Free A Tale of Two Vampires by Katie MacAlister Page B

as you are. So no, I’m not a whore, although I admit that after what I did to you, you’d be justified in questioning that statement.” I couldn’t stop reliving the feel of his mouth on my neck. It was the most sensual thing I’d ever felt.
    It will only get better.
    I froze, a dull feeling of worry filling my gut. What had I done to myself that I was hearing voices?
    “I told you that I enjoyed it. You will cease blushing over it. Who were you running from?”
    “No one. At least, I don’t think I was.” I stopped worrying about having to go to the hospital for CAT scans and the like, and tried to remember what happened after I had fallen near the twisty light.
    “Not near it…through it,” I said aloud, my eyes widening as the memory came flooding back to me of the daytime that had turned to night, of a dirt road where a paved one should have been, and of a carriage and horses looming up out of the night as I raced toward the town and safety.
    A horrible, horrible idea started to dawn in the dim recesses of my brain, something so fantastic that I didn’t even want to consider it.
    “Through what?” Nikola held out a hand for me, and without thinking, I took it, allowing him to pull me to my feet. I stared at him, my brain seizing up and refusing to process the idea.
    “It was… I don’t know what it was. A big swirly thing in the middle of the woods. Made up of light. I know this is going to sound really odd, but what’s today’s date?”
    “Woods? What wooded area? Near here?”
    “I don’t know where here is, so I couldn’t say. It’s the place that all the people in St. Andras say is haunted. It’s like halfway up the hill to the ruined castle. You didn’t answer me about the date.”
    “Andras Castle is not a ruin,” he said, his fingers still holding mine. “The east wing needs some repairs, but I will attend to them now that I have returned from settling my son at university in Heidelberg.”
    The horrible idea my brain refused to cope with grew even stronger. “What’s the date?” I asked again, holding my breath against the answer.
    He frowned. “Today? It is the twelfth of July.”
    “And the year?”
    His beautiful eyes, now back to pale, glacier blue, narrowed on me. “You do not know what year it is?”
    “I thought I did, but I have a magnificently horrible feeling I’m going to be wrong. What year is it?”
    “It is 1703.”
    I closed my eyes for a second, my stomach lurching when the room spun. Nikola’s fingers tightened, pulling me toward him.
    “Are you swooning?”
    “No, just…oh, boy. You’re kidding, aren’t you? You’re playacting that it’s 1703? Or…or you’re with some reenactment group or living-history place, right?”
    “I am not jesting, no,” he said, still frowning, and I could feel the truth of what he said.
    “No. This is just…no. Impossible,” I said softly, slumping against him when my brain fought to find sanity in this madness. “Houston, we have a problem.”
    “Nikola, not Houston. As for the problem you pose—” He eyed me again. “I foresee much inconvenience in my future until you leave, not the least of which is the fact that despite just feeding from you, I wish to do so again. I will not be dictated to in this fashion, do you understand? I am not at all pliant, nor will I allow you to twine me about your fingers! I will feed when I wish to feed, and nothing you can do will change that!”
    I straightened up and stared at him, a beautiful, angry man, and wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into now. Whatever it was, he’d have an aneurysm if he didn’t calm down, and although his lack of anger management skills wasn’t my problem, I kind of liked him. I felt some sort of a need to help him, although heaven knew why when he was being as unhelpful as possible.
    The temptation is too great. Distance is protection.
    “OK, Mr. Brain, you can just stop doing that because I’m not taking you to a hospital right