by Terry Spear
Thank God the males didn’t seem to be annoyed with Selena’s presence like the females did, but instead seemed highly intrigued. Which, come to think of it, could be a bad thing.
With determination, Selena steeled her back. She was here now, and she wasn’t running away. How would that look? Like she was afraid of vampires. Which she was not.
She sidestepped the vampiress and was sure if she looked behind her, the woman’s gaze would be boring into the back of Selena’s head. The rest of the vampires moved out of her path as if she were the queen walking down the red carpet to her throne.
Sighing heavily, she was sure her human friend, Tara Green, had gotten her information wrong. Selena glanced around the crowd, looking at individual female faces, all eyes on her, no one saying a word, though they might have been telepathically communicating up a storm with one another. One of the women watching might be this Twilight person. Everyone seemed unduly interested in Selena, blood bonds and vampires alike, so she couldn’t tell if any of them might be the woman. What if she had changed her mind and decided it was too dangerous to tell Selena the truth? At least, while she was among the vamps?
Tara probably hadn’t even known this place was a vampire dance club. Then again, maybe a vampire had brainwashed her into luring Selena here. Which sent a trickle of dread down her spine. Was she being led into the vampire’s lair for some dark purpose and this had nothing to do with locating her sister?
It wouldn’t be the first time. And she was certain it wouldn’t be the last. Vampires lived so long, they often needed a diversion in their lives to break up the monotony. Any huntress who hunted alone and by her own rules was fair game. Was that what she was? A mouse for the long-fanged cats to play with?
Glancing around the large building that seemed small because so many people were crammed in here, the fragrance of perfumes and colognes wafting in the air, she kept a watchful eye out for both someone who might be Twilight and any vampire threat that might occur. She wasn’t sure what she would do if a vampire decided to attack her. Not when she was without weapons. She couldn’t hope for anyone to come to her rescue if she began to fight one of the vampires. She could only hope that if she didn’t provoke an attack, no one would initiate one either.
Surely, others would not permit a rogue’s unprovoked attack against her here. Though several of the women looked like they were having a devil of time reining in their more primal instincts.
The notion a vampire might have put Tara up to bringing Selena here, put a new spin on the situation though. At once, the unease that she’d tried to contain while she flaunted herself in front of the club full of vampires began to take its toll. Her hands grew clammy and perspiration collected between her breasts. Her heartbeat quickened no matter that she tried to slow its pace by breathing in more deeply. The sound of the blood racing through her veins served as an enticement for ravenous vampires. So, she really needed to calm her frantic heart.
She took several deep breaths and when she reached the edge of the dance floor, she searched for the bar through the myriad of dancers. Desperately, she wanted to quit the place, but she couldn’t. Not without appearing to be a coward. Hunters already looked down on her. She wasn’t about to be treated the same way by a bunch of blood-drinking vamps.
Scanning the dance floor where men and women began to get back to the business of dancing, rubbing their bodies together in sexual bliss, Selena raised her brows. She’d never witnessed them dancing before. Not intending to show any interest but to get a drink, observe the crowd for as long as it took to finish her drink while waiting for a sign from Twilight, then vamoose, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the dancers. From one couple in particular—the man dressed in a black tux, his black hair curling to the edges of his white collar, while his fingers stroked the woman’s breasts covered in a black silk dress—in front of everyone. The woman responded by slipping her leg between his legs and rubbing.
Selena had never seen anything so bold, so indecent in public, and so intriguing. She knew she should look away and concentrate on the whereabouts of the woman named Twilight.
Before she could shift her attention from the erotic dancers, Selena moved away from the dance floor and ran straight into a solid figure. Jerking her gaze from the dancers, she turned to see what immoveable, warm-bodied force she’d stumbled into. Her eyes caught the man’s icy blue ones, which proceeded to darken to nearly black. His lips remained noncommittal, but his eyes held hers with such determination, she almost felt he could read her mind, or he thought he could control her. Neither of which vampires had the ability to do with hunters. She scoffed silently to herself. All vampires were totally conceited.
Mumbling an apology, she tried to go around him, but he blocked her path.
“Would you care to dance?” he asked, in a typical vampiric voice, deep, dark, and seductive.
Both males and females used the timbre of their voices to lure an intended blood bond to them. But Selena wasn’t a normal human, and thankfully she couldn’t be lured in that manner.
“Thank you, no.” She managed to slip around him and headed for her intended destination. The bar. A drink. Another quick survey of the crowd. And an even quicker departure. Though she intended to make it look like she wasn’t departing quickly because she was bothered by any of them.
Reaching the bar, she found all the stools had been taken. Not that it mattered. After she got her drink, she could slip closer to the door and leave as soon as she was done. If this Twilight woman wanted to approach her, maybe she would do so if Selena was nearer the exit and not quite so conspicuous. As if a huntress in a vampire club could be inconspicuous, she chastised herself.
Then again, maybe when she left the club, the woman would attempt to meet with her in the parking lot.
