Tempted by a Vampire (Immortal Hearts of San Francisco Book 1)

by Susan Griscom

  “Twenty dollars,” Tessa said, holding out her hand. I reached into my purse and pulled out one of the three twenty-dollar bills I had in there.

  She placed the money in a box behind her and took my hands in hers. “You’ve never been in love.” This was a statement, not a question. I opened my mouth to protest because I’d been in love with Kellen for the past two years. But as I said, I didn’t believe in psychics or magic anyway, so I smiled and played along.

  “Hmmm…you will live a very long life.”

  I almost laughed. That sounded like something all psychics would start with.

  “No, wait,” she hesitated. “Long, yes, but…” She shook her head.

  “What?”

  “Someone dark is about to enter your life. You are about to fall,” she continued. “Something is going to break. A relationship? Not a loved one. Not a friend,” she assured when Vanessa made some sort of gasping sound behind me. “Falling is inevitable, though.”

  “Falling?”

  She shook her head and made a shushing sound. “Falling under.”

  “Falling under what?” I asked.

  “Falling under temptation.”

  “Temptation of what?” I asked.

  “That is all I see. I can’t tell you something I don’t see.”

  “What about the dark person who is about to enter her life?” Vanessa asked.

  “I lost sight of him. I’m sorry.” Tessa shook her head again.

  This was ridiculous. She had to be a fake, and I had just given her my twenty dollars.

  “What? How could you lose sight? You’re just making this up, right?”

  “No. I don’t make things up. I only tell you what I see. My visions are not always clear, or rather, translatable, but they are always true. Do you want me to read yours?” This last statement she addressed to V.

  “Why not?” My friend smirked.

  Vanessa and I traded seats and Vanessa paid her twenty dollars. Tessa went on to tell her that she too would live a long life, but without the added hesitation the psychic had done with me. Vanessa would have a prosperous career and a happy marriage. Madam Fontaine had even added two kids into V’s fortune. It seemed that Vanessa’s life was to be very mundane. Everything I’d ever wanted.

  After the disastrous reading that would probably ruin not only my night but also my entire life, we finally resumed our trek down the hill to Club Royal. It seemed the additional martini had given me a second wind, and I was now ready for some fun and music.

  “Crap, there’s a line. C’mon.” V tugged my arm, and we picked up the pace to a slow jog, which was no small feat in four-inch heels. When you were as short as I was, high heels were your best friend, especially when your real best friend was five-eight.

  The black wall we stood beside in the line made the street seem dark and somewhat scary. Various etchings of symbols that I didn’t recognize graced the side of the wall. I was anxious to get off the street and inside, but at the same time, a little apprehensive about going in at all.

  We stood in line for about three minutes when a rather large, muscle-bound guy in a dark sports coat and pants walked up to us. A small, curly wire connected to an earpiece dangled from his left ear.

  “You two, come with me,” he ordered.

  Vanessa and I looked at each other then back at the man.

  “It’s safe. You’ve been bumped up to the front of the line.”

  We followed the guy inside, and he led us to a small round table right in front of the stage.

  “Enjoy,” he said, as a waiter stood by and Vanessa ordered two more dirty martinis, this time, with extra olives. At this rate, I’d need to switch to water soon or I’d be crawling home.

  “How do you like that?” she said. “Front row seats and we didn’t have to wait in the line. I love being a woman.” She smiled, placing her chin on her fists.

  It was dark and warm in the club. I was glad I’d worn the strapless number Vanessa had talked me into wearing. At first, I’d almost forgone the new dress and put on a black cashmere sweater since it was early October, and the nights in San Francisco were chilly. But inside this room, it felt more like a balmy summer evening.

  The band hadn’t started to play yet, or maybe they were on a break. Conversation buzzed around us as we both took in the scene. I felt a little better about the place as I studied the clientele. Most seemed upscale but young. Twenty to thirtyish. And there were probably three women to every man. Of course, that was typical in these places. Most of the women wore tight, slinky, form-fitting dresses or pants that looked as if they’d poured themselves into them, and the guys were mostly in jeans and nice shirts.

