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  Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang

  ( Dark Ones - 7 )

  Кейти Макалистер

  Pia Thomason is torn between two Dark Ones: her husband Kristoff—who doesn't trust her—and his best friend, Alec, who is MIA. So Pia goes back to her humdrum Seattle life, but fate has other plans. And she realizes that if she and Kristoff are going to be shackled together for better or worse, she may as well start to enjoy it.

  Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang

  Dark Ones Series, Book 7

  Katie MacAlister

  PROLOGUE

  “He’s here.”

  “Is he? Where? Let me see.”

  The air moved behind me as Magda hurried over to peer around me. “Are you sure that’s him?”

  I nudged aside the heavy blue tweed curtain, creating an infinitesimally small gap between curtain and window that allowed me to eye the man who stood on my front step. “It has to be. Just look at him.”

  “I would if you moved your hand . . . Ah.” Magda had what I thought of as an opera singer’s voice, rich in timbre, and with a Spanish accent that managed to be simultaneously charming and sultry. “Well, it’s true he is wearing dark glasses. But lots of people wear those.”

  “At night?” I asked.

  She pursed her lips. “He doesn’t have long hair like Alec had.”

  “No, but he’s got a widow’s peak. That screams vampire. So does the fedora he’s holding.”

  “Bah. It’s just a hat.”

  I pointed. “That is not just a hat. It’s leather and stylish, and all the vamps I’ve seen have worn something similar.”

  “Hrmph. Lots of men wear hats like that. And long dusters.”

  “Oh, come on! Who do you know who dresses like something out of a European male model’s agent portfolio, wears dark glasses and a hat, and positively reeks of sexy, smoldering danger?”

  “Well . . .” Her face screwed up for a moment while she thought. “I just don’t know. Are you sure that’s the messenger?”

  “Positive.”

  “Hmm.” Magda’s chin rested on my shoulder as we huddled behind the curtain. “He could be a religious person trying to convert you. Or someone who ran out of gas and needs to use your phone. Or maybe he’s a spirit, and is lost, and needs you to help him find that place the spirits call heaven.”

  “The Icelanders call it Ostri, and he’s not a spirit.”

  “How do you know? Are you wearing your thingie?”

  I lifted my hand. A small oval moonstone charm swung gently from a silver bracelet.

  “OK, so he’s not a ghost. Why don’t you let him in and we’ll see who he is?”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked, giving her a gimlet eye. “He’s a vampire! Don’t you know anything? You never invite a vampire into your home. Once you do, they can come in anytime they want!”

  Her lips curled. “Unlike, oh, say, a normal man?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Why don’t you just ask Kristoff?” she asked, moving away, her tone dismissive.

  I let the curtain drop to glare across the small living room at my friend. “You know full well I haven’t heard a single word from that particular man since that horrible time in Iceland when I ended up being his Beloved instead of Alec’s. He hates me because I took his dead girlfriend’s place. I couldn’t possibly ask him, even if I knew where to find him, and I don’t, so that point is completely moot.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Magda said, plunking herself down on my couch, waving a hand toward the archway that led to my kitchen. “He’s right here. You can ask him all you want.”

  My jaw dropped as a shadow detached itself from the darkness of the room beyond, and a man stepped forward into the light. Eyes the color of purest teal practically glowed at me, causing my heart to leap in my chest until I thought it would burst right out of me.

  “Pia,” Kristoff said in that wonderfully rich, Italian-accented voice that never failed to make me feel as if he were stroking my bare skin with velvet.

  “How . . . how did you get here?” I stammered, my brain overwhelmed with the sight and scent and sound of him, right there, close enough to fling myself upon.

