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“I’m here!” I announced to my aunt Roxy almost twenty-six hours later. “Jet-lagged and hungry, and confused by the language, but I’m here in the Czech Republic, and I’m waiting on the train to take me out to Blansko. How is Australia?”

“Gorgeous. Both the scenery and the men, but that’s a tale for another time. Did Allie text you? I gave her your number and she said she’d try to get in contact before you arrived.”

“Not that I saw. Thank you again for asking her to take me in.”

“Pfft,” Roxy said. “What are old friends for if not inflicting nieces upon, even if they are nieces you’ve only talked and written to, and not met in person because your sister’s husband was a nutjob? Oh, sorry, Tempest.”

“No apology is needed, and I’m looking forward to seeing you in person just as soon as we’re both back home. Love to Uncle Richard.”

“And to you. Just be sure to give Allie and Christian a kiss from me, only don’t go wild on Christian, because Allie will take you down. Laters, kiddo!”

“A real vampire,” I sighed to myself a few hours after that, peering out of the windows of a taxi on my way to Drahanská Castle. “I hope this vampire has some single friends. Just one would do. That’s all I ask for, just one needy vampire.”

“You want something?” the woman driving the cab asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “You want stop?”

“No, no, keep going. I was just talking to myself.”

“Hokay,” she said, and turned up the volume of the radio, which was pumping bright, tinny music into the car.

Fifteen minutes later, we drove past a gatehouse, and started up a winding gravel road. Lining the road were torches, actual burning torches, not the electric kind.

“This is just awesome,” I said, peering around first one way, then another at the torches. The trees blocked my view of the castle itself, but the flames dancing in the breeze set an eerie, anticipatory mood that I reveled in.

We rounded a curve, and my breath caught in my throat. Ahead of us was the castle, its bulky shape inky black against the night sky. Several small buildings were adjacent to the road, including one giant vault of stone that was topped by two massive eagles, their wings outstretched, and their heads thrown back in what looked to me like a victory howl. “Assuming eagles howl, that is,” I murmured to myself, just about twisting myself in half as I peered back at the beautiful, but frightening, building.

I knew from my guidebook that along the front side of the castle were immaculately groomed lawns and a formal flower garden where the GothFaire would hold their All Hallows’ Eve festival. As the gravel drive curved around toward the back of the castle, we passed all sorts of black, menacing shapes that indicated outbuildings.

“Here is castle,” the driver said, pointing at the large building in front of us.

“So I gathered.” I leaned forward and rolled down a window, so I could stick my head out to better see the approaching behemoth. Spires jabbed upward into the indigo sky, offsetting gabled towers that sat on either end of the building. The blank back of the castle—we were approaching from the service side, the front evidently being taken up by an elaborate garden—bore numerous tall, narrow windows framed in a softly glowing white stone. Or so it seemed to me, with the light of the moon falling on that side.

The taxi stopped at two large wooden doors recessed into the wall, flanked with torches. I got out, my mouth open, and my eyes bugging with amazement as I tipped my head back to try to take in all five floors of the building. “That is truly amazing. OK, I want my vampire to have a castle. I could so live in that.”

“Here is castle,” the driver said again, a bit more forcefully, and added, “Twenty-five euro.”

“Oh, sorry. Sure. Here, I think I have ... yeah. Here you go.” I doled out the appropriate money, gave her a sizable tip, and, with my suitcase in hand, approached the doors.

Each door bore a huge wrought iron knocker in the shape of a heart pierced with an arrow, but a discreet little button set beneath a metal speaker caught my eye just as I was about to pound on the door. I pressed the button, almost dancing with excitement. I was going to meet Aunt Roxy’s vampire! I had so many questions for him, so many things I desperately wanted to know after reading his steamy books. And now I was about to meet—

A voice spoke in Czech from the metal grille above the doorbell. I was momentarily disappointed by the fact that it was a woman’s voice, but pulled my wits together enough to answer what I assumed was a query as to who I was, and what I wanted.

“Hello. My name is Tempest Keye, and my aunt is a friend of Mr. Dante’s. She was supposed to let him know I was arriving.”

“Tempest?” the woman asked, the voice tinny and distorted. “Your name is Tempest? That is storm, yes?”

