A Girl's Guide to Vampires

 

Despite claiming the last thing she wanted to do was spend her day deep in the bowels of the earth, Roxy enjoyed the visit to the Punkevn¨ª Cave just as much as I did. Since we didn't have time to do the half-hour walk, we took the five-minute gondola ride down the Macocha Abyss past Drahansk¨¢ Castle to the cave entrance. We walked through the cave for a bit on a well-lit path, admiring all the weird formations, then climbed aboard the red and white boats that took us on a half-hour ride deep into the cave via the Punkva River. The caves were pretty much what I expected - dark, damp, and humid - but these particular caves also had fantastic formations that looked like tall stone cones made of Cream of Wheat.

"Stalactites," Roxy said.

"Stalagmites," the guide corrected, pointing to the ceiling as we entered a large open area with wickedly sharp spikes dripping from above. "This is the Masaryk Dome. Those are stalactites."

Roxy clammed up after that, which for those of us who know her, indicated she was up to something. What, I didn't know, since I was officially not speaking to her. It wasn't until three hours later, when we arrived back at the hotel, that I lifted the no-speak moratorium. Our Canadian friends went off to ride bikes through the countryside, and Roxy and I staggered up the stairs to change our clothes into something that smelled a little less like damp cave and wet limestone.

"I hope you have used your meditation time well," I said to her as I unlocked the door to my room. "I hope you have crafted, honed, and polished your apology to me until it fair blinds the eye."

"Oh, you're speaking to me again? Good. I have lots to tell you. About Milos - I think I know of a way we can tell if he's a Dark One or not."

She followed me into my room. I raised a hand and stopped her before she could sit on the chair that Raphael and I had frolicked upon the past evening. "Wait just one minute, missy. Before you try to talk me into another one of your cracked plans, you can apologize."

"Oh, give it up," she scoffed, and sat down in the chair, pulling off her boots and wiggling her toes with relief. "You know it's not that big a deal! It's just a couple of rune readings, for pity's sake! Christian said he wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Oh, great, now you've arranged for a crowd to watch? You swore to me that all I'd have to do is a couple of quickie readings, and my pride - which I'd like to point out again was not the least bit affected by Tanya's nastiness - and your puny bank account would be salvaged. That's all I agreed to - just a couple of readings. Right?"

"Sure," she said, "just a couple of readings for one or two people. So! That was some boat ride, huh? Too bad you got seasick. I hope you barfing into the river won't damage some sort of delicate ecosystem."

I plopped down on my bed and glared at her. "Oh, no! You changed that subject too quickly for my taste. Which one or two people am I doing readings for?"

She avoided meeting my eye. "Christian volunteered to be one of your guinea pigs."

I made a face.

"What? You like him."

"Yes." I waved a hand and lay back on the bed, thankful the seasickness was short-lived. "Go on, who's the other one."

"It's two others, actually."

I sat up again. I had a nasty suspicion who the two were. "Don't tell me - Dominic and Milos?"

"You see!" she said as she jumped up from the chair and grabbed her boots, heading for the door. "You're positively psychic! You'll have no problem at all reading the stones for them."

"No," I agreed, "no problem at all."

She paused at the door and waited for me to finish.

"I won't have any problem because I won't be reading for them. Christian, yes. Arielle, sure. Raphael - you betcha. But not the gruesome twosome, nosiree."

"Joyful - "

I propped myself up enough to deliver a real quality glare. "NO!"

"OK, whatever, I'm sure we can work something out. Did you want to hear my idea about how to find out who the real Dark One is?"

I lay back down and flapped a languid hand at her. "Go ahead."

She grinned. "We're going to call in an expert."

"An expert," I repeated, closing my eyes and wondering if I had time for a short nap. I didn't get much sleep the night before, and if I had to stay up late reading runes at the fair, I'd need some time to catch a few Z's. "What sort of expert? A priest?"

"No, a real expert. The one person who knows more about Dark Ones than anyone else in the world except the Dark Ones themselves."