  “You are my Beloved,” he said, and took a step toward me, the light from a nearby lamp casting a golden glow on him, shadowing the sharp planes of his face and the little cleft in his chin, burnishing the short, dark chocolate curls that kissed the tips of his ears, curls that I knew were as soft as satin. And his mouth-oh, that mouth with the lush, sensitive lips that could drive me insane with desire even now had me remembering the taste of him, the slightly sweet, slightly spicy taste that was so wholly unique to Kristoff. Instantly my legs threatened to turn to mush. I clutched the back of a chair to keep from melting into a giant puddle right there on the floor in front of him. “We are bound together for all eternity, Pia. I cannot be parted from you.”

  “But . . .” My mind was pretty useless at this point, focused solely on remembering a million little intimate moments with him, but I forced it off those extremely pleasant memories and into some semblance of a working state. “But we have been parted. For almost two months.”

  “Kristoff did not expect you to take the steps of Joining with him,” a man’s voice said behind me.

  The messenger who had been on my doorstep now stood in the doorway. I blinked a couple of times as I realized that I’d seen him before. “You’re Andreas. You’re Kristoff’s brother.”

  “He did not expect to have a Beloved,” Andreas continued, his face only slightly resembling that of the man whose memory had haunted my dreams.

  “No more than I did, but you didn’t see me running away,” I said, turning back to Kristoff, intending to ask him why he hadn’t contacted me once in the two months since I’d saved his life, inadvertently restoring his soul, but before I could say more, he slipped back into the shadows.

  “You are my Beloved,” he repeated as the darkness swallowed him up, the lyrical tones of his voice lingering in the air even as he disappeared from sight. “We are bound together.”

  “Wait-” I said, starting forward.

  Andreas grabbed my arm, saying with earnest intensity, “He did not expect you to save him.”

  “I had to,” I tried to explain, but Andreas simply shook his head and walked out the door.

  “I had no choice,” I said, my hands outstretched as I looked for someone to whom I could explain the situation. Magda sighed, set down her magazine, and stood up.

  “Ray’s calling for me. I have to go now. We’ll be here soon, and then you and I can talk about it, OK?”

  “You’re leaving me?” I asked, a sudden sense of panic filling me as she walked toward the dark kitchen. “You’re leaving me alone?”

  She paused and shook her head, her lips curved in a gentle smile. “I’m not really here, Pia. It’s just a dream, nothing more.”

  “But Kristoff was here,” I said, gesturing toward the door to my bedroom. “He was right there. I saw him.”

  She said nothing, just gave me another little smile; then she, too, melted into nothing.

  “I saw him!” I insisted to the now empty room. “Kristoff, I saw you. Kristoff?”

  The echo of my voice was the only sound.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and sank to my knees with a sob of pure misery as my heart cried out his name. Kristoff!

  Pia?

  His voice was soft in my head, soft and intimate and warm, the feel of it flooding my senses with the memory of him. It was enough to jerk me out of the dream, hot tears leaking from the corners of my eyes as consciousness returned, and with it the profound sense of loss that seeme
d to be my constant companion.

  As my mind fought to free itself from the muzziness of the dream, I realized what had happened. I’d called out to Kristoff from the depths of my dream, and he’d answered. Although I knew that frequently Beloveds and their Dark Ones had the ability to mind-talk to each other, our parting was sufficiently heartbreaking to keep me from trying it.

  Pia?

  The word resonated in my head, a sense of reluctant concern lingering long after the last echo faded away.

  Yes, it’s me. I’m sorry ; I was asleep. I didn’t mean to disturb you. The silence that filled my head wasn’t made up of silence at all-I could feel emotions flowing through him, but he was guarding himself, not allowing me to sense just what they were. Still, I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip by me. I . . . I’ve been worried about you, Kristoff. Are you OK?

  Go back to sleep.

  I buried my face in my pillow, trying to ignore the finality of his words, pretending I hadn’t felt his mind withdraw from mine, but it was no use. Despite my nightly pledge that I would not think of him, would not dream of him, and would not wake up crying, I did just that.

  At one point I thought there might be hope of a future with Kristoff. That tiny little morsel of hope shriveled up to nothing and wafted away as my body curled itself into a fetal ball, the pain of Kristoff’s rejection leaving me racked with sobs as the long hours of the deep night passed into a joyless dawn.

