Rainbows in Your Eyes

Chapter 2

Shani didn’t need more dresses, least of all those made in Paris, but she needed to be on the continent. She was sorrier than she could say Papa had broken his ankle, but this actually would have worked well for her except for the fact Mrs Lancaster had managed to weasel her way into going on their trip.

She tapped her foot impatiently. Why did Mrs Lancaster have to come with them? Shani had been a day student at Granthley, and Lydia Lancaster had been in her form. They’d become friendly, although not as friendly as Lydia might have liked, not that Shani would have ended their friendship over such a minor detail as whom Lydia might love. Lydia accepted it, and they settled into being fast friends.

And Shani truly didn’t begrudge Lydia having a Paris gown, but any other time would have been much better. With Lydia and her mother there now, how was she going to slip away?

“Aunt Dinah, could we visit Vienna, do you think? The Lipizzaner stallions will be performing there.” She was willing to sell her soul to see those magnificent white horses, but she didn’t need to be in Vienna, either. It simply brought her closer to her true destination.

“Of course.” Fortunately, Aunt Dinah had never been horse mad, so she didn’t realize Shani had told a little lie—the stallions weren’t exactly in Vienna at this time.

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea!” Mrs Lancaster enthused. “We can visit der Pelze.”

Bother. Shani sorely wanted to stamp her foot. Would the woman never stop interfering with her plans?

Lydia observed her closely. “Mother, Shani and I could use a breath of fresh air. We’re going for a walk.”

They were?

Lydia gave her a look that indicated yes, they were.

“It is rather stuffy in our rooms.” Shani smiled winsomely. “Will that be all right, Aunt Dinah?”

“Of course.”

“Kitty, you won’t mind if we go without you?”

“Not at all. I want to pay a visit to the National Museum of Natural History, especially the Gallery of Paleontology and Comparative Anatomy.”

Mrs Lancaster gave a huff, drawing Aunt Dinah’s attention.

“Don’t go too far, Shani, Lydia. And don’t be too long, Kitty. We’ll need to have an early dinner before we begin packing.” Aunt Dinah turned to Mrs Lancaster. “If I might have a word with you?”

Lydia didn’t wait, just grabbed Shani’s hand and rushed her out of the room.

“All right, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Shani demanded after they’d left the hotel and crossed the street.

Lydia looked around.

“Do you really expect these Parisians to be interested in what you have to say?”

“No, but Kitty will.”

“I…Why would she?”

“Are you meeting a beau in Vienna, Shani? Is that why you want to go there?”

“What—As if—Why—?” She could feel her cheeks heat up, and she wanted to stamp her foot again. Her fair colouring made blushes all-too-obvious.

“It’s all right, although I wish you would have told me,” Lydia said. “I can find a way to keep Mother busy—she does love her furs, you know, and der Pelze will be ideal.”

Shani worried her lower lip, then nodded. “Once I have my plans solidified, I’ll let you know.”

“Good. You know I have no experience with young men. I’ll want details, my friend.”

Shani gave a reluctant smile. “All right.” She had no experience either, but she’d read enough romance novels she should be able to make up something that would satisfy her friend.

“Good. Now shall we continue our walk? Mother is sure to be suspicious if we return too soon.”

She’ll be suspicious no matter what. But Shani kept that thought to herself.

* * * *

They arrived in Vienna later than they expected, so the rest of their first day was spent unpacking in their hotel rooms.

A glance in the bathroom mirror assured Shani she looked tired enough to get away with the first part of her plan. She approached her aunt with dragging footsteps. “Aunt Dinah, would you mind if I begged off dinner? I’m exhausted, and I think I’ll just have a tray in my room.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“Yes.” She gave what she hoped was a wan smile. “As I said, I’m just a little tired.”

“We’ll bring you back a sweet,” Kitten promised.

“Thank you, that’s so kind of you.”

As soon as they left the hotel, Shani slipped out and hurried to the train station. The earliest train leaving Vienna was shortly before midnight. Aunt Dinah would come to see how Shani was when she returned from dinner, but Shani would have to keep her fingers crossed her aunt wouldn’t decide to pay her a final visit before she went to bed herself.

Shani was back in her room when they returned. She’d had a light dinner, then packed a small satchel and wrapped some rolls to take along with her on the journey. With that done, she dressed in her night attire.

She was expecting Kitten to come to her room with some sort of decadent pudding, but when she responded, “Come in, Kitty,” to the tap on her door, she was dismayed to see her aunt peek in.

“May I come in, Shani?”

