Books by Maggie Shayne (195 page)

"But you didn't go inside?"

"I couldn't.
 
I always felt..."
 
She drew a deep breath, let it out all at once.
 
"You'll laugh at me."

"No," I said.
 
"I won't.
 
Tell me."

She looked up, right into my eyes, and hers were honest, sincere, beautiful.
 
"I always thought this place seemed... sacred, somehow.
 
And... and it was my own blood kin that denied it, ruined it.
 
So to me, my setting foot inside would have been... a sacrilege."

"And now?"

She eyed the castle doors, shivered a little.
 
"Maybe I was wrong.
 
Maybe I'm the one who'll make it all right again, somehow."
 
She lowered her head, sighing.
 
"I'm different from the others, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"They tell the tale, again and again, and they all shudder with fear of the creatures they claim lived here once."
 
She placed a palm against the chiseled stone, closed her eyes.
 
"But not me.
 
The first time I heard the tale I was all of three years old, and I cried.
 
For hours, no one could comfort me.
 
To me, it wasn't a horror story, it was a tragedy.
 
One man, rising from the dead only to be driven out of the village by his own family.
 
Another, murdered only because he dared to love."
 
She met my eyes and smiled.
 
"To tell you the truth, back when I was still child enough to believe in the old tales, I thought of your ancestor as... as a friend.
 
My own guardian angel."

"And now?"
 
I asked her.

"And now I'm an adult, who knows better than to believe in fairy tales.
 
But it does seem like Providence that
  
you're here now.
 
Just when I've returned home from the States.
 
Just when I'm planning to write my thesis based on the legend, its sources, and its effects on the community to this day.
 
Just when I'm wondering how I'll ever learn all I need to know about Castle Dante and the original Donovan O'Roark—here you are.
 
I think it's a sign."

She was enchanting me, mesmerizing me.
 
Both with her | scent, and with her beauty, but mostly with that enthusiasm I and charm and slightly skewed view of the universe.

She had the belladonna antigen, and that was part of the attraction—had always been drawing me to her, urging me to watch over her.
 
I could smell it in her blood, could sense it there.
 
Every immortal had that antigen before they received the dark gift.
 
If not, they wouldn't transform... they'd simply die.
 
Dante had told me these things, and he'd warned me as well of the allure mortals with the antigen had for us... the attraction.
 
And it was said to run both ways.

I knew all this.
 
But knowing it did nothing to dampen its effect on me.
 
As a child she'd been harmless, no threat to me at all, just a little girl in need of a protector.
 
But now...

She stared up at me from emerald green eyes.
 
"Will you take me inside, Donovan?
 
With you fulfill my childhood dreams and show me your castle?"

And like a man held prisoner by a Gypsy enchantress's spell, I nodded, searched for my key, and opened my haven up to my enemy.

There was something about him....

No, it was only her imagination playing games with her.
 
Yes, he was pale, but only slightly so.
 
And that grace about him, the way his every movement seemed as fluid as a part of a dance... it was simply his way.
 
It didn't mean a thing.

He wasn't the guardian of her imagination.
 
Her savior.

He gripped the iron ring and opened the doors, waiting and allowing her to enter first.
 
Taking a single step into the looming, echoing blackness, she stopped, battling a shiver of unease that kept tickling at her spine.

"I can't see a thing," she said, reaching into her pocket for the lighter once again.

She felt him enter behind her.
 
He stood close to her back as she fumbled in her pocket, and the deep moan of the door closing behind him made her heart skip a beat.
 
Closing her hand around the lighter in her pocket, she pulled it out and promptly dropped it on the floor.

"It's all right," he said.
 
"Wait here."

"As if I could do anything else," she replied, and hoped he didn't detect the tremor in her voice.

He moved past her then.
 
She never heard his footsteps, and it seemed they should echo endlessly here, the way her every whisper did.
 
There was a flare of light, a glow that illuminated his face for a moment, making it come alive with light and shadow as if he were some sort of undulating demon.
 
But then he leaned over, and in a moment the glow spread as he touched the match to the tapers in a silver candelabra, lighting them one by one.
 
And lifting it, he moved around the room, lighting others.
 
It seemed to Rachel there must be candles everywhere in this place.
 
By the time he returned to her side, the entire room glowed with them, shadows leaping and dancing, soft yellow light spilling over everything.

He took her hand.
 
Drew her forward.
 
Rachel went with him, her fear dispelled as her curiosity leapt to the fore.
 
