“Writer’s retreat?” Darian repeated, unable to believe he’d heard right. “Lanislaw’s writing a book? What, true crime?”

  “I guess so. From what he said, he wants to put all his cases into a memoir. The retreat is supposed to help everyone get their projects started. A week in the woods, no distractions, just a group of guys pouring their hearts out on paper. Or maybe screens, depending on their preference.”

  “Wow. I admit, I didn’t see that coming. Well, good luck to him.”

  “Wait. There’s more—he wants one or both of us to join him at the workshop. It’ll be fun, he says.”

  “Us? In a writer’s group together?”

  “I admit I’m no writer,” Argo said. “But this would be good for you, Darian. A boost for your career.”

  “It would?” Darian disentangled himself from Argo’s arms and sat up. “How, exactly?”

  Argo cleared his throat. “Well…Lanislaw also told me that your moms know the guys running it. Ange has worked with them at her college. In fact, she…uh…recommended you as one of the instructors. According to Lanislaw, they’re planning to call you with an offer soon. You get paid and everything. Plus, as a staff member, you’re entitled to bring a guest.”

  “Ah. And thus you come in. Meaning that, unlike the rest of the participants, you don’t actually have to write anything.”

  “Yeah?” Argo feigned surprised. “Hmm. I never thought about it, but you’re right. It’ll be more like a regular vacation for me. Not that I have any real concept what one of those would be like. Every time I try to take one, I stumble over a murder to solve. Anyway, come on, it’ll be fun. We both need to relax. And who knows? Maybe I’ll discover a hidden talent for writing poetry.”

  “I admit I’d like to see that,” Darian said. “But what’s with Lanislaw and my moms? I had no idea they were so close now.”

  “Oh, yeah. Didn’t they ever mention it to you? They have Stuart over for dinner all the time lately, he says. He thinks they’re great. Besides, in his line of work it’s useful to have as many contacts as possible.”

  “Especially in high-end hotels and colleges, I assume. Hotbeds for homicide. Never know when you might want to rent a room—or hire a proofreader.” Darian sighed. “I’m on the fence, Argo. I kind of needed a break from the classroom.”

  “Okay. Fair enough. Can you just agree to think about it for now? We don’t have to decide tonight.”

  “Yeah. I can do that.” Darian eased back down into Argo’s arms. He couldn’t make sense of Lanislaw’s request at all, much less his moms’ involvement. He wondered if more was going on than Lanislaw or either of them were admitting. And despite his misgivings, it was probably safe to say they were off to the retreat.

  As he tried to imagine himself and Argo enjoying—or maybe enduring—a deep-woods getaway populated by angsty novelists and pretentious gay poets, something stirred at the back of his mind.

  “Hey, Argo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you remember, right before all this stuff with Chet went down, you asked me if we could have a serious talk.”

  “Oh, right. I do remember that, yeah.” Argo shifted as though suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Well? What were you meaning to ask me? We kept getting interrupted.”

  “Uh…are you sure you want to do this now?”

  “I am, actually. Yes. Now is perfect.”

  “So…I’ve been thinking about this a while…” Argo’s voice started off strong, but trailed away. He looked uncertain.

  “Argo, stop dithering around. Just get to the point.” Darian sat up again. “Out with it.”

  “Okay, here goes.” Argo took a deep breath. “Will you move in with me?”

  And don’t miss

  Kiss of the Dark Prince

  by Jade Astor

  Available now on Kindle!

  Please enjoy this sneak peek at Chapter 1!

  At a British university, American exchange student Luke Martin meets Boris von Schatten, who claims to be a member of the royal family of Shattenberg, a small principality wedged between Austria and Hungary. Though Luke is skeptical, Boris ignites his curiosity with tales of the family castle and his half-brother, Prince Georg, now ruler of Schattenberg after the recent death of their father. Intrigued, Luke jumps at the chance when Boris offers to fly him to Schattenberg for the approaching summer break.