  Vanessa and I sipped our drinks a bit slower this time around as we sat in wonderment.

  I glanced up to see two small balconies, one on each side of the club. Each balcony sported a small, round table and two chairs. A woman and a man sat at one of them, sipping cocktails, but the other one was empty. “I wonder how you get to sit up there?” I gestured at the empty balcony, not wanting to draw the attention of the couple sitting on the other one and have them notice that I was pointing.

  Vanessa followed my finger. She grinned. “Wow, wouldn’t that be fantastic? These are good seats, though. Right up front.”

  “Please, let’s not stay too late,” I said. “Especially if the band isn’t very good.”

  “Okay. I agree. Nothing worse than sitting at a table by ourselves, listening to crappy music and yawning. However, I don’t think we’ll be alone much longer.”

  I noticed Vanessa smile and I followed her gaze toward the bar where a very hot man with dark, curly brown hair hanging below his ears was standing. To my amazement, he was the same gorgeous man I’d locked eyes with outside of the restaurant earlier. He looked over at us and returned the smile.

  Before I knew what had happened, he’d pulled a chair up to our table and sat down. “Hello, ladies.” He had an English accent. Or was it Australian? “I haven’t seen you in here before.” Definitely English. He wore jeans—tight ones—and a black button-down shirt.

  “We just moved here. This is our first time in this club,” Vanessa supplied. But his gaze—he had the most beautiful silver-blue eyes I’d ever seen—stuck with me. I sipped my martini, feeling a bit uncomfortable. Electric. Looking into his eyes was like floating through the clearest part of the ocean with rays of sunshine painting glimmering streaks of light through the water.

  “Well, I hope you enjoy the music. I’m Cian Demarco. I’m with the band.”

  He pronounced his name like key-in. An odd name. Old maybe. I wondered if he spelled it with a Ke or a Ci? I didn’t ask though.

  Vanessa giggled and said, “I’m Vanessa, and this is Mags.”

  “Mags?” His eyebrows lifted with the question.

  “Mags is short for Magdalena,” my flirtatious roommate happily supplied with a broad grin, knowing I hated my given name.

  “Maggie,” I corrected, and he gave me a delicious smile. All of a sudden, I felt completely horrible about Kellen not being here. I shouldn’t have been thinking about how hot this guy was, but the sensations flowing through my blood made my heart palpitate and my thighs throb. There was no denying it; there was something compelling about him. I wondered if “with the band” meant that he was actually one of the musicians, or if he just worked the lights or sound system. Considering he was hanging out here with the customers, drinking, I decided he must be the sound guy. Or maybe the manager. I was sure the band members were backstage preparing or whatever it was they did before a performance.

  “Magdalena. Like Mary Magdalene?”

  I rolled my eyes, and he chuckled. “A rare beauty, indeed.”

  My eyes shot to his. Not many people knew that meaning. He nodded slightly, and one side of his mouth curved up. Sexy.

  Cian held up his finger to someone across the room. “Ladies, you will have to excuse me. It seems that it is nine o’clock and the show must go on. Stick around. May
be we can get to know each other a little after the show.”

  “We’ll probably be leaving early,” I said, not wanting to lead him on. After all, I did have a boyfriend.

  “That would be a shame.” He stood, and I watched him disappear into the crowd that had gathered around all the tables behind us.

  Chapter Three

  Cian

  “C

  ian,” my brother whisper-shouted my name rather abruptly from behind me. I turned to face him. Annoyed.

  “What?”

  “Are you ready, man?” he whispered again.

  “Yes.” Pivoting to face the audience again, my eyes unconsciously snapped back to the beautiful woman sitting at the table in front of me.

  “Well, you sure the hell aren’t acting like it,” he said, now standing too close beside me. “We’ve started the set three times, waiting for you to begin singing.”

