Between a Vamp and a Hard Place (25 page)

Rand had taken out Guy and all the other vampires without breaking a sweat. Did he really have to practice his swordfighting skills? Was the Dragon that fearsome?

Was poor Rand totally screwed?

I kept these worries to myself and packed bags for us out of Guy's things. I found extra clothing in Guy's guest rooms, but it made me a little nervous to think that he'd been expecting visitors. Or worse, that we'd find a bunch of dead people buried out behind the house. I reprepped my vampire kit, too. I was out of garlic, so I'd need to get some in town when we went back.

Eventually, when we could stall no longer, I' called and arranged for a rental car to come pick us up.

There was no putting off going after the Dragon. On day three of our chalet idyll, I ate a hearty breakfast of four eggs and four slices of bacon. Rand drank from my throat, which turned into a quick round of nookie. We showered, dressed, grabbed our bags, and headed out.

We crossed through to the nearest city, then opted to take a train over the Alps instead of driving. We snuggled in the train car, got a hotel before dawn, and continued our trek across Europe, heading eastward.

By the time the train disembarked on the second day and we made our way to our newest hotel, I realized two things: one, that my card was nearly maxed to the limit, and two, that Rand wasn't as healthy as he pretended to be.

“Rand?” I asked, pulling his cool hand into mine as we entered the hotel room. “Are you all right?”

“I will be,” he said with a thin smile for me. “Shall we take to the bed?” He gave me a sultry look. “I've missed the taste of you on my tongue.”

I went to the hotel window and double-checked the curtains, then threw a blanket over them just to be on the safe side. “We don't have to have sex,” I said, moving back toward him. I smoothed a lock of hair from his brow. He looked exhausted, strained. “You can just drink from me. I enjoy that as much as the sex.”

He shook his head and pressed his forehead to my stomach. “I already drink too much from you. I should find someone else. You must stay here in this room.”

I stiffened. “You are not going to drink from someone else while I'm here.” The very thought of it made me sick.

“Lindsey,” Rand murmured, getting to his feet. He tried to pull me into his embrace, but I slapped his hands away. With a sigh, he gave me an entreating look. “I am a vampire, sweet. You cannot possibly feed me as much as you think you can. You will need your strength.”

“I have strength,” I protested. “I've been eating like a fiend at every stop. I've put on five pounds with all the protein I've been downing. I take vitamins every day. I feel fine.” I didn't understand this. It hurt. “You said you would drink from me.”

“And I have, love. Sips here and there. You think I wish to sip from another?” He cupped my cheeks in his cool hands. “I want none but you. But I need to get my strength up if we are approaching the Dragon's territory. And you will need your strength, too.”

“Will I really?” I bit out. “Does it matter if I'm strong?” Tears flooded my eyes. “Because you seem to think you're going to die either way. You think this is a death mission, and you still insist on it.” I dashed at my cheeks, hating that I was crying. “So tell me why it matters if you drink from me or not.”

“Because it is a death sentence for me does not mean it has to be one for you,” he said softly, kissing my brow, my cheek, my nose. He was so tender, so loving. It destroyed me that he was determined to confront the Dragon. “Because it matters to me that you live.”

“We can be careful,” I told him. “I know we can. And I want to be the only one for you right now, in the time we have left,” I went on, clinging to his embrace. “I want to be the one you go to. If you drink from someone else, it's a betrayal to me.”

“Ah, Lindsey,” he murmured, but when I put my arms around him, he sank his fangs into my neck.

“Yes, Rand,” I murmured, my entire body aching with delight as he licked and sucked at my throat. It didn't even matter that I felt woozy from the loss of blood afterward. I clung to Rand as he played with my hair and neither of us spoke. The future was rushing up far too soon for either one of us.

I thought I could handle this.

I thought I'd be okay with falling for Rand. That I'd appreciate the time we had together. That whatever I had with him was a gift and when it was done, I'd go on my way, sadder but wiser and full of memories. I was used to people not staying in my life, with the exception of Gemma. But as we approached the Dragon's home, I became more and more unhappy.

