Confessions of a Vampire's Girlfriend

Soren was right. I had my doubts when he said he thought Tesla had been stolen—who’d want an old dirty white horse? But the area where Tesla and Bruno had been hobbled was empty. Tesla’s hobble was sitting neatly on a rock, right next to the water bucket.

“Looks that way.” I hesitated a minute, then stripped off the layers of latex and lace gloves I wore to keep from reading everything I touched, and held out my hand for the hobble. Ben placed it across my palm, careful to keep from touching my hand. Although he was one of the few people I didn’t mind touching, I didn’t want to confuse my psychometry abilities by picking up on something he was feeling rather than the person who unbuckled the hobble.

“Well?” Soren asked as I sorted through the images that came to mind as soon as my fingers closed over the leather cuff. “Who took him? Is Bruno in danger? I should tell my dad if there is a horse kidnapper around.”

“Ben, Soren, Peter, Karl . . .” Those last three made sense. They all helped take care of the horses, loading and unloading them in the horse trailer when we move to another town, so it was no surprise that at one time or another they’d picked up the hobble. But it was a fifth person who’d touched it that worried me. “. . . and someone else. Someone I don’t know. Someone . . . different.”

“Different how?” Ben asked. I handed him back the hobble and turned to scan the open field. I didn’t think Tesla would be hidden away in the shadows, but I had to look anyway.

“Yeah. None whatsoever. Everyone leaves some sort of residual emotion behind when they touch something—even Ben does when he tries to close off his emotions—I can feel that it’s him that touched it. But the guy who touched the hobble wasn’t normal. Not human.”

“Or heavily shielded,” Ben said, looking thoughtful. “There are people who are able to block themselves completely. Mages and the like.”

I shook my head. “I haven’t touched him with my bare hands.” Something occurred to me then. “Oh great. I haven’t touched a bunch of people working here—that means I’m going to have to go around doing the touchy-feely thing with everyone. I hate that!”

“That may not be necessary,” Ben said, an odd, abstracted look on his face. “There’s a Diviner here, isn’t there?”

“Whatever,” I said, anxious to find Tesla. “All this standing around talking isn’t finding him. He could be out there all alone, or being abused or something. Ben? Can we go find him, please?”

“Absolutely. I’ll get my bike and pick you up.” He tossed the hobble next to the bucket and ran off to get his motorcycle.

“I’d help look, too, but the show is about to start,” Soren said, casting a worried look over his shoulder toward the main tent. “In fact—”

“Go,” I said, making shooing motions with both hands. “Don’t be late with Bruno or your dad will kill you.”

He hurried off, leaving me standing alone in the empty field. I tried to open myself up to it. Mom said it was the proper way to get in touch with other beings and weird things like that, but I guess I lack the “opening up” gene or something, because all I felt was the night breeze and a couple of residual itchy spots.

“Ready?” Ben asked. I gave up and ran over to the field where people parked. He was on his bike, fiddling with one of the levers (it had to be a guy thing—I didn’t hear anything wrong with the bike at all), his long black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

“I’m ready, although I don’t know where to start looking. I guess we’re going to have to check out everywhere we can—Ugh. Not that!”

“It’s your mother’s rule,” he said, giving it to me. I glared at it. I hated wearing a helmet, but my mother had put her foot down after she’d caught me riding around with Ben without one.

“That’s because I’m immortal.” He zipped up his leather jacket and held out his hand for me. “If we crash and I smash my head in, it won’t do anything but make me pissed for a while. You’re a bit more fragile.”

“Beloveds are immortal like female Moravians, yes, but you’re not my Beloved yet. At least, not officially. Unless you want to do the blood exchange?”

I thought for a moment he was seriously pressing me to do the whole “save his soul by binding myself to him forever” thing, but his dark eyes were twinkling from under the shadow thrown by the brim of his hat.

“Another time, vamp boy,” I said, giving him a little punch on the arm just to let him know I cared. He laughed and scooted forward a bit as I crawled onto the seat behind him, thankful I’d worn shorts instead of a skirt.

He glanced back at my bare knees, moving back until I was pressed up tight against his back. “I hope you won’t be too cold.”

“I figured you’d keep me warm.” I leaned into his back, wrapping my arms around him as he gunned the bike and pushed off. It took me a few minutes to get my mind off the really delicious scent of leather jacket and Ben (he had to be wearing some sort of spicy aftershave or something), but eventually, I stopped snuffling his neck and ponytail, and started looking around as he drove us through the countryside.

We searched for Tesla until two in the morning. Because of the white night, we could zoom around and look for a horse being horsenapped pretty easily, but unfortunately, whoever took Tesla hid him well. By the time we got back to the fair, I was upset, mad, and frustrated.