  “Uh. Sorry, Lane. Yeah, let’s go,” I said, tearing my eyes away from her—the raven-haired beauty, Magdalena. Her name flowed through my mind like sweet classical music on a summer breeze with small, graceful birds floating behind it. I tried to focus on the lights in the back of the room, but my eyes always snapped back to hers, as if pulled by some magnetic force.

  I had to admit, it had been a long time since my eyes had had the pleasure of drinking in such a lovely creature. I wondered if those perfect light brown streaks in her hair were natural. I couldn’t tell, but my fingers ached to run through the strands. I wanted to caress her neck. And she smelled fucking delicious. My fangs involuntarily elongated, and I had to keep my mouth shut so they wouldn’t show as my cock tightened in my pants at the thought of lying with her. When the music started again, I couldn’t move. Singing seemed impossible.

  “Cian.” My brother stood beside me again. “Are you all right?”

  I turned toward him. “I need a minute.”

  “Jesus. Look at you.” He leaned closer to my ear. “Your fangs are showing and your eyes are silver. Go backstage for a few minutes. We’ll cover for you. Come back when you’ve gotten yourself under control.”

  I placed my guitar down, resting it against the stand on the floor and walked off stage. I heard boos and some other derogatory remarks as I headed behind the curtain. I grabbed the bottle of scotch we always kept back there and poured myself a shot. As I let the burn coat my throat, I heard Lane address the audience.

  “No worries, ladies. My brother will be right back. I promise. It seems Cian needs to find his voice. It may have become lodged somewhere in his pants.” He laughed, and everyone laughed with him. “In the meantime, we’ll start with this little number I’m sure you all know.”

  Great gods of Eros! Now everyone knew I had a hard-on. I supposed that was better than having them see my fangs and eye color change to glowing, silver-rimmed circles. I’d seen beautiful women before, but none of them had ever affected me like this one did.

  Fuck me. Her scent was intoxicating. The mentation surrounding what her blood would taste like on my tongue had my libido skyrocketing and clouded everything in my head.

  It was coincidence that I’d happened to walk outside the club to look at the line of people waiting to enter. I’d never done that before, but something had tugged at my gut to be out there. When I saw Magdalena—the same strikingly gorgeous goddess I’d seen sitting at that small restaurant—standing in line with her friend, I’d told Ari, our human friend and confidant, to bring them inside to the front table. After they’d been seated, I couldn’t stay away. I had to go introduce myself. Except now, I was standing backstage with a fucking hard-on.

  The band played Time, a Pink Floyd number from the nineteen seventies that we usually performed toward the end of the night. It was one that didn’t require me to sing along, so they could manage it without me. Plus, it was a long song. As the tune played out and got close to the end, my blood cooled, though I still had a semi-hard-on. I paced to the end of the hall and back again.

  Gods, the way her soft, brown curls flowed into the center of her cleavage made me want to caress the silky strands between my fingers. I wanted to pull them to my lips so I could revel in the texture and smell of the smooth tendrils as they glided across my mouth. I poured another shot glass full of scotch and downed it. Alcohol usually calmed me, dulled some urges, but I feared that there might not be enough whiskey in the bottle—hell, the world—to settle me tonight.

