Party Vamps

by Jennifer North

  “Come on, Alex. Look at her. You know you could do it. You’re a legend. Shit, just pretend she’s Caro. The only difference is I think this one would let you fuck her pussy.”

  Alex felt a bolt of anger forming in the pit of his stomach. “Fuck you, Jack.”

  Not waiting to see Jack’s reaction, Alex wrenched his arm from Lyra’s clawing hand and handed her his drink.

  “Thanks for the lovely…” What the hell was he thanking her for? “Gotta go.”

  “So sorry, my prince, but I can’t allow you to disobey my rules.”

  “Disobey? I just wanna leave, Lyra. Not up for this tonight.”

  “Alexander, surely you understood the rules. Everyone who watches agrees to be a potential participant. If I let you go, all my players would feel cheated.”

  He felt the others looking at him with curious, nervous eyes.

  Yeah, well, he could give a flying fuck what these half-frightened strangers thought of him. And shit, he was born to break rules. Lyra was obviously messing with his head.

  “What the hell do you want from me, Lyra?”

  She laughed. “Ah. Now we get to the point.”

  “If this is about business, I would really prefer to talk about this tomorrow. I’m not in any condition to—”

  “I don’t care what you prefer!” Lyra’s dulcet tones sharpened and cracked through the room like a bullwhip. “You will show me the respect I deserve! And you will follow my rules.”

  The bolt of anger in his stomach was gaining force, he pulled himself up to full height and spoke loudly and clearly. “Fuck. You.”

  It was an outrageous insult. His father would have backhanded him and sent him underground immediately.

  But Lyra merely laughed again, a cackle that scaled from low to high in a seemingly endless trill. “Oh you do have balls, my prince. And you’ll soon discover I have the proper vise to squeeze them.” She moved into his personal space, an audacity only a vamp of her age would dare. When she spoke, all traces of humor had vanished from her tone. “You will cease your business dealings with my mortal competition or be taken to the Immortal Council.”

  Now it was Alex’s turn to laugh. “And why would I follow any order issued by you or your cronies at the Council?”

  “Try me and find out.” She tapped her ruby lips with a pale finger. “Or…make me a deal.”

  “What deal?” Here it came. Lyra did love to play games…

  “Do as your friend Jack requests and fuck the little blonde. Let us watch you feed from her. She looks amazingly like your bloodmate, don’t you think? I had the pleasure of making your sweet mate’s acquaintance at one of your lovely parties many years ago. Caroline. Right?”

  It wasn’t a deal. It was a threat.

  Power zipped and zoomed through his nerve endings. He fisted his hands. “You stay the hell away from Caro. She’s under my protection. If she is harmed in any way, you’ll be the one on the rack before the Immortal Council.”

  “Is she truly under your protection, my prince?” She gestured to Jack. “Your friend here told me you haven’t fed from her in over five years.”

  Jack caught his eye, his expression stricken. “Alex, man, I’m sorry…” He shook his head like he knew he’d messed things up big time. “She asked about you and me…”

  If he could have managed to speak he would have told Jack to forget about it. But his energy was being pulled into a vortex of violence. And oh shit—he had to let it out.

  He raised his fist above his head, arm rigid, elbow straight. Electricity swirled and hovered. He heard the familiar crackle, smelled the familiar spark. The chandelier above the pit swayed. The candle flames sputtered. A woman screamed.

  He tasted her terror. Felt the fear of everyone in the room converging, feeding his power.

  He fell to his knees, gasping at the resulting sparks.

  No. No. No. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do this. He was bigger than his fucking instincts, than his goddamn immortal gifts.

  Control. Control was within his reach. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes for a long moment, trying to conjure thoughts strong enough to dispel the violent energy.

  Love. Caro. Think of Caro.

  He could see her now. She was curled in the big bed of her hotel suite, shifting in her sleep, calling his name.

  He stood up and carefully put one foot in front the other. He did it once more. Again. And again, until he made it across the room safely, success surging through his bloodstream.