I mused on her words for a few seconds before I understood who she was talking about. I sat up. "You mean - "

"Yup, the man himself. I'll just give Dante a ring and see what time this afternoon is good for us to swing by."

I was too tired to even goggle at her. I contented myself with a grouchy glare. "Roxy, he's a big famous author! I'm sure he doesn't appreciate deranged fans like you calling him up. Oh, I don't know what I'm worrying about; you won't get through to him."

"That's what you think!" She smiled a particularly triumphant smile and waved a scrap of paper at me. "Got his private number! Turns out that Theresa the barmaid used to be a maid at the castle. Cost me a bundle to get it from her, but I'm sure it'll be worth it. I'll arrange with the hotel to have the taxi downstairs in, oh, say an hour. Get dressed in something nice. It's not every day you meet famed reclusive author C. J. Dante!"

I collapsed back onto the bed. Maybe Raphael had it right after all. Maybe we were all mad, and living in a madman's world.

As it turned out, it was a good thing I made Roxy call Dante's residence before we rode out to Drahansk¨¢ castle.

"The housekeeper says he's out, but she'll leave a message for him," Roxy said as I emerged from a steamy, jasmine-scented bathroom a short while later. "She says he doesn't see many people, though, so our chances don't look too good to get a private audience with him."

"I don't blame him. If I had all sorts of women fans slavering over my studly heroes, I wouldn't want them knocking on my castle door, either," I said. "If we don't have to race off, I'm going to take a nap. I'm going to need one, since you volunteered me to be the evening's entertainment. Wake me up in time to go to the bar."

"Aha!" she leered, wiggling her eyebrows. "Going to hang out at the bar in hopes a certain hunky non-vampire puts in an appearance?"

"Well, of course I am. If you were me, wouldn't you?"

"Naw." She shook her head.

"You wouldn't?"

"Wouldn't need to wait for him, because if I had been you, I would have kicked me out of his trailer and spent the rest of the day riding him like a bucking bronco. Have a nice nap. Think I'll take one myself. I've got my eye on Henri, the guy who operates the dungeon room, and I'll have to get some sleep if I want to dance the night away with him."

Three hours later I woke up Roxy to tell her we'd received a phone message from the mysterious Mr. Dante.

"Go 'way," she mumbled, refusing to come out from under her sleep mask.

"Come on, Rox, you have to wake up! Dante's secretary called, and we've been invited to a late tea. If you don't get a move on, we'll be late!"

"Wha'? Dante? He called?"

I rustled around in her wardrobe, pulling out the one dress I'd insisted she bring with her for any fancy events we might attend. "Here, go wash your face and put this on. You want to look nice when you meet Dante, don't you?"

She lifted a corner of the mask and peered at me. "This wouldn't be a cruel joke, would it?"

I put my hands on my hips and glared at her. "Do I look like I'm joking?"

"No. You're wearing your good dress."

"Right. Now get dressed. The taxi will be here in fifteen minutes."

Thirty-five minutes later we drove past the gatehouse to Drahansk¨¢ Castle and up a graveled road. Torches had been lit along the way - real torches, not electric lights. Roxy and I were impressed.

"Must be nice to have the servants necessary to keep torches lit," I mused.

Roxy grunted her agreement, her face pressed to the window of the taxi as she peered out into the falling darkness. I knew from my guidebook that along the front side of the castle were immaculately groomed lawns and what looked like a formal flower garden, where the GothFaire would hold their All Hallow's Eve festival. As the gravel drive curved around toward the back of the castle, we passed all sorts of black, bulky shapes that indicated outbuildings.

"Look at that," Roxy whispered, awe evident in her voice as we passed the family burial grounds. Torches blazed on a small, vaulted building made of stone. The light from the flames cast sharp focus on the intricate carvings engraved in the stone mantel that arched over the door, topped by two stone eagles with outspread wings and heads tipped back to shriek their eternal agony to the sky. "What do you think it is?"

"Mausoleum, by the looks of it," I answered back, annoyed to find I was also whispering. I cleared my throat. "If you think that's something, look up ahead."

