I twisted my hands but the friction against his grip stung my skin. “He didn’t feed on me. I went to his club and we hit it off. We kissed. That’s it. Can you let go? That hurts.”
Octavius’s brows creased, confusion flickering through his unreal blue eyes. He glanced at our hands then released his hold. “Forgive me. I forget my strength sometimes. Alexander…he…he worries me. Too long he’s kept to himself. I’m happy to hear he’s finally moving on, making friends.”
“Yeah. He’s…good. He’s doing fine. I think.” I rubbed my wrists where he’d held me, scooting back in my chair to put what little distance I could between us without looking like I was trying to inch toward the door.
“That’s good to hear. Yes.” Octavius leaned back, seemed to relax again. “I haven’t seen him in years. Not since…Bess. He was having such a hard time of it then.”
“Bess?” Being female and a reporter I couldn’t let the mention of another woman’s name pass without question.
A satisfied smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. He hiked a brow. “He didn’t tell you?”
Just then the maitre d’ stepped up to our table. “Mr. Perrotte, excuse the interruption but…” He leaned over and spoke to Octavius in a whisper. After a moment he straightened, and Octavius reached into his suit jacket and pulled a business card from his breast pocket.
He held it out for the maitre d’. “Tell him to call tomorrow night. We’ll work something out.”
With a small bow, the maitre d’ reached for the card, flashing his wrist and the same Roman X tattoo as our waiter. “Yes, sir.” He hurried off to deliver his employer’s message.
Octavius’s gaze swung to me. “I apologize. There’s no such thing as off duty when running a business. What were we discussing?”
“Bess.” I could tell he was only pretending to have forgotten.
“Ah, yes.”
The waiter arrived with our wine and poured a glass for both of us, then left the bottle without asking if we were ready to order. My stomach growled in protest, but Octavius didn’t seem to have heard.
“Bess turned me,” he said as though it was as mundane as naming his mother. “She birthed me into this world of eternal life and unending love. I was to be her companion, her anchor to the changing world around her. She was desperate for me.”
I sipped my wine, feeling the warmth of it tingle over my lips, down my throat. He wasn’t lying. The wine was good. Really good. “Did Bess turn Alex too?”
Octavius scoffed. “No. Bess and I were together fifty years before we met Alex. He’d apparently had an unfortunate encounter with another female of our kind in an opium den. He’d been whoring himself for a fix. His dark mother took advantage of his drugged stupor, turned him and left him to wallow in ignorance. He was pathetically uneducated in the ways of our kind, of our world when we found him, stumbling through life like a filthy animal. But Bess and her sweet nature took pity on him and we brought Alexander under our tutelage.” He took a quick sip of wine. “That was ages ago.”
“Where’s Bess now?”
“Dead,” he answered bluntly, absolutely devoid of emotion. He stared at his wine glass, caressing his thumb up and down the slender stem.
“How? What happened?”
He licked his lips, shrugged. “I’m afraid you’d have to ask Alexander. I’d parted ways with the two of them years earlier. I searched for him after I heard she’d been killed. Alexander wouldn’t see me. He was devastated. As was I.”
I sipped my wine while he took another drink of his. My head was a little unfocused and my tongue tingled with the heat of the alcohol. Whatever apprehension I’d been feeling before eased, the wine working wonders to relax my muscles, warming through my veins to every corner of my body. “What made you part ways? I figured Bess would’ve been pretty important to you.”
“Indeed. But Alexander demanded so much of her attention, so needy and nonsensical. He could do nothing on his own. Wouldn’t leave her side for a moment. And Bess, she was so gentle hearted. She couldn’t bear to risk damaging the strides we’d made with Alexander by turning him away.” He shook his head as though the outcome was inevitable. “I couldn’t bear witness to them like that any longer.”
“Did he love her?”
Octavius made a rude noise, looked away. “How would I know? Makes no difference. As the male in the relationship, Alexander was responsible for her and she died, staked through the heart while under his protection. If he loved her, it wasn’t nearly enough.”
“You said you didn’t know how she died.” My internal bullshit-meter spiked.
He reached for the wine bottle, refilled our glasses. “As I said, it was ages ago. I know Alexander never again drank from a living human. Punishing himself for failing our Bess. Until you, that is.” Octavius raised his glass to me in salute, then took a deep drink.
“I told you. He didn’t feed on me.” I gulped half my glass out of frustration and because it tasted so damn good. A light fruity flavor that wafted over my pallet, rippled down my throat and radiated through my body. It was as though I could feel every molecule inside me humming with life.
“No?” He leaned forward in his chair, forearms on the table, his hands clasping his wine glass. “Why ever not? You’re every bit as lovely as our Bess was. Your skin fairly glows and your lips are positively enticing. I think I’ve never seen eyes such as yours. A truly hypnotic shade.”
“They’re green.” My cheeks flamed. I leaned forward, mimicking his posture so our hands on our wineglasses were side by side on the table. I almost giggled. So not me.
