Also shoved from my mind was the glaring fact that lately it seemed every time I stepped out alone, I was jumped by some murderous creature or other. But seriously, a secret entrance into vampire central? I was too impatient. In fact, I’d impressed myself by waiting this long.
A sea door…I’d always assumed such things were the stuff of fiction. It sounded too much like something from an old pirate story—tall ships, their sails snapping, timber creaking, and cannons booming as they sneaked into coves, smuggled booty, that sort of thing.
“Shhhhoot,” I hissed under my breath, swallowing my curse, as I grabbed at the underbrush to stop myself from slipping and sliding along the gravel into the roiling water below. I had to pause, clutching my stomach, waiting for the throbbing to subside. The gash in my belly felt like it might rip back open at any moment.
The heavy kit bag I’d slung across my back was throwing me off balance. But I had no choice—it was my fail-safe. I’d packed my wetsuit and towel inside, knowing if I was caught, I could always say I was out for a swim, and “swim” was exactly what was going to happen if I wasn’t more careful.
I got my feet back under me and continued to pick my way down, but the hill was rapidly steepening into a cliff. I managed another few steps before I slipped again, my foot shooting out from under me, and landed hard on my knee. Gravel bit into my kneecap—I’d be lucky if my uniform hadn’t torn—and I had to bite my lips against the pain. A warm tickle along my stomach told me the impact had finally reopened my wound.
“Shhhootshhhhhootshoooot.” It wasn’t exactly the curse I’d wanted, but even this distance from the castle, I dared not mutter so much as a damn. The vamps demanded propriety at all times, and despite this little off-road hike, the impulse was ingrained in me.
There were nooks and crannies up and down these cliffs, and edging along on my butt, I aimed for one. My muscles were trembling, and I needed a spot where I could relax for a minute without worrying that I might tumble to my death. And who knew? Maybe I’d find more crazy Viking graffiti.
The morning sun hit the water at just the right angle, and I had to squint to see. It was a happy development, though. I’d thought noon was the best time to go out, but morning sunlight beaming directly at the cliff was even better than the midday sun overhead would’ve been.
I couldn’t shade my eyes, needing both of my hands simply to hang on, so I peered hard against the white glare, trying to make sense of the rugged cliffside. I’d been looking for a nook to scoot into, but a shadow below and to the right told me I was coming up on a cave—even better.
It took mental effort to ignore my panic and pain as I inched down feet-first, all the way on my belly now. I had to put my complete focus on this little trek, which had surpassed hike and was well on its way to free-climb. It was pretty much as steep as I could go without the use of ropes and carabiners. One false move and I had visions of plummeting to the rocks below, B-movie style.
Finally, I was on level with the cave. Could this be the sea door? It seemed like it might be large enough. Did the tide even get this high? I peered over my shoulder at the water, hoping I wouldn’t find out.
Using both hands to hold on to a snarl of roots overhead, I stretched out my foot, blindly fumbling for footing. My toes met hard ground, and I crab-walked along the wall, inching over until my whole foot was inside, then my leg, then my other foot. It was dark and dank in there, and I collapsed to my knees in relief.
But then, an explosion of motion. A shrieking wind came whipping toward me from deep in the cave.
Bats.
Hundreds of them shot out, screeching, flapping, careening toward me, close enough to tangle in my hair. I bit my lips to silence a scream and dropped to the ground, curling into a ball and covering my head. Like the fluttering of a single black veil, they swooped out, then whipped right back at me. Scree-scree-scree-scree.
“Holy shit holy shit holy shit.” I crushed my face to the ground, my body rolled up tight. So much for not cursing.
I waited. Gradually, the flapping and screeching subsided until all I heard was my own panting breaths echoing off the walls and the heavy thump-thump of my heart.
I risked a peek. The bats had gone back to wherever they’d come from, and this part of the cave was empty once more. Shuffling forward on my hands and knees, I peered hard into its depths, but there was just blackness. Deep blackness and a sharp tang, the odor of innumerable nesting creatures.
Gathering my courage, I got to my feet. I had to hunch to stand and tiptoed as deep as I could. I didn’t get far. The cave soon narrowed to a point tight enough that it wouldn’t allow passage to anything much larger than those flying rodents.
So much for finding the sea gate on my first try.