  Once Luke arrives, though, the enigmatic but undeniably handsome Georg tells him that Boris has disappeared. Soon mysterious events begin to occur, including two deaths and increasing evidence suggesting that Georg murdered Boris along with a few others who got in his way. Luke finds it hard to believe that Georg is as demonic as people say—he even hears rumors that he drinks human blood—at least until some of Boris’s possessions are found covered with blood in a nearby ravine.

  When he confronts Georg about his suspicions, Georg confesses that he is the victim of a curse and is powerless to stop it, though he denies murdering anyone. Luke longs to believe him—until attempts on Luke’s own life begin.

  Chapter 1

  A tolling bell over the city shattered what little concentration he’d mustered. Two solid hours of sitting in the empty chapel with his notebook balanced on his knees, and all he had to show for it was a jumble of scribbles and a few disconnected jottings. Cursing, Luke slammed his pencil against the mostly blank page. Only afterward did he remember where he was. Did swearing in a church count if no one else was around to hear it?

  Then he realized someone had.

  “Best be careful.” The deep voice, salted with a European accent he couldn’t quite place, came from the shadows. “As I crossed the street, I saw a few clouds gathering overhead. We wouldn’t want to provoke a strike of lightning.”

  Luke watched as the man who had spoken stepped into view. Tall and well-dressed in a black silk shirt, knee-length leather jacket, and tailored black slacks, he carried what appeared to be an oversized sketchbook under one arm.

  A moment passed before Luke found his voice. “Sorry about that. I let my frustration get the better of me.” He squinted into the filtered light provided by the stained glass windows. The man seemed too old to be a student but too young to be a professor or—luckily for him—the vicar. A graduate student, perhaps, though his carefully tousled dark hair and perfect cheekbones suggested something more along the lines of an actor or a male model. Luke doubted he would be that lucky, however. “You don’t think lightning would strike indoors because of what I said, do you? I mean—that’s impossible.”

  The man inclined his head to the left, a smile tilting the corner of his soft-lipped mouth. “Why is it impossible? I have seen much stranger things—things many others might hesitate to believe.”

  “Okay,” Luke conceded. How could he argue with that? Given the choice between their own perceptions and cold logic, most people went with what they believed, irrational or not. Besides, even he had given in to a touch of superstition a moment earlier. Maybe being in a church reputed to be more than a thousand years old had an effect on people’s imaginations. “I guess it never hurts to be careful.”

  “That is true in most cases. Not all.” His grin widening, the man came closer. His eyes dropped to the notebook and pencil in Luke’s lap. “Are you a writer?”

  Up close and in better light, he seemed to grow even more handsome—definitely the reverse of what Luke had experienced in the bars and clubs he’d visited both at home and here in England. Generally the ones he spotted from far away didn’t hold up to a closer inspection.

  “Hardly.” Luke laughed. “My tutor’s making me write an essay about this place. As you can see, I don’t have a clue where to begin.” He tilted the notebook to show his pathetic collection of scribbling.

  “You’re a student, then. And you’re American.”

  “Yeah. My parents wanted the prestige of sending me to a British college. It kind of ticks me off, though, to think I could get the same degree by hanging out at the back of some huge auditorium and pretending to take notes. Instead, I have to sit here all day and try to come up with five hundred words about how the architecture of Saint Whoever’s cathedral symbolizes Anglican spirituality, or whatever the f… whatever my professor said.”

  “Ah.” The man trailed a slow, appreciate gaze across the high, arched ceiling. “Then I know how you should begin your essay. You must explain that the cathedral itself was built in the shape of the cross with the altar positioned to face the rising sun. Everything else—the vaulted ceiling emulating heaven, the illumination from the stained glass windows, and so on—is secondary to that basic principle.”

  Startled, Luke looked up and saw at once what he was talking about. Why had it never occurred to him before?

  “Thanks,” he said sheepishly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He cast a curious glance at the sketchbook the man carried. “You must be an artist. That’s why you see things differently than other people—or me, anyway.”

