“He is.” I looked down at the book. She’d picked one with a princess who moved into her new castle. We both knew the story by heart. I read to her until she couldn’t keep her eyes open.
“Andrea.” She could barely get the word out, she was so sleepy. “What’s it really like to be a vampire?”
I put the book down and kissed her forehead. I didn’t want to make it sound too good; Addie still had a chance at a happy, normal life. And now so didn’t I. “It’s knowing that no one can ever hurt you.”
She nodded, satisfied with that answer, and drifted off to sleep, clutching her new bunny with a smile on her face. This time, it didn’t break my heart to leave her.
Thank you!
I hope you loved Nash and Corynne’s story! There’s a lot more to this shadow world of vampires and blood courtesans. Don’t miss the rest of the Blood Courtesans collection!
Available May 24
Michelle Fox Reborn
Available June 7
Gwen Knight Marked
Kim Faulks Bitten
Available June 28
Rebecca Rivard Ensnared
Ever Coming Needed
Available July 12
Selena Kitt Hooked
Visit www.bloodcourtesans.com for more information!
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If you’d like to read more of my vampires, keep reading for the first chapter of Because the Night, which is book one in The Night Songs Collection. We’re headed to Las Vegas for a little sex, blood, and rock n’ roll—enjoy the trip!
Because the Night Chapter One
Everywhere I looked along the Las Vegas Strip, Tristan’s eyes smoldered back at me. On billboards, taxi toppers, and the T-shirts of devoted fans on their way to the Sin City Vampire Club to see him play in Immortal Dilemma. All those women hoped to get a little closer to him, to fulfill their fantasies.
Seeing Tristan like this, larger than life, made it too easy to forget he’d walked out of my life to become the rock star. Tonight, I set out find out why.
As soon as I walked into the Alta Vista hotel with my cousin, Keisha, I knew this was so much more than it seemed on TV. The sleek silver and purple lobby buzzed with anticipation. Groups of girls decked out in black baby doll dresses and combat boots clogged the walkways, giggling and screaming. I knew how they felt. Just being here made everything inside me jump and tingle.
Venomtini bars and Immortal Dilemma slot machines dotted the walkway leading to The Sin City Vampire Club. Keisha and I held hands not to get separated in the crowd.
“You must be so excited, Callie!”
“I’m nervous.” Excited, nauseated—you name it, I felt it.
“Why?”
“I just don’t want to be disappointed.”
So many more people had already staked out their place in the ticket line at the box office. Were we even going to get in? The crowd inside the theater roared, and I was dying to know what I was missing.
“Two tickets, please.”
“Sorry, this window is for online orders only. Tonight’s show is sold out. All the shows sell out weeks in advance.” Seriously? And to make it worse, this woman gave approximately zero fucks that she pretty much just ruined my vacation.
“No thanks.” Now what?
“Told you.” Keisha never had high hopes for this plan. She put her arm around me as I deflated. “We’ll figure this out.” Everyone else in the room seemed to be having the time of their life.
“Ladies!” a man called out. I turned toward him, raising an eyebrow.
“Do you need tickets?” he asked hopefully. He was a skinny black guy with a baseball cap and an oversized plaid jacket. He looked as out of place as we did here.
I brightened. “We do.”
“Eighty each.”
“Can’t you do better than that? The show’s about to start.” Even in this time of crisis, Keisha could never resist negotiating.
He checked the time on his cell phone. “Alright. Sixty each. They’re usually a hundred, but you ladies are cute and the show is going to start soon. I’ve got to get rid of these things.”
“We’ll take them.” I pulled three twenties from my wallet, and Keisha did the same.
He pocketed the money and handed over the tickets. “Here you go. Where you ladies from?”
“Here.”
Keisha’s eyes widened but she didn’t correct me.
“Don’t you know what kind of show this is?” He raised an eyebrow at me. I didn’t look like the rest of the girls here in my eyelet tank top and tie dyed skirt. “You know you have to be twenty-one to get in, right?” This was the first time I had a chance to try out the license someone had left behind at my mother’s restaurant. If someone looked at it quickly, they might think it was me.
“Thanks. We’ve got it all under control.” I assured him—and myself—as we walked away.
“Nice work!” Keisha high fived me.
My hands trembled as I examined the ticket in my hand. I walked straight into some lady and muttered an apology. I couldn’t believe I was here.
The usher glanced at my ID, ripped my ticket, and stepped aside.
We were in.
A group of girls next to us jumped up and down and squealed. I was doing the same thing on the inside.
The Sin City Vampire Club looked like a modernized Victorian theater. A giant chandelier twinkled above a grand staircase. Fans perched on red velvet Victorian couches and chairs, ornate silver metalwork hung on the dark wood walls, alternating with large gruesome paintings of sacrificial rituals or something like that. Built in curios housed skulls and jars full of gross things suspended in goo. Tinny, haunting music from an antique Victrola piped in over the PA system. We headed upstairs to our seats. An off white and faded red striped curtain hid the stage.
I’d never expected to see so many velvet and lace jackets and gauzy tutu skirts in one place. Some wore fangs, others had their faces painted like skeletons, and still others had fake blood dripping from their mouths.
Keisha started talking to the girls next to us, a dark-haired girl with too much black makeup with her perfectly put together red-headed friend. “Have been to the show before?”
“We come all the time,” the redhead gushed. “First time here?”
Keisha nodded, her head on a swivel. This was so not her thing. She’d rather be out dancing. “It is.”
“The TV show does it no justice. It’s like pure sex.” The redhead licked her lips.
Some fans considered their attraction to the band to be a paranormal connection they referred to as Bloodlust, but I never believed it. They liked the music, the guys were hot. They could hide behind all the supernatural garbage they wanted to try to justify their obsession, but they couldn’t feel what I felt. After all, Tristan was the first guy I ever kissed.