She turned to look where I was pointing. The silhouette of the main part of the castle cut into the darkening indigo sky, the pointed spire of a turret on one side balancing off the gabled tower on the other. The whole place positively reeked of history, which wasn't surprising, since it had been the seat of the lords of Perstejn - a ruling family for several centuries - between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The windows, narrow and high, were framed in the local white stone that we saw everywhere.

"Glorioski," Roxy breathed as the taxi came to a halt before two dark doors recessed into the wall of the building, flanked on either side by lit torches. "What do you think it costs to keep all those torches lit?"

"Don't ask," I replied, craning my head back to try to see all the way up to the top floor.

Roxy handed the driver a handful of local currency, and we headed for the door. Before we could knock, it was opened by a small, tidy woman with sleek blond hair. "Miss Randall? Miss Benner?"

We nodded. She smiled a smile that didn't touch her eyes and moved back so we could enter the building. Roxy hoisted her bag - filled with all twelve Book of Secrets novels - higher and flashed me a grin.

"Remember your parry manners," I hissed.

We were escorted down a bewildering maze of dark passages, lit with electric lights, I was glad to see, figuring that an old building like this would be a fire hazard. We climbed a black staircase and came out into what I assumed was the great hall of the castle, passing under vaulted wooden arches from which ragged banners swayed gently in the air. Wood paneled most of the walls, although occasionally I caught glimpses down dark stone passages that I guessed led to older, unremodeled sections of the castle. The woman told us as she took our coats that her name was Gertrud, and that she was Dante's housekeeper. "He will be with you in a short time," she informed us as we were ushered into a cozy room lined with mahogany-framed, glass-fronted bookcases.

I looked around with amazed interest. "Have you ever seen so many old books in your life?"

Roxy did a little spin and clutched her bag to herself. "I can't believe we're really here! I can't believe we're really going to meet him! I wonder what he's like, what he's really like. Do you think he's old or young? Do you think he likes American women, especially petite American women with curly dark hair and a beguiling manner?"

I laughed and bent over to peer in an environmentally controlled case at the open page of an illuminated manuscript.

"Honestly, Rox, I think he's a man like any other. If you just act like yourself and don't pester him with questions, I'm sure he'll like you well enough."

"Truer words have seldom been spoken," a lovely warm voice said from the doorway. Christian stood smiling at us, a small leather-bound volume in his hand.

"Christian?"

"Joy. You look lovely in that dress. Garnet suits you." He turned to Roxy. "And you are in a very attractive dress despite telling me you did not care for them."

"Are you here to meet Dante, too?" Roxy asked, confused.

The light bulb finally went on over my head.

"Your middle name wouldn't happen to be something starting with the letter J, would it?" I asked.

He set his book aside and came into the room, taking both my hands in his, kissing the backs of each. "It is Johann."

"Do you know Dante?" Roxy asked. "You could have told us you knew him. Geez, I would have told you if you were in my place!"

"Rox," I said, gently disentangling my hands from Christian's. "Meet Christian Johann Dante, famed recluse and author of the Book of Secrets novels."

Christian made a formal bow to Roxy, who stared at him in stunned silence for a minute, then flung her bag away, shrieked, and threw herself on him, wrapping her arms and legs around him as she babbled about what a fool she'd been. Christian looked upward to heaven when Roxy grabbed his face and started kissing his cheeks. I laughed at the look of consternation on his face as Roxy squealed again. He swung her around once, then gently set her on her feet.

"Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod!" She jumped up and down for a moment, then grabbed her bag and flung herself at his feet, scrabbling for her books, muttering about finding a pen worthy of the great Dante's fingers.

I smiled one of my best patronizing smiles and patted her on the head. "So much for remembering your party manners."

It took Roxy a bit of time to calm down, but eventually she did, aided by some of Christian's aged brandy. He spent a goodly amount of time apologizing for misleading us as to his identity, but we both assured him we weren't in the least upset.

"As if we could be upset with you," Roxy said with worship in her eyes. She sat next to Christian on an embroidered settee, her body language that of an acolyte before an idol.