  CHAPTER 1

  Crash!

  “Sorry! I have a cart with a wonky wheel,” I said by way of an apology to the woman whose shopping cart I had just bumped into while trying to maneuver my own out the door of the grocery store.

  My victim reclaimed the package of toilet paper that bounced out of her cart at the impact, and waved away my apology with a gentle, “That happens. Light be with you.”

  “You called me up to tell me you have a wonky shopping cart?” An amused voice laughed softly in my ear as I swore under my breath, struggling one-handed to make my cart behave.

  “No, I called you up because you left a message telling me to call you. Dammit! I’m so sorry, sir. It has a mind of its own. Are you hurt? Oh, good. I’ll back up so you can get your shoe from the maw of the beastly thing.”

  A pleasant-faced young man gave me a somewhat weak smile as he knelt down to wrestle his shoe from under the wheel of the cart, his voice somewhat muffled by his position and the noise of the busy parking lot. “It’s no problem. Light bless you.”

  “Oh, Pia.” Magda laughed even more vigorously, her voice spilling out of the cell phone I clamped between my cheek and shoulder as I fought to shove the cart the few remaining feet to my car. “Only you could find such comical happenings at a grocery store.”

  “Well, it’s partially your fault,” I grumbled, giving in as the cart made a sudden swerve and seemed hell-bent on slamming into a sleek crimson Porsche sitting next to my somewhat battle-scarred Hyundai. I hauled the cart backward to my car. “The second you called the cart went wild on me, and it’s impossible to control such a thing with one hand. But it is nice to hear from you.”

  “Likewise. And for the record, I was responding to your message when I called you. Are you stocking up on my behalf?”

  “Yup. Per your request, I have purchased suitable amounts of animal flesh and seafood for my new grill. I promise you’re going to go wild over my ginger-garlic scallops.”

  “Oh, Pia, about that . . .”

  “Ma’am?” I turned at the tug on my arm. The man whose shoe my cart had tried to consume held out a bright blue package. “I think these fell out of your cart. I don’t use this brand.”

  “My original plan was to stay with you for a week, and see my sister in Vancouver for a week, but . . .”

  I made a face as I took the industrial-sized package of sanitary pads he shoved toward me. “Life seems to be bent on discomposing me today. Thank you.”

  He laughed. “Don’t let it bother you. I have a wife, so I’m hip to all sorts of feminine products. Although I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this particular product before. Does ‘effusive flow’ mean what I think it does?”

  “. . . and Ray managed to get away, so I thought I’d just switch to two weeks, if you don’t mind . . .”

  I shoved the pads into the car and tried to will away the blush that was sweeping upward. “Thank you. I think I’ll just die of embarrassment now.”

  He laughed again and sauntered away, waving a friendly hand. “I wouldn’t want to diminish any light in the world, least of all yours, so I’ll be on my way.”

  “Pia? Pia? Are you listening to me?”

  “Sorry. I was wanting a hole to open up and swallow me. . . .” I paused, looking back at the man as he hopped into a blue minivan. “Did he say what I think he said?”

  “I don’t know; I couldn’t hear him-I was too busy telling you about the change in plans. Boy, you really are having a day, aren’t you?” Magda’s voice was choked with laughter.

  “You have no idea. . . .” I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “I must have misheard. My day, as you said, has been interesting.” I flung the rest of the groceries into the car, manhandled the cart over to a designated holding area, and returned to my car, cranking the air-conditioning on high as I slumped against the hot seat. “Hang on a sec while I plug in the headset . . . much better. Now, where were we? Oh! You said something about a change in plans? Don’t tell me you’re not coming to visit after all?”

  “Would I do that to my favorite Zorya?”

  I grimaced at the word. “You know full well I’m an ex-Zorya. The nearest Brotherhood group is in southern California, and I’m not about to offer my services to them.”

  “We can talk about your future when we get up there.”

