His lips brushed mine as the last words were spoken into his mouth.
"What are you hiding from, Raphael?"
He froze above me.
"Please," I whispered, stroking the line of his tight jaw. "It's obvious you're worried that someone is going to find out something about you. I want to help, if I can. You don't have to tell me your secret, just tell me if you're in danger of some sort."
His eyes went from liquid amber to hard, glittering stone.
"No danger," he said, his breath steaming my lips. "I… there is a situation with my last employer, Joy. I can't tell you anything about it, but as long as I'm here, all is well."
I nodded, understanding him better than he realized. There was something in his past that he feared would be exposed, something bad enough that he believed he would be blackmailed. I stroked my hands down his arms. His muscles were taut with tension, a sign that he wasn't trying to be offensive in accusing me of knowing his secret and using it against him—he clearly suspected everyone. I wondered what had happened on his last job that would drive him into burying himself in a wandering troupe of entertainers. Pushing him to open up would do me no good, so I did what I could to reassure him I was no threat. I teased the edges of his lips and moaned when he opened up for me, his tongue quickly assuming control and setting a rhythm that had me wishing Roxy had stayed back at the hotel.
"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.
She had a good thirty-yard lead on me now, damn her "jog five miles every day, rain or shine" hide. She stopped and turned back to me, cupping her hands around her mouth and bellowing, "Rune stones! Tanya said you have no skill at reading runes, and I said you did, and somehow it ended up as a wager. I bet everything I have on you, so unless you want me to lose my entire life's savings, you're going to have to answer Tanya's challenge. I've set it all up with Dominic—you're going to do a reading tonight to prove we're right and she's wrong."
I staggered up the hill, my teeth bared. I was going to kill her.
"Don't look at me like that. I couldn't let her malign you—she was saying all sorts of nasty things about you. It'll just be a few readings, you can do that on your head. After that—well, Dominic said he'd be happy to offer you the position of rune-stone reader if you wanted to join the fair."
I clutched my side and tried to ignore the pain. I was really going to kill her.
"Of course, he said that meant you'd have to be his consort and all that, but I'm willing to bet that part is optional. You can probably negotiate that out of the contract."
"You're a dead woman," I yelled at her as she waved and spun around to dash up the rest of the hill like it was no more than a curb. "I know, because I'm going to be the one to murder you!"
"Hurry up or you'll miss the Canadians," she called as she rounded the hotel, heading for the lobby. "You think it's too late to change the bet to double or nothing? We could really clean up!"
"Make your will now, you're going to need it," I yelled.
Her words drifted back through the night air. "I wonder if I should warn the hotel owner to take out some extra insurance, just in case Miranda was right about you being a cataclysient."