High-fiving a demon who walked by and acknowledged him with a raise of his whiskey bottle, Johnny headed for the stairs. He’d meet Kam backstage, and—
The flash of a silver brooch caught his eye. Odd, as jewels and spangled clothing sparkled everywhere in the club. What held fast his interest was the knowledge he’d seen that diamond jewelry before. It was shaped like a dragonfly, and he knew it was old, from the eighteenth century.
“G-ma?”
Heart dropping to his knees, he pushed through the hyped-up crowd and to the hallway that led to the dark rooms lighted along the floors with violet stripes where couples slipped away to engage in illicit sex and lots of blood and biting.
He reached Viviane, who was being fawned over by two men and a woman. Dressed in a clingy red sheath, her eyes were shadowed with blue to match her irises. Not her style, at least, not that Johnny had ever seen her wear.
“Grandma, what the hell?” He tugged her from a groping fang junkie and away from the entrance to the dark rooms reeking with incense and anticipation. “Where’s Rhys? Did he bring you here for a bite?”
“Oh, Johnny, sweetie.” His grandmother twirled, extending an arm above her head in display. “I’ve made a great escape!”
“No. You don’t go out alone, Viviane. You’re not allowed.” He mined for the cell phone in his back pocket. “I can’t believe Grandpa Rhys let you go out on your own.”
“I had to leave without telling him, Johnny. He called to me.” She tilted her head aside his shoulder and walked her fingers up his chest.
Johnny clasped Viviane’s fingers. “He? Who are you talking about, G-ma?”
She tilted up on tiptoes to whisper at his ear, “Himself.”
“What? No,” came out in a gasp.
Viviane had just uttered the devil’s name. Every paranormal breed that walked this realm was aware of the dark prince, and took pains to never speak his name. What was Himself doing talking to his grandmother? She must be in one of her crazy moods. She was imagining things.
“He whispered ‘wolf slayer’,” Viviane said. “That’s me, you know?”
Yes, Viviane had told him tales of her slaying a wolf with her bare hands back in the eighteenth century.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Viviane, but I am calling Rhys.”
“Please, Johnny. I want to find Him. He’s promised the wolf slayer dark pleasures.” Viviane dashed her tongue over her lower lip.
Johnny pushed speed dial and was thankful when Rhys answered on the first ring. “Where is she? Johnny?” Apparently Rhys was aware of his missing wife.
“I ran into her here at Club l’Enfer.”
“Shit. I didn’t hear her leave. Will you keep an eye on her until I can get there?”
“No problem, Grandpa. Hurry. She’s not in top form.”
Rhys promised it would be less than half an hour. Johnny added another fifteen minutes for traffic. Viviane grabbed him by the face and said urgently, “It’s in her heart, Johnny. You can get it out.”
“What? G-ma? Who are you talking about?”
“The pretty one.” She smiled sweetly, slipping into another persona. Rhys couldn’t arrive soon enough.
“Come with me.” He directed Viviane to the back of the dance floor just as the crowd’s incessant shouts brought The Dark’s Mistress back on stage for the encore.
Babysitting his grandmother was not what he’d had in mind for tonight, but there was no way he’d leave her alone. She wasn’t right in the head now if she thought the devil Himself had called her here. But good thing she’d been compelled to the one place he was tonight.
Strange coincidence.
“Dance with me, Johnny!”
Viviane grabbed his wrist and tugged him to the dance floor, where she was sucked into the bustle of jumping, gyrating, fist-pumping bodies. She was quickly sandwiched by two men who took her in from breasts to thigh.
Johnny gave them the evil eye and showed them his fist and fangs. Enough to make them back off.
“Oh, G-ma, you are trying my patience tonight.”
* * *
After half a dozen encore songs Kam thanked her band mates and headed to her dressing room. The guys in the band, well—she didn’t know where they went after a show. Or where they lived before shows. They never practiced together. What were their names? The four musicians simply came together in an amazing cohesion when all were placed on stage.
