Free Curse the Dawn by Karen Chance

I told him.
    Mircea’s face still looked grave, but his eyes were smiling. “I’m afraid a vacation is out of the question at the moment.”
    “Well, maybe you could think of something else that relaxes you.”
    Amber sparked somewhere deep in his eyes. “A few things do come to mind.”
    I gave him a look. “I mean, maybe you could work on something different for a while? They say a change is as good as a rest.”
    The growing amber flecks seemed to hold the light and warm it. “I am always happy to experiment.” He tucked a stray curl behind my ear. “Did you have anything particular in mind?”
    I licked suddenly dry lips, trying not to think about what five hundred years of experience could dream up. “N-not really.”
    “Then I suppose we’ll have to wing it.” He pressed me back against the sinfully soft couch cushions and kissed me. When his tongue touched mine, my brain suddenly started suggesting all sorts of interesting possibilities.
    And then the captain came on the intercom to announce our successful landing. I looked around in surprise. I hadn’t even noticed the descent.
    “We could stay here for a while,” someone who sounded a lot like me said breathlessly.
    Mircea kissed me again, quickly this time, before getting up. “Tempting. But I have to go.”
    “You mean, we have to go.”
    “I brought you with me to keep you safe—not to put you in more danger.” He started to walk away, but I grabbed his sleeve, managing to put a few wrinkles in its perfect drape.
    “Danger? I thought we were visiting your brother.”
    “I am. You are staying here. Radu is having a few problems and I don’t wish you involved in them.”
    “Maybe I can help,” I said, starting to get up. Only to find that I couldn’t.
    I looked down to see a familiar silver bracelet tight around my wrist. I pulled on it, but it was securely fastened through the arm of the couch, caught on something inside the plush leather—the frame, by the feel of it. Damn it, I’d forgotten to ask for the cuffs back!
    “Mircea!”
    “This shouldn’t take long, and you will be well cared for until I return,” he said. And then he just walked out.
    I yelled and rattled the cuffs loud enough to wake the dead, but nobody came to help me. I tried shifting and ended up on the tarmac outside the plane—still attached to the couch—in time to watch Mircea drive away. I didn’t know where Radu lived, so I couldn’t follow him. Not to mention that it was kind of hard to envision being of much use chained to a huge piece of furniture.
    I shifted back onto the plane, fuming, and a ghost popped in. That wouldn’t normally require comment, as it happens to me all the time—one of the annoyances of being clairvoyant. But this was a little different since this ghost I knew.
    Billy Joe was wearing the jaunty Stetson and the ruffled shirt he’d died in a century and a half ago. Normally, the shirt is a brilliant crimson that easily catches the eye. At the moment, it was a pale, faded color, like it had been left out on a wash line too long. It got that way only when his energy levels were close to bottoming out.
    “Don’t start,” I told him before he could open his mouth. “I tried to find you before we left. I knew you needed a draw.” Billy and I had a long-standing arrangement in which I fed him extra energy and he fed me information. Neither of us ever got as much as we wanted out of the deal, but it was better than nothing.
    “Damn right I need a draw, but that isn’t why I’m here.” He noticed my wrist and his frown changed to a smirk. “You and the vampire getting kinky?”
    “He didn’t want me following him.”
    “So he tied you up?” Billy laughed. “Did you even get any first?”
    I glared at him. The skin of my wrist burned where Mircea had touched me, a fluid heat that spread through me and brought an answering flush to my cheeks. “Just because you have a habit of popping in on me at all times of the day and