“I’m sorry, Fran,” Ben said as I climbed off his bike. I felt like crying, but I knew that was stupid—Tesla hadn’t been hurt (at least I didn’t think he had); he was just stolen. “I’ll keep looking for him.”

“Look where? We looked everywhere within a two-hour radius. If someone had driven off right away with him and kept driving, we’d never be able to find him anyway.”

Ben got off the bike and pulled me into a hug. “We’ll find him, Fran. I promise you that we’ll find him,” he said, his breath ruffling my hair.

I leaned against him, an odd sense of rightness creeping over me that distracted me for a minute from Tesla. I had told Ben the previous month that I was willing for us to try the girlfriend/boyfriend thing, but I had said that just because I liked him so much. I didn’t honestly buy into that whole Beloved bit—although it gave me a warm feeling to think about it—but right after we’d left Hungary for France, Ben disappeared to do whatever the mysterious thing was that he couldn’t tell me, so we really hadn’t had much time to be together.

And now there I was standing in his arms, leaning against him, feeling warm and happy despite the fact that I was worried sick about Tesla. I couldn’t help thinking things were pretty wonderful because we were together, and also, I’m ashamed to say, I was more than a little smug because out of the millions of girls wandering around the world, Ben had picked me.

“Fran, are you ready for your regression? Oh, hello, Ben. We haven’t been properly introduced, have we? Imogen has told me so much about you, though, I feel like I know you. I’m Desdemona. I’m a personal time-travel consultant. Did you know that in a past life Fran was Cleopatra? It’s so very exciting. I’ve promised to regress her again so we can get some more fascinating details of her life in ancient Egypt.”

Ben unwrapped his arms from around me as soon as Desdemona started to talk, but he didn’t move away as I turned around to face her. Part of me was embarassed that anyone had caught us together, but the other part was annoyed because it was clear the way Desdemona was smiling at Ben that she had purposely interrupted us.

“Yeeees,” she drawled, giving Ben another long look. Her tone made me grit my teeth. And it didn’t help that she was wearing a leather waist cincher and short skirt that let everyone see just how different her five-foot-nothing, one hundred-pound self was from mammoth, six-foot-tall me. “I can see you were.”

“No, not us. Um. That is, Ben and I weren’t . . . well, we were, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Fran is distraught over the theft of her horse,” Ben said, smoothly interrupting me. Are you by any chance jealous?

“Oh, your horse was stolen? I’m so sorry. Of course the regression can wait for another time.” Desdemona smiled at Ben. “How would you like a personal time-travel experience, Ben? It seems I have an opening, and since the fair is just now closing, I could get you in quickly.”

Calm down, Fran. She’s harmless. “Another time, perhaps. I’ve promised Fran to continue looking for her horse, and I doubt if I’ll be done before daybreak.” Ben glanced toward where the sun was barely beneath the horizon. “Or as close to daybreak as it gets around here. Thank you anyway.”

“No problem. I’ll be happy to do you anytime,” she said, giving us both a little wave as she strolled off toward the main tent. Ben watched her walk away from us for a second before looking back at me.

“Why are you making that face?” he asked. “Why are your eyes narrow little slits of ebony that look like they want to shoot lasers at me?”

“You watched her walk away,” I said, struggling to keep my voice jealous-free. I lost the fight. “You deliberately watched.”

“Yes, I did. I looked at her breasts, too, but despite that, you’re still the only girl on the planet for me.”

“Nice try, Vlad,” I said, slipping out of his arms when he tried to pull me into another kiss. I stalked toward the trailer that Mom and I shared. “My boyfriend isn’t going to be aware there’s anyone else around but me. Since you have other ideas, so long. Hasta la vista. Don’t let the door hit you on the butt going out.”

I smiled even more at the pause that followed that. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure, something I was perfectly happy about. I entered the trailer, absently moving Davide from the couch that turned into my bed at night.

I think you know full well how much you mean to me. I think you know that I’d do anything to make you happy. I think you know I can’t exist without you, that you are heaven and earth to me, my salvation, my joy, my life.

The brush of his mind against mine had a decidedly disgruntled tone to it. And I think you’re enjoying every minute of keeping me on tenterhooks about whether or not you’re going to be my Beloved.

Even with the Tesla problem, life was looking pretty good at the moment. Ben was back, and as yummy as ever. I had settled into life with the GothFaire, and actually enjoyed doing the palm readings. Mom was happy with her new group of friends, the Faire was doing well, and even Soren was happy these days.

“Things are looking up for a change,” I told Davide as I flipped off all the lights but one so Mom could see her way past me when she finished for the night, and settled into my makeshift bed. The big cat sauntered over, jumping up on me so he could sleep on my hip. It was his favorite spot, despite the fact that we didn’t really like each other. “Not even poor Tesla gone missing, and half-naked Viking ghosts running around are going to ruin my date with Ben day after tomorrow. That is going to be the most perfect event of my life. I just know it.”