Vampires Gone Wild (Love at Stake #13.5)

Vampires Gone Wild (Love at Stake #13.5) Page 8

In the eight months she and Lukas had dated, she’d only ever seen him late at night. And while, logically, she knew that that probably meant he’d had another girlfriend, or even a wife, hidden away somewhere, and that he’d left her at the risk of getting caught, she couldn’t let go of the hope that he’d been sent on some last-minute top secret assignment that demanded communication silence, a mission that was taking longer than he’d expected. And that someday he’d waltz back into her life, sweep her into his arms, and kiss her senseless.

But with each passing month, it became harder to hold on to that hope. The likelihood that their relationship had never meant as much to him as it had to her became greater and greater. In all probability, Lukas had taken the coward’s way out and disappeared rather than facing her with that truth.

Logic said that he was gone and wasn’t coming back, and the sooner she accepted that and forgot about him, the happier she’d be. But the heart was a hopelessly illogical organ.

As she entered the kitchen, Steph caught up with her, her eyes at once sympathetic and a little frustrated.

“I thought you liked this one,” she whispered.

Elizabeth shrugged. “Tim’s a great guy.”

“But he’s not Lukas.” Steph’s warm fingers closed around her forearm. “Sweetheart, no one is ever going to be Lukas.”

Elizabeth’s lips twisted ruefully. “Trust me, I know that.” There would only ever be one Lukas Olsson. With the blond hair and blue eyes of his Nordic ancestors and the build of a linebacker . . . or Viking marauder . . . Lukas had been gorgeous in a powerful, masculine, wholly uncivilized way. And that smile of his . . . oh, that smile could whip an entire roomful of women into a frenzy of delight or jealousy, depending on who was on the receiving end.

Elizabeth sighed. “There’s no spark with Tim, and I can’t keep pretending there is.” And, Heaven help her, there’d been sparks with Lukas. Fireworks bright enough to light up the night sky.

She’d thought he adored her. He’d acted as if he adored her, as if he’d been every bit as much in love with her as she’d been with him, even if they’d never actually said the words. They’d dated, made love, and spent every night together for almost eight months.

Damn him. She knew he’d cared for her, at least a little bit. No man was that good an actor for that long. But he obviously hadn’t cared enough.

Releasing a hard sigh, she grabbed a Corona and the bottle opener.

Steph watched her open her beer, her expression soft. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but there’s more to life than sparks, sweetie. Tim’s nice, he’s good-looking, and he’s a lawyer. And let’s face it, a lawyer’s salary would go a long way toward balancing your teacher’s pay.”

Elizabeth snorted. There was that.

But as Tim walked her back to her apartment an hour later, Elizabeth knew she couldn’t see him again. They’d dated a month, and she’d put off having sex with him as long as she could. She’d already learned from experience that there was nothing lonelier in the world than sharing that ultimate intimacy with the wrong man when she knew there was a right one.

Even if, in all probability, the right one was gone from her life for good.

When Tim tried to take her hand, she feigned ignorance, and a chill she didn’t feel, and crossed her arms instead. At the base of the stairs to her apartment building, she turned to him.

Wry disappointment twisted his expression. “This isn’t working, is it?”

“I’m sorry. I like you, Tim, but . . .”

He nodded. And sighed. “I know.”

Giving in to impulse, she kissed his cheek. “You’re going to be a great catch for the right woman. I’m sorry she can’t be me.”

An hour later, ready for bed, Elizabeth eyed the drawer of her bedside table. Don’t touch it, she urged herself. Leave it alone and go to sleep. But the temptation was just too great, and she lifted out the framed picture that Steph had snapped the weekend before Lukas disappeared. With a beer in one hand, he’d pulled Elizabeth against him in that way that screamed mine. She’d looked up, laughing. And the expression on his face as he’d grinned down at her had been so full of adoration. Of love.

How could he have left her without a single word?