Why did Rand have to die? Why now? Couldn't we retreat to the far side of the world, like, say, Nebraska, and hide out from the Dragon there? Nebraska was a long way from Europe. After a few years, wouldn't the Dragon give up?

But Rand refused to hear any of it.

The Dragon must die, because he owed it to Frederic and William, and even Guy.

And what about Lindsey?
I wanted to ask, but it seemed selfish to compare my feelings—only weeks old—to the brotherhood of men he'd fought with for two hundred years.

I'd simply have to adjust and steel myself for the worst. And it hurt more than I could possibly imagine.

S
o where are we again?” I asked, stifling a yawn rising in my throat. If Rand saw me yawn, it'd worry him that he was taking too much blood, and that was the last thing I wanted. I lifted my menu and pretended to study it.

“In my time, this was called Wallachia, and this city Corona. It was fortified with walls. Great walls.” Rand looked lost in thought, as if seeing the past instead of the bustling modern city around us. I was pretty sure it was called Brasov, but Corona sounded prettier.

“Mmm,” I said, smiling at the waitress as she put a coffee in front of me. “And you think we'll find the Dragon here?”

Rand tapped his brow. “I feel him close by. He is very near.”

I shivered. “Like . . . in this room near?”

He shook his head, his expression distracted, as if turned inward. “A few leagues from here but not close enough to worry yet. Before, he was like a small, dark stain in my mind. Now that we are closer, it feels as if my entire head threatens to be swallowed by his again.”

“Again?” I asked. That didn't sound good.

Rand gave me a tiny, humorless smile. “It is not an easy life, that of
upyri
. Why do you think Guy hid away in the hills? Why do you think he did not live under his master's thumb? It is because it is not living at all. There were many dark times that my mind was not my own. That every thought that filtered through my head was his, and my limbs moved under his commands and not my own. I do not relish the thought of those times.”

I swallowed hard, shocked. To think that Rand had been utterly controlled by someone else made me sick. I tried to imagine myself in his place, awake but unable to control my own actions. Now I started to understand why he didn't want the guy to live. “Is it safe for you to be here?”

He shrugged. “There is no safe in my world, Lindsey. Were we not attacked in Rome? Was Gemma not accosted despite being cities away from us? Better to confront the bear in his lair than to live a life of endless fear.”

I wasn't sure I agreed with that. I made some sort of noncommittal response and sipped my coffee. Rand's fatalistic view of things hurt. It hurt to think that I might wake up one day and he could be gone.

I ached to think that Rand was choosing revenge against the Dragon over a life with me. Tears pricked my eyes and I blinked them away. It seemed like I was constantly getting weepy lately. Maybe that was a side effect of all the vitamins I was chugging to feed Rand. Maybe it was the blood loss.

Maybe it was the cute messages Gemma kept sending to my phone, like
LINDSEY + RAND = <3 <3 <3 4 EVA!
I knew she was sending them to make me smile and to let me know she was okay, but every time my phone buzzed, my heart ached a little more.

Things weren't okay. I didn't know how to stop any of this, but helping my lover as he headed straight for death? Definitely not anywhere on my “okay” scale. But I wanted to be supportive, so I kept my hurt to myself and sipped my coffee and ate my Romanian breakfast of sausage and eggs, and some weird mush called
mamaliga
.

We paid the tab at the counter, and as we did, I noticed a stand of postcards. I idly turned the wheel as the girl swiped my nearly maxed credit card. Pictures of local castles, local graveyards, historical photos—

Rand grabbed one from the side. “It cannot be.”

I smiled faintly. This was the first thing Rand had shown interest in—well, outside of me—in a few days. I nodded to the girl, indicating she should add it to our tab. “It's a postcard,” I told Rand. “Photos are printed up on paper. Um, haven't you seen them?” He shrugged and so I went on. “They're uh, pictures. Paintings sort of. The image is captured in a lens and stamped on paper. Please tell me you know what paper is, because I'm running out of descriptive words here.”

He simply stared at the card, tracing his fingers on it.

It was kind of cute, really. I took my credit card back from the cashier, looped an arm around Rand's waist, and dragged him toward the restaurant exit. “Okay, paper. Let me think. I guess I could google a definition, but it's a bunch of pressed fibers, right?”