The room was as big as a barn, and high, high above her, she saw something glittering in the candle glow.
 
"Is that a chandelier?"

Donovan looked up, then nodded.
 
"The entire place is equipped with gas lights, but I'll need to connect the main line and open the valves before they'll be of any use."

"What I wouldn't give to see this place in the daylight," she breathed.
 
She felt him tense and wondered why.

Twin fireplaces stood at opposite walls, each one laid ready, waiting only to be lit.
 
Each one had a huge stone mantel, and above them tapestries hung.
 
Breathtaking tapestries.
 
She moved closer to the one nearest her, covering Donovan's hand with her own to lift the candelabra higher.
 
"They must be ancient," she muttered.

"Quite old, medieval, or so Dante said."

Her spine prickled.
 
"Dante said that, did he?"

Donovan looked down at her rather quickly.
 
"Or so the story goes.
 
I'm only repeating what's been told to me."

She tilted her head, studying his face in the soft glow.
 
"Are you, now?"

Nodding, he moved her to the left of the fireplace, lifting the light again and nodding toward the wall, where two crossed swords hung.
 
"The broadswords are medieval as well, but Irish, whereas the tapestries are Italian."

"This Dante must have been quite a collector."

Donovan shrugged and moved on, pointing out other relics fastened to the walls, a suit of armor standing in a corner, looking ridiculously short, and the furnishings.
 
Large chairs with embroidered cushions and elaborately carved, utterly straight backs, were grouped around the fireplaces.
 
A large, ornate table with smaller, less elaborate chairs surrounding it held the room's center, each of its legs the size of a small tree.
 
And there were weapons everywhere.
 
Lances, maces, shields with their crests emblazoned across the front.

And every so often, they'd pass an archway of darkness, leading off into some other part of the castle.
 
Each time, she'd peer into the blackness, eyes narrow, eager to see more.
 
But each time, she saw nothing.

When they'd walked round the entire room, he led her to one of the cushioned chairs, setting the candles on a marble stand at its side.
 
Then he turned and knelt before the fire, and a second later it blazed to life, though she'd never seen him strike a match.

She let the warmth rinse through her, chasing the chill of autumn away.
 
And Donovan settled himself in the chair beside her.

"I'd offer you something to drink, but—"

"I know," she said.
 
"You've only just arrived.
 
I can't very well be expectin' your cupboards to be fully stocked so soon."
 
She smiled at him.
 
'"Twill be cold... lonely, living here in this place, don't you think?"

He nodded.
 
"Yes.
 
But there's a history here I needed to... touch.
 
I had to come back."

"Come back?
 
You have been here before, then?"

He blinked slowly, averting his eyes.
 
"Long ago."

"In your childhood?"

"Something like that."

She nodded, not pushing him further, though she was fully aware he hadn't really answered her.
 
He couldn't have been the man who saved her from the river.
 
That was twenty years ago.
 
He was far too young.
 
"Is this—this great hall—the only room you're willing to show me, then, Donovan?"

"For now," he told her.
 
"It wouldn't be safe to take you farther..."
 
A long pause as his gaze burned into hers.
 
"Without more light."

Her throat went dry.
 
She tried to swallow, and found she couldn't.
 
He had a hungry look about him, a predatory look that shook her.

"Perhaps I should go then.
 
Leave you to get settled in."

 
"Perhaps," he said.

Nodding, she got to her feet.
 
He rose as well.
 
"I...
 
I'd like to come back.
 
To talk to you about the legend."

"I don't know much about that.
 
You'll be disappointed."

"I get the feelin' you know more about it than anyone else, Donovan O'Roark."
 
She turned and walked toward the door, and he trailed her.
 
She sensed he was eager for her to go.

But when he pushed the huge door open, a blinding flash of lightning cut a jagged path across the sky.
 
The rain slashed in at them, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

Closed within the huge stone walls, they hadn't even been aware of the change in the weather, and there wasn't a window to be seen in this room, she realized for the first time.

He stood motionless.
 
Said nothing.
 
Well, then, there was no way around it.
 
She lowered her head and took a step out... only to feel his hands closing on her shoulders, drawing her back inside.
 
She nearly sighed in relief.

"You can't walk back to the village in this."
 
He said it as if he regretted it right to his bones.

"I could.
 
I'm not sugar, Donovan, and I won't melt in a wee bit of rain."

He closed the door, lifted a hand and swiped the droplets from her face, and then her hair.
 