I returned to the ledge and peered over, gulping in the fresh air, ignoring the bloody implications of my now completely soaked belly. I scanned the cliffside, but it was too jagged. The mysterious sea door might’ve been right below me, but I’d never know it. It was just too impossible to make sense of all those chinks and cracks.
I’d need to find it from the water.
The decision was easy. But explaining myself to Ronan later that afternoon? Not so much.
“Deep-water techniques?” He narrowed those forest-green eyes at me, not believing me for a minute.
I’d wondered how it’d be to run into him—after all, the last time we were together, we’d almost kissed. Seeing him now, although he was distant, he wasn’t cold, but it was hard to say for sure. He was always so impossible to read. Was he angry? Resentful? Regretful, even?
I’d have put off this meeting—and those questions—altogether, but I didn’t see any other choice. Who else had access to a boat? Who else could take me out into the water without raising suspicion? When I’d tracked him down, he was even at the car already.
“Yes,” I insisted. “I’ve been practicing my breath-holding techniques. I want to work up to more difficult conditions.” I hoisted my kit bag higher on my shoulder and flinched against the searing pain along my stomach. I needed Ronan to make up his mind ASAP, but he still looked far from convinced. I brightened my smile, adding, “I’d eventually like to try, you know, maybe like a free dive.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled in a skeptical look. “‘Maybe like a free dive’?”
Uh-oh. Too far. “I’ve been thinking about what you’ve said, about preparing myself. Making myself more competitive. Watchers need to have experience with deep, breath-hold dives, right?”
He ran a hand through his damp hair, and I refused to contemplate how that dark mop poking every which way was like girl kryptonite. “But I already went out for a swim, just now.”
“That’s right,” I said brightly. “Which means it’ll be easy to hop back in the car and go again.” Pasting a bland, expectant smile on my face, I waited, and it was like a game of chicken, seeing who’d cave first. When he didn’t say anything, I busted out the big guns and sighed heavily. “I guess, if you don’t want to, I could probably handle the boat by myself….”
“Truly, Ann? You’re truly going that route?”
The nickname stopped me cold. He’d called me Ann just a couple times before, and it never failed to punch through my armor. It was what my mother had called me.
He dug his keys out of his pocket and went around to the driver’s-side door. Placing a hand on the hood, he leaned over to look at me. “Are you coming or not?”
I got in before either of us had a chance to change our minds, holding my body carefully against my pain.
“By the way,” he said as he pulled onto the main road, “manipulative isn’t a good look for you.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” I settled in, careful of my injury, and buckled up. I had to hide my grin—no need to rub this in.
We bounced along in the SUV, and for a while, neither of us spoke. But, oddly, it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Sure there was some tension—romantic and otherwise—but where my relationship with Ronan was concerned, friction and awareness had come to feel like normal states, so this was like slipping into something comfortably familiar.
After a while, I caught him peering at me from the corner of his eye. He looked away quickly, eyes glued back on the road.
“What?” I asked, instantly on the defensive. Was he going to find a way to blame our almost-kiss on me?
“Nothing.”
I shifted in my seat to get a better look at him, but his profile gave away nothing. “You were thinking something just then.”
“It’s just…” He considered for a moment.
“Jeez, Ronan. Just what? What’d I do now?”
“What did you do?” He gave me a startled look. “Och, silly girl,” he muttered, then simply reached over me to pop open the glove box.
It took a conscious effort not to flinch away. The closeness of his hand to my knees made something pulse low in my belly, so completely was I aware of him.
But then I registered what he’d pulled out. An old cassette tape. “Where’d you get that?” I asked incredulously.
The slightest of smiles quirked the side of his mouth. “As you said, I have my secrets.”
“Don’t I know it?” I snatched it from him. It was a plain black tape with #14 written on the white label in black marker. “What’s this?”
He snatched it back. “Something I think you’ll like.”
He slid it in the tape deck. The hiss of static filled the car, followed by a clicking, and then…music.
It stole my breath—literally. My entire body seized stiff as I held my breath, not daring to move. Music. It’d been so long since I’d experienced it privately like this. Not Baroque classics played by a vampire string quartet. Not Dagursson’s waltzes. Just sitting in a car, riding and listening. Letting the notes wash over me.
It was a piano solo, and I heard it with such texture, it was as though I’d never truly listened to music before. Higher notes unraveled their tune on the treble clef, while the low bass keys were played so tentatively, I felt the emotion behind each stroke of the pianist’s fingers. The ponderous pauses, the mini silences between notes—every second was a revelation.