Enraptured (10 page)

Inhaling deeply, she savored the crisp
mountain air as she tried to place what mountain range they were
in. Maybe the Cascade Mountains, she guessed, but she didn’t know
much about any of the mountain ranges on the Pacific side of the
country.

“Where are we?” she inquired.

Ian shifted beside her. The motion caused
his arm to brush against hers. The brief touch of his flesh again
hers made heat seep through her body. Rubbing her arm, she hastily
stepped away from him. He didn’t notice as his gaze never swung
toward her. “Far from civilization,” he replied.

She glanced at the parked Jeep she assumed
they’d arrived in, and then down the endless drive. Far from
civilization was right, or at least that’s what they were trying to
make her believe. For all she knew there could be a home only a
couple of miles away or just at the end of that drive.

“Are you sure you’re going to be ok up
here?” Stefan inquired as he walked across the clearing toward
them.

“We’ll be fine. Get back to Issy before she
kicks my ass, she needs you with her right now,” Ian replied.

“She’ll kick my ass if something happens to
you.”

Paige glanced between the two of them as she
followed the conversation. “I’ll make sure to stay perfectly
healthy then.”

“Do so.” Stefan glanced pointedly at her
before turning his attention to Ian again. “Your niece or nephew is
going to want to meet you one day.”

Paige felt her eyebrows shoot up; she
glanced at Ian as he smiled. “And I’m looking forward to meeting
him or her. Go on, get out of here before Issy comes looking for
you.”

Stefan nodded before walking over to the
Jeep. Ethan stepped forward and embraced his brother, his
unrelenting gaze held hers when he stepped away. “If something
happens to him, I’m coming for you.”

Paige had to fight the urge to cross her
legs to keep from peeing her pants from the abject fear his threat
invoked. Stefan had the eyes of a shark, but Ethan might be the one
who was as merciless as one. “Ethan,” Ian warned.

Ethan glanced at him, squeezed his shoulder
and moved away. Emma stepped forward and threw her arms around
Ian’s waist. Her head barely came to the middle of his stomach. “Be
careful.” Turning away from Ian, she focused on Paige. “Their growl
is the worst thing about the men in the Byrne family, including
this guy.” Ethan grunted when Emma gave him a sharp elbow to his
stomach. He scowled as he rubbed at the offended area, but when
Emma beamed up at him innocently, his stony expression melted into
one of love. “See,” Emma said to her.

“Sure,” Paige muttered.

Emma laughed and rested her hand briefly on
Paige’s arm. She didn’t jerk away from the diminutive woman this
time because she was afraid of how Ethan would react, but also
because she didn’t find Emma as repulsive as she had before. It was
impossible not to like the vibrant woman, even if she was a
bloodsucker, married to a guy who had looked at her like he was
contemplating crushing her skull more than a few times.

Emma skipped down the steps and toward the
Grand Cherokee. Ethan focused on them again. “We’ll be here if you
need anything.”

“I know,” Ian said. “Let me know what the
family decides, and keep me up to date on how everyone is.”

Paige glanced back and forth between them.
She preferred to believe all vampires were heartless bastards, but
she couldn’t deny the love and concern she felt between them. Ethan
reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. Unable to
stop herself, her mouth dropped at the sight of what had to be a
couple thousand dollars.

“I got some money for you while we were
shopping,” Ethan said.

Ian waved the money away when Ethan tried to
give it to him, “I have money.”

Ethan grabbed hold of his hand and shoved
the wad into it. “You could always use more. Take it, just in
case.”

Ian stared down at Ethan, a muscle jumping
in his cheek. He may be the larger of the two, but to Ethan he
would always be the little brother. He didn’t feel like parting on
an argument, so he slid the money into his pocket. “See you
soon.”

Ethan nodded and jogged down the steps to
the waiting vehicle. Paige watched as the Jeep turned around and
drove down the road. Dust drifted up to fill the air long after the
Jeep had disappeared from view. She kept hoping to see some sort of
sign of where the driveway ended, but as the seconds turned into
minutes, she knew she never would, not from here anyway.