Devilish magic, she knew that. Questioning it would not get her any answers. And really, she didn’t want to hear the truth.
She wasn’t surprised to find Johnny lounging on the black velvet chaise in her dressing room, but she was surprised when he leapt up to kiss her in greeting.
She’d been so far from closeness and sharing and empathy lately, it was nice being with someone who wanted to be around her and touch her and didn’t demand such with threats to her very soul.
And yet.
She pushed him away before his lips could touch hers. “I saw you on the dance floor with a gorgeous woman.”
“Really?” His switchblade smile irritated her now. “She is gorgeous. I’ve known her forever.”
“Oh.” Kam brushed past him, readjusting the horns on her head so they stopped slipping over one ear. “I suppose I do have a boyfriend, so I can’t complain that you have other women.”
“Kam, really? You’re jealous because you saw me with Viviane?”
“Her name is Viviane? Pretty.” She bowed her head. Something in her chest pulsed too hard for a heartbeat. Is that what disappointment felt like?
Johnny wrapped his arms around her from behind, and even as she struggled to push him away, she reached up and clasped his fingers to hold him close. Couldn’t he be all hers?
He kissed her cheek and said, “Viviane Hawkes is my grandmother, Kam. She’s a vampiress who was born centuries ago.”
“Oh.” The pulse in her chest stuttered then resumed normal function, a joyous leap through the meadow after butterflies. “Oh hell, Johnny, I was jealous. Do you go out with your grandmother a lot? I mean, she looks as young as us, but you have to admit that’s kind of weird.”
“I did tell you family is important to me.” He sighed and walked around to sit on the edge of the bed. “But no, I don’t go out often with my grandmother. Once in a while. She’s a lot of fun. She was out on her own tonight and that’s not supposed to happen. She’s...touched.” He tapped his temple. “Crazy, actually. And Grandpa Rhys didn’t notice her slip out. It’s a good thing I saw her. She was mumbling weird stuff about the devil telling her to come here.”
Kam clutched the hard leather bustier lined down her middle with metal clasps. Again her heartbeats thudded too hard, painfully.
“But like I said, she’s not right in the head,” Johnny explained. “Though she did say something to me like, ‘it’s in her heart; you have to get it out’. I think she was talking about you. Do you have any idea what that could mean?”
Kam stopped herself from turning from him, and cautioned her expression not to freak out and give away her deepest fears. “Something in my heart?” she managed lightly. “I don’t even know your grandmother. You say she’s crazy?”
“Happened a long time ago. I shouldn’t bother you with it. Rhys picked her up. And my dad is safe—“
“Your dad?”
He waved it off with a shrug. “Just some weird stuff going on with him lately, too. But it’s all kosher. Now I can focus on you. Sorry if I made you jealous. But then, it’s kind of cool you were. Come over here, mistress of the dark. Can I have a real kiss now?”
Relieved to dismiss the subject of what may be in her heart, Kam slipped into Johnny’s arms and kissed him with a desperation that chased away her fears and guided her from the smothering darkness and toward a misty kind of hope.
Standing between his legs, she kissed him back as deeply as he kissed her. In that moment she felt as if she were his girl. No one else could make a claim to her, and that’s the wa
y it had always been.
Though, she couldn’t stop the thought that kissing here at the club was not the wisest thing to do. Not when he had spies everywhere. Had Himself really led Johnny’s grandmother here? Why would he do that?
“Thanks for the song,” Johnny said, breaking from the kiss. “We sing well together.”
“We sing like we were meant to duo,” she agreed, kissing him once more.
“Johnny Angel, eh?”
She shrugged. “It just came out. But it’s fitting for your pretty eyes and heart-stealing smile. Are you sure you’ve not wings hidden under that leather vest?”
“Hell, if I did, I’d be flying all the time. But you saw how well I could stay in the air when we leapt from the Eiffel Tower.”
“It was still flight. First time I’ve ever flown. Did you come to take me away again tonight?”
“I was hoping you’d want to get out of here. I love the club’s atmosphere, but how can you deal with it night after night? It’s so dismal and dark.”
