Wanted: A Blood Courtesans Novel

by Kristen Strassel

  I turned back to the table quickly, and put the glass down. He snatched it away, and when it returned to the table, it was empty. He moved my hair off my shoulder again. This time, I didn’t like it as much. “I don’t need cheap tricks to win you over, Corynne. Look at me.”

  No freakin’ way. He better have negotiated a rock solid return policy with Lady Desiree. I couldn’t go through with this.

  “Look at me,” he repeated. I didn’t turn, only gave him a side glance. “I didn’t pick you because I thought you were weak. I picked you because you’re strong. Stronger than you know.”

  Or maybe I could.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “It’s Nash.” He held out his hand. Now I’d know exactly what it felt like. He rubbed his rough thumb against my finger, like he knew what I was thinking. His lips brushed the back of my hand. They were much softer, but just as strong and confident. And warm. “And it is my pleasure to meet you.”

  He met my eyes again, and this time, I held the gaze. I couldn’t tell if they were brown or dark blue in this light. His hair cast shadows on his cheeks.

  He traced the V peeking out from under my dress and I shuddered.

  “What made you choose me?” I asked. I had a feeling it had a lot to do with that mark, but this ‘strong’ thing? Lady Desiree probably told him about how I broke the glass. That was just a little trick compared to what I could do.

  “I already told you, but it looks like someone needs praise. You’re strong-willed and beautiful.” His fingers still lingered on my chest. “And I can make you mine.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “How long have you been a vampire?”

  “Six hundred and sixty-seven years.” Nash wasn’t amused anymore.

  I tried to do some quick math in my head, but all I came up with was old. “I’m yours, just like that, huh?”

  “I own you now.”

  Oh, come on. “That’s not how things work anymore. You bought my blood. I keep the rest of me.”

  “That’s how it works here.”

  There was no snappy comeback for that. I should’ve felt threatened, but I didn’t. All those years of putting up with the jackasses at school, I’d learned not to back down from a challenge. To never show fear. Nash should’ve read the owner’s manual before committing to this purchase. I wondered if my thoughts could even budge this guy. I let my mind wander to give him a taste of what was to come. Nash met my gaze, like he knew exactly what I tried to do.

  We stayed inches from each other, neither one willing to back down from the challenge. Someone behind me laughed loudly, and I jumped back and smoothed my hair. Nash had done that thing again, where everything else disappeared.

  He considered me a possession, and that killed the small talk. I’d never dated before, and my best friend turned her back on me. Nash would likely do the same after tonight. I glanced around the room, laughter buzzed around us, and the wine warmed my belly. I spotted Olivia, sitting in her vampire’s lap. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, and blood stained her dress. My jaw dropped as the vampire pushed the straps down, revealing her breasts to the entire room. And she didn’t care.

  Olivia wasn’t the only one who’d been glamoured. The girl at the table next to us slid out of her chair onto her knees in front of her vampire. I watched her for a second, curious. Oh.

  I turned back to Nash. I don’t think he saw any of it, his gaze was fixed on me. And it was way sexier than anything going on around us.

  “Willing to negotiate?” An unfamiliar voice broke the spell. A vampire stood between us, invading our space, his date on his arm. She swayed under his touch, drunk on wine or glamour. The vamp’s gaze fell to me. I crossed my legs and slid them under the table. His smirk made me feel more naked than I did at auction. “You didn’t play fair, throwing out the max bid like that.”

  Nash stood and stepped in front of the intruder. “I’ve never been interested in playing fair. I take what’s mine.”

  There he went again with the mine thing.

  “You can’t keep her.” The other vamp didn’t back down. “You have no idea what you’re playing with. A loose cannon.”

  My reputation preceded me.

  Nash put his hand on my arm. “I know exactly what she’s capable of. And I will teach her how to harness her powers. Together we’ll bring you to your knees.”

