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A warm tropical breeze
filtered in through the French doors to the patio, lifting
the light sheet draped across her shoulder. The soft
movement against her naked flesh roused her, and Catherine
rolled over, wincing as the morning light hit her eyes. She
looked at the clock. Make that afternoon light, she
thought.
She was getting too old
for this, she told herself, but she smiled anyway. Kevin
hadn’t seemed to think she was too old at least. He was a
cabana boy at the resort, and she’d sent him away, smiling
and satiated, just a few hours before.
She rose, padded across
the tile floor and pushed the patio door further open. The
smell of the sea greeted her, replacing the stale air in her
lungs. Her patio afforded a magnificent view. In ripples
of blue and green, the Caribbean Sea undulated out to the
horizon, interrupted only by the verdant black of the two
mountains that were the signature attraction of this small
island. A few boats had already anchored a short way off
shore, so Catherine stepped back long enough to don a
terrycloth robe. Then she crossed the patio and selected a
bottle of water from the mini fridge out by the plunge
pool.
The heat of the day was
just beginning to recede and twilight lapped eagerly at its
heels. The island really was a paradise – a paradise that
was supposed to clear her mind and help her get over her
husband’s death. She was supposed to come back normal.
Instead she felt dead inside, consumed by darkness. Even in
paradise, no amount of light illuminated the hollow places
in her soul.
In the weeks following
Paul’s death, she’d kept on going for a time. She’d gone to
work, talked to Paul’s family, smiled when people asked how
she was. But she didn’t heal; she just existed. And as
everyday life resumed around her, she found she couldn’t
bear it. She couldn’t bear watching other people become
accustomed to Paul being gone. So she had left.
That was weeks ago, and
then last night Kevin had appeared next to her beach, with
his warm dark eyes and easy smile, she’d decided there was
nothing left but to face the darkness, embrace it, battle it
and see who won. No retreat, no surrender.
But Kevin had been too
easy. She wanted to test herself, to force herself to
refurnish the barren interior of her soul with the trappings
of a well-lived life. But she wanted it to be hard. The
effort would be a testament to her love for Paul and take
her mind off the void her life had become without him.
Catherine refilled her
empty glass with vodka, its bitter burn reminding her of all
she didn’t feel. When the sun and her drink got lower, she
abandoned them both and headed for the shower.
The white tiled bathroom
glared back at her when she switched on the light, so she
turned it off again. Some light still filtered in from
outside, but the small shell-shaped nightlight came on
immediately. The robe pooled around her feet and she looked
at her reflection. Months of grief had made her lean. Too
lean, perhaps, as the sites of Kevin’s more enthusiastic
ministrations had already begun to bruise. She stepped away
from the mirror and turned on the shower. It was calypso
night at the resort. She couldn’t bear the optimistic
rhythms, but Kevin had mentioned that there was a local bar
down the beach she might try.
*~*
Catherine’s quest led
her past houses and shanties, through the wafting aromas of
jasmine, frying fish and marijuana, but she finally found
what she sought and settled herself on one of the bar’s
sturdier looking woven stools. Lit only by one swinging
light bulb, it wasn’t easy to see from the beach, and she
had almost missed it.
She ordered a drink from
a very large black woman, who watched her in silence as the
rum cascaded over two valiant ice cubes. Catherine took the
drink and the woman disappeared into whatever rooms lay
behind the bar. Two young men sat in the corner to her
right smoking a joint. The lack of light in their eyes made
the bar seem even darker than its mere single light bulb.
Every so often an older
man, probably one of the proud proprietors of this
establishment, would come out to join them, but only when
the booming voice of the large, dark-skinned woman who’d
poured Catherine’s drink died down. She hadn’t spoken to
Catherine, but from the moment she’d disappeared, Catherine
heard her yelling orders at the older man as to how various
chores should be accomplished.
“You seem lost,” a
voice said.
Catherine started,
realizing there was a patron she hadn’t seen. The light was
between them and she hadn’t noticed the man to her left, but
now his velvety voice waded into her misery.
“Not lost,” she said,
trying to see him through the glare and shadow, “just trying
to lose the happy throngs.” She nodded over her shoulder
toward the glimmering resort still visible in the distance.
“You’ve come to the
right place,” he said.
Catherine looked
around. Right place, indeed. She almost smiled, until she
turned back and realized the man was still studying her.
“Look, I just came here
for the drinks,” she explained.
The man raised his glass
to her, and in the shadow of his arm she could see a pair of
ice blue eyes that marked a point of interest in a strong,
but otherwise plain face. “Sorry, you just remind me of
someone I used to know.”
Catherine grimaced,
annoyed that he had resorted to such a tired line and that
the word handsome had sprung into her brain when he’d smiled
at her. “Yeah? Well, I remind me of someone I used to know
too,” she replied, turning her attention back to her drink.
He laughed and the
warmth of it surprised her. “I was about to warn you,” he
said, “but maybe you can look after yourself.”
