was not there in time to stop it.”