  “We?” I pulled out of the parking lot and drove slowly through the tiny town perched high in the mountains, located about an hour’s drive out of Seattle. My house, modest as it was, sat near the edge of the town, nestled between tall fir trees and a sheer rocky wall. “Who’s we?”

  “Ray is coming with me. If you don’t mind, that is.”

  “Mind? No, I like him.” I had to work a little to bring up my mental image of the man Magda had met on the singles’ tour we’d taken some two months before. All I could really remember of him was that he was tall and rather skinny, balding, with mild eyes and an innocuous manner. To be honest, he seemed to fade to near invisibility when Magda was around, but she had that effect on a lot of people. She was full of life and color, with snapping black eyes and a joy of life that was infectious. “So you guys are still going strong, eh?”

  “More than ever,” she cooed. “He rearranged his schedule so that he’d have a month to spend with me before he has to go back to Denver. Isn’t that sweet? So I hoped you wouldn’t mind if he came with me to visit you. I swear he’s housebroken, and he’s promised he’ll be happy to just sit and read or watch movies if we want to have some girl time together.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I said, parking my car in the tiny carport attached to my equally tiny house. I puffed a little as I hauled all the groceries inside.

  “You OK?” Magda asked when I grunted with relief as I dropped the heavy bags on the kitchen table.

  “Yeah, just out of shape. And before you ask, no, I haven’t found time to go to the ladies’ gym like I said I was going to.”

  Magda giggled. “Plump is in, sweetie. I keep telling you that.”

  “Uh-huh. Maybe your plump is in, but mine is spilling out all over the place. Whoever said that pining for a man would make you waste away to nothing was full of bull. I’ve gained ten pounds since I came back from Iceland!”

  “Judging by the way you and Kristoff went at it while you were there, I’d say he was a man who appreciated a woman with abundant curves, and you have nothing to worry about.”

  The vision rose in my mind of a midnight tryst in a barn, my body suffused with heat as I remembered the sensation of Kristoff’s mouth caressin
g the flesh of my neck and breasts. But with that memory came another one: that of Kristoff silently withdrawing his mind from mine.

  I didn’t doubt that despite my physical flaws he desired me sexually . . . but a Beloved was supposed to be so much more than that.

  How could I be anything to a man who didn’t want me?

  “Pia, you still there?”

  “Yes,” I said, clearing my throat and trying not to sound as if I were on the verge of tears.

  Instantly, her voice was filled with sympathy. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have brought up the subject of Kristoff.”

  “No, it’s OK. It’s just that I had this strange dream this morning. That’s what I was calling about. You remember the messenger I told you the vampires were going to send me? I dreamed he came, and somehow you were here, and so were Kristoff and his brother, and it seemed so real until I woke up.”

  “That’s how dreams are.”

  “I know, but this was . . . well, different. Oh, hell, someone’s at my door. I really don’t want to see anyone.” I snatched up a box of Kleenex and dabbed at my eyes as I moved through to the living room. I hesitated for a moment at the door, then scooted to the side to peek out of the window at the front porch.

  “I’ll go, then.”

  “No, it’s OK. It’s just a couple of religious people,” I said, watching as a woman and a man slid a small pamphlet into the screen door before leaving.

  “Bah. I usually tell them I’m a cannibal and they leave me alone.”

  “I tried that once. I told them I was an anarchist, and they just visited me every week to try to save me,” I said, opening the door just enough to snatch up the religious newsletter, closing it quickly before slumping down on the couch next to the window. “So exactly how long will you and Ray be able to stay? The whole week that we planned, or will you guys want to go off on your own and make smoochy faces at each other?”

  I didn’t want to admit how much I’d been looking forward to Magda’s visit. Although my job at a no-kill animal shelter specializing in elderly pets was satisfying, ever since I’d returned from my adventures in Iceland, life seemed to be . . . empty. It was as if a part of me were missing; something that I used to have was now gone, leaving me a shell of a person. I didn’t expect Magda would change that, but she had become a very good friend, and I was cheered no end by the thought of her visit.