“Let’s get inside,” Ian said and clasped
hold of her elbow.

Despite the fact his touch sent a little
thrill through her, she pulled her elbow away from him. To her
relief, he didn’t try to reclaim it. “Who is Issy?” she
inquired.

“My sister, Isabelle.”

“She’s pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“Vampires really can have babies?” she
squeaked.

“I told you before my siblings and I were
born this way.”

She almost tripped over her feet due to her
focus on him and his repeated revelation. “I’d really believed you
were lying.”

“There was no reason for me to lie to you,
I’d thought you wouldn’t be keeping your memories of us, so why
lie?”

“There are many reasons a vampire lies.” She
ignored his irritated look as a new thought occurred to her. “So
does that mean you’re going to start lying to me now?” she
demanded.

“No.”

“Because if you can’t erase my memories,
you’ll hold me prisoner for the rest of my life?”

“Because I’m not a liar.”

Pushing open the door, he gestured for her
to go ahead of him. She stepped into the tiny cabin and glanced
around at the sparse furnishings in the living room to her right.
The brown leather couch faced the small stone fireplace across the
way. A single wagon wheel coffee table was before the couch, with a
wooden stand sitting off to the side. The fluffy white rug in the
middle of the room reminded her of a giant marshmallow. She wanted
nothing more than to take her sneakers off and sink her toes into
the fluffy material.

“This definitely wasn’t what I was expecting
from Brian or Stefan,” Ian muttered as he caught her staring at the
cabin.

“Who is this Brian guy?”

“A family… acquaintance,” he replied. “He
and Stefan used to be good friends. This was once their place, but
Brian is the one who has been using it recently.”

She glanced at him, but he was focused on
the kitchen now and the small window over the basin sink. The
window sagged in its wooden frame. The glass in it had blurred
lines and odd colors dancing through the thick pane.

“That glass is old, original to the cabin.”
Ian murmured more to himself than to her.

She tried to pretend she found no interest
in anything he had to say about the cabin. Everything within this
cabin, except for some of the furniture, appeared to be from when
it was originally built. What year that was she had no idea, but if
she had to guess she would say the late eighteen hundreds. The
smell of the thick, wooden, beam walls permeated the air and
tickled her nose. The morning sun rising higher in the sky did
little to illuminate the dim interior. Shadows danced across the
floor and walls as the breeze stirred the trees outside. The fire
in the living room helped to ease some of the coolness of the air;
the logs popped as sparks flew toward the chimney.

“What were you expecting their cabin to look
like?” she inquired.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, not
this.”

“At least it has indoor plumbing,” she
said.

That had been her polite way of telling him
she had to use the bathroom. She walked down the small hall, past
the tiny, rustic bedroom she’d first woken up in. The log cabin
walls of the room were completely bare; the thick gray curtains
being the only decoration in the room.

She stepped into the small bathroom on the
other side of the bedroom. It had a small standing-only shower
stall, toilet and sink, but it was far better than an outhouse.
Glancing back at him, she stepped into the room and closed the
door. She did what she had to do quickly and opened the door once
more.

Poking her head out, she was amazed to find
he wasn’t standing guard outside the door. Walking back through the
cabin, she didn’t see him anywhere. There were pieces of furniture
she could break to use for a weapon, but after seeing the way he’d
moved earlier, she didn’t think she’d have much of a chance to use
a stake on him. Besides, he would notice broken furniture before
she ever got the jump on him.

Turning into the kitchen, she opened the
cabinets to find most of them bare, but one had some canned goods
stashed inside. She opened the two drawers beside the sink; there
wasn’t even a spoon in them, let alone a knife she might be able to
use to whittle something down or stab someone. It may not kill him
but it might slow him down, or it might just make him rip her head
off. But then, she was really beginning to question if he really
did have any intention of hurting her. He’d certainly had plenty of
chances to do so already, and she was still healthy and
standing.