He laughed, the sound soft and pleasing as it echoed around the room. "Last night you told me I was a beast because I would not have your name tattooed on my buttock, and today I can do no wrong." He shook his head and grinned at me. "I believe I preferred being a beast."

I had a hard time dissuading Roxy from monopolizing the conversation by grilling him as to past and future books, but after another brandy, she finally allowed the conversation to be turned in the direction I wanted.

"Joy's giving me that look that says she's going to pinch me black and blue the minute your back is turned, so I suppose we'd better get to what we came to talk to you about."

"I am destroyed," he said mildly, looking anything but. "I assumed your enjoyment of my books was such that you merely wished to meet me in person, but now I find that is not true, that I am but a cog in a bigger wheel. Alas, how the mighty have fallen."

"You're almost as big a ham as Dominic," I told him.

His lips quirked, but he managed to keep a grin from forming as he placed a hand on his chest and gave us a little mock bow. "How can I be of assistance to my two favorite Americans?"

"It's Joy's vampire," Roxy said.

Christian settled back and crossed his legs, his elegant fingers tapping out a rhythm on his knee. "Ah, the admirable Mr. St. John."

"No," Roxy said. "Turns out he's not the Dark One. That's what we wanted to see you about. We need your help."

"Me?" he asked, his brow furrowed as he looked from Roxy to me. "How can I help?"

"Roxy's hoping your experience and research will help us figure out who the Dark One is," I said. "We know he must be close, because he's shared visions with me, and although I had assumed it was Raphael, it turns out I was wrong."

"Indeed? I had assumed you had a preference for the good Raphael. Am I to gather that something has gone amiss in your path to romance?"

Roxy snorted. "Not likely. They can hardly keep their hands off each other."

"Raphael is not the issue," I said with a bit of a red face at the thought of discussing my blossoming relationship with Raphael. I blush easily, a fact that annoys me more than a little, but I have yet to find a cure for it. "The point is that if the Dark One is not him, it must be someone else."

"We have a list," Roxy announced, digging through her purse. I remembered who was on the list and tried to catch her attention to dissuade her from reading it aloud, but wasn't in time. "Here it is. Let's see - Dominic is a no, you're a no, Raphael is a probably not, and Milos is the favorite."

My blush heated up a few notches as Christian gave me a cool, appraising look. "I didn't intend any offense," I explained. "More or less every man I've met has been on the list. We crossed you off it immediately."

"I am grateful for small mercies."

"However," Roxy cut in, "since you are the reigning king of the Dark Ones, we figure it should be a piece of cake for you to figure out who the man is who has marked Joy."

"According to Moravian lore," Christian said slowly, his finger rubbing his lower lip, "once a woman has been marked by a Dark One as his Beloved, she does not seek any other mate. Yet Joy seems unhappy with the thought of living her life with a man who will eternally worship her. I find this conflict intriguing."

"I doubt if you'd find it so intriguing if you were in my shoes," I answered. "I understand what you say about Moravian lore, but what I want to know is whether or not it's true. You say that each Dark One has one woman and one woman alone who is his soul mate. Has there never been an occurrence where the two don't get along, or there's two men for one woman, or vice versa?"

Christian shook his head. "Not that I am aware. It has always been one woman for one man."

"What happens if the one marked as Beloved does not wish to Join herself to the Dark One?"

Christian shrugged. "He continues on as he has done all the years before him. Darkness, eternal struggle, and damnation without the possibility of ever finding salvation - the torment simply continues. The Dark One can make the choice to end his torment by exposing himself to the sun, a drastic last step of desperation. It is not uncommon."

Roxy shivered. "Poor Dark One. I'd never leave him like that. Joy, you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I'm not saying I am abandoning this guy, whoever he is."

I objected, feeling utterly guilty and lower than a worm's belly. What sort of woman was I to damn a man to a black eternity just because he didn't do things to me that an amber-eyed Lothario did? "But first I want to know who the Dark One is. Then I can figure something out. Maybe there's been a cosmic mixup or something, switching soul mates between two sets of people."

"I don't think that's possible. Do you, Christian?"

He eyed me with consideration. "I have never heard of it happening, no."

