P.C. Cast - Mysteria Nights

“Thank the Goddess! You’re back!” Jenny’s hands were patting her as if she was checking for broken bones. “Are you okay? You had me so worried!”

Summer sucked air, blinked rapidly, and managed to nod.

“Is she hurt?” a deep voice asked.

“Colin? Oh, good. You’re back, too,” Jenny said briskly. “I think she’s just had the wind knocked out of her. Here, help me get her to her feet.”

Strong hands lifted her, and Summer realized that it felt familiar and somehow right that he was touching her again, even though his skin had lost the flush of sun-kissed warmth and was cool and marblelike again.

“Are you really all right?” Colin’s voice came from close above her.

Summer looked up, finally blinking her vision clear. He was still holding one of her elbows, and he was watching her with the same dark intensity with which he’d studied her before they’d been magicked into the painting.

“I’m fine,” Summer said. “At least I think I’m fine. I feel kinda—”

“Let’s get you on the bus and back to school where the nurse can check you out,” Jenny interrupted. “Colin, keep hold of her.” And she marched off, leaving Colin to support Summer as they headed to the door.

Summer glanced up at the tall, silent vampire. He was Rochester again, with his broody expression and his dark intensity. Had it just been moments ago that he’d been laughing openly and so full of life and joy and passion? Especially passion.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, although she wasn’t sure what it was she was apologizing for.

His gaze met hers as they came to the front door. “Don’t apologize. I don’t want to know you’re sorry about what happened between us.”

Summer frowned. Well, she was feeling dazed and confused, but she hadn’t meant that . “No, I didn’t mean—”

Jenny threw open the door, and a bright shaft of sunlight filled the entryway of the otherwise dark gallery. Colin dropped her arm and moved hastily back into the shadows, pulling his mirrored sunglasses from the pocket of his shirt and placing them on his nose so that he completed the metamorphosis from the charismatic man who had been seducing her on the balcony to the tall, silent vampire.

“Colin, I—”

“Come on. You still look terrible.” Jenny’s hand replaced Colin’s on her arm, and the Discipline Nymph pulled her firmly from the gallery.

Over her shoulder, Summer could see Colin turning away as the door closed on the bright afternoon.

The kids were suspiciously quiet on the ride back to school. Jenny kept shooting them slit-eyed looks.

“Detention does not begin to describe what Mr. Purdom is going to be serving for a solid week,” she muttered. Then her gaze shifted to Summer. “Do you think you’re okay? You’re still looking pale.”

“I feel fine. I guess.” She lowered her voice and tilted her head to Jenny’s. “What did it look like to you?”

“Well, I was just coming back into the gallery when the girls were screaming bloody murder, saying you and Colin had disappeared. I was trying to figure out what had happened—by the by, Purdom and his buddy, McArter, were looking guilty as hell, so I knew the little turds had something to do with it—when that damn nosy girl . . . oh, what’s her name? You know, blond, chubby, thinks she’s way cuter than she is, and her mom’s a witch with a B ?”

“Whitney Hoge.”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“So Miss Hoge was pointing at the R and J painting with her mouth wide open, unattractively, mind you. I took one look at the picture, saw you two in place of the originals, and hustled the kids out of the room. I briefly chewed out Purdom’s ass—will do a more thorough job of that later—and ran back into the gallery at about the time you landed on your butt in the middle of the floor.”

“So no one watched us inside the painting?”

“Nope. No one was inside the gallery.” Her brows went up. “Was there something to watch?”

“Sorta.”

“Oooh! Nastiness?”

“Kinda.”

“Sorta and kinda are not answers. They are especially not answers with details.”

“I know,” Summer said, and closed her mouth.

A sly expression made Jenny’s face look decidedly nymph-like. “If I remember correctly, and I have an excellent memory—it’s part of the whole discipline thing—anyway, if I remember correctly, you said that the way your opposite magic gets broken is by you being shocked. Right?”

“Right,” Summer said reluctantly.

“Okay, then what shocked you so much the spell was broken?” Summer chewed her lip.

“Look, you can tell me. I’m a professional.”

“A professional what?”

“Certified Discipline Nymph, of course. We wear many hats: classroom disciplinarian, workout disciplinarian—yes, I’m hell in the gym—and, most especially, sexual disciplinarian. So, give. Details, please.”

“It was his kiss,” Summer said.

Jenny blinked in surprise. “Colin’s kiss shocked you so much that it broke the spell? Jeesh, was it that bad?”

“No,” Summer said softly. “It was that good.”

“No, Summer, I don’t have your purse. Sorry. I’ll bet you dropped it when that kid zapped you into the painting,” Jenny said.

“Ah, shoot. I must have left it at the gallery.”

“Could that have been a Freudian slip? Perhaps something that would give you a reason to see Colin again? You know you could just cancel the date with Kenny-benny, and go back there tonight,” Jenny said.

“First, stop calling him that. Second, no, I’m not canceling my date. I’ll go get my purse tomorrow or whatever. As I already explained, this thing with Colin was just a fluke. He’s not my type, and he doesn’t fit into my plan.” A vision of Colin on the balcony, arms outstretched, head flung back, laughing his full, infectious laugh flashed through Summer’s mind, but she quickly squelched the memory. That wasn’t really Colin. The real Colin was much more subdued and uncomfortably intense, not lighthearted, fun, and happy. “The whole Rochester thing doesn’t work for me in the real world,” Summer blurted.

“Huh? Who’s Rochester?”

Summer sighed. “You know, Jane Eyre’s Rochester.”

“Oooh! He’s yummy. What about him?”

“That’s who Colin reminds me of, and he is definitely not my type.”

“You, my friend, might be insane.”

“There’s nothing insane about wanting a guy who’s lighthearted and happy and fun. And blond,” she added.

“You forgot ‘and easy to control,’” Jenny added, then she hurried on, talking over Summer’s sputtering protestations. “Girlfriend, just because a man is intense doesn’t mean he’s not happy and even fun sometimes, too. Plus, you might want to consider that lighthearted could mean light- headed , as in the guy might not have enough sense to be serious,” Jenny said. “And what the hell’s wrong with tall, dark , and handsome?”

“Not believing you about the whole broody-could-equal-happy thing,” Summer said stubbornly, completely ignoring the obvious reference to Ken’s brains or lack thereof. “And I happen to prefer blonds, light hearted blonds in particular.”

“Did you prefer them when Colin had you in a lip-lock?”

“Yes. I still preferred them. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“Which brings us back to my main point. You were surprised because it was so damn good. If it’s so damn good, you might want to consider revisiting the scene of the crime.”

“You want me to get back in the painting?”

“No, I want you to get back on the vampire.”