  Chapter Five

  Corynne

  “What was that all about?” I practically had to run to keep up with Nash, teetering on my stilettos. He led me down a dizzying maze of hallways. I wanted to remember how we got here, in case I needed to make a quick escape. But I was high off vampire fumes, and didn’t trust my memory. There was always the window. It hadn’t failed me yet.

  “It doesn’t concern you.”

  I stopped short, which Nash didn’t expect. That answer might’ve worked in thirteen whatever when he was actually alive, but not today. “I’m the loose cannon, with the power that needs to be harnessed. So don’t mind me if I worry about it until I know what the hell is going on.” Maybe Nash and the vampire with sour grapes over getting outbid were undercover cops. Wouldn’t that be just my luck. That familiar feeling rose from the pit of my stomach, the one that caused blackness until I found out something awful happened—and I was responsible. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes together, trying to make it stop.

  Nash grabbed my hand and kept walking. I almost fell flat on my face.

  “I know what’s inside of me, Nash. I’ve lived with it all my life.” He had the nerve to chuckle. “I’m here because I can’t control it.”

  And I thought the hardest thing I’d have to do tonight was hand Nash my V-card. I didn’t think I’d have to explain the short circuits in my brain, but since old habits die hard, I needed to play some defense.

  “That’s because you’ve never been around anyone who understands you.” Nash left me speechless as he opened the door to what looked like someone’s home. He flicked on the lights. The sky-high ceiling made us both seem tiny. I took in the gray walls covered with art. Plush, mulberry furniture surrounded a crackling fireplace.

  Without thinking, I kicked off my heels and headed straight for the fire. I relished the heat. The cold had already become too familiar.

  “I like it, too,” Nash said. I hadn’t realized he’d come up behind me. “Feeling the fire inside makes me feel human again.”

  I turned to him, only coming to his chin without my heels on. “The other reason I’m here is because I don’t want to be human anymore.”

  Nash was the only one I’d ever told that.

  It didn’t matter how long someone had been a vampire, it was possible to surprise them. “You’re too young to think about that.”

  “How old were you when you turned?” I sunk onto the couch; with the warmth brought the overwhelming gravity of what was happening tonight, and what still could happen.

  He sat beside me, close enough to touch, and far enough to disappoint me when he didn’t. “Twenty-five. But it was a different time. I didn’t have the options you have.”

  I laughed. “What options?”

  He ran his fingers along my cheek. I gasped, closing my eyes and concentrating on the way it felt. His finger brushed lightly over my eyelid, down the side of my nose, and tickling my lips. I licked them, dying to know what Nash tasted like. It was possible to surprise myself, too. I wanted him. I didn’t know how or why, all that mattered was that I did. That feeling warmed me as much as the fire.

  Nash’s fingers settled under my chin, and he held me in his gaze. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Don’t you want to go to college, start your life? That’s what most of the girls who come here intend to do when their service is complete.”

  So becoming immortal wasn’t part of the job description. I should’ve read the fine print when I filled out Lady Desiree’s paperwork. Maybe if I did a really good job, I could get a promotion. “I’m not like most girls.�
� I laughed, but it died off when Nash frowned. “I wanted that more than anything, but it’s not for me.”

  My acceptance letter to Connecticut State hung on the refrigerator the night I left. I’d been accepted to the biology program. I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet, but I loved science. Posing a question and using facts to predict an outcome. Maybe because my own life was so out of control.

  Nash frowned, his brow furrowing like he didn’t understand what I meant.

  “Can vampires get jobs? Do you have a normal life outside this building?”

  “All of us have a purpose. We don’t work in the sense that humans do. It seems dreadful. I watch the drones in suits walk by each evening, on their way home from the office, and wonder which one of us is more dead.” Nash shook his head sadly. “I can’t imagine that life would appeal to anyone.”

  I studied his face, a mix of sadness, satisfaction, and something I wasn’t familiar with. “What do you want?” I asked.

  He’d been undead for centuries. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know what kept him hungry.

