The drumming base of the song began and then the lights flipped on. It was amazing, the magic that the English could do. Smoke slowly bellowed from a machine hidden in the shadows and she began to slowly rotate her shoulders and hips to the beat of the music. Once Britney Spears’s voice joined the drumming, Larissa slowly marched to the edge of the stage where a pole was located. Prowling around the silver beam like a cat prowls around prey, she marched in her high, spiked boots, her feathered tail swishing and tickling the flesh exposed under her panties. Larissa became the cat.
She reached out one hand covered in a long netted glove and grasped the pole. With the agility of a feline, she lifted her weight off the ground and twirled her body around the pole. Male voices cheered their approval through the darkness. The other girls had said she was an amazing pole dancer. Apparently it was a struggle for a mortal to hold their body up in precarious positions for extended amounts of time. Larissa had the strength of any immortal however, and she found the task as simple as lifting a toothpick.
Pressing her feet back onto the floor, she held the pole with both hands and lowered her bottom. She arched her spine and tipped her head back, giving the audience a peek at her upside-down face. Her long, dark hair flowed freely across the floor. There were no tight braids or bonnets in the English world and for that she was grateful.
She swung her head up with a snap and turned her back to the pole, extending her long arms above her hair. Her breasts lifted and her hips pressed out as they swayed with the music. Dollar bills began to accumulate at her feet. It amazed her that the body her Amish community felt she should keep hidden, others would pay to see. It was only flesh and bones to Larissa. It told as little about her true self as her old aprons and frocks.
Taking one last stroll across the front of the stage, she bent at the waist and scooped up some of the money. She was safe on the stage. Men were not allowed to touch the stage dancers unless they had purchased the privilege beforehand. If anyone touched without permission, well, that’s what Vito was there for. Vito was a mountain of a man even next to Larissa’s five-feet-nine-inch frame. He protected the girls, especially Larissa, which was silly really, considering Larissa was probably as strong as twenty Vitos. But still, he protected her. He was her friend.
When the song ended the crowd applauded. The lights dimmed and Larissa quickly scooped up the rest of her money. She passed the next dancer taking her place on the stage and went to her locker to drop off the crisp dollars she held between her palms. Dabbing her damp skin with a towel she quickly took a sip of water from a bottle in her locker, stashed the towel, righted her cat ears, and then shut her locker. Some of the girls had warned her about not locking up her belongings, but Larissa just figured old habits die hard. Amish rarely used locks. If someone wanted to take her money, they obviously needed it more than her.
She passed Vito on her way out to the main floor and he told her she did a nice job dancing. For the next few hours, she would spend her time earning tips by serving beverages to the customers. Her boss had told her that, as long as she smiled and treated the customers kindly, she would do just fine. Larissa was always polite. It was against her nature not to be. The only time she had difficulty smiling was when one of the gentlemen asked her for a favor. Some of the girls danced privately for certain customers. There were different types of dancing the men could pay for. Larissa had yet to do any of those close dances, but that was going to change tonight.
Steve, her boss, had said she needed to start offering at least a “Level One” lap dance. That was where the dancer remained clothed and provided a patron with a few minutes of dance, but the patron could not touch the dancer. There were ten levels. Some involved touching, some the men were lying down or tied up, which Larissa did not understand. Some were done in the privacy of the back rooms and for most, the girls displayed their breasts. There was nothing wrong with Larissa’s breasts, but she never displayed them. She was the only girl who still remained covered from the waist up the entire time she worked inside the club. It just felt wrong to share that part of her with strangers. She hated even sharing it with her husband.
Tonight she was expected to do her first lap dance. Vito had promised her he would be close to make sure the customer did not touch her in any way. The touch of a man was something Larissa simply could not abide. She loved her job. She loved being able to dance to her heart’s content. If she never had to do a lap dance she never would, but according to her boss it was a requirement for all employees. She just hoped she could handle the close proximity.
The closer the evening drew to her break, the more nervous she became. By the end of the night, she had to perform a lap dance. When her break came she found Vito also taking his.
“You making good tips, Larissa?” he asked as she sat beside him on a worn, black leather couch in the employee lounge.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He smiled and tossed a chip into his mouth. His brows drew together as he chewed the chip. “Hey, you okay? Someone bother you out there?”
“Yes, I mean no, no one bothered me. I’m okay. Just nervous.”
“’Bout what?”
“I have to do a lap dance after my break.”
He smiled and shut his eyes, nodding knowingly. “You’ll be fine. I told you, I won’t let anyone touch you.”
“I know, it’s just, I don’t do well with…with being close to others. I’m afraid I will freeze up.”
“Why don’t you practice on a chair?”
“Because I don’t have an issue being close to wooden objects. I have an issue with getting too close to males.”
He seemed to think on this for a moment as he tossed the last chip into his mouth and crumpled the foil bag in his large, meaty fingers. “You could…you could practice on me.”
Larissa frowned. She sensed a wave of guilt coming off of Vito and she did not understand why.
“Never mind. That was stupid.”