  “Oh dear. So sorry to see you go,” Lyra called out gaily from behind him. “Since you won’t play by the rules, I’ll take this to mean we’ll settle this another way, another time.”

  He flipped her the bird from behind his back, not bothering to turn around, laughing loudly at the appropriateness of the juvenile mortal gesture.

  Then he was momentarily blinded as the door opened in front of him. The guy who’d been monitoring the house cameras pulled him into the room.

  “Thanks.” Alex propped himself against the wall as the guy shut the door and returned to his chair. “How can you stand to work here, man? That’s some fucked-up shit in there.”

  The guy shrugged and pushed up his glasses. “It trips my trigger.”

  Alex nodded. “Oh.”

  “I’ll call Juan to help you out.”

  Alex closed his eyes, trying to keep the room from spinning. “Thanks.”

  Juan arrived and led Alex through the crowd in the cavernous club. They were still partying their brains out, clueless about the carnal events in their midst. Hell, they’d probably join in if they could. He had a fleeting thought of Lenny and Merrell but realized he didn’t have the energy to try to find them.

  Cold night air hit him when Juan opened the front door. Alex stumbled out onto the sidewalk, taking deep, gulping breaths. Juan hailed him a cab. “You okay to get home, man? You remember your address?”

  Alex nodded.

  The cabbie called back to him as he sprawled onto the backseat, “Where to?”

  Alex found he couldn’t, in fact, remember his own address. Or maybe he just didn’t want to. He remembered the name of Caro’s hotel, though. He told the cabbie to take him there.

  Chapter Nine

  Caro looked at the glowing numbers of the digital clock. Three-thirty. She really didn’t want to talk to whoever was obnoxious enough to call at this hour but she picked up the receiver just to stop the awful ringing.

  “Yes?”

  “So very sorry to bother you, Ms. Connery. But there’s a gentleman down in the lobby who says he’s your guest. He says he doesn’t have a key or remember your room number. Do you want us to give him the information?”

  “Who is he?” Caro rubbed her hand over her eyes. It had to be Alex. She’d given Len a key and she didn’t think Mike Powers would have the nerve.

  “He says his name is Alex.”

  Caro sighed. “Okay. Let him come up.”

  Hanging up the phone, she swung her feet to the floor and tried to activate her brain. She must have passed out on the bed while she was watching TV. She’d been totally keyed up after Mike Powers had dropped her off. Giving him the brush-off had been easy but stressful. She’d soaked in the Jacuzzi and then watched an old movie, trying super hard to relax so she could get some desperately needed sleep.

  She walked over and switched off the muted TV, relieved when the blue glow dissipated. As she turned on the light by the chairs in the living area, she heard a muffled knocking sound. She looked out the peephole and saw Alex. And when she opened the door she saw that it was a very, very drunk Alex. He swayed as he gave her a lopsided smile. He reeked of booze, smoke and bad behavior.

  “Can I come in?” His voice croaked mid-sentence.

  “Would you go away if I told you to?”

  A truly pathetic look crossed his face. “Yeah. I would. But do you remember my address? This was all I could remember when Juan put me in the cab.”

  “Oh for C
hrist’s sake, Alex, get in here.” Grabbing him by his floppy arms, she pulled him into the room. She turned to face him after shutting and locking the door. He just stood there swaying sadly.

  “Who the hell is Juan?” she asked.

  “Dunno,” he said, tripping over to the couch and flopping down with a grunt. He slid onto his back and put his hand over his eyes. “Uh-oh.” He sat up suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Gonna hurl.”

  He leaped up and half ran, half stumbled to the bathroom.

  She prayed that he made it to the toilet in time.

  She sat on the couch and sighed, wondering if she should go help him. He sounded like he was in agony. A weak stomach was the plague of a half-vamp. She’d been through this with him before.

  She went to the partially opened bathroom door, peeked in and saw he was on the floor. He waved her off. “Go ‘way.”