  “I want peace for our kind. Acceptance. We’ve been under attack. It happens, every few generations. Humans, by nature, live in fear. They act on it, let it hold them back. When vampires assert themselves, make advances, humans want to stop us. We remind them that their systems don’t work. We prove them wrong. Vampires, you’ll learn quickly, don’t like being told what to do.” The heat was back, almost unbearable this time. “And right now, I want you.”

  Nash brushed his lips against mine. He did it slowly, moving back and forth, making sure he didn’t miss a spot. My heart was as still as his, trying to anticipate what came next. To will him to do more, use my powers for good instead of evil. Wanting so many things at once was overwhelming. He clutched my shoulder, his other hand falling into my lap, fingers laced in mine. He nipped softly, catching my bottom lip between his and pulling it out so slowly. I melted, sighing against his mouth. He took advantage of my surprise, and his tongue touched mine. I mimicked his movements, and we were completely tangled together. This kissing thing wasn’t so hard with a smokin’ hot, centuries-old vampire to show me the ropes.

  He took his time, ratcheting up the intensity ever so slowly, bringing out desires in me I had no idea existed. He ran his tongue along the inside of my top lip, and everything inside me fluttered. I pulled back before he claimed me for good.

  We only had tonight. He’d made me no guarantees. I had to remember that.

  “Did you like that, Corynne?”

  I nodded. My heart beat furiously under the smudged black V, making up for lost time. The kiss had been more than I’d imagined, and now my imagination was working overtime, wondering about all the other things it had overlooked. “Are you going to--” I didn’t know how to say it, “—do to me what the other vampires did to their courtesans?”

  Nash narrowed his eyes. “At the party?” he asked. I nodded. “Only if I wasn’t planning on keeping you. Because I plan on keeping you, I’m going to take my time. Time is something I have a lot of. I like to use it wisely.”

  Keeping me? “Does that mean you’ll make me a vampire?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” He ran his finger slowly over my leg, bringing them hem of my skirt up with it. He stopped at the top of my thigh. Everything inside me was going haywire—my heart, my head, and that spot low in my belly that never had talked to me so much before tonight. “First I need to know—why are you here?”

  Might as well go for broke. “Because I killed someone.”

  Chapter Six

  Nash

  Sweet little Corynne had blood on her hands. No wonder she smelled so intoxicating.

  The darkness radiated from her, I knew it as soon as I stepped on stage, and that’s what sucked me in. I’d never felt power like that in a human. I couldn’t identify what it was, but I knew I wanted that kind of power on my side.

  She asked me to turn her. I would, eventually. First I needed to know what she’d do to get what she wanted. If she was willing to get on her knees and offer absolutely everything—her blood, her body, and her soul. Only two of those things could make it to the other side. It was a long time since I’d had a soul, and I hadn’t missed it until tonight.

  “How did you kill someone?” I wouldn’t use glamour to get her to talk. She had to offer this information herself. Her bare thigh scalded my finger. The body heat mixed with her power. Her gaze was fixed on my hand, her skirt bunched at the junction of everything she feared.

  Corynne licked her plump lips. Her taste lingered on my tongue. It wasn’t just her darkness that drew me to her. She burned with an almost reckless sense of perseverance, but she was too shy to acknowledge her sensual side. Such an interesting paradox. I’d enjoy drawing it all out of her.

  “I can’t control my thoughts. Especially the negative ones.” She shifted away from my touch, even more uncomfortable about revealing her power than sex. To me, they were one in the same. “If I think something bad about someone, it happens. I don’t do anything. I don’t have to. It manifests itself and comes to life. Things break, get ruined, and once people realized that the accidents were somehow connected to me, they egged me on. And then they got hurt.”

  This girl could be my secret weapon. If I could learn to harness her powers and teach her how to use them. It was a big if. I’d never met a human with this kind of power. I couldn’t let her know what power it gave her over me. “How do you know it’s you, and not a coincidence?”

