Free A Tale of Two Vampires by Katie MacAlister

eyes and tried to force myself to remember what I had been doing before I woke up here.
    “You did not hit Heinrich hard enough to injure your brain,” Nikola said, his voice, a lovely rich baritone, doing something wonderful to my insides. “You will look at me when I am speaking to you!”
    Nothing breaks the spell of a yummy male voice like an obnoxious demand. I popped open one eye to glare at him. “OK, one, you are so not the boss of me, and two, I do not respond well to orders. If you had asked politely, I would have told you that I’ve closed my eyes so that I can try to remember what happened to me before I woke up here.”
    I closed my eye again, and concentrated.
    “I can tell you what you did to end up here.”
    “Really?” I opened my eyes once more. “What?”
    “You ran into Heinrich.”
    I frowned, not recognizing the name. Was it one of Gretl’s friends? “I don’t think I’ve met a Heinrich.”
    “You were running down the road in your underthings, and you ran directly into Heinrich, knocking yourself senseless.”
    I looked down at myself, shocked at the idea of running anywhere in my undies. “I was running around in my underwear? What the hell was I doing that for? Who’s Heinrich? And who dressed me again?”
    “Yes, I have no idea, one of my carriage horses, and we did not find your gown, let alone put it on you. Now, you will cease—”
    “Wait a minute, I think we’re talking at cross-purposes,” I interrupted, holding up a hand to stop him.
    He looked thoroughly outraged that I’d do such a thing. “You will not interrupt me!”
    “I just did, didn’t I? Thus, I will. Er…did. And someone must have put my dress back on, assuming that I was, in fact, running around in my undies, because I’m wearing it now. My dress, that is.” I waved toward my torso. “This is really a bizarre conversation, you know that? Like, on the level of reality TV sort of bizarre.”
    He glanced down at my dress, his eyes lingering on my breasts in a way that had me tightening my fingers into fists. “ That is your gown?”
    “Yes, and I’ve asked you once to stop staring at my boobs. Keep it up and I’ll make you one very sorry little cowpoke.”
    His gaze shifted up to mine, genuine confusion visible in his pale eyes. “You speak words that I do not know, and yet my grasp of English is excellent. What is a cowpoke?”
    “It’s someone who’s going to be sorry if he doesn’t stop staring at my breasts.”
    His gaze flickered straight back to my boobs. “Why? You present them for male appreciation, do you not?”
    I looked down, found the first button on my sundress had slipped open, and hastily rebuttoned it. “No, I wore this dress because it was hot and I wanted to stay cool while I… I…” I frowned again as I tried to concentrate. Vague images seemed to flicker just out of the range of my vision, dark, fleeting images. “I can almost see it.”
    “Your breasts? You will if you undo those buttons again.” His gaze was frankly appreciative, but I had learned my lesson. I crossed my arms over my boobs, giving him a quick glare.
    “No.” I turned my attention inward again. “It’s just…there. I can almost see it. I was doing something important, something…profound.”
    Trees flashed passed my unseeing eyes, trees that were first richly green, then inky black in the night, the tips of their pine needles kissed by sunlight and moonlight alike. And something else hovered just beyond my awareness, something big, something important that I could almost reach out and touch….
    “The swirly thing!” I exclaimed, seeing it again when it came into mental focus, the blue-white light twisting and turning back upon itself in that strange fashion. “I was taking pictures of it, and of the creepy forest, and I put my hand through the swirly thing….”
    I remembered again the feeling of static in the air when I leaned forward into the twisting light. I swayed, suddenly as