" 'There are more things in heaven and earth,'" I quoted softly to him.

He smiled. "Very true."

"So do you think you can pick out the Dark One at the fair tonight?" Roxy prompted him. "Joy's going to do the rune stone readings, and you get to be one of her victims."

"Thanks," I said dryly.

"I am not sure," he answered Roxy's question. "I have little knowledge of those connected with the fair."

"You met Milos last night," I pointed out. "Wouldn't you have known if he was a Moravian then?"

"Possibly," he allowed.

"So - was he? What did you think about Milos?" Roxy asked.

He looked at Roxy for a moment, then switched his attention to the fireplace that blazed with a bright fire. "I believe that Milos is a man who is dangerous to women who are unescorted. As to whether he is a Dark One or not... a second look would not be amiss."

"Dangerous, huh?" Roxy nodded her head and popped a lemon drop in her mouth. She offered the package around before tucking it back into the Black Hole of Calcutta that doubled as her bag. "I agree one hundred percent. He looks like the type who'd take advantage of a woman."

"I believe the danger he poses goes a bit deeper," Christian answered.

I glanced at the clock. "Well, dangerous or no, we're going to have to be going, since Roxy signed me up to be the evening's entertainment. Thank you for answering our questions," I said as I rose.

His lips curled into a smile, but his eyes were watchful and worried.

"I would be happy to escort you again, if you are not tired of my presence."

Roxy almost fainted at the thought, but I managed to revive her by promising she could sit next to him in the front seat of his car. We arrived at the fair a short while later, amazed to see how many people were gathering.

"All right, you blackmailed me into this, but if I'm going to do it, there are going to be some ground rules," I told Roxy as we lined up in the queue waiting to buy tickets.

She looked around us. "Boy, you weren't kidding when you said people would be streaming in all week," she told Christian. "There's got to be double the people who were here yesterday."

"Rox, can we force ourselves to stick to the issue at hand - namely, my happiness?"

"You're a selfish, selfish person," Roxy replied, then turned her back on me and smiled at Christian.

"The rules are these," I continued on, ignoring her ignoring me. "First, I have to have my own set of rune stones. I don't want to borrow the ones Arielle was using. They don't have a good feel to them."

"You wouldn't believe she was the biggest skeptic in all the world last week, would you?" Roxy asked Christian. "Boy, has she changed her tune!"

"Yes, now I believe six impossible things before breakfast," I replied, giving her a look that should have warned her. "It's that or go insane. I chose sanity. Second, I get to choose who I read for."

"Dominic said it has to be three readings."

"Fine," I said. "Then I'll read for Raphael, Christian, and Arielle."

The line shuffled forward a few steps. "Aye aye, mon capitaine," she answered, still smirking at Christian. He shot me a martyred look.

"And last but not least, I don't want a lot of people watching me. I get nervous before a crowd, and we all know what happened the last time I got nervous when I was reading the stones."

"What happened?" Christian asked.

"Earthquakes, floods, fires, you name it. She's a cataclysient - predicts natural disasters."

"I am not a cataclysient, there is no such thing as a cataclysient, so you can just stop telling everyone I am one. It was all just coincidence, Christian. A group of Wiccans has banned me from ever reading for them again, that's all. But still, having me do public readings probably isn't a terribly bright idea. I wouldn't want anything to go wrong."

We moved forward a yard or so. Roxy mouthed "cataclysient" to Christian.

"The most important thing is to find a set of rune stones," I decided. "Luckily, I saw some yesterday at one of the booths that sell crystals and stuff."

We paid our entrance fee and worked our way through the increasing crowds until we came to the merchant. I perused his limited selection of stones, trying to decide between the pink rose quartz and the deep purple of the amethyst. Once the merchant told me the amethysts were runes of joy (rose quartz were runes of love), the decision was made.

As I was handing over the money for the stones, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and shrieked out a warning of danger. I spun around and met the cold, flat eyes of Milos. He nodded his head, gave Christian the same impersonal look, and turned to leave. He stiffened for a moment as he looked at something beyond the edge of the tent, then turned on his heel and walked in the opposite direction.