“Isn’t that what we are by our very natures?”
“I don’t know where you grew up, Kam, but vamps are not the creatures of the night the media makes us out to be.”
“Says the guy who had to leave early to beat the sun home.”
“Would you have invited me in to your place?”
She hadn’t been ready for that intimacy. Never had she invited a man into her home. As well, she wasn’t sure Himself wouldn’t find out. Dare she take the chance with Johnny? She wanted to.
“Exactly,” Johnny guessed at her non-answer. “Don’t worry. I’m cool with taking things slow. I like it, actually. It’s a different pace for me. Let’s me get to know you. Woo you.”
“Woo me?”
“Yeah, my G-ma recommended sonnets.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard one. Hit me.”
“I uh...” He slapped a palm over his chest. “Right now?” His sheepish smile was almost cuter than the switchblade grin.
“I can wait,” she assured him.
“Whew! I will find the perfect sonnet for you, though. I promise. So where do you want to go tonight?”
“I need to change, so you go on ahead. Will you meet me at Nôtre Dame?”
“Seriously? The cathedral?”
Kam nodded, and teased a finger along the combs that secured the demon horns in her thick hair. “Just need to de-demonize myself.”
“I could wait for you.”
“No, uh...” She didn’t want to undress in front of him. That was pushing the intimacy too quickly. And it wasn’t wise to be seen, once again, leaving the club with Johnny. “I’ll see you there. Meet me in the north tower.”
“It’s closed—ah.” He held up a finger. “Gotcha. I’ll see you then, oh mistress of the Dark.”
“That’s—“
“Yeah, I know, but I don’t like the idea of sharing you with some dark dude so allow me that, will you?”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her again. Now their breaths mingled as easily and sweetly as their voices had earlier. The man had been made for her. And she for him. Kam knew it as she had not known anything for months. Or had it been years?
“Be strong,” she encouraged inwardly. “He is the one.”
Chapter Seven
As usual, Johnny and Kambriel seemed to hook up after two in the morning. Which, if he considered his need to get inside before the sun rose, wouldn’t give them a lot of time together. It wasn’t as though he was afraid of the sun. He’d never seen it rise before and if a guy hadn’t ever done something—well, hell.
He could do it. He would do it. Soon. Add it to the list right beneath ‘find the perfect sonnet to woo the girl’.
But right now, he assessed the south side of Nôtre Dame. The cathedral was awesome, in the fullest sense of that word. He couldn’t imagine the man-hours it must have required to erect such a gorgeous structure over eight hundred and fifty years ago without all the technology available nowadays. No cranes, no modern electric tools? What an accomplishment.
An accomplishment he intended to climb, since he didn’t want to break in through the locked front doors. Breaking and entering was blasphemy.
So after checking the area was clear, save for a few late night tourists who currently wandered around on the east side snapping shots of the river, he made a leap and, climbing over the depiction of Christ of the Second Coming (using various random saint’s heads to secure hold), landed on the first level. Toeing a saint’s head for hold, he climbed the sheer limestone wall, glad the sky was overcast so the night was truly dark. There were few lights on this side of the cathedral, and he was clad in black, so his actions would go unnoticed.
When younger, he’d once read about the cathedral and distinctly recalled there was a scene featuring the Horseman of the Apocalypse, along with a couple scenes from Hell carved into the exterior. Would be a kick to find them, but he had a more promising destination, so he swiftly moved onward to the second level.
When he made the north tower, he intended to stake out a seat next to a gargoyle and wait for Kam—but she’d beat him here. She squatted upon a stone balustrade beside a gargoyle, her eyes closed and head tilted aside. Moonlight gleamed over her pale skin, dazzling Johnny with her beauty. She’d changed from her black leather stage costume to a soft, flowy gray dress that was corseted in black. Black thigh-high boots wrapped slender legs. He preferred her like this, softer and sans horns.
He wanted to trace her nose and down to her lips, following the moonglow that glittered upon her skin to her neck. And once there, he would touch his fangs to the thick, pulsing vein and taste her. A moonlit feast awaited his indulgence.