“Of course.” Bother! How was she going to—but then Shani got a good look at the older woman and grew concerned by her slightly green complexion. “Aunt Dinah, are you all right?”

“I’m afraid not. I think I’ll go straight to—” She moaned and rushed to Shani’s bathroom, where she began vomiting.

“Kitty. Kitten!”

Her cousin came rushing in. “What’s…? Oh God. Oh God!” She clapped a hand over her mouth and dashed back to her own room.

“I’ll send for the hotel doctor.” Shani got on the house phone. “Please send the doctor to room 712.”

* * * *

The doctor examined not only Aunt Dinah and Kitty, but Mrs Lancaster and Lydia, who were also complaining of feeling ill.

“Most likely you ladies have a touch of food poisoning,” he said in a thick German accent. “I suggest letting nature run its course, and afterward—dry toast and tea.”

It was unfortunate for Aunt Dinah and Kitty, although not for Shani. This gave her the perfect opportunity to slip away unnoticed.

Fortune had indeed smiled on her. It wasn’t difficult at all for her to change into traveling clothes, gather up her satchel, and vanish.

* * * *

Warrick stood in the shadows and watched as the young woman hurried through the train station. Beside him, his lover whistled softly. “She is a beauty.”

“She takes after her mother,” Warrick said indifferently. “I don’t like this.” A soft whine managed to escape him, and he clamped his lips together. “Damned wolf,” he spat. “I wish he’d shut the hell up.”

Fox gave a choked laugh, then rubbed Warrick’s shoulder, apparently thinking that would soothe him—that and saying, “I know, not amusing in the least.”

“Well it’s not.” Warrick had been on edge for the past few weeks, and with the approach of the full moon, his wolf was becoming even more restless.

“We didn’t have to come, you know,” his lover reminded him. “Adam said he would see she arrived safely in the valley.”

“You’d trust a vampyre?”

“He is the Rege’s equerry.” They both knew the vampyre king had helped the shifters in the late war, causing even more havoc among the soldiers of the Reich who’d entered their region of Carpathia.

Still, Warrick felt he had to object. “He’s a blood sucker.”

“If you gentlemen wish to board the train, I suggest you do so now.” A disembodied voice came softly out of the night. Warrick jumped and swore.

“Dammit,” he snarled, glaring at Fox as his lover bit back another laugh. “Give a little warning, would you? I almost pissed myself.”

“So sorry.” Adam’s words were a warm whisper against Warrick’s cheek, and in spite of that, he shivered. He’d learned during the war that vampyres were chronically cold, only warm after they’d fed. He took a step back. “And you’d better hurry. Those men are regarding the cea alba with entirely too much interest.”

The vampyre was right. Warrick could feel the dark desire rolling from the three hulking brutes in waves.

“Goddammit.” He took off running, Fox on his tail.

However, before he and Fox could reach the men, before the men could take another step toward the young woman, the three shied back. “Why is it so cold?” one of them cried out, his teeth suddenly chattering.

That had to be Adam’s doing, but if he’d just fed, how could he project cold?

“Adam’s given us enough time to catch up,” Fox murmured, not even slightly out of breath.

Warrick’s wolf growled, displeased a fox was in better condition than he. And of course Fox knew.

“You can teach me the error of my ways later, pet,” he murmured.

Warrick gritted his teeth, then got down to the matter at hand. He dropped a heavy hand on the man’s shoulder.

“What the hell?” Fury replaced thwarted lust, and he wheeled around, no doubt intending to take apart whoever was interrupting his plans. Warrick knew the second the reality of him being so close sank in on the man. He tried to shy back once he saw Warrick, but the grasp held him in place.

“I don’t think you want this train.” Warrick’s wolf recognized the girl as kin, even if Warrick was reluctant to acknowledge her, and he could feel his eyes glow with the blue fire of his wolf’s anger. He released the man and waited to see how foolish he and his companions would be.

The three whimpered, and he let his lips bare teeth that were starting to elongate. They must have agreed with him, because they stumbled back a handful of steps before they wheeled around and raced away, pleasing both Warrick and his wolf.

“Show off.” Fox took Warrick’s arm and tugged. “Come on. We’re going to miss our train.”

“Where’s the vampyre?”

“The vampyre…” The disembodied voice came as little more than a whisper. “…is right here for the moment. If you gentlemen have things under control? Good. In that case, I’ll bid you good night.”

And although they couldn’t see him, they knew he was gone. “Now who’s the show off?” Warrick muttered.

“Never mind.” Fox urged him toward the train, which was starting to pull out of the station.