“Damn you, Lukas Olsson.” As she stared at his beloved face, her heart squeezed, tears burning her eyes. “Why do I still miss you so much?” She’d found that most wonderful and elusive of treasures—a forever love. Then lost it, lost him, in a haze of mystery, questions, and uncertainty.

Despite that, if she had it to do over, she wouldn’t change a thing. Knowing Lukas, loving him, even for that short time, was worth all the doubts and misery and loneliness that had followed. A loneliness, she feared, that might well last a lifetime.

Chapter Two

STEPH WAS WAITING in front of Elizabeth’s apartment the next morning, two Starbucks lattes in her hands. The September morning was just cool enough to hint at autumn’s impending arrival, the sun bright, the sky a brilliant cobalt. Elizabeth’s cotton cardigan felt good, though by the time school was out, she wouldn’t need it.

With a grin, she adjusted her purse on her shoulder and took one of the lattes. “You are the best friend, evah.”

Steph laughed as the two started down Wisconsin Avenue NW toward Georgetown and Adams Middle School, where Steph taught music and Elizabeth math. The weather was lovely, the road narrow and tree-lined, the architecture quaint, filling her with pleasure despite the heavy traffic and morning crush.

“I figured the morning after a breakup deserved something special.”

“And how do you know Tim and I broke up?” Elizabeth asked primly. Steph always knew what Elizabeth was going to do before she did it.

“The writing was on the wall. You did break up with him, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” Elizabeth sighed. “I did.”

They walked side by side, past the Naval Observatory, the sidewalk crowded with people heading to work, or looking for coffee, or just meandering with a dog on a leash.

“What are you doing after school?” Steph asked. “I’m thinking about checking out the new health club. Come with me. We can ogle the hotties together.”

Elizabeth snorted. “You’re married.”

“Yeah, but I’m not dead, girlie. Garrett doesn’t mind in the least if I work myself into a lather. Not as long as I come to him for relief.”

With a smile, Elizabeth took a bracing sip of hot latte goodness. Hazelnut, just the way she loved it. “I’m up for a workout as long as you don’t try to fix me up with anyone.” Before Steph could profess innocence of any such plan, Elizabeth continued, “I didn’t have time to check the news this morning. Anything interesting that I missed?”

Steph sobered. “Another person’s gone missing, this one down by the Navy Yard. He was on his way to a Nats game, and his friends say he just disappeared. Which is impossible, of course.”

“What does that make, now? Fifteen, sixteen?” People all over the city had disappeared over the past few months, some in broad daylight. Some purportedly into thin air.

“Nineteen. The most popular theories are space-alien abductions, or the rapture, though if it’s the latter, it’s taking forever and leaving most of the superreligious behind. They’re pissed. Garrett’s worried, but I keep reminding him that nineteen out of well over a million means my odds of being snatched are small enough to be approaching zero.”

“You sound like the math teacher.”

“Am I right?”

“You are. Still, I feel bad for the families left wondering where they went.” She had a sense of what that felt like, the void a missing loved one created in one’s life. The never knowing where they’d gone or why, or if they were ever coming back. It had crossed her mind that Lukas’s disappearance might be related though it seemed unlikely, given that the spate of disappearances had started only a couple of months ago.

“So share the deets on the health club,” Elizabeth said, steering the conversation to a less depressing topic.

“They’ve got a grand opening special . . .”

As Steph talked, and they walked the mile to school past colorful Georgetown row-house shops, Elizabeth sipped her latte and drank in the sights and sounds of the hectic morning rush, consciously embracing all that she loved about her life. And there was much to love—her friends and family, her math kids, the teaching itself, and the constant, familiar bustle of the city she’d grown up in.

For eight months, she’d been more than just happy. She’d felt . . . complete . . . as if her world and her life had finally snapped into full, brilliant focus. Though, if she were honest, that brilliant focus had always suffered more than a handful of shadows. Shadows in the form of Lukas’s secrets. She’d never called him on his unwillingness to share more about himself, hoping that eventually he’d trust her with the truth. Instead, he’d left without a word. And she’d never quite be the same again. Not with her heart now missing an elemental piece.