"That guy gives me the creeps," Roxy said from where she was busy trying on necklaces.

I glanced at Christian. He was watching Milos depart, his fingers absentmindedly stroking one of the rose quartz runes.

"You really shouldn't touch the stones," I warned him, tapping his fingers.

He looked down at his hand. "I shouldn't?"

"No. It's supposed to be bad for whoever reads them if someone else touches them. Imprints them or something. I was told to never let anyone touch my rune stones. Not that I ever really believed in that stuff, but... " I smiled lamely. "I guess if I can believe in vampires, I can believe in touchy rune stones."

He quickly put the stone down and smiled.

"Come on, beautiful," I called out to Roxy who was peering into a mirror admiring a crystal necklace on herself. "I want this over with as quickly as possible."

"You just want to be done so you can play a round of kissy-face with Raphael," she said, turning slightly to check out the side view.

"That isn't why I want to be done with it," I said indignantly, not in the least denying the truth in her statement.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Raphael said from just beyond the tent. "The thought of playing a round of kissy-face is one I hate to discard, but disappointed and slighted though I am, I will see my duty through as best I can. Your presence, madam, has been requested."

He held out his hand for me. I smiled and took it, reveling in the warmth of his touch as his fingers closed around mine. "You'll notice, disappointed and slighted as you are, that I did not discount the idea of playing kissy-face."

"I noticed," he answered, his eyebrows giving me a slight wiggle.

Christian appeared at my side, giving Raphael a neutral look. "St. John," he said, glancing down to where Raphael held my hand. His lips tightened as he took my other hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

"Dante," Raphael nodded back, giving him a cool, assessing look. Something elemental and male passed between them, something I could sense but was not privy to. I was about to suggest they stop acting like cavemen when Roxy, her purchase complete, strolled past us and nailed the situation on the head.

"Reminds me of two dogs with their hackles up over the same bone," she called out over her shoulder. "You'd better be careful, Joy. Next thing you know, they'll start marking their territory, and you know what that means! They'll be peeing everywhere!"

To my surprise, Raphael - and Christian - did not escort me to Arielle's palm-reading tent. Instead we marched down the avenue lined with booths, heading straight for the main tent, the one used for the big events. I assumed Dominic didn't want to interrupt the flow of business at the palm-reading booth by having me do my demonstration there.

"How long have you known who Christian was?" I asked Raphael as we walked. "And why didn't you tell us? You could have saved Roxy and me from making fools of ourselves by telling Christian all about his books."

Christian murmured in his rich, silky voice that he would never think me a fool. Raphael just shrugged. "Last night. Someone in the bar told me. I thought he would have told you; you seem to spend enough time with him."

"Oh, stop it," I told Raphael as we wended our way through the crowds of people patronizing the line of tents. Arielle had a large group in front of hers, I was happy to note. Tanya, grim-faced and hollow-eyed, also had a sizeable crowd in front of her spell-casting booth. "You make it sound like Christian is interested in me in a romantic way, and he's not, he's just being polite. I've never understood why men get so territorial about a woman having a platonic relationship with another man."

Raphael stopped, pulling Christian and me to a halt as well. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"About what?" I asked him. "About men acting like boobs around other men? Yes, I'm serious. I've seen it before - "

"No, not that." His lovely amber gaze shifted until it rested on Christian. "You're serious about thinking he's not interested in you the same way I am, isn't that right?"

I glanced between the two men, the fingers of my right hand entwined with Raphael's, held strong and safe, my left hand tucked into Christian's arm. "Stop embarrassing me," I said in a low tone to Raphael. "Of course he's not interested in me in that way."

Raphael kept his eyes on Christian. "Tell her."

Christian pursed his lips, his gaze holding Raphael's. "In my own good time."

"Tell her now."

"Tell me what? Dammit, I hate feeling like everyone else at the party knows a joke and I don't. What does he want you to tell me?" I asked Christian. "I'm not completely stupid. I've dated guys before, I know all the signs one makes when he's looking for a little nookie, and you're not making them, so yes, please, just tell me whatever it is that Mr. Possessive here thinks you need to tell me."