A ballerina came on to the stage with no fanfare. The curtain didn’t rise and the lights didn’t dim.
She moved so delicately, she could have been dancing on a cloud. Her severe bun had been powdered, and her ribs showed through the plain white leotard. As she spun around, trapeze artists flipped above her. Two other performers peddled on tricycles with giant front wheels. The music became more and more frenzied and the spotlights pulsed and strobed on each performer.
So entranced by the ballerina, I didn’t notice the man step from the shadows until the music stopped. The other performers had disappeared. With one arm clamped around the ballerina’s waist, he pulled her head back to the side, exposing her neck. She held still, graceful, even under siege. Then, almost too quickly for me to see, he pressed his mouth to her neck until her body went limp.
The house lights fell and the crowd went wild. Everyone around me rose to their feet, screaming and crying, jumping up and down. Emotion pulsed and throbbed through the room like the lights overhead.
Tristan commanded the left side of the stage. His long, dark hair flowed free, and he’d painted his face in some sort of elaborate skeleton design that was almost pretty. Under the guitar he wore a red fuzzy coat, open, no shirt underneath, and black shiny pants that must have been poured around the shape of his body. Standing on the pedestal, he played his guitar with his head tipped back, his eyes closed, swaying to the beat. Eerie, peaceful, yet somehow still beautiful, drenched in red light.
The pedestals lowered and Tristan sprang onto the stage. Roaming like a predator and whipping his hair around, he teased the fans by leaning over them with his guitar but staying just out of reach. He smiled wide, showing those horrible, horrible fangs. I hated that part of his costume.
I forced myself to tear my eyes away from Tristan. The singer strutted around the stage, his spiky hair sticking out above old fashioned goggles. He danced with the burlesque dancers on the riser, singing to them and running his fingers down their bare, bloody arms. They shimmied in front of huge screens playing old horror movies. The bassist painted himself silver, and he moved like a robot.
All the songs all sounded the same to me. As much as I tried to like them, Immortal Dilemma just wasn’t my thing. Too heavy. Tristan was my thing. When the singer stopped and hoisted his microphone stand over the audience, the crowd screamed out every word.
A single, red spotlight framed Tristan as he began his guitar solo. He shed his jacket and an audible gasp escaped from the audience. A sleeve of brightly colored tattoos decorated his left arm. That was new. I wanted to trace my finger along each line, to understand its story.
I needed more. So much more.
He plucked and pushed the guitar strings, almost making it cry. A hush fell over the crowd when his solo came to its finish. He walked up to the microphone and paused.
“I’ve waited so long to see you again.”
I swear that’s what he said, even with the echo again…again...again… rolled through the theater like a wave. The crowd swooned. I couldn’t breathe. My imagination had to be playing tricks on me. There was no way he could know I was here. Impossible.
Keisha grabbed my arm so hard she bruised it. She heard it, too.
It had to be a coincidence.
The rest of the band came back out for the encore. I stood there in my Tristan-induced daze until the band took its final bow.
“What did you think?” the dark haired girl asked, jarring me from my trance.
“It was amazing.” My voice sounded as far away as the rest of me was.
“You girls should totally come hang out with us.” Her friend grabbed my hand, way too familiar. “We’re headed to an after party. There will be all sorts of hot vampire guys there.”
“You really think they’re vampires?” Keisha barely got the words out without laughing.
“We know they are.”
“Okay.” Keisha turned to me and rolled her eyes.
“I think that sounds great.” I needed to move fast to make my plan work. Whether or not the hot guys were really vampires, these girls might know how I could find Tristan.
“Are you sure, Callie? You don’t want to stick around here?” Keisha didn’t seem convinced.
“Why would we want to hang around with a bunch of tourists?” I extended my hand to our new friends. “I’m Callie, and this is my cousin Keisha.”
“I’m Amanda.” The redhead squeezed my hand again. “And this is Janelle.”
“When you say hot vampire guys,” I ignored Keisha elbowing me in the ribs. “Do you mean Immortal Dilemma will be there?”
I mean, how many vampires could there possible be?
“Yeah, Callie’s hoping to spend some quality time with Tristan,” Keisha added, now it was my turn to elbow her.
Both Janelle and Amanda laughed. “Aren’t we all?”
Continue reading Because the Night!
OTHER BOOKS BY KRISTEN STRASSEL
COLORADO SHIFTERS
Lion and the Doe
Doe and the Hunter
Cougar and the Lion
Doe and the Pride
SAWTOOTH SHIFTERS
Forever Home
Rescue Me
Protect Me
Conquer Me
Celebrate Me
Shelter Me
Complete Me
THE NIGHT SONGS COLLECTION (Vampire Rock Star Romance)
Because the Night
Night Moves
We Own the Night
Silent Night
CIRQUE MACABRE (Vampire Dark Fantasy—A Night Songs Spinoff Series)
The Fire Dancer
THE SPOTLIGHT SERIES (Rock/Country Star Contemporary Romance)
Secondhand Heart
The Trouble with Bree
Too Many Reasons
THE ESCORT SERIES (Contemporary Romance)
No Strings Attached
Acknowledgements
When Michelle Fox asked me to be a part of this project, I jumped at the chance. Even if it meant starting the book on a plane, and bringing my computer to the day job to get it finished on time. Thanks to her and the rest of the courtesan crew—Gwen, Kim, Rebecca, Ever, Selena, and Rochelle for working so hard to make this project a success. When I told my editor, Julie, about the concept she got so excited. She’s always on the ones and twos keeping my characters in line. Karen and Angela cheered me on from the sidelines as I wrote. And most of all—thanks to all of you!
Wanted: A Blood Courtesans Novel Page 12