Katie MacAlister: In the Company of Vampires

“Ja. You are Imogen friend?”

“Yes, I’m Fran. I’m sorry to disturb you. I thought you would be out with Imogen. And then I thought you were Ben, but clearly you’re not. Where is she?”

“He?”

“No, she, not he. You know, the word ‘she.’ ‘She’ is female; ‘he’ is male.”

He blinked at me. “In trailer,” he said, waving a hand toward the window. “Tattoo trailer.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks. Sorry again about waking you up. Nice meeting you.” I slipped out of the room, closing the door behind me, leaning against it for a moment while I covered my burning cheeks with my hands. “Just when I think you can’t be a bigger idiot, you top yourself. Nice job, Fran.”

I all but ran down the line of trailers until I reached one with familiar artwork. I never had much to do with Gavon, who did tattoos and custom piercings at the Faire, mostly because he struck me as somewhat creepy, but I had a faint memory of Imogen being friends with him.

I knocked on the door, mentally writing an apology to Imogen for barging in on her boyfriend, when the door opened. A woman stood in the doorway. I stared at her bare legs, stared at her thigh-length silk robe, stared at a pretty face topped with a cloud of soft, curly hair. This was not Imogen.

“Yes?”

I gawked at her for a minute. I’d always thought Gavon was gay . . . Maybe I’d been wrong, and this was his girlfriend? “Is Imogen here?”

“Imogen? No. Her brother is.” She continued to stand there, looking me over with narrowed blue eyes. I suddenly felt every inch my six-foot, built-like-a-line-backer self, not to mention the wrinkled T-shirt and pair of jeans I wore.

“Ben’s . . . here?” I groaned to myself. Somehow in the conversation with Günter, we’d crossed our lines regarding pronouns. “Right here?”

“Yes. You wish to see him?”

No. I absolutely did not want to see him. I had not gone through the hell of the last year for nothing. I had made a decision, and I was going to stand by it.

“Yes, please,” I heard someone say, and realized with horror that it was me.

I knew I should have turned around and left. I had to find Imogen, and then make a plan to locate my mother. But despite the desperate need to know she was okay, my feet refused to leave. After all, my brain pointed out, I would be much less distracted once a meeting with Ben was done.

“He was sleeping when I left him,” the woman said in a voice with a faint French accent. “Why do you want to see him?”

My heart shattered. Just like that, it was whole one moment, then in a billion pieces the next. Poof! Dust. Not that it had any right to shatter, but you try reasoning to a heart. It’s impossible. “You’re not Gavon’s girlfriend, are you?”

“Gavon? No. I took over his business. I am Naomi, the tattoo artist. I am Benedikt’s girlfriend. And you are . . . ?”

“Fran Ghetti.” Pain seared my soul with such intensity I had to clutch the side of the trailer to keep from keeling over at her feet. Stupid, stupid Fran! You broke up with him; you can’t be shocked now because he got over you.

“Ah, the former girlfriend.” Her look scalded me up and down with enough heat to peel off at least three layers of skin.

I gave her a long look that by rights should have left her hair smoking. “If he’s sleeping, I won’t disturb him.”

“Benedikt is mine, now. Did he not tell you? Poor little American. Did you believe that he still wants you? Desires you? He does not even think about you. He thinks only of me.”

Her voice turned suddenly syrupy and sickeningly sweet. It was just what I needed, because her words pulled me out of what threatened to be a massive well of self-pity, and into the land made up of me turning her into a wart-encrusted cockroach. “There’s nothing little about me, chicky. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Ben.”

She made an annoyed sound, but stood aside. I climbed the steps and edged past her, hardly able to catch my breath, so fast was my heart beating. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe the proof that was before me. Ben had moved on. He had really moved on. While I’d been spending miserable nights telling myself that I’d gotten just what I wanted, Ben, the bastard, had just blithely gone on with his life.

I glanced over my shoulder at Naomi. She smiled a slow “Ben is my lover because he’s so over you” smile. “He’s in my bed. He was so exhausted after our night together, he went right to sleep.”

I gritted my teeth, my fingernails digging into my palms even through the two layers of gloves I’d replaced. I toyed with the idea of turning her into a toad or bug, but spells had been my mother’s forte, not mine. The only power I ever wielded came from the Vikingahärta. With much reluctance, I pushed away the thought that I could get it from Imogen’s trailer, then turn both the she-devil and Ben into what they deserved.

I turned back toward the door. With every step, the pain in my heart morphed into anger, a fury so hot I thought I would spontaneously combust by the time I flung open the door.

“Nrrf?” a voice said from the bed, then yelped as sunlight streamed in around me. “What the hell are you doing, Naomi?”

The man who rolled over onto his back and sat up, his short hair mussed, his eyes confused and sleepy, brought me to a halt.

“I just came to tell you that I was here, and I never want to see you again. Not that I had planned on doing that, because I thought Günter was saying Imogen was in this trailer, not you, but as long as we’re both here, it’s as good a time as any to get a few things off my chest. So I will. I never want to see you again, you two-timing, cheating rat bastard.”

His eyes widened as they focused on me. “Fran?”

I stared at him for a moment, pain and anger roiling around inside me. “I’m so glad to know I was right about freeing us both. I’m delighted to see that it took you absolutely no time to find a replacement for me. I’m nigh on ecstatic that I meant so little to you that you couldn’t wait to screw the first girl you could find!” I ripped off the ring I still wore on my middle finger and threw it at his head. “I’m so happy I could bloody well burst into a Broadway show tune!”

“Francesca—”

“I told her, but she wouldn’t listen to me,” Naomi said from the doorway, her smile gloating and so evil I wanted to smite her as she’d never been smited. She strolled past me, then sat on the edge of the bed next to Ben, putting a proprietorial hand on his chest. “Now do you see, little American? He is mine, not yours. Aren’t you, lover? Why don’t you tell her? She clearly needs to hear the words.”

I saw red as she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his mouth. Ben’s eyes were the color of honey oak, and filled with an expression I couldn’t read.

“Yes, lover , why don’t you tell me?” My voice came out croaked and hoarse.

His lips tightened. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you what was happening. I just . . . I didn’t expect you to come to Europe yet.”

Naomi nibbled on his ear, cooing softly into it. I stared at him for a few seconds, not believing what I was seeing, not understanding the words he spoke. I had left him, I had told him I didn’t want to be his Beloved, and yet somehow, I had remained true to his memory. I hadn’t dated, hadn’t been interested in other men, I hadn’t even seen other men. I had left him, and he had done just what I had wanted him to do—he had gotten on with his life.

While I remained in limbo, bound to a man who now didn’t want me.

Anguish overrode my anger and I choked on the bile of my own hypocrisy. I spun around and ran blindly from the room, the mocking laughter of Naomi following after me.