  “In a sense.” The man sat down in the pew opposite Luke and placed the sketchbook on his own knees. He opened it and began flipping the pages to reveal stunningly detailed drawings of every sort of Gothic-style building Luke had seen in the city, from the time-worn walls dating from the twelfth century to the sneering gargoyles that topped the pointed spires of the numerous colleges and churches. “The architecture of this place fascinates me. I traveled here to study it in detail. I will take these sketches home and use them to restore certain damaged sections of my own family home.”

  Luke blinked. “Your family home is a… castle?”

  “It is.” The man paged through his sketchbook until he came to a beautiful picture, rendered in pencil, of a medieval-style stone castle complete with a rounded tower at one corner. Luke gaped, unsure whether to believe him or write him off as either a con man or a lunatic. “This is Castle Schattenberg. When I am not traveling, I still make my home there.” Smiling, he pointed out a particular window about halfway up one of the vast stone walls. “That is my bedroom.”

  “Does that mean you’re some kind of royalty?” The question sounded foolish to his ears even while he said it. Belatedly, it occurred to him his first hunch might have been correct after all. Maybe the guy really was some kind of movie star or famous model in a country Luke didn’t know much about. Some of them occasionally bought castles to live and party in, he’d heard.

  “You might say so, though that word has a different meaning to Americans—and even Englishmen—than it does in my own country. I am second in line to the throne of Schattenberg, a small principality that has maintained its independence since the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There I am known as Prince Boris von Schatten.”

  “Never heard of it,” Luke said skeptically. He began to lean toward his con artist theory. Yet the sketch of the castle seemed remarkably detailed for something this Boris, or whoever he was, had invented.

  “Of course you haven’t. The people of Schattenberg are intensely private, our country virtually inaccessible to those who have no reason to go there. We have no tourist industry and little contact with the rest of Europe. We prefer it that way and always have, going back to the era when my castle was built.”

  “Yet your English is perfect. You can’t have grown up all that isolated.”

  “My father’s first wife was British, and he maintained a great interest in the customs and language of the English. Though my own mother, his second wife, was an Eastern European, he engaged tutors from my infancy to teach me English, along with several other languages.”

  Luke stared at the sketch and then at Boris. “Yeah? That’s impressive.” If any of it’s true, he added silently. Yet he could detect no hint of smugness or hesitation in Boris’s face or voice, either of which might indicate deception. Much as he hated to admit it, Luke had racked up plenty of experience dealing with men who lied. He didn’t sense that Boris was one of them.

  “I always find it interesting that Americans are so taken with titles and castles and the like, when they made certain to carry none of those relics to their own country.”

  “I didn’t say I was taken with that kind of stuff. I mean, sure, it’s different, but….” Luke blushed. He’d been about to blurt out what he’d actually been taken with: Boris himself.

  Boris waved a hand as if to fan away the distasteful expression. “No matter. I am not offended in either case. I am what I was born to be. What others think of me, for good or ill, can never change that.”

  Not sure how to respond, Luke changed the subject. “Is your castle haunted?” The question was silly, he knew, but he suddenly wanted very much to keep the conversation going.

  This time Boris laughed. “Of course. Not by ghosts, though.”

  “What, then?”

  “By my brother, Georg.” He pronounced it in the German way—“Gay-Org.” Luke smothered a grin as Boris went on. “His sour looks and angry moods would make any ghost flee for his safety.”

  “Oh? How come?”

  “Since our father died last year, he has ruled our small territory as though he were Augustus Caesar governing the Roman Empire. He finds no attempt by me or our people to please him sufficient. Nor does he find our laws adequate or our punishments harsh enough. Since he came to power, it is as though Schattenberg has returned to the Dark Ages. In fact, the Dark Ages might have been more enlightened.” Boris laughed.

  “That’s terrible,” Luke said. Again Boris’s account sounded more like something out of a disturbing fairy tale than any reality he was familiar with, but on the other hand, it seemed just bizarre enough to be true. “He must be a lot different from you.”

  “That is what you might safely call an understatement,” Boris said. “Yes, we are as opposite as two brothers can be. But then, he is only my half brother. His mother died when he was very young, which might be why he grew up with such a bitter heart. Perhaps we should pity him after all.”