Catherine’s eyes
narrowed as she again turned to look at him. “Warn me about
what?” she asked.
“That there are dangers
lurking, even in paradise, and you should stay out of the
dark.”
Catherine looked into
his eyes for a savage moment and knew the double meaning was
intentional. “You’re too late, I’m afraid,” she said, her
voice softening.
“Because you think
you’re in the dark?” he said, a slight smile again
transforming his face from ordinary to something more like
devastating.
Catherine looked back at
her drink. “No,” she whispered, “because I think the dark is
in me.”
Her new friend got up
and moved over, taking a seat on the stool next to hers.
Now the limited light in the little bar sought him out,
making his sandy hair look blond. “The dark’s not all bad,
you know,” he whispered, so low Catherine wasn’t sure she’d
heard him right.
“Look out there,” he
said, turning toward the ocean. A single streak of light
escaped from under the roof of their little saloon and lit
the tops of the waves as they came forward to lap at the
soft sand. “The dark can be just as warm and inviting as the
light,” he said. “And a hell of a lot more forgiving.”
She looked more closely
at him, wondering what he needed to be forgiven for.
“Oh, you have no idea,”
he said. He put his glass on the rough wood surface of the
bar and looked at her in invitation. “We could get out of
here,” he said. “I have a house just up the beach.”
“And leave all this?”
Catherine mocked.
“My liquor is better,
and the glasses are clean,” he enticed.
Catherine slid off her
perch and laid some money on the bar.
“Don’t you think you
should tell me your name?” she asked.
The sandy-haired
stranger smiled at her again, causing an unfamiliar
fluttering in her insides. “Roman,” he said. “And you?”
“Catherine,” she
replied, allowing him to take her hand and lead her back out
into the night.
*~*
“What is this exactly?”
Catherine asked, taking a second sip of the drink Roman had
handed her.
“You don’t like it?” he
asked, holding open the door that led from his many-windowed
living room out onto a large porch overlooking the sea.
Catherine preceded him
outside. “No, it’s fantastic,” she commented, “just
unfamiliar.”
“It’s one of my own
concoctions,” Roman said, “made with some rare local
ingredients.”
Outside, the night was
as warm as Catherine’s insides were starting to feel. The
hem of her short dress danced around her thighs as the
breeze caught it, and she smoothed the silky fabric down
with the palm of her hand, unsure why she suddenly felt
nervous.
She crossed the
weathered planks and rested her glass and her hips against
the porch’s railing. A tiny sliver of a moon gleamed over
the smooth surface of the Caribbean. It should have been
calming, but at that moment two bats flew across her line of
sight, giving her an unexpected chill.
Roman came up behind her
and put his glass beside hers. His hand trailed back up the
exposed skin of her arm, his fingers still cool from
clutching his drink. Again, Catherine couldn’t repress her
shiver. Roman moved closer, sending his other hand up under
her thick mane of hair to caress her shoulder. When his
hand touched her skin, the moonlight seemed to flicker,
causing Catherine to blink and look around.
It wasn’t her
imagination. The air around them had begun to shimmer, and
it was suddenly harder to breath. She wasn’t uncomfortable,
though, quite the contrary – she was leaning back into
Roman’s hard frame, searching for his lips with her own.
*~*
Catherine’s eyes flew
open as her slowly waking brain realized it didn’t know
where it was. Usually that momentary sense of panic was
alleviated by the comforting arrival of familiar signals
through the optic nerve, but today she really was alone in a
strange place.
Cool linen sheets
surrounded her, and she glanced around a well-appointed, if
somewhat too neutral, bedroom. Roman’s? Why could she not
remember?
A low growl from the
corner of the room drew her attention, and the sight of its
source stole all the air from her lungs. The biggest dog
she had ever seen lay against the wall to her left, looking
like a hairy, black sofa underneath a framed photo of
night-blooming jasmine.
The animal’s yellow eyes
met hers and, as its tongue came out to lick its feral lips,
Catherine realized it wasn’t a dog at all. It was a wolf.
Tremendous paws aligned
themselves as the animal first stretched and then got nimbly
to all fours. It slowly rounded the corner of the bed and
came to look at her over the tent her toes made beneath the
sheet. Catherine found herself still holding her breath and
wishing fervently for a footboard.
“Good boy?” she
squeaked.
The animal growled
again, and Catherine began to scoot imperceptibly toward the
wall at her back. When the growl continued, she froze, but
it wasn’t lunging toward her. It was changing. Fur and
skin and frame were shifting in all the wrong ways, like
buildings in an earthquake. Nothing was where it should
be. Even its growl wasn’t right. Catherine wasn’t sure,
but she thought it was starting to sound more like…a laugh?
As she blinked, fur
became flesh, and what had been a wolf became a man. A
naked man who was laughing at her.
“Who are you?” she
demanded. She didn’t know about wolves, but men she could
handle.