“Yes to both. Is this Allie? Roxy said she talked to you about me visiting.”

“Am Tilda. Am housekeeper. You wait.”

I waited, disappointment dampening my joy. “Stop being a baby,” I told myself. “Patience, virtue, and all that. Oh, hi.”

The door opened to reveal a small, dark woman with salt-and-pepper hair. “Come,” she said, taking my suitcase. “You have yellow room. Dante and Allie not here. Will come later. You go with me.”

I followed her up a staircase and across a dark-paneled hall complete with medieval weapons on the wall, banners hanging from the ceiling, and several toys of the Big Wheel variety. There was also a bike, a small doll’s house, and an elaborate Star Wars Lego setup. We climbed another flight of stairs, then went down a dizzying number of hallways until Tilda stopped at a door, and opened it to reveal a room done in various shades of yellow and red, with gorgeous Japanese paintings on the silk hangings.

“You wash, or go to library now?”

“A library in the castle?” I asked hesitantly, wanting to make sure she wasn’t shunting me out to the town’s local library.

“Yes, yes, Dante’s library. You come.”

I left my suitcase and hurried after her, afraid that if I lost sight of her, I’d be forever wandering the halls. We went down a flight and, after a couple of twists and turns, emerged into a large room lit by soft golden light that seemed to gild the spines of books contained in the massive mahogany glass-fronted bookcases. There were several low display cases along one wall, as well, but it was the sheer number of books that had me gasping in pleasure.

“You stay here. I bring tea, then I leave. Allie and Dante home soon,” Tilda announced.

“Oh. You don’t live here?”

“No.” She was gone before I could say anything more. I wondered if I was going to be nervous at being alone in a big old medieval castle, but then it occurred to me that I might not be alone after all. A place this size had to have a full-time staff.

When Tilda brought me in a tray containing a pot of tea, some cookies, and a couple of crustless sandwiches, I realized just how hungry I was. “Thank you for this. It looks wonderful. Oh, can you tell me who else is in the castle?”

She paused at the door and glanced back at me. “Who else?”

“Yes, whatever other ... uh ...” I didn’t want to say the word “servant,” since it sounded far too snobbish. “Whatever other staff is here?”

“Is me. I leave now. Dante home soon.”

The door closed on the last of her words, leaving me feeling, for a moment at least, remarkably alone.

“Don’t be stupid,” I chided myself aloud as I sat down at the table at which Tilda had set the food. “How many people get to eat a vampire’s sandwiches in his very own library? Not very many, that’s who.”

That little pep talk kept me going a couple of hours while I perused C. J. Dante’s books. I was super excited to find he had a collection of not only his own vampire books but a large number by other authors, and happily dipped into several books that were new to me. By the time the little clock on a massive desk that took up one corner of the room chimed eleven, however, I was exhausted, no doubt due to residual jet lag.

I wandered out to the main hall with its toys, and wondered where my hosts were. “And should I stay up to be here when they finally roll in, or should I give in and go to my room to sleep, so they don’t find me slouched in a chair sound asleep and drooling on myself?”

The mental image of that was enough to drive me up the stairs, but not before I left a note on one of the tables in the hall saying that I’d arrived, but gone to bed.

“I hope nothing’s happened to them,” I murmured, climbing into the bed. I could imagine any number of horrible accidents that would keep someone from arriving home safely, but was comforted by the fact that vampires (and their mates) were very hard to kill, and even if they were in a car accident, they were probably fine.

The dream started with a bird flying around at night, zipping in and out of a forest of tall fir trees, his shadow flickering on ground lit by a huge silver moon. Just as I was enjoying the bird’s graceful moves, it swooped down toward a snake ... only it wasn’t a snake—it was a winding dirt road, and along it one man dragged another by his heels.

The two men stopped before a set of beautiful dark doors with hearts carved crudely into the wood. They were the doors to the castle, I knew, but oddly, the rest of the castle seemed to be missing. The mobile man dropped the other one in a heap at the door, and reached up to pound on the door.

I wanted to point out to him that there was no building to go with the doors, and all the man had to do was to walk around the doors to get behind them, but my attention was focused on the man lying brokenly across the stone steps leading to the door. I bent over him, distressed for some reason, knowing somehow that the man was about to give up his hold on life.