“How is this possible?” Rand murmured. His finger stabbed at the surface of the card. “It is like he is here.”

“Like who is here?” I asked, getting out my car keys. Rand would probably want to continue traveling, but I wasn't sure that we shouldn't go back to the hotel. His mention of the stain on his mind bothered me, and I wondered if we needed to prepare more. I'd bought more chopped garlic and still carried the stakes in my boots, but my holy water holster was packed in my bag, and . . .

“The Dragon.”

That snapped me out of my thoughts. “The Dragon? Where?”

“Here,” Rand said, and shook the card. “His face is here.”

For the first time, I looked at the postcard he'd picked up. I took it from his hand and stared. There was a picture of a man on the postcard, a reprint of an old portrait. The man had a long, angular face bisected by an extra-long mustache. He had long, sweeping black curls and wore a weird jeweled hat. His clothes were red and old-fashioned, his brows heavy, his eyes prominent, nose long and pointed. Not a sexy dude. I flipped over the back of the card.

Vlad III, Draculea. Voivode of Wallachia. Also known as Vlad Tepes.

I shrieked.

“Lindsey?” Rand looked surprised at my outburst.

I shook the card at him. “Vlad Tepes? Vlad the Impaler? Dracula? We're chasing fucking
Dracula
?”

He looked surprised and took the postcard back from my trembling fingers. “Do you know of him?”

I moaned, pressing a hand to my forehead. “Oh, my God. This is not happening. This is not.” I turned and looked at Rand. “I thought you said he was a Dragon!”

“That is his family name. Draculesti. His family is Dracul, his house Basarab.” Rand's voice became thick, heavily accented as he pronounced the words. “He claimed to be the son of Vlad the Dracul, but that was simply another one of his warlords he turned and who then took command of his people. The Dragon is actually much older than that.”

“Great,” I said faintly. “I cannot believe we're going after Dracula. Why didn't you say something?”

Rand's eyes narrowed. “I told you he was the Dragon.
Dracul
is ‘dragon' in the old languages.”

I whimpered, feeling faint. I pressed a hand to my forehead and leaned against our car. “I need a moment to process this.”

Rand's arms went around me. “Lindsey, are you well?”

I burrowed against him. What to say?
Oh, sure, I'm just dandy. Never mind that we just found out we're chasing a bad guy that happens to be legendary for being a nasty vampire. No big deal. Oh, and he's probably going to kill you.
I pressed my face against his throat. It felt cool, a sign he was probably thirsty. “I know you want to keep moving, Rand, but can we go back to the hotel? Please?”

He hesitated.

I pressed a kiss to his throat. “I just want to spend time with you tonight. What's one more evening?”

His hand stroked through my hair, and I felt his shudder of desire. “As you wish, sweet.”

*  *  *

We went back to our hotel, and I made love to Rand in the shower. I noticed that he only sipped lightly from my neck, and I worried he wasn't keeping his strength up. That was my fault, too, because I was a jealous, horrible woman who didn't want him touching anyone else. It only made me feel worse.

As dawn approached, I lay in Rand's arms and pulled out my phone, doing searches of Vlad Tepes and Dracula so we could go over his legends together and pick apart fact from fiction. “They just found his tomb,” I told Rand, flipping through news articles.

“Oh?”

“In Italy.”

Rand snorted. “Not his, then. He despises Italy. Why do you think William and Frederic were there?”

Mmm, good point. “And you.”

“I was staked in Brittany, though.” He nuzzled my neck, teasing my ear. “Believe it or not, your warlord was once Norman.”

“Oh, I believe it,” I told him. “Not a lot of Romanians with a name like Rand FitzWulf,” I teased.

He pressed a kiss to my jaw. “Tomb or no tomb, I know the Dragon is alive. I can feel him lurking at the edges of my mind. Waiting. Watching.”

I shivered at the thought of that and picked up my phone again. I went to Wikipedia and looked up Vlad III. There was a lot about politics that didn't interest me. I wanted the creepy stuff. “Says here that he died in either 1476 or 1477. Possibly beheaded.”