She supposed it made sense for a vampire
home not to have silverware or cooking utensils in it. They had no
need for them after all, she decided as she closed the drawer. She
walked back out of the kitchen and toward the main door.

She spotted him outside, standing in the
shed when she stepped onto the porch. As she watched, he pulled
fishing poles from inside and placed them against the building. The
roof of the wooden shed sagged toward the middle; a few of the
boards at the bottom of it had been broken off. She would bet money
on a raccoon or some other animal having a comfy little home under
that floor.

She glanced around the clearing; she could
try and make a run for it. He wasn’t paying attention to her, and
with enough of a head start she may be able to make it into the
trees before he knew she was out of the bathroom. He pulled some
oars from the shed too and turned them over in his hand to inspect
them.

He’d done nothing to indicate he knew she
was there, but she had a feeling if she ran he would be on her
before she made it the hundred feet to the trees. Resting the oars
against the side of the shed, he bent to pull a canoe out and
placed it in front of the shed. Beneath his black wife beater, the
etched muscles of his shoulders and back rippled with his
movements. She was riveted by the play of his skin over his
chiseled flesh. She hated his species, despised everything about
them, but she found herself fascinated by the amount of power he
exuded and thankful he seemed not to feel the cold as much as she
did, otherwise he’d be wearing far more than that shirt.

Being held captive had fried her brain and
short-circuited her common sense, she decided.

Thrusting her shoulders back, she firmly
took control of her thoughts again.
Stay focused on the mission,
on regaining your freedom,
she reminded herself. She may not
like having to stay here, but maybe she could learn from it. She’d
never interacted this closely, or for this much time with a vampire
before, if she worked this right maybe she could learn more of
their weaknesses and how to defeat them.

“You’re not going to run?” he inquired
without looking at her.

His words proved he’d been aware of her the
whole time. “You’d only kill me if I did.”

He still didn’t look at her as he pulled out
a tent and then some lanterns from within the shed. “I can assure
you no matter what happens, you will walk out of here alive.”

“With my memories intact?”

“That remains to be seen, but we may have no
choice.”

“Then why am I here? Why not let me go?”

He finally turned toward her and placed a
lantern on the ground. “Because I have to make sure my family is
safe. You may not like this situation, I certainly don’t, but you
can’t be free until then.”

“I don’t know where you live, where your
family lives, or how to find you.”

“You know what I look like, and what some
members of my family look like. I’m not willing to risk anyone’s
life. You may think we’re all evil, bloodsucking fiends, but we’re
not. There are far too many younger members of my family who are
unable to protect themselves against uneducated people such as
yourself.”

“I am
not
uneducated! I’ve seen
firsthand the horrific, revolting things your kind can do!”

He crossed his arms over his chest and
leaned against the shed as he studied her. “And I’ve seen firsthand
the destruction, hatred and desecration the human race is
completely capable of. I can assure you, we did not come up with
the atomic bomb. We don’t break into museums and destroy everything
inside. Some of us may be brutal killers, but so are some humans.
Many of us live in, and only want, peace. Learning the difference
may make you a happier person in the end.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that. He
confused her in ways she’d never been confused before, but she knew
one thing for certain, he was a killer.

Paige stood and stared at him before
glancing at the wood line again. He turned his attention back to
the contents of the shed. He didn’t know what he was looking for
inside, something to do perhaps, or maybe something to distract him
from the realization it was only the two of them up here now. At
least there was some outdoor equipment. He could keep himself
occupied with that when he found the lake he could smell in the
distance. The crisp smell of fresh water and fish tickled his
nostrils.

“Go ahead,” he told her, sensing her
thoughts. “You’re free to go anywhere within a ten mile radius. Be
careful, there may be some grizzlies or even wolves in the
area.”

She swallowed nervously. “Grizzlies?” It
came out as more of a squeak than she would have liked, but she
couldn’t help it. The idea of fighting a vampire didn’t rattle her,
but the idea of being Yogi’s picnic basket didn’t sit well with her
at all.