“You don’t recognize
me?” the man asked with a smirk.
Catherine studied his
hard frame and bushy hair. Even wilder brows topped his
black eyes. “I’ve never seen you before in my life,”
Catherine said, pulling the sheet up tighter around her
shoulders. That much she was sure of.
The man laughed again.
“Who are you?” Catherine
repeated, her brain working behind the scenes to figure out
how to get around him and out the door.
“Most people call me
Wolf,” he said, “but I have other names.”
A sudden fear gripped
Catherine. “What have you done with Roman?” she asked, not
quite sure she wanted to know the answer.
“Roman rests,” he
replied, as if it made sense. “He asked me to make sure you
got home safe.”
Catherine’s eyes
widened. “Roman sent you? Here?” Again she looked around
the room. “This is still his home, then?”
Wolf nodded.
“Why can’t I remember?”
she asked.
“Roman must have feed
deeply from you.” Wolf smiled down at her, eyeing her
curvaceous outline beneath the sheet. “I knew he would like
you,” he said, turning and heading for the door.
“Fed?” Catherine
echoed.
Wolf didn’t answer her,
just padded across the room to where a pile of dirty denim
sprawled across a beige armchair. He had the rolling,
loping gait of a man who rode horses often - or who was a
wolf in his spare time, Catherine thought crazily.
An unsettling shiver
started in her belly and squirmed up her spine. She
gingerly put a hand to the side of her neck and felt two
small wounds that had already scabbed over. She forced
herself to take a breath and ask the impossible question,
“Vampire?”, though after what she’d just witnessed, perhaps
nothing was impossible.
“Yes, Roman is a
vampire,” he said, smiling at her as he pulled on his jeans.
“And you’re a werewolf?”
Catherine asked, wanting to say the word out loud to see if
this was perhaps just a dream.
“No,” Wolf said, and for
a moment Catherine knew a strange relief. “I’m a
shapeshifter.”
Relief vanished, and
Wolf again stationed himself at the foot of the bed, this
time seated, instead of peering over it. “My natural form
is the wolf,” he explained, “but, unless the moon is full, I
can assume any shape I choose.” He pressed his large hands
down into the mattress and leaned toward her, muscles
rippling as he moved.
In a blink she was
looking at a face she knew -- Kevin, her cabana boy. She
clutched the sheet tighter, wishing it were a more
substantial shield. “Kevin was you?” she asked, not
believing her eyes.
“Oh yes,” he said on a
wicked grin. “You were great fun, but when I saw the pain
in your eyes, I knew Roman wouldn’t be able to resist you.
I’ve searched a long time for a suitable temptation for the
great Roman. That’s why I sent you to Georgina’s bar.”
The easy smile she’d
delighted in yesterday appeared now seemed an empty mask on
the creature who looked down at her, just a sugar coating
for an evil thing. “You sent….” Catherine sat up, needing
the truth more than cover. “What have you done with Roman?”
she pressed again.
“Almost the only thing
that can kill a vampire like Roman is the blood of a
shifter,” he said. “Normally, they can smell us at a
thousand paces, but,” he licked his lips and sat back so he
could see all of her, “if the shifter is new enough. . .”
He let his voice trail off.
“That mark on my leg,”
she whispered. “That was a bite mark.” A few bizarre
pieces fell into place. “You bit me and sent me to Roman –
as a trap.”
“That’s right,” Wolf
confirmed, letting his eyes run over her. “And he couldn’t
resist the bait.”
“How did you know he
would…” What did you call it when someone drank you?
Wolf laughed. “A smart,
beautiful woman so drenched in darkness herself that she
can’t see what Roman is? How could he not? This infernal
island has been almost as much a prison for him as it has
for me.” He paused and looked toward the ceiling. “I guess
now, though, I’ll never find out what he did to deserve his
job as my jailor.”
“You’re Roman’s
prisoner?” Catherine asked, wondering at the back of her
mind how this day could get any worse.
Wolf shook his head and
sat back on his haunches as the smooth surfaces she knew as
Kevin retreated to make way for his wilder, hairier human
counterpart. “Not his prisoner,” he said. “The High Council
caught me and banished me to this scorching pit. They just
put Roman in charge of keeping me in line. We’ve been here,
the two of us now, almost fifty years.”
Fifty years. “And now
you’ve killed him,” she said, finally understanding that
hers was a walk-on role in a play she might never
understand.
Wolf shook his head.
“Not yet, but he will be dead soon. Who knows,” he said,
“maybe he will even wake one last time.” He leered down at
her. “I would like for him to see what I’ve done to his new
pet.”
Catherine threw back the
sheet and scrambled naked to the side of the bed as Wolf’s
human flesh began to transform. Before her feet hit the
floor, she heard the low growl that told her she would never
make it to the door. She’d wanted to do battle with
darkness, and now she realized darkness had called her
bluff.
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