"Not melt, but get soaked through and take sick, at the very least.
 
Or worse, get crushed beneath a falling tree, or struck down in your tracks by a bolt of lightning.
 
No, I can't let you leave."

"You sound sorry about that."

He nodded, surprising her by not denying it.
 
"I like my privacy, Rachel.
 
You'll do well to remember that about me."

"Oh."

He frowned at her.
 
"What?"

Shrugging, she lifted her brows.
 
"I guess I was thinkin' there might be some other reason my being' here disturbed you so much.
 
No matter though."

She was only half teasing him, and she thought he knew it.
 
She was drawn to the man, in a way she didn't understand.
 
It was as if some sort of spell were being worked on her, to make her....

She closed her eyes, gave her head a shake.
 
"I believe I must be more sleepy than I realized."

"There should be some bedrooms made up," he said, his voice gentle.
 
Did she detect a slight tremor in it?

"Lead the way, then."

He nodded, picking up the dancing candles once more "Best stay close to me, Rachel.
 
I've no idea how safe the entire castle is, since only parts of it have been kept up.
 
Besides, you could get lost very easily in these halls."

She nodded her assent, and as he led the way into the dark, vaulted corridors, she held tighter and tighter to his arm, aware that with every step she took she was leaving safety farther behind.
 
Not that she feared him.

Oh, but she did.

The halls twisted, turned, veered off in countless directions.
 
He took her up spiraling stairways that felt like tunnels, they were so narrow and dark.
 
And then down more hallways.

"Donovan?"

He paused, and turned to look at her there in the darkness.

"Are you deliberately leading me round and round, only to keep me from knowing my way out?"

Solemnly, he shook his head.
 
"Just the opposite, Rachel.
 
The room is near a back exit.
 
So you can leave first thing in the morning."

"And why would I wish to do that, when you could just as easily lead me out of here yourself?"

"I...
 
I won't be here.
 
I have a pressing engagement, I'm afraid.
 
Very early.
 
So by the time you wake up, I'll be gone."

Tipping her head back, she studied him.
 
"Will you now?"

"Yes.
 
And Rachel, I want your promise that you'll do as I ask.
 
Leave here in the morning.
 
No snooping, or exploring.
 
I've already told you, it could be dangerous."

Studying him a long moment, she said, "Is there something here you don't want me to see?"

He shook his head.
 
"You have as big an imagination as those locals at the pub, don't you?"

She smiled.
 
"Bigger.
 
You wouldn't doubt it if you knew what I was thinkin' just now."

"And what was that?"

She lifted her brows and shoulders as one.
 
"That perhaps
  
the reason you won't be here in the morning is because you have an adverse reaction to daylight.
 
And that perhaps the reason you don't want me snooping about, is so I won't stumble upon the coffin where you rest."
 
She threw her head back and laughed at her own foolishness, and the sounds of it echoed endlessly, long after she stopped.
 
"I guess I still have a bit of that gullible child in me after all.
 
Or maybe 'tis simply livin' in Dunkinny that's made me so imaginative."

But he only stared at her until her smile died.

She bit her lip, and her hand trembled slightly as she lifted it to touch his face.
 
"I've hurt your feelin's now, have I?
 
I don't really think you're a vampire, Donovan.
 
But just a man.
 
A... a beautiful man."
 
She lowered her gaze, not quite believing she was about to say what she was.
 
"I hope you don't think it bold of me to tell you this.
 
But I—I'd like to see you again.
 
Not because of the legend, but just... just because."
 
And still he said nothing.
 
Lowering her hand, she rolled her eyes ceiling ward and drew a short, sharp breath.
 
"Landsakes, Donovan, say something, will you?
 
Am I makin' a total fool of myself, or..."

"No."
 
He reached out to brush a curl off her forehead.
 
"In fact, I've been trying very hard not to... feel anything toward you, all evening."

She felt the blood rush to her face.
 
"Oh."
 
Then, licking her lips, meeting his eyes again, she whispered, "Why were you trying so hard not to feel that way, Donovan?"

"Because nothing can come of it."

Her heart squeezed.
 
"You're married, then."

"No.
 
Of course not.
 
It's just..."
 
He shook his head.
 
"You'll have to trust me, Rachel.
 
Nothing can come of this.
 
I...
 
I probably won't even be here very long, and besides that, I—"
 
He sighed deeply.
 
"It doesn't matter.
 
Here, this is your room."