“No,” she quickly interrupted his apology. “Not stupid. That may actually help. I trust you, Vito. If you wouldn’t mind me practicing with you, I would really appreciate the help.”
His cheeks flushed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. In a raspy voice he said, “Okay, Larissa. Shut the door.”
Oddly giddy for the help, Larissa quickly shut the door. It wasn’t like anyone would walk in on them anyway. Breaks were scheduled far apart for the girls and there were rules about leaving the floor during a shift. Only she and Vito had permission to be back there at that moment.
“Do you want me on the couch or the chair?”
Larissa looked at the couch. “The chair I think.”
He hefted himself off the couch and moved the chair to the center of the room. The wooden chair whined under the bulk of his weight. “If the girls don’t want to be touched, I usually instruct the guys to keep their hands at their sides, so I’ll just…” He lowered his hands so they hung by the back legs of the chair.
Vito was tall, but so was Larissa. She stood before him, his eyes practically level with her own. “Ready?” she asked and he nodded.
The music from the club filtered through the walls of the lounge. Larissa recognized the song playing which helped her formulate her movements. She began by walking around the perimeter of the chair. She had seen several lap dances, so she had an idea what to do. As she circled the back of the chair Vito kept his eyes toward the front of the door. She trailed a finger across the collar of his black STAFF T-shirt and smiled when his flesh prickled from the soft contact. Rounding the front of the chair again, she nudged his knees apart and stood in the space between. Swaying her hips, she leaned close to his face, allowing her body to roll into a low squat. His skin smelled of soap and tobacco with a trace of barbecue from the chips he had eaten.
Under the sound of the music, she could hear the blood pulsing through his system. His heartbeat quickened as she carefully stepped over his knees and placed her hand on his right shoulder. She lowered her body, but did n
ot make contact with his lap. His breathing increased and Larissa took that as a sign that she was doing well. Stepping back into the space between his legs, she turned and presented him with her backside. She reached for her feathered tail and tickled his face with it. They each laughed.
The music tempo increased and she began to roll her abdomen, lower and lower until her bottom brushed the top of his lap. She heard him suck in a breath as his heart rate again accelerated. She suddenly contemplated when the last time she had fed was. It was not as easy to feed under the watchful eye of modern civilization as it was on the farm. Animals were scarce in places that the human population dominated the environment. Had it been two days? Three? She remembered hunting down a small rabbit, but had only taken a few sips of its blood, enough to stave off her hunger pains and leave the creature unharmed. The longer she danced the less she could hear the music. It seemed as if Vito’s heartbeat was screaming in her ears.
She turned and straddled his right leg. His face was flush with color, blood rising to the surface. She could scent it pumping under his flesh. She ground herself into his thigh to get closer to the smell. His back arched, pressing their hips closer. He lifted his arms and held his palms up, defenseless to her motions. With his chin tilted back, she could see the flutter of his pulse. Her gums ached and her belly tightened.
“Fuck, Larissa, maybe you should ask Steve if you can just do a couple more stage dances a night. I’m going to have to break skulls to keep the guys’ hands off you. You sure you never did this before?”
“Am I doing okay?” she asked as her thigh bumped the firm crotch of his jeans.
He offered a deprecating laugh, “Yeah, you’re fuckin’ doin’ okay. Maybe you should stop.”
“The song’s only half over.”
He looked into her eyes. His chest rose and fell with each breath. “You have no idea what you do to a man, do you?”
“I am a female. I can do nothing to a man. It is men that handle the doing,” she stated somewhat angrily.
“If you only knew how wrong you were. I think we should stop.”
“But you said you would help me practice.” She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to see how fast she could make his pulse race under his blood-heated skin. She seemed to be as fascinated with that tiny vein under the stubble covering his jaw as he was with her breasts. Only Vito seemed to still be struggling for politeness and forced his eyes toward the ceiling, thus exposing his throat even more.
Her pelvis touched down on his and he grunted as if in pain.
“Just a sip.”
Straining not to look at her, he asked, “What?”
“Vito, look into my eyes.”
His head quickly turned at the sharp command in her voice. His eyes locked with hers. “Just a sip, you will remember me dancing for you. Nothing more.”
His jaw slackened as his pupils dilated. Her fangs punched through her gums. Unable to wait a second more, she opened her mouth and snapped her jaw shut over that tempting pulse like an alligator locking its jaws on a fluttering butterfly. Vito grunted and jolted in his seat. She felt his body under hers, but focused only on the nourishment she took from his vein. She had never fed from a human being before, only her mother as a child and her husband as an adult. Vito’s blood tasted different, sweeter than an immortal’s, lacking potency, but making up for it in smoothness.
His hips began to rock. She catalogued the fact that, like immortals, mortals also found feeding from the opposite sex erotic. She shut her eyes at the memories of Silus feeding from her that were suddenly flooding her mind. Taking a few more sips, she carefully closed the puncture at his neck and wiped her mouth. He blinked several times and she stepped away just as the song ended.
“That was…” His eyes looked down and to the left as if he were searching for words. “That was amazing. Thank you, Larissa. I think you will do fine out there.”