“Don’t,” I whispered, my nose almost touching his.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice deep and yet so soft I wasn’t sure I didn’t imagine it.

“Don’t die.”

The pounding continued behind me, irritating me.

“It’s not your time,” I said, irrationally determined to keep the man’s attention.

“I can’t help it.” He sighed then, a wordless expression of so much despair, it made me want to weep, but at the same time, I wanted to yell at the man behind me who was still beating on the doors. I looked up to tell him that he was wasting his time, but at that moment, the prone man grabbed my wrist.

“Don’t open the door,” he said, his eyes a beautiful indigo with little black streaks coming from the pupils, his gaze seeming to sear right through me to my soul.

“Why?” I asked in a whisper, leaning down over him so that my hair hid us from the man at the door.

“I am death,” the pretty-eyed man said, his body going limp, and his eyes closing. I knew he was on the verge of dying if I didn’t do something, and leaned down until my lips teased his.

“I’ll save you,” I promised, not in the least bit concerned with how I was going to do that.

His arms came around me, pulling me onto his chest at the same moment his mouth claimed mine—and it was a claiming, an act of dominance despite the fact that he was very nearly dead. His lips were hot and sweet and spicy all at the same time, and when his tongue ran along my lips in a silent plea, all my dark, secret parts seemed to come alive.

I gave in to needs that swamped my mind, kissing him back with everything I had, my hands tangled in his hair, my breasts sensitized and heavy as I squirmed against him. His hands swept up my back, causing me to move restlessly against him. I wanted more of him, more than just his mouth and hands, and pulled back to tell him so, completely oblivious to our surroundings.

I kissed the man’s jaw, his cheeks, even his closed eyes, wanting to bury my face in his hair, all at the same time he kissed a line down my throat to my shoulder. I shifted, trying to figure out what it was I needed to do to save the man, but a stab of pain interrupted my thoughts, pain in my shoulder that quickly faded away into the most erotic sensation I’d ever had. I was on the verge of an orgasm, spiraling up to it, desperate to meet it and yet not wanting the feeling to end. And just as I was about to burst into the light, into the glorious burning blaze of rapture, I woke up.

The pounding noise was real. I thought at first it was my heart thumping in my ears as I tried to come down off the single most erotic dream of my life, but then I realized the dull noise had its source outside of my body.

“Christian Dante and his wife!” I said to myself, snatching up the sheer chiffon robe that matched my satin negligee. “Bet they locked themselves out.”

I ran for the stairs, mindless of my bare feet on cold wood and marble, racing down the hallways and stairs until I reached the double doors, one of which I flung open with an anticipatory smile on my face.

The man who turned to face me was a disappointment, not at all what I had expected C. J. Dante—and a vampire—to look like. He was dark, wiry, with spiky hair dyed pink, several facial piercings, and a rainbow flag tattooed on his neck. He said something in what I thought was French.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French.”

“You American?” He sounded oddly nervous. “This is for your master. He is not quite dead, although he should be since his blood was drained, but I didn’t think it was right to kill him just because he was a vampire, you know? So instead I brought him here to your master.”

“My what?”

The man turned around and hauled something up the couple of stairs to the door, laying it at my feet. “Do not tell anyone that I brought him here, or my master will have my head.” He glanced around fearfully. “You did not see me. You don’t know who I am. I was never here. You understand?”

I stared in horror at the object at my feet, dimly aware of the man at the door vanishing into the night.

“What ... who ... glorious grape juice! Vampire? Dead? Did you say ...” I looked up, but the man was gone. “Hey! Mister? Hey!” I stepped over the body and ran down the front stairs, but a white panel truck was barely visible zooming off down the drive. I ran after it a few yards, but it was too far off to see the license number.

With a shiver at the cool night air, I clutched my robe and dashed back into the house, hesitating over the body of the man. He was lying facedown, his black clothing matching his jaw-length hair.

“Now what am I going to do?” I asked, kneeling down and trying to rationalize what had happened while the wispy remnants of my dream still clung to me. “How do you bring around an almost dead vampire?”

Gently, I rolled the man over, stumbling back when I got a good look at his face.

It was the man in my dreams, the one who had told me he was death.

And now it seemed he was speaking the truth.