Warrick got on board, but paused long enough for a final glance at the now-empty platform.

“Rick?”

He turned and followed his lover into the train.

* * * *

“Mama, we have to let Uncle Tommy and Uncle Roddy know.” Kitty loved Shani, but at the moment she didn’t like her cousin very much. As a matter of fact, if Kitty hadn’t felt so ill, she would have been willing to slap Shani silly for scaring them like this.

They’d realized something was amiss when Shani hadn’t come in the next morning to see how they were doing.

Mama groaned and held a handkerchief to her mouth. “You’re right. I wish Papa were here to call your uncles.” She began to retch, and Kitty rushed to hold a basin so Mama could vomit into it, but she had nothing left in her stomach but bile.

Kitty bit down on her back teeth, hoping her own stomach wouldn’t revolt. Oh God, she’d never eat oysters again. But that restaurant had come so highly recommended…

She breathed carefully through her mouth, then reached for the phone on the bedside table and rang down to the front desk. “Please place a call to Captain Thomas Fortescue-Smythe at Almeria Hall in Sussex, England.” She managed to give the desk clerk her uncles’ phone number before she had to reach for her own basin.

“Poor Roddy,” Mama said. “Perhaps your uncle will persuade him to remain at home?”

“Not likely.” Kitten groaned again as her stomach began to heave, and she bent over the bowl. All she herself had to vomit up was bile.

But she knew she was right. Within twenty-four hours both her uncles would be there.

* * * *

Roddy looked up to find his lover striding through the doorway of their bedroom. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Tommy was pale, his lips folded in a tight line. Just then Roddy noticed the suitcase in his hand. “Tommy?”

“Shani’s gone missing.”

“What?” He watched as Tommy placed the suitcase at the foot of the bed. Even in his distress, he was careful to make sure it didn’t hit Roddy’s ankle, which was mending more rapidly than the local doctor anticipated, although it still had a way to go. Roddy and Tommy had exchanged glances. Years ago they’d both had similar dreams involving the Egyptian god Anubis and his young priest, and how the god had pledged to keep both Roddy and Tommy safe and well, for his priest’s sake. Of course they’d kept it to themselves, thinking it was nothing more than a dream, but they were unusually healthy, barring the odd broken bone, and those bones healed inordinately quickly.

“I just had a call from Dinah.” Tommy crossed to their chest of drawers and began pulling out clothes. “Shani isn’t in her hotel room, and no one’s seen her since last night.”

“Bugger.”

“Precisely. I’ve made travel arrangements to Vienna—”

“What the—they’re supposed to be in Paris. What are they doing in Vienna?”

“Something about Shani wanting to see the Lipizzaner stallions. Dinah wasn’t feeling well enough to go into detail.”

“What’s wrong with Dinah?”

“Food poisoning.”

“Good God.” Roddy shook his head. This was getting convoluted.

“Yes. I put in a call to Bertie’s hotel in Capri. He and Mother will travel to Vienna as soon as they’re packed.”

“You’re packing for me also, I presume.”

“No. You’re in no condition—”

“I’m going.” He could see his lover was about to protest. “I am going,” he repeated. “Either with you or without you.”

Tommy growled but didn’t offer any further objections. He took Roddy’s suit from the wardrobe and laid it across their bed. Roddy dressed while Tommy packed, then hobbled down the stairs to call the train station and make sure there would be a ticket waiting for him there. His ankle might be giving him hell, but he’d be damned if he let that hold him back.

* * * *

The train pulled into a station in the middle of nowhere, but Shani knew this was where she had to go. She’d worried the border police might give her trouble once she reached the border, but when they’d walked through the train, they’d gone right by her, as if they hadn’t even seen her.

She stepped off the train and walked briskly toward the end of the platform. She’d slung her satchel over her shoulder and kept it in place with her right hand. That deceptive gesture concealed the fact she gripped a small silver-handled pistol. The Papas had brought it back from China years ago. They’d traveled there with Kitty to visit the temple of Kuan Shih Yin, the goddess of mercy, and they’d given her the pistol the day after her fifteenth birthday. The entire time on the train, she’d had the feeling she was being watched, but she hadn’t been able to pinpoint whoever might have their eyes on her.

She didn’t wait until the train chugged off into the night, just left the platform and strode into the woods surrounding it, the light of the moon guiding her path. It wasn’t full just yet, but it would be soon, and that made it all the more imperative she arrive at her destination before it rose tomorrow evening.

Clouds obscured the three-quarter moon, and she took the opportunity to slip behind a stand of trees and wait.

