Scarlet Vamporium: Vamporium #2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

mysteries, painting our skin with Celtic mist steeped in clandestine darkness and bewitching vapor.
    It pulls my focus to Doug's face, to study him as he drives with the water on our right side, his long hair licking up the kelpie whips flapping into the car.
    He's immune to the arcane secrets whispering on the shaded wind. It's invigorating and exhilarating. The night breath feels alive and focused. It's an entity reaching into the vehicle to clamp fangs into our young blood and contaminate our senses.
    It thrills me, making me sit a little straighter to peer out at the low fog trickling long claws across the route he follows. It rises up to cloak us every so often, blasting the headlights like apparitions trying to scare us. Mabon is soon enough and it seems the phantom hearts are restless this night. They dance for us in spectral glory, the chatter of the wind laughing through the manic cheering of leaves.
    All of this reaches into the interior where we sit, and it's alive. Elongated shadows slip past us with flicks of dragon tails, slithering across our path and slipping out of sight just as the headlights hit the next dark spell.
    My heart is pounding under the onslaught of supernatural power all around us. I can sense it through every pore, it tantalizes my eyelashes and tickles my irises into igniting. It's so stimulating I'm worried it will entice me to betray my true nature.
    This mystical sphere is steeped in unfiltered sorcery. The land inhales and exhales magic on every breath and I'm itching to run naked through the forest and dance under the full moon.
    It makes no sense but it's titillating. I can't explain how a place, a location, can be so immensely powerful. It's diabolically dynamic. There's an aura here which is almost palpable. I sense it in my periphery constantly.
    “Ye okay?” he asks, glancing away from the road to me.
    I nod, “Oh yes. Wow, I love it here! It's magnificent.”
    His smile is incredible when he aims it at me. “Aye, it gets in yer blood. Once ye fall in love with Caledonia she disnae let ye go, ever. She mates fer life she does.”
    “But she has many lovers,” I contest.
    “Damn straight. Och, we dinnae mind sharing,” he gives me a naughty grin.
    To be honest, I don't know what to make of that.
    Oncoming traffic at first appears like friar's lanterns speeding through the brume. Only when their shadows zoom past us is it possible to distinguish the glowing phenomenon as headlights.
    The haze is congesting into obscuring white puffs which scud low across the road, but it just quickens my growing excitement instead of giving me any kind of foreboding. It's so thrilling to be mingling with the natives. I half can't believe Selene is letting me go out on my second night here.
    As Doug slows the car down to turn into the gap of a long dry stone wall composed of morbid dark gray slabs that look sharper than stacked shark's teeth, he says, “Yer gonnae meet ma mates now, but whatever ye dae dinnae go sayin' nothing tae Roderick if he's in a kilt. He disnae like being called a Jessie.”
    “What?” I ask, dragging my fascinated and hungry gaze from the sharp incline smeared with tall trees gobbled up by thick ivy.
    What on earth is he talking about?
    “Roddie, he's a contender ye know? He's entered the highland games three years in a row, and well, he kinda likes dressing traditional. But he's no' a Jessie.”
    “Doug, what in the world is a Jessie?”
    “A girl's blouse. A...” he scratches the side of his nose, obviously contemplating how to explain it to me while still keeping his focus on where he's driving.
    It's really handsome with the way his face is barely lit with headlights, his eyes sparkling like a loch at full moon. Dark, but glistening and mysterious.
    Wow, who knew the boys in Glencoe were this delectable. I'd have been in trouble a lot sooner.
    “Em, it's what them others call a pansy. Like he's sweet cos he wears a kilt. Dinnae call it a skirt, whatever ye