  Plugging her ears against another wave of horrible retching noises, she went over to the kitchenette and filled a glass with some ice. When the noises had faded to mere moaning she went over to the vanity and poured the ice into a washcloth. She let the ice melt under some water and then squeezed out the cloth. She handed it to him when he staggered out of the bathroom door.

  “Oh God.” He made it to the bed and then fell backward onto the mattress. He put the cloth on his face. “Better pray for my damned soul, princess.” He reached out but didn’t come close to touching her. “‘Cause I’m gonna die now.”

  “Dang, Alex.” Caro arranged the cloth over his eyes and forehead. “How much did you drink after I left?”

  The feeble gesture of his outstretched hand was punctuated by another drawn-out groan.

  Sighing, she clasped his fingers and sat down next to him, gently rubbing at the inside of his wrist with her thumbs. After a few minutes his breathing became more normal. Was he conscious? His hand still clenched hers tightly. She readjusted the washcloth, brushing his damp hair back from his forehead.

  After feeling a wave of tenderness she wanted to kick herself for, she made herself remember a trick he’d played on her once. It was right after she’d moved out on him for the second time. After weeks of trying various things to get her to come back, he’d pretended to have vamp fever. He showed up at her door flushed and sweating late one night, begging her to let him feed, saying he had a rare condition only her blood would cure.

  She was clueless about vamp lore and she’d believed him. He’d been hot, pale, sweaty. She allowed him to feed and, of course, he’d made very thorough, very feverish love to her. When he’d awoken the next day the fever was gone. They’d stayed in bed for a week making up. She’d found out later that he’d never been sick. He’d just worked up a sweat jogging the twenty blocks to get to her place.

  She stopped rubbing his hand and stood up.

  He reached out for her, his face still covered with the washcloth. “Don’t stop.”

  She ignored him, fortified by her memory of “vamp fever”.

  “What happened to Jack?” she asked.

  Alex snorted. “Fucking his second blonde…in the evil bitch’s pit.”

  “Umm…do you wanna run that one by me again?”

  “No,” he growled. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Probably not,” she said. “What about Len and Merrell?”

  “Don’t know. Probably fucking like rabbits somewhere.”

  “Well,” she said wryly. “Sounds like a lot of fucking is going around tonight.”

  Alex raised his head with a sudden jerk, peeking a silvered bloodshot eye out from under the washcloth. “You didn’t fuck that asshole Powers, did you?”

  “Fuck you, Alex.”

  He put his head back down and re-covered his eyes. “Thank God. I didn’t think you would.”

  She strode over and whipped the washcloth off his eyes. “Get out!”

  He blinked, his eyes red-rimmed and bleary in his ashen face.

  “Damn it, Alex! You wake me up at four a.m., you puke in my bathroom and then you ask me about stuff that is just way not your fucking business!”

  He tried to sit up and made it as far as propping himself up on his elbow. “Shit, Caro. I’m sorry. I’m drunk off my ass and totally freaked out.” He flopped back down on the pillows. “Please don’t make me leave. Jack might come back to my place and I don’t want to see him right now.”

  She stood there and looked at him. She’d seen him pretty doggone messed up before and this was about as low as he ever got. “What the heck happened tonight, anyway?”

  “Nothing. We just went to a weird party. And I drank too much.”

  “Did you fight or something?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Did you hurt anyone?”

  “No, definitely not. Don’t want to talk about it. Would you hold my hand again?”

  Thinking she was a fool for falling for his pathetic explanations, she reluctantly sat back down and held his hand again, playing with his rings and rubbing the tender flesh at the base of his thumb. After several minutes he seemed to fall into a fitful sleep.

  She looked down at their joined hands. His fingers were long and gracefully shaped, the nails trimmed and buffed. They were pale—definitely not the hands of a working man—but they were strong and decidedly masculine. They made her think of sex. Just like everything else about Alex.

  Oh Lord. She couldn’t believe she was sitting here in Chicago holding Alexander King’s hand at four in the morning.