  “I black out, and whatever happens is exactly how I pictured it.” She swallowed hard. “Amber used to be my best friend. She turned on me. Told everyone at school what she thought I could do. That’s when things got really bad. I graduated from high school a few weeks ago, finally free, right? I’d go to college, start over. The hope was once I was away from the people who upset me, the bad thought thing would go away. But it didn’t. It couldn’t. Last week, Amber came into work, a little coffee shop, and mouthed off. I’d had enough. It was probably the disappointment of it happening again that made it so much worse this time. I don’t know. If I did, I could stop it. I thought about how nice it would be to shut her up, to get her to leave me alone for good. Anyway, the surveillance camera shows the empty bottle of kitchen cleaner in my barista station. It shouldn’t have been there. I don’t remember putting it in her drink, but she died from the poison. The police came for me, and I ran.”

  “You came here.” It excited me, that she was ruthless enough to do something like that to someone she’d once cared about. That she made her friend pay the ultimate consequence. Not only could Corynne be a valuable ally, but possibly the first woman I’d met worthy of being more than a courtesan since I came to New York City. “No one knows where the power came from?”

  She shook her head and chuckled. “Nope. I’ve seen every shrink in the tristate area, as well as a few priests, but none of them were strong enough to drive the devil out of me.”

  “The problem with humans is that don’t quite understand the meanings of good and evil.” I moved away from her, the power, the scent, and went back to the fire. I caught her stunned expression. “If I turn you, you’ll see things from a different perspective. You think of what you did as murder. I see it as doing what needs to be done.”

  “Do you kill people?” She shrunk back on the couch, but kept her gaze fixed on me.

  “When it’s necessary.” To Hell with being away from her. I wanted to give myself over to this feeling. I’d waited forever for it. In my excitement, I moved too fast, hovering over her. She gasped. “Blood is currency. Like you would buy food, we buy blood. That’s why you’re here. That’s not the only purpose it serves. Blood intensifies sex. You’re lucky, that’s the only way you’ll ever experience it.”

  Her hand covered the smudged black mark over her chest. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Corynne. It’s a choice, that’s all.”

  She shook her head. “Nobody wanted me.”

>   I tipped her chin up, our gazes locked. “There are many things humans don’t understand. They see what they want to see. Come up with explanations that put their fears to rest. In seven centuries, I’ve learned that most humans fear power and change. The two things go hand in hand. They’ll do anything they can to suppress them. All they can see is what they’ll lose, and never stop to consider what they’ll gain.”

  “I’m afraid of change, too.” Corynne was almost breathless. “What was your life like as a human?”

  I’d never shared my past with a courtesan. None of them ever asked. I hadn’t realized it until now. They’d been nothing more than a cheap thrill. What brought them to this place hadn’t mattered. They blurted out what they needed the money for in the second before I sucked the blood from their veins. It was always the same. School, a sick family member, someone who’d done them wrong. They got their money, and we both lived to see another day.

  “I’d been a friar before the Black Death rolled through Britain. It was common in those days, my older brother inherited our family manor, leaving me nothing to offer a wife—no land, no money. So I went to the church. To stay healthy, we isolated ourselves from the rest of the village off as long as we could. We prayed that we could ride it out and survive. As the epidemic worsened, I’d been called to help the village. To pray with them. But God wasn’t interested in helping us, and the sickness wiped out half of the country. I didn’t get sick, even working with those who were on their deathbed and blessing the deceased.

  “On the way back to the friary one night, a man approached me. Nash—I took the name of my village because I never wanted it to be forgotten—was small, and we didn’t get many outsiders. The stranger insisted I could do more good with him than praying that the sick made it to Heaven. It was blasphemy. He turned me that night, and there was nothing God could do to stop him.”

  “God didn’t help me, either.” Corynne seemed wise beyond her years, and so unlike the other girls that stood on the auction stage. She’d bared herself in so many ways to me tonight. The V on her chest had smudged with the strap of her dress.