A Girl's Guide to Vampires

me to feel where the next one was. 'The love you think you feel for him is an illusion,' he said. 'Your mind does not wish to accept your fate, and so it creates a means of escape for you. Once we have taken the fifth step of the Joining, you will realize the truth of your emotions.'

'Joy? Christian? What are you guys doing over there?'

'You betrayed me. I looked to you for help, I thought you were my friend, and you betrayed me.' The cold, sightless eyes of a long-dead saint peered down on me in sorrow as I moved past him.

'Hey, guys? What's going on?' Roxy's voice grew louder as she approached.

Christian suddenly lunged at me, catching me off guard, wrapping me in an embrace of inflexible intent.

'GUYS?'

'Don't do this,' I pleaded with Christian. 'You're wrong, I know you're wrong, I feel it in my bones. We were not meant to be together. Somehow, somewhere, something got screwed up. I'm not the woman you need.'

'Joy?' Roxy appeared at my side, but Christian never spared her a glance. I was afraid to take my eyes from him, sure that if I did so, his control would snap.

'I have lived almost nine hundred years,' he said quietly, his arms like steel around me. I heard Roxy gasp, but she said nothing. 'I have seen countless Dark Ones give themselves over to the monster that lives within because they could no longer wait to find their Beloved. There has never been a case where a Dark One has chosen the wrong woman. It is impossible.'

'Nothing is impossible,' I whispered, allowing my weight to rest against his arms. ''There are more things in heaven and Earth'—Shakespeare knew that, and I know it as well. I wish I could ease your pain, but the simple truth is that I cannot be your Beloved. I love Raphael. I need Raphael. I want him, and only him. He is my other half. If you try to make me into something I'm not, you will only destroy us both. Do you want that, Christian? Do you want to destroy me?'

His eyes closed for a moment, but, held so close to him, I could feel the wave of pain wash over him even though he kept his mind blocked from mine. I realized at that moment that he wasn't fooling himself; he truly believed I was his Beloved, the woman who would redeem him and give his life meaning.

And with that knowledge I became very, very afraid.

'I'm not quite sure what's going on here,' Roxy said, her eyes huge as she looked between the two of us. 'But whatever it is, it's starting to give me the creeps, and Joy doesn't look any too happy either, so maybe we'd better give the rest of the tour a skip, huh?'

'I will not hurt you,' Christian said, his voice slipping around me to whisper velvet-soft against my skin. 'I will never hurt you, of that I swear.'

'Thank you,' I said, meaning it. I had a nasty suspicion that unless I could convince him that I was not his soul mate, I'd be called on to hold that promise up as my own salvation.

His eyes searched mine for another second before he released me from his iron hold. I started to breathe again, surprised to realize that I'd been holding my breath. Christian took a step back, then made a slight bow in Roxy's direction. 'You are in possession of a truth that very few people have known over the centuries. I hope you will not abuse my trust in your discretion.'

'Oh, no,' Roxy assured him. Her face was pale, her eyes wary as he took her chin in his hand and stared into her eyes. 'Honest, Christian. I would never tell anyone your secret.'

He looked at her a bit longer, then released her chin and swept his hand toward the stairs in an elegant gesture. 'As neither of you wish to see any more of the dungeon, we can return to the upper floors and continue the tour.'

I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there and throw myself into Raphael's arms, but the memory of Christian's anguish was strong. I gave Roxy a feeble smile in answer to her questioning look as I shook off the clinging sense of nightmare, heading up the stairs toward the bright glow of reality.

Chapter Thirteen

'So, what does it feel like when you're drinking someone's blood?' Roxy asked.

Christian glanced in the rearview mirror and gave me such a woebegone look I couldn't help laughing. It was the first time I'd laughed all evening, and it felt a bit stiff and unsure in his presence, but I gave myself full marks for being able to laugh with a man who I'd just discovered had a lifespan that could be ticked off in centuries rather than decades.

'Do blood clots get stuck in your teeth? What if someone's anemic; are you hungry again an hour later? Has anyone ever bitten you? If you run out of blood, do you shrivel up like a really old orange?'

'Roxy!'

'OK, here's an easy one. How come you can eat and drink when other Dark Ones can't?'

'What makes you think I can?' Christian asked, his eyes on the dark road ahead.

'We saw you!'

He glanced at her.

'At the hotel,' Roxy added. 'You had dinner with us, remember? And you were in the bar earlier. We saw you drinking then… didn't we?'

His eyes met mine in the mirror.

'With your sleight-of-hand abilities, you ought to be the one giving the magic show, not Dominic,' I said.

He smiled.

Roxy finally figured it out. 'Well, that's just not fair! If I'd realized you were only putting on a show, I'd have known right away who you were. OK, on to the next question—'

'I have no idea if you can do any of those handy mind-control things that the heroes in your books do, Christian, but if you can, I'd appreciate it if you gave Roxy the mental command to shut up.'

He laughed.

'Can I help it if I have a bunch of questions?' Roxy asked with an infuriated look back at me. 'This is a once- in-a-lifetime situation here and I'm not going to waste it! Besides, you got to ask all the questions when we were seeing the castle; now it's my turn.'

'Questions about the origin of the Conspirators' Gallery are not quite as offensive as asking someone what they pick out of their teeth. Stop being so rude.'

'You don't mind me asking you personal questions, do you?' she asked him.

Christian gave her a look that said yes, he did mind, but she ignored it. 'See? He doesn't mind. Now, about this eternal damnation you suffer—'

'Oh, for God's sake—Roxy, lay off him!' She turned around in the seat to level me another glare before turning back to pout out the window, but both glare and pout left me unfazed. I watched the back of Christian's head as we drove the few miles back to the hotel. It was difficult reconciling the friendly, amusing Christian I'd grown to like with the tormented immortal who viewed me as his only means to salvation.

And it left me feeling guiltier than ever.

I leaned back against the soft leather seat and closed my eyes, thinking back over all the times his mind had touched mine, trying to adjust my mental picture of him with the emotional one his mind had left me. It was him I felt approaching the bar the first night. It was his hunger that filled me when he bent to kiss my hand, not Raphael's as he stood watching us. It was his desperate need that scared me the night Raphael came to my room. And it was his wordless scream of anguish that ripped through the night when I gave myself to Raphael. Christian was wrong about me, I knew he was. But how was I supposed to make him understand that?

I let my body relax into the seat, trying to clear my mind of everything but what I wanted to do, following Miranda's rules regarding meditation. I stretched and reached with my mind.

Christian ?

Immediately he was there, his thoughts warm and reassuring. Or they would have been except that I felt anything but reassured with the ease he invaded my head. Beloved? You call to me?