A Girls Guide to Vampires(55)

"Are you guys starting that again? Look, Joy and I have things to do and people to see, so if you could wrap it up, I'd really appreciate it!"

"She's right," I murmured against his lips, giving him one last sweet kiss. "You need to get your sleep, and Roxy and I have to go do some things."

"What things?" he asked as I slipped off the bed and pulled my sweater down from where his wandering hands had slipped under it.

I had a strange suspicion that he wouldn't approve of us going to peek on Milos, so I made a dismissive gesture with my hands. "Oh, just stuff. I think we're going to the caves today, aren't we, Rox?"

She appeared in the doorway. "Caves. Yes. Caves. Right. Gotcha. Caves."

Raphael didn't look like he believed it for a moment. He snaked a hand around my waist and tugged me to him to lay his lips on me one last time. "Unfinished business," he reminded me of my words of the previous day.

"Unfinished business," I agreed, and with an effort I didn't think myself capable of, tore myself from the warm haven of his body and pushed a madly grinning Roxy ahead of me as we walked toward the outer door.

Raphael flipped on a light that illuminated the whole trailer, then leaned against the door frame to watch us as we left. I paused on my way out the door. "This thing that you're worried over… is it why you sleep with a gun under your pillow?"

For a moment he didn't answer, his eyes smoldering with a strange light as he nodded. "You never know who is going to come calling at all hours of the day… and night."

I nodded as well, then waved goodbye, closing the door quietly behind me.

"You OK?" Roxy asked me as I leaned against the door and caught the breath that had eluded me since I entered the trailer. "That was some kiss he was giving you, eh? Damn near curled my toes, and I wasn't even on the receiving end."

"Mmm," I said, thinking not about Raphael's kisses—wondrous and toe-curling as they were—but about the look in his eyes when he accused me of knowing a secret about him. What was I doing, practically promising myself to a man who could have any sort of secrets in his past? A man who kept a gun under his pillow when he slept? A man who was apparently well educated, and yet who worked for what were probably piddling wages with a small traveling fair?

I knew nothing about him, nothing, and yet here I was contemplating starting something serious with him, something important and meaningful. I couldn't conceive of what it would mean to uproot my life to stay with him, and yet that was exactly what I was thinking seriously about doing. Changing my life didn't bother me so much; it was the fact that although I was mad about Raphael, I didn't really know him.

Or did I? Maybe I knew him better than I thought I did. Then again… what was it Dominic had threatened him with the first night we arrived? "I can break you with a word." That sounded to me like Dominic had a hold on Raphael, and wasn't above using it to keep him in line.

Which made me more confused than ever.

"Joy? You're not having one of those visions again, are you?"

I shook away my questions and gave her a weak grin. "Nope. Just wondering how late Arielle sleeps in."

She looked a question at me.

"I want to ask her a few things," I said as I grabbed her arm and started off in the direction of the hotel at a fast walk.

"What sort of things?" Roxy asked worriedly.

"Things about Raphael. I think Dominic is blackmailing him, and in order to help him, we have to find out what his secret is. I'm hoping Arielle can shed some light on the subject." I started to trot. "Come on—if we hurry, we can catch a ride with that Canadian couple to Punkevní Cave."

"You want to go to a cave now? Now? When there's a vampire to find and a blackmailer to catch? Geez, I sound just like someone out of a really bad adventure book. Hey, wait up, I don't have giraffe legs like you do."

"No one at the fair will be up until this afternoon, and the cave is only a half hour away. We'll worry about the Dark One later. Right now I want to see that cave."

"OK, but when we get back, remind me to tell you something."

I stopped. "What?"

She sprinted past me. "Something to do with the fair."

I loped after her, cutting across the meadow, avoiding the tent city that was just starting to come to life.

"What?" I called out, getting a bit winded as I pounded up the hill to the hotel.

She picked up her speed and yelled something back at me that sounded like rune stones.

"What? What about rune stones? Roxy, will you stop running away from me and just tell me whatever it is!" I started to get a stitch in my side, and slowed down.