"Very well," Christian said, placing his hand on top of mine. "If you insist."

With a move too fast to see, he pulled my hand from Raphael's, wrapped both arms around me, and slammed me up against his chest just as his lips swooped down to capture mine. I stood for a moment in stunned surprise, then realized what he was doing and tried to shove myself off his chest.

"Let go of her," Raphael growled behind me.

Christian's arms held solid behind me, not giving an inch when I tried to squirm out of them. I was just starting to get panicky when he suddenly let me go. I stared at Christian in open-mouthed surprise. His eyes were black, solid black as if his pupils had dilated to consume his irises, black and glittering and full of something that made me shiver.

Raphael pushed in front of me, shoving me behind him as he growled directly into Christian's face. "Touch her again and you'll have to answer to me."

"Hey!" I said, nudging Raphael in the back. I didn't mind a little bit of a possessive attitude, but he was taking things a bit too far.

"What's the matter?" Roxy called from behind me, hurrying up. "Everyone is waiting in the main tent. What are you guys lollygagging for?"

"Hans and Franz here are duking it out."

"I answer to no man, St. John," Christian said in a silken voice that only magnified the menace inherent in it. "If Joy does not wish to receive my advances, she will tell me."

"Oooh! They're fighting over you? Cool! I figured it would take a couple more days before things escalated to that point."

"I'm telling you she doesn't want them," Raphael said, his voice dropping in pitch. While he wasn't as good with the unspoken menacing as Christian, I did not like the way the conversation was heading. It was all very flattering to think that they'd want to mix it up over me, but it was also extremely stupid. There was only one man present I wanted to get to know better.

"All right, both of you, stop it now," I said, pushing Raphael until I could squeeze between them. He didn't back up at all, which meant I was pressed up against a likewise unmoving Christian. I turned my head to Raphael. "Just so you know, you're standing so close my breasts are pressed up against him."

Raphael immediately backed up a couple of steps, but took me with him as he did so.

"Look, this is silly," I appealed to Christian. "I'm very flattered that you want to kiss me and everything, but the truth is that I'm just not quite with you on that. I assumed you knew that Raphael and I are, for lack of a better description, interested in one another."

"He knows that," Raphael grumbled behind me.

"So you can both just stop your posturing and growling and pretending I'm nothing more than a mindless, ditzy bit of fluff who will happily walk off with whoever wins this pissing contest, and get back to the job at hand."

Raphael's hands on my arms tightened painfully as Christian stepped forward, took my hand in his, and turned it over to kiss my palm. It was the same move that Dominic had pulled on me, but Christian didn't leave me with the desire to wash off my hand. "As you have asked, I will not press my suit. Yet."

"Fine. Now that we're all friends again, can we get these stupid readings over with so I can enjoy the rest of the evening?"

Christian smiled and tucked my hand back into the crook of his arm. Raphael grumbled to himself, but took my other hand.

"I feel like I should be singing 'We're Off to See the Wizard,' " I said as we headed for the main tent.

Neither man laughed, although Roxy, accepting Christian's offer to take his other arm, broke her silence with a comment that she'd like to know what perfume I was using to have three men slobbering over me the minute I arrived in the country.

"No one is slobbering over me," I told her with a look that promised a much more detailed chastisement in the near future. "You make me sound like nothing but a choice piece of meat. I'd like to just drop the subject, if we could. Did you tell Dominic that I wanted to pick the people I'd read for?"

"No. I thought you guys were right behind me, not standing in the middle of the fair having a testosterone contest."

I snickered. Raphael glowered. My snicker died when I got caught up in the snare of his eyes, the heat in them sending a wave of warmth through me that kindled a fiery reaction at several key points of my anatomy. The cheerleaders woke up and started rallying the crowd for the main event. If I had any before, the steamy, seductive look in Raphael's eyes left me in no doubt that tonight he would not be asking me to remove myself from his lap.

"Hooo," I sighed, and allowed him to hustle me off to the main tent.