It wasn’t long before the two men approached her hiding spot.

“Dammit, I told you not to dawdle, Warrick,” the shorter one snapped. Oddly enough, she didn’t feel endangered by them. She was simply curious as to what they wanted of her.

“You’d have preferred to be on her heels and alert her to the fact we were following her?”

“That’s neither here nor there. We’ve lost her, and the grandmother is not going to be pleased with us.”

Warrick shrugged. “It’s too late to track her. We may as well find lodgings for the night.”

“But—”

“Come along, Fox. Tomorrow will be soon enough to look for her.”

The men angled off the path, and Shani let long minutes pass before she stepped from behind the tree and resumed her journey. She felt neither hunger nor thirst—the urgent need to arrive at her destination obscured all her senses except for her vision.

* * * *

“Did you have to make me come across as an i***t?” Fox demanded in an irritated undertone.

His lover simply turned his head and grinned. “She believed me, didn’t she?”

“Only because she’s in thrall to the wolf moon.”

All Warrick’s amusement faded. “Don’t remind me. By this time tomorrow night she’ll be mated to that damned shifter—”

“Why do you persist in decrying her fate?” Fox was losing his patience. Warrick seemed unable to accept the girl’s destiny.

“Tommy may have brought her up, but she’s still blood of my blood.”

“That’s true, but you’ve had nothing to do with her for the past nineteen years.”

“I haven’t, have I?”

“Warrick, if you interfere at this point, so help me—”

“No, I won’t interfere. I just wish—”

Fox threaded his fingers through his lover’s. “I know, if it was anyone other than that shifter.”

“Am I that predictable?” Warrick asked ruefully.

Fox brought their twined fingers to his mouth and kissed the back of his lover’s hand. “I love you anyway, you insufferable wolf. We’d better hurry before we really do lose the young lady.”

* * * *

Shani expected it to take some doing to get past the soldiers stationed at the border of Wallachia, but no one was at the crossing. She couldn’t explain it, but the need to reach the valley that had been calling to her for months almost overwhelmed her, so she took advantage of the lack of guards and hurried on.

Eventually she reached the valley, dim and silent in the approaching twilight. She found a quiet spot, shed her clothes and put them in her satchel, then hid the satchel behind a stand of bushes. With that done, she shifted. She so rarely allowed herself to shift. The pleasure almost overwhelmed her. She stretched muscles seldom used, then shook herself, relishing the feel of her long fur rippling over her entire body.

Abruptly, a big male wolf, blacker than the dusk out of which he appeared, approached her. She flattened her ears, her hackles rose, and she wrinkled her muzzle as she growled a warning.

The male gave a whine, muffled somewhat by the carcass of a plump rabbit in his jaws. He placed the carcass on the ground before her then backed away. Suddenly ravenous, Shani pounced on his offering and devoured it in minutes. She licked the remains of blood and brown fur from her muzzle, gave a playful chirp, and wheeled away to race across the countryside, the big, black male close beside her.

For a long while she stayed quite a few strides ahead of him. She knew he wanted her, the scent of his arousal was heady in her nostrils. She gazed at the black wolf over her shoulder and parted her jaws in a lupine grin, intrigued when his grin matched hers.

Desire flashed through her, but she had no intention of making this easy for him. She turned sharply to the right, as if to escape him, but with a sudden bound, he knocked into her, sending her tumbling into a pile of leaves. Before she could leap up to evade him, he was on top of her. His sharp teeth closed gently but firmly around the folds of fur at her neck, keeping her imprisoned, and under the light of the full moon, they mated—the first of many times that night.

* * * *

When she woke, she was alone, lying naked on the leaves. The sun was high, but there was a chill in the air, and in spite of the black fur cloak that covered her, she shivered. Finally free of the moon madness, she counted the numerous aches in her body.

An ancient Romani woman came toward her, removed the fur, and covered her with a woolen cloak. “I had the strangest dream, Grandmother.”

“Hardly a dream, my child.” The old woman helped Shani to her feet and kissed her cheek. “You have done well.” She stroked Shani’s hair away from her face and smiled into her eyes, and Shani felt safe and comforted. “Come with me now. I’ve prepared a soothing bath for you, and then you will have breakfast. After you have rested, we will arrange for you to return to your fathers.”

“My clothes?”

“I’ll have someone fetch your satchel.”

“Thank you.”

They started slowly back to the caravan, Shani limping, feeling sore to her core, but satisfied and happier than she could remember being since the valley began drawing her to it.