The music shifted to a slower tempo, but the erotic moves of the dancers couldn’t get much more sexual without the dance partners stripping off their clothes and doing it on the floor. Sure she was experiencing an early hot flash after getting an eyeful, Selena leaned toward the bar and ordered a Tom Collins. The blond male seated next to her, slid off the barstool, gave Selena a wicked look, then floated away.
Still intending to get a drink and leave, Selena ignored the available seat.
“Sit,” the man with the vivid blue eyes said. He motioned to the barstool. “I’m Basil. And you are?”
“Thirsty.” She gave a small smile but didn’t take the seat. She assumed now that Basil had telepathically told the blond guy to vacate the seat for Selena. Was he attempting to get her under his spell?
“I’m the owner of this dance club. I’m curious as to why you’re here.”
Ahhh, so he wanted to ensure she didn’t cause trouble.
Most of the conversation in the club ceased and even the music piped down. As long as the club owner didn’t force the issue, she didn’t intend to explain her business and risk losing her contact. But everyone seemed to want to know just how she would respond.
The bartender reached across the counter and slid the drink to Selena.
She handed him a ten-dollar bill, but Basil shook his head. “Drink’s on me.”
“Thanks.” But she didn’t mean it.
The guy made her uneasy, although she knew why he had targeted her. For his patrons’ peace of mind, she was certain he was determined to learn if she had come here looking for a vampire on her terminal list. Except he wouldn’t know she didn’t have a terminal list…for now. They were handed out only by the League, and she was on their no-hunt list. Still, it was nobody’s business that she was a huntress without backing from the League. The vampires would look upon her with as much disdain as her own kind did. Some might even test her resolve not to take them on.
But she had no trouble with fighting rogue vampires. Or renegade hunters, for that matter. Even if the League said it wasn’t fully convinced the hunter she had killed had been a rogue. Yet, she knew differently, or they would have terminated her for killing the
hunter.
Her mind still mulling over her choices, she watched the dancers and listened to the beat and rhythm of the music stirring up the heat. Against her express permission, she moved slightly to the music, then caught sight of a couple of blood bonds whispering to each other while their gazes remained glued on her.
She frowned. Even most humans, if they knew the truth about her, wouldn’t have anything to do with her. After all, what good was a huntress who couldn’t terminate vampires legally if the humans needed protection? At least that’s what she’d heard a few say.
As much good as a dentist who wouldn’t take care of someone’s bad teeth, or a lifeguard who wouldn’t save a swimmer in distress.
Tara Green was the exception. For whatever reason, the human liked her.
Basil, the club owner, lingered near her as if he was a bouncer, waiting for her to reveal wrist daggers or pull out a sword from her silky dress, then he would toss her out of the building. Did he think she had a death wish? And heck, couldn’t he see she was totally unarmed? Nowhere to hide anything in this clingy creation. Besides, that was one rule she didn’t violate—the no-weapons-in-a-club rule. Drinking and weapons could be a dangerous—and deadly—combination.
It was bad enough that vampires carried their own weapons intact.
Once she realized this was a vampires’ place of entertainment, she really wouldn’t have been that stupid to walk in armed to the teeth anyway.
Coming here had to have made her more of an enigma in the vampires’ eyes. Any hunters who were different should be warily watched. Who knew what crazy things a person who wasn’t like the others might do?
Before she could take a sip from her drink, she noticed a man sitting at a table observing her. Not that most weren’t already, but something about him caught her attention.
Maybe it was his dark brown eyes the color of Brazil nuts narrowed in dissatisfaction, bordering on contempt, or the way his body language shouted at her to go away, or the way his umber hair was cut short, making him look roguish in appearance when all the other vampire males wore theirs pulled back in tails and looked much more vampirish. Not only that, but when most of the males were a bit dressed down compared to the women who were dressed to the nines, the vampire was dressed in a tux, like the one who had been dancing with the vamp. She was…impressed.
Though somewhere in the crowd she’d seen a guy who looked like a cowboy—one of the bad guys all dressed in black—that had caught her eye also.
“Who are you searching for?” Basil asked, as if he were her friend and wished to help.
“I came for a drink,” Selena said, sliding a look at him.
“Yet, you are not drinking it.” His mouth turned up slightly. This time his eyes sparkled with mirth.
He was right. She tried to raise the glass to her lips, but she couldn’t. What if the drink was laced with something that would make her pass out? Make her more vulnerable than she already was in a dance club full of vampires, any of whom could possibly be renegades? Any one of them who might think he was on her terminal list?
“The drink is safe,” Basil said, as if reading her mind.
But she knew he couldn’t. Her hesitation at drinking it was what clued him in.
Human males were so unobservant, she had concluded early on. But vampiric males and hunters had the same intuitiveness that nearly all females had, whatever their kind.
She was not afraid. Trying to keep her hand from trembling, she lifted the glass to her lips, but the man with the dark brown eyes and the short-cropped hair suddenly appeared beside her and bumped against her arm. Before she could stop herself, she dropped the glass on the floor, shattering it into a hundred pieces and quashed the swear word that rose to her lips.
“You will leave here, huntress,” the man whispered harshly into her ear, his hand grasping her arm in a decisive grip. “And never return.”