  She could almost hear the sucking sound of her life being absorbed into his. She should be in therapy. She really should.

  How would a therapist characterize their relationship if they were a typical mortal couple? Dependent personalities, maybe. Alex was the egotistical sex addict and she was the enabling personality. That probably got it about right. But they were both more complicated than those labels, weren’t they?

  And they were different now that five years had passed. She was stronger and definitely more independent. And Alex seemed to have moved farther away from his father’s sphere of influence. She wondered how far. Alex prided himself on progressing with the decades. He scoffed at his full-vamp friends and relatives who chose to obey rules and laws written thousands of years ago.

  If only she could get him to ignore those rules and laws altogether. Then she could be free to…

  She frowned. Tightened her hold on his hand.

  He stirred, opening his eyes and giving her a wan smile. She let go of his hand and, exhaling slowly, he tried putting his feet on the floor.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Mm. I think I need to pay a visit to my crypt.”

  “Ah. Well, I can call you a cab.”

  “The doorman can find me one, I’m sure. Caro…” He reached for her hand again then hesitated. “Would you come with me?”

  “Back to your place?”

  “Yeah. Would you sleep with me for a while? I know it’s a lot to ask. But I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you. Please?”

  Her heart sped up when she heard the raw urgency in his voice. “Something did happen tonight. Oh God, Alex—did you fight? Is that why you’re so exhausted?” No matter how much he’d put her through, the thought of him in physical danger made her crazy with worry. His powers were unpredictable and sometimes very scary.

  “No. I wanted to but I stopped. And I stopped because I thought of you. Dreamed of sleeping with you. Together. The way we used to. Please, Caro.”

  He closed his eyes and she felt him in her mind. Threat…can’t explain it now. Need to be safe, regroup. Can’t do it without you.

  He needed her. Being needed by a powerful creature like Alex was an amazingly compelling experience. Strangely erotic and impossible to ignore. She nodded her head in agreement and then qualified, “But no feeding.”

  He opened his mouth as if to protest but then smiled. “Thank you.”

  * * * * *

  Caro waited on Alex’s terrace while he showe
red and prepared to go underground.

  It was cold and she wasn’t dressed warmly enough, but she’d wanted to breathe the damp predawn air and watch the morning take form just beneath the horizon. The sight was full of promise, anticipation—much of the beauty in a sunrise was in the waiting.

  The air shifted behind her.

  A spur of excitement jolted her languid muscles. Alex.

  He came up behind her, wrapping her in those strong, familiar arms, caressing the top of her head with a light kiss and his warm breath. He smelled like toothpaste and juniper. “Do you need something to eat before we go down?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m good.”

  He took her hand and led her through the cool, silent loft. They climbed into the rickety, iron-gated elevator. When he slammed the gate shut and pressed the button marked “B” for basement, he gave her a sudden smile, an old-style Alex smile full of sex and mayhem, canines glowing menacingly in the light of the funky old light bulb.

  “It’s a brave girl you are…to enter the vampire’s lair.” His hand came up to her throat, his thumb unerringly seeking the pulse at the base.

  She swallowed hard against the touch, felt her heartbeat flutter against the subtle pressure. Fear was not a factor in her reaction. Oh no. Her response was all about sex. About need.

  The elevator stopped with a whir and a jolt. He opened the gate and when she followed him blindly into the damp, black space beyond, she felt heated moisture work itself between the blood-heavy folds of her pussy.

  “Almost there,” he whispered.

  She heard the sound of heavy keys clanking together. The snick of a well-oiled lock.

  Air moved and a breeze, warm and richly scented, brushed her cheek.

  “I got the door fixed.” Alex’s husky chuckle touched her ear. “The creaky hinges were just too damn tacky.”

  He took her hand and guided her across a small, raised threshold. She stood still, utterly helpless in the unrelenting darkness. His arm brushed her shoulder and the air stopped moving. There was a small thud as the heavy stone door shut.

  “How much light do you want?”

  “A few candles maybe…”