  “She was the English wife you spoke of earlier?”

  “Yes. From what I understand, he inherited nothing of her pleasant personality. Our people, as well as my father, loved her for her warm heart and generous smile. Their feelings toward Prince Georg are not quite so tender.”

  “I suppose that’s why you prefer to travel? Your brother seems the sort of person you’d be smart to avoid.”

  “You are a perceptive young man, ah….”

  Luke felt a blush cloud his cheeks. He’d had the incredible good fortune to meet a heart-stoppingly gorgeous, and possibly genuine, prince, and he’d been too socially inept even introduce himself. “Luke Martin,” he said, extending his hand. His pulse quickened when Boris slid his warm fingers around it and pressed down in a way Luke found oddly intimate. A tingle moved up his arm and filled his chest with a comfortable heat.

  Then Boris dropped his hand and stood. “And now I shall leave you to your work. I hope my suggestion will help you to complete your essay.”

  “You’re leaving? But weren’t you planning to draw the cathedral? I mean—I assume that’s why you came in here. I don’t want to keep you from your work either.”

  “I have done enough for one day. The exteriors interest me most in any case.”

  Boris looked down at the oversized book under his arm. He had closed it but kept his thumb wedged between the last pages they had looked at together. Now he opened it just far enough to tear out the sketch of the castle, which he handed to Luke. “Keep this as a souvenir of our conversation today. I found it most enjoyable.”

  “So did I,” Luke assured him, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. He had no idea, after all, if Boris was the sort of man to accept the kind of attention Luke wished to focus on him. Still, no one had ever accused Luke of shyness. “Can we talk again? Tonight, maybe? I’m not planning to spend all that long on my essay, really, especially since you’ve shown me the trick to getting it written. I’d rather go out for a drink, honestly.”

  The smile Boris flashed him seemed maddeningly noncommittal. “You should take your education more seriously. Your parents are right about the prestige that will come with a university degree.”

  Frustrated at the lack of an answer, Luke rose and followed Boris to the arched doorway of the cathedral. Just then, a group of older tourists entered, conversing in a foreign language he didn’t recognize. Boris stopped and addressed them in the same language. They chattered on while Luke stood by, feeling lost and awkward. At last, the tourists moved inside while Boris stepped through the heavy double doors into the courtyard. Luke followed him outside.

  The moment his feet touched the flagstones, he stopped in confusion. The path leading back to the street entrance lay quiet and empty. The grassy areas to the right and left also stood peaceful and deserted. Luke had to blink to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. The alternative made no sense at all. In a matter of seconds, Boris seemed to have disappeared.

  At least he knew he hadn’t imagined the entire encounter. He still had the information that would help him complete his essay, after all—and in his right hand, he held Boris’s sketch.

  Later that afternoon, after he’d typed a draft of his essay on cathedral structure into one of the public computers set up in the private library at his college, Luke ran a search on the name of Boris’s alleged principality, Schattenberg. He’d been tempted to investigate the moment he returned to his rooms, but two considerations stopped hm. One, he desperately needed to finish his essay, which was just few hours shy of being late. Two, and more importantly, he dreaded the perhaps inevitable discovery that everything Boris had told him had been a fib designed to make him look and feel foolish.

  His suspicions seemed to be confirmed when his first few attempts on different search engines turned up nothing. Then, suddenly inspired, he changed the spelling from his first guess, “Shattenburg” to “Schattenberg” and tried again. At last, a short but serviceable page of results appeared.

  So Boris had been telling the truth, after all. He even saw the name Prince Georg, the ill-tempered half brother. Though no photo came up, the entry profiled Georg as the current ruler of the tiny, isolated territory, which consisted of one small city and a great deal of mountain territory. Remarkably, Schattenberg still preserved a semifeudal form of government and avoided contact with the modern world. From what Luke read as he scanned the web page in amazement, the place didn’t even have a proper hotel. Visitors, such as there were, could stay in one of a few rooms rented out by the only tavern.