“I win,” she said, and tilted a smile at him.
“So you did. I’m not going to ask how you managed to beat me here because all I want to do is stare at you.”
She wrinkled her nose and cast him a wondering look. “Why?”
“The moon adores you. I think she’s jealous I’m up here, so close to you.”
He strolled over and leaned against the balustrade upon which she squatted. Her knees jutted over the stone parvis hundreds of feet below. No non-mortal could achieve such a pose unless she was a daredevil with a death wish.
“It’s almost full,” Kam said. “A few more days. I want the moon,” she whispered. “I want to hold it in my arms and squeeze its cold light into my soul.”
“Poetic.”
“Desperation.” She stroked his hair and rubbed the stubble above his ear. “Sometimes I feel that’s the only way I’ll ever get him out of me, is if I release my soul.”
That was the closest she’d come to telling him about the mysterious boyfriend.
“Kam, tell me what’s going on with you and this other guy. Is he keeping you captive?”
“Do I look like a captive?”
“No. But there are many ways to control a person. You’ve alluded to wanting freedom. Please tell me what’s up with you and this guy. I want to help you.”
“You have no idea what that would involve. It’s too dangerous.”
“Damn it.” He grabbed her by the arm and turned her toward him. She slid a leg down over the stone rail and sat, one knee bent up to her chest. “Talk to me, Kam. Give me a chance. Do you uh…do you like me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Do you want more from me than late night rendezvous and a few simple kisses?”
“Your kisses are never simple, Johnny.”
He bracketed her face and kissed her hard. The moonlight that had permeated her soul spread across his tongue, sweetening the tang spiked with hidden fear and regret. He didn’t want her to fear, so held her tighter and kissed her slowly, deeply, lingering in the greedy heat of her. With a fierce determination, he exposed his need and want, his desire to please her, to know her.
Could he ever be worthy of this moonlight goddess?
Pressing his hands to her cheeks, he met her forehead with his and closed his eyes
, wishing out loud, “You are as complicated as they get, Kambriel, but I want to get lost in your twists. Tonight when we sang together it felt so right.”
“You should have been on-stage with me.”
“I’m not trying to nose in on your band, but I do want to sing with you again.”
“I’d like that too.”
“But I suspect it’s not going to happen unless you can walk away from this other guy and make a clean break.”
“That’s probably true. Oh, Johnny, I’m afraid.”
She gripped his shirt and bowed her head to his shoulder. Was she crying? He sensed she was stronger than that. But what was she afraid of? The boyfriend?
“Kambriel!”
Both averted their gazes below. A dark figure stood in the massive stone-paved parvis before the cathedral. During the day it was peopled with a tangle of tourists of all ages and nationalities. Now a long shadow grew across the empty space, creeping from the stranger’s toes as if oil.
“Is that him?” Johnny asked. His jaws tightened and a surge of aggression fisted his fingers. “He looks not so big and tough. I could take him.”
“I don’t want you to fight him,” Kam whispered. “I need you to win me from him.”
“Win you?” Seemed a sudden and tremendous demand. She kept surprising him with her carefully doled out truths. “How do I do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Please tell me you’re not his property.”
He didn’t think anyone owned a person anymore, but there were all kinds of weirdoes in this world. Usually, though, it was the mortals who landed in the devious category of fucked-up morality.
“Kambriel, come to me,” the voice demanded in a deep, sepulchral tone.
“I need you to be strong, Johnny,” she said.
“Me? I’m cool. It’s you I’m worried about.”
She stood, rising up before the moon upon the balustrade, the gargoyles her vigilant minions.
“Kam?”
And then she stepped off the edge of the balustrade and fell, silently, as gracefully as a fallen angel banished to this mortal realm. She landed on the ground before the man, and moved up sinuously from her crouch. The dark shadow oiled across the ground before the man, slipped over Kam’s feet and up her legs.
The Dark's Mistress (The Saint-Pierres) Page 7