Having been thrown out of so many hunter establishments over the years because of constantly being on the outs with the League, she wasn’t surprised to be treated similarly here. Well, especially here.
She raised her chin and gave him a slight smile. “Apology accepted.”
His eyes widened slightly, and for an instant, his threatening posture dissolved.
Seeing his surprise, she couldn’t help that her smile broadened. As a kid, she’d learned to deal with other hunters who treated her meanly, just by doing the opposite of what they expected. It threw them off-guard. It seemed the trick worked on vampires too. Glancing at Basil, she found him glowering at the other man, but she assumed whoever the roguish-looking guy was, his spilling her drink saved her from some kind of trouble.
Yet, defiance stirred deep inside her, and she would not be bullied into a hasty retreat.
“Wanna dance?” she asked the man she assumed had saved her butt.
For an instant, he stared at her with a modicum of disbelief, but then the condemning look returned. “You would not do the moves justice.” Yet despite his harsh words, he took her arm and led her to the floor.
Chapter 2
When the vampire took Selena to the dance floor—led would not be quite the way to describe it, more like he practically lifted her off her feet to get her there—his action surprised the hell out of her. She’d expected him to sneer at her, then move away. And when he didn’t, a strange quiver of intrigue raced through her blood when his fingers held her arm tightly in his grasp.
Did he think she would change her mind? She wanted to. She’d been a fool to enter the dance club once she’d figured out who the clientele was despite wanting to meet Twilight.
Walking onto the parquet floor, the colorful strobe lights shining greens, blues, yellows, and reds dancing across its surface, she felt her nerves tingle with apprehension. The notion had flitted across her brain that if she had to do this, she’d expected other dancers—as crowded as the floor was—to hide the two of them from view. Not that she couldn’t dance. But dancing like some of the others had? And with a vampire? No way.
She reminded herself the vampires had probably been with their mates, and this one wouldn’t expect her to dance in that manner with him. She didn’t care one whit whether she had any of a vampiress’s exotic moves or not. She would not back down.
Everyone cleared the floor as if they were specters fading into the mist—or in this case, the dark building where colorful lights flashed all over them, the dance floor, Selena, and her dance partner.
She was left standing in the middle with tall, dark, and vampiric, and no matter her bravado, she wanted to melt into the parquet. Even the music had stopped, and she felt her lioness heart shrivel into a mouse’s as the whole building was cloaked in absolute silence.
The man’s mouth turned up slightly at the corners, but the humor did not reach his darkened eyes. She knew then he laughed at her, as much as everyone else did. But when she glanced at the others, vampires and blood bonds alike, she didn’t see a smirk among them, just intrigue, anticipation, wonderment. Well, except for the vampiresses. She saw a lot of rabidly, venomous looks from them, and she was certain they were barely keeping their fangs hidden.
She wished she wouldn’t disappoint her admirers, but unless she was sloppily drunk, no way could she rub herself against a man, a vampire on top of it, in some base, seductive dance in front of a club full of onlookers. Killing rogue vampires was tons easier.
Taking a deep breath, she figured she might as well introduce herself and get it over with. “I’m Selena.”
“Atreides.” He bowed his head, then turned to the band.
Several of the band members smiled, their gazes shifting from Atreides to Selena.
She was in trouble now.
The music played just as seductively slow as when she’d first entered the club, the mood enticing lovers to bare all. She tentatively touched Atreides’s waist with her hand and reached for his with her other in a formal distant way, but he pulled her hard against his body.
She gasped and
instantly the temperature in the room elevated to sauna level—or at least her body heat had.
Murmurs filled the club, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. Probably that the huntress was out of her element, and her boldness served her right. Which about now, she totally agreed with.
Atreides gripped her hand, keeping her tight against his body, then moved his leg between hers, and that was the last thought she had about how others viewed her. His free hand roamed down her back, sliding the red silk against her skin, slipping lower until he caressed her buttocks. She should have kept her huntress calm, but she lost whatever huntress sensibility she’d been born with and melted against the rogue’s caresses. She knew he had to be a rogue to want to seduce a huntress. Or maybe he didn’t want to seduce her but was just toying with her for being so brash to enter his world.
Determined to show him she could do this too, as much as it went against everything she was, she leaned against his thigh and gave a tentative rub. It would have been much more effective if she hadn’t been trembling when she did it.
The vampire’s eyes blazed with heat, and his neck muscles tightened. She swore a low growl rumbled in his throat. It was then that she felt his arousal hard against her hip. She barely noticed that he was moving her along the floor at a snail’s pace. Her every sense was attuned to the way his hand cupped her buttock, the way his thigh lifted higher, connecting with her damp mound, and his smoky eyes devoured her with ardent attention. He might not like her at all, but he was definitely lusting after her.
Closing her eyes, she savored the erotic feeling and pretended she was on another planet, that her misbehavior was perfectly acceptable there, and that the man who had freed her from her earthbound world was her lover.
She tossed her head back and laughed.
The other hunters were right. She was insane and needed to be locked away for everyone’s good. But not until after she’d had her dance with the hot vampire.