She offered him a sad smile, already disgusted with herself for taking advantage of her friend. Sometimes she hated what she was. Her needs were satisfied, but at what cost? Her principles felt betrayed. “Thank you, Vito.”
Later that night Larissa climbed the steps of her dark, odorous apartment complex, still feeling guilty about Vito. She opened the door to her private dwelling and tossed her bag onto a chair.
“You should really lock your door, Larissa.”
She screeched in alarm and turned on the light. “For the love of God, Cain! You scared me half to death.”
“How was work, sister? Still dangling your bits for the entire English world to see?”
She gave him a satirical smile and headed into the kitchen. “No one sees my bits. I assure you they are covered the entire time.”
“Silus would be so proud.”
“You are in a mood. What are you doing here?”
Her brother plopped onto her couch and plucked up a book from her side table. He fingered the pages of the romance novel, opening to a random page. His eyebrows lifted in surprise and he turned the book to read the cover. “I came to see if you wanted to go hunting with me.”
More guilt. “Thank you, but I’ve already fed.”
He tossed the book back onto the table. “You really do need to start locking the door.”
She rolled her eyes and came to sit next to him. “I am vampyre, Cain. Nothing is going to hurt me.”
“Well, you should at least scan your place for emotions before you enter. What if I had been someone else?”
“I assure you, I can protect myself from the English.”
“I’m not speaking of the English.”
“Then what?” Suddenly she felt a quiver of fear. Her hand lifted protectively to her throat. “Does Silus know where I am?”
“No.” She let out a sigh of relief but before she could fully relax, he said, “The bishop is searching for you.”
“The bishop? Why?”
“Apparently when Silus appealed to him about leaving the farm to retrieve his disobedient wife, the bishop thought it would be better if he himself found you.”
“Why would that crabby old male care where I am?”
“Because you abandoned your duty, would be my guess.”
She let out an unladylike snort. “My duty to what? Live a millennium as nothing more than an object to entertain Silus Hostetler. No, I think not. I am happy away from the farm. I will not go back. I don’t care if the bishop himself comes to collect me. Besides, he was merely my spouse. It isn’t as though I abandoned my true mate.”
It was well known that a marriage was child’s play in comparison with the bond shared between true mates. Marriages were contracts by choice, well, a male’s choice most of the time. Being bonded, however, was a calling from God. There was no breaking the bond between mates. It was sewn into one’s soul, the need for the other. And while marriages were not entered into lightly among The Order, callings were even rarer.
Cain laughed. “If Bishop King finds you, you won’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Well then I simply won’t be found.”
“Good luck with that. Anyway, you should be more careful about locking your doors and scanning.”
He was right. If the bishop was in fact looking for her though, no lock would keep him out of her home. Bishop King was some six hundred years old, at least five hundred and fifty years older than Larissa. If he wanted to find her, he would. And when he did there would be nothing Larissa could do to protect herself from such a powerful elder. Wanting to change the subject, she asked, “How is Father?”
Cain sighed and his usually jovial expression faltered under the honest weight of his concern. “Annalise tells me he is even worse than before.” Annalise was mated to their brother, Adam. She and Cain had shared some phenomenon of a bond that allowed them to share dreams. Vampyres typically never dreamed unless they were being called to their one true mate. No one understood why Annalise could share dreams with not just Adam, but his twin as well. Even still, it allowed her and her brother t
o have a connection to the farm from the outside world. There were no telephones or ways of communicating with the Amish of their order. It was the way they preferred to live, isolated and private. The dreams were a nightly link to their home and Anna had been keeping them informed of their father’s condition.
“He is losing weight,” Cain continued. “Adam tells her that Father is working slower than usual and seems horribly lethargic, yet Mother says he refuses to sleep for anything longer than a few minutes here and there.”
“That does not make any sense. Has Mother contacted the healer?”
“Yes. He suspects Father is developing some sort of allergy, but is unsure from what.”
Larissa frowned. Their kind almost never fell ill. Allergies were something mortals dealt with, not vampyres. “Will you go to him?” She wanted to go to her father, but could not. If she ever returned to her home, she would never escape again.
“If he needs me I will go. You know I would do anything for any of you.” That was true. Although Cain seemed the most careless member of the family, he was as loyal a brother as one could find.
She squeezed his hand and softly acknowledged, “I know you would, Cain. So do the others. That is why I thank God every day that you are still a part of my life.”
Cain squeezed her hand in return. He understood her message. A month ago she almost lost Cain forever. Through the grace of God, she was able to keep him. They all were able to keep him, thankfully, even if the others did not truly understand what a blessing he was.
He blew out a long breath. “Enough of this melancholy discussion. If you are not hungry, then I suppose I had better be off to find my dinner, and then I will hunt for some company this evening.” He tilted his chin to the side. “Perhaps they shall be one in the same.”
As he moved to stand, Larissa stilled him. “Cain, wait.” He settled back onto the sofa and looked at her. She swallowed. “Have you ever…Have you ever fed from a mortal?”
Calling for a Miracle [The Order of Vampyres 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 2