If she was lucky, someday another man . . . the right man . . . would come along and fill the hole Lukas had left. But deep inside, her heart stubbornly insisted that Lukas Olsson was the only right man for her.

As they reached P Street, the crosswalk flashed with the red-handed “wait” sign, and Elizabeth took another sip of coffee. Steph had a way of shifting conversational directions on a dime, and they were now talking about the new fall television season.

“You’ve got to see it,” Steph enthused about yet another amateur singing hour.

Elizabeth smiled. “I’ll set it to record on my DVR when I get home.”

The light changed to “walk,” and they started forward again. But halfway across P Street, a cool draft of air shivered over Elizabeth’s skin.

And with her next step, the lights went out.

Chapter Three

ELIZABETH FROZE. HER pulse took flight as the darkness, the silence, pressed in all around her. She could see nothing. Hear . . . nothing.

How? How . . . ?

A second ago, she’d been walking across P Street beside Steph in the bright sunshine. Now . . . this. Had she passed out? Was she having a seizure, or a stroke? Good grief, had she . . . died?

No. Not unless her latte had traveled with her. Her Starbucks cup remained clasped warm in her hand.

“Steph?” Her voice cracked with fear.

Out of the corner of her eye, something coalesced from the darkness. Slowly, a landscape began to materialize around her. No, no, it was just her eyes beginning to adjust to a dark that was not, as she’d first thought, complete—the dark of a dangerously stormy day. Or dusk.

All around her stood buildings. Not the buildings that should be here but something entirely different—small houses and large, a general store, a . . . stable? It looked like a ghost town from a bygone era, deserted. Crumbling.

Trees rose among the buildings and houses, as if trying to reclaim forest once stolen by the town. But the trees were winter bare, twisted, some half-disintegrated, as if they, too, had been left to die.

What is this place? A chill skated over her skin, part shock, part true chill, for the air was much cooler here than it had been in . . . the place she belonged. How in the name of all that’s holy did I get here? It smelled different—woodsy in a dry, aged way, and dusty. Dust overlaid with decay.

Clutching her Starbucks cup with both hands, she turned around slowly, her heart trying to break its way out of her chest.

This can’t be happening. “I have to get to class,” she murmured, as if whatever mysterious hand had plucked her out of her life would say, “Oh, sorry. Of course I’ll send you back.”

Is this Heaven?

A sound caught her ear, blasting through the panic pounding at her eardrums. A man’s scream.

Maybe it’s Hell.

Her heart thudded so hard, her entire body began to quake. She felt light-headed, dizzy. Don’t pass out. You can’t pass out.

Another sound broke through, the dull clip-clop of horses. Multiple horses, much closer than the scream. Were the ghosts of this place coming for her? If so, she’d be the one screaming soon.

The warmth seeping into her now-shaking hands reminded her that she still held her latte. Gripping the precious cup, she sipped gingerly, relishing the tasty slide of warmth down her throat. The familiar taste grounded her, if only a little, reminding her of Steph, of their walk, of their discussion . . .

The nineteen missing.

Oh my God. I’m number twenty.

Her face turned to ice. Her head began to pound as one thought broke free of the dozens swirling inside. If Lukas finally came back, he wouldn’t find her. Now she was the one who’d disappeared.

“No,” she breathed, her mind turning to steel. “I’m not staying here.”

There had to be a way back home.

And she had to find it.

Chapter Four

ELIZABETH TOOK ANOTHER bracing sip of her quickly cooling coffee, then started forward. No good could come of standing in the middle of the street, especially with the sound of the horses drawing nearer. Instinct urged her to find a place to hide until she saw what manner of people . . . or creatures . . . rode those horses. But where?

She had no idea what this place was. The streets were laid out just the same as Georgetown’s, but the buildings were all wrong. They appeared not only decrepit but old. As if the buildings she knew had been replaced with their predecessors. Or as if they’d never replaced their predecessors at all.

How is that possible?