  My vampirism was no secret to my brother. In fact, we’d both been cursed with the immortal disease at the same time. Well, within a few minutes of each other, anyway. We’d been traveling together on a ship from London when a beautiful, sexy creature had befriended us. We’d sat around one night, drinking and flirting, when she decided she wanted to experience her first ménage and had asked us to be her partners. We’d both shrugged our shoulders as if it were no big deal and happily obliged. We never turned down a beautiful woman’s proposition for sex, even if we had to share. The rest of the evening was somewhat fuzzy, though. I remember going first, and I do remember enjoying myself. Immensely. After several hours of uninhibited sexual activities, we’d all fallen asleep. When Lane and I had awakened in the morning, she was nowhere to be found. Apparently, two days had passed. When we came to, my brother and I had an insatiable appetite for blood and an extreme distaste for daylight, to the point of feeling unusually lethargic whenever we ventured into it. It didn’t take long to understand what we’d become. Legends and fables aside, we quickly became aware, as the plight of our survival became the only thing we could focus on. We managed to obtain enough blood from the other passengers to survive the trip across the ocean, and only killed four or five of them. We were careful to pick the ones who seemed to be alone so that no one would miss them. We kept them hidden with us below, taking only enough blood to get us through the nights until we eventually drained them dry. Then we disposed of their bodies overboard. We hated killing, and were disgusted with ourselves, loathing what we’d become. Soon after arriving in New York, and realizing and perfecting our compulsion abilities, we made a pact never to kill again unless it was absolutely necessary. From then on, we only took enough to survive, never killing. Covering our tracks by compelling our victims—though these days, I preferred to refer to them as lovers—and using the healing saliva from our tongues on the marks our fangs made in their necks. Over the years, we’d lived in various states across the country, finally ending up in California, at the heart of San Francisco. We knew we could survive, and now, for the past two hundred years, we’d been able to contain our bloodlust and keep it to a manageable level where we weren’t killing randomly in the streets.

  Until tonight.

  I burned for Magdalena like I’d never burned for another. I didn’t want to harm her. No. I did want to devour her blood to a point of complete and utter satiated bliss, though. We’re talking possibly comatose. And I knew that was wrong on so many levels.

  One, if I put her into a coma from too much blood loss, I’d only be able to have her once. Two, if I killed her, I’d definitely only be able to have her once. And three, I’d never, ever be able to just have her once.

  I knew nothing about her except the way she made me feel, but I needed to know everything about her. Some force inside me needed to touch every inch of her skin, to caress each breast as if they were the first ones I’d ever had beneath my palms. I ached to kiss and taste the vein that pulsed down the side of her lovely throat.

  There was no way I could have her, not even a sample taste, because…well, because then I knew I’d want to take and take and take until there was no more.

  What was it about her that held me entranced?

  I took another drink of scotch and entered the restroom. Passing the faceless mirror, I cursed, wishing I could examine myself in the glass before heading back out to the stage.

  My eyes still felt deluged with the silver ring around them, but the sensation seemed to be fading some. I took a leak; that helped my boner, and upon blinking a few times, t
he awareness of the silver in my eyes grew less and less intense. I slid my tongue over my teeth. My fangs had retracted, as well. Somehow, I’d managed to pull myself together. As I left the head, I had a fleeting thought that maybe she would be gone. The idea overwhelmed me with both relief and fear. Relief that I’d be able to perform, fear that if she had left, I might not ever see her again.

  Chapter Four

  Magdalena

  “God, is he sexy or what?” Vanessa said.

  “Huh?”

  “The brother with the other guitar, the one with the nicely trimmed growth on his face who’d whispered something to Cian before he left the stage.”

  “Oh, yeah. He is.” My mind was still spinning from the fact that Cian was the band’s lead singer. And the way his eyes had held mine non-stop from the moment he’d walked on stage, as if we’d both been in some weird trance.

  “Did you notice the way Cian stared at you? Wow. Very intense. And to think he had to leave the stage because he had a hard-on.” She laughed.

  “I believe his brother was talking about his voice.” I rubbed my finger around the rim of my glass, a nervous habit I had with cocktails whenever I felt uncomfortable in social settings.

  “Don’t be naïve. Everyone knew the meaning.”

  “I’m sure he was joking about that.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe, but it was damn funny.”

  “More creepy than funny.” I fidgeted uncomfortably in my chair, wishing she hadn’t noticed any of that.

  “You should be flattered.”

  “Flattered because the guy couldn’t contain himself as he stared at me? It was definitely creepy, and I do have a boyfriend, remember?”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. And I think Cian is sexy as hell. Mags, the man is hot, and he obviously has it bad for you. Besides, Kellen lives in Sacramento and you live here.”

  “Kellen’s only an hour and a half away. And this guy? He doesn’t even know me.”

  “Sac is very far away when you’re Kellen Slade. I give him three days before he’s prowling around in Old Sac, looking for someone to slip his dick into.”