“Stunning. As is your figure. And your scent…” He inhaled, breathing deeply through his nose. “Heavenly. You’re beautiful, Sophie. What more could Alexander want in woman?” His hands moved from his wineglass to my hands, the warm gentle touch searing straight through me. My belly fluttered and muscles low in my womb flexed. I glanced at our hands, blinked, tried to focus on the ring he wore on his middle finger. It was a dirty gold, flat on top with a big “X” etched in the center and some sort of writing bordering in a circle around it. It reminded me of our waiter’s tattoo, but the thought flittered from my head a moment later. I forced my mind back on topic.
“Maybe he wasn’t hungry.” I wasn’t sure why Alex’s rebuff at my apartment the other night hadn’t bothered me before, but it did now. I wanted to think about that but I couldn’t puzzle it out, couldn’t keep focus. My head felt thick and small beads of sweat cooled across my forehead. I shook my head, small so he wouldn’t notice, trying to clear my thoughts. My mouth was dry too.
“Hungry?” His brows hiked and his smile shown in his eyes. “Drinking from you would have little to do with sustenance and everything to do with sex. You did know, didn’t you…for vampires, taking blood is a very sexual experience.”
My mind flashed on the scene at Il Piccolo Morso, and the man nuzzling the woman’s neck, his hand stroking back and forth under her dress. I’d wanted Alex the other night, but by offering sex had I been offering my blood too? Did I want to offer my blood? I wasn’t sure, couldn’t decide. It seemed too hard to think. “Are sex and feeding always combined? Can you have one without the other?”
Octavius shrugged, his smile still lighting his eyes. “Who would know? The desire is too strong for one while indulging the other, there’s no reason to deny either.”
I watched his mouth move, the way his lips formed the word. They looked so moist and soft, how would they feel pressed to mine? A fine tremble shook across my shoulders, my palms went moist and a sultry heat stirred between my thighs. I flicked my gaze to his. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to close the small distance between us and taste him. I wanted him to taste me.
“Alex was able to deny both with me.”
“Then he’s a fool.”
My heart skipped. Who doesn’t want to be attractive, to be wanted? Octavius seemed to know just what to say. And with each passing second those wants and desires were becomin
g harder to ignore.
“To make love with a vampire is a singularly exquisite experience save for one. Being the vampire.”
A jolt of adrenaline shot through my system. I believed him utterly. And more than anything in the world I wanted to know what it was like to be the vampire. My chest squeezed, my breath caught in my throat. I was missing something. This wasn’t right. But why?
Octavius leaned closer. Our lips were only a deep sigh apart. “I can give you that gift, let you feel what it’s like to be one of us. To know our passions—life, sex, blood. To know these sweet undeniable pleasures…forever.”
His breath washed over my face, his lips feathering against mine. His voice was like liquid chocolate, smoothing through my body, delicious and warm. I closed my eyes and exhaled my answer. “Yes.”
He kissed me, and the feel of his mouth on mine was everything I’d imagined. My lips parted and his tongue traced along my teeth, the heat of his saliva tingling like cinnamon through my mouth.
Saliva. Venom. I was being drugged.
Octavius broke the kiss. Stood, offering his hand. “Come, Sophie. We’ll need our privacy.”
I put my hand in his, even as my mind screamed, no. I didn’t want this. Well, I did, but I didn’t want to want it. It was the venom. It had to be, but how was it acting so quickly? How had I ingested so much with just one kiss?
“Leave the wine, little one. You won’t need it now,” he said.
I glanced at my hand still holding my wineglass. The wine. From his private cellar. Had he mixed his venom in the wine? I gripped the glass tighter, throwing all my will into defying him by any measure.
“Sophie, darling. Leave the wine.”
A buzzing in my ears grew louder. I hadn’t even noticed it before, but now, as I stood, leaving my wine behind, I knew it’d been there since the moment he sat down with me. Octavius led the way through the tables toward the back of the restaurant and the doors to the kitchen. I called my power, but under the influence of the venom and Octavius’s mind control, my concentration wasn’t at its best.
Still, the familiar telltale signs hummed through my mind, tickled at the back of my neck. “Octavius. I think you should let me leave now.”
He glanced over his shoulder, brow creased. “Not just yet.”
It’d hardly fazed him. I wasn’t strong enough, not like this, not for someone as powerful as him. I bumped shoulders with a passing waiter and snagged his arm as we passed, my power still buzzing through my head. “You should stop him from taking me. You should make him let me go.”
“Ignore her,” Octavius said. “I’m impressed, Sophie. But there’s no reason to fight me. You’ll enjoy this.”
The waiter blinked, confusion clouding his young face, but he didn’t move to follow my suggestion as Octavius continued to lead me away. I glanced at his arm where I’d touched him, then lower to his wrist. He had the same X tattoo as my waiter and the maitre d’.
Another waiter passed near enough. I glanced at his wrist even as I made the same suggestion to him. “You should stop him. You should make him let me go.”
His sleeve was too low to see his entire wrist, but I could’ve sworn I saw what might’ve been the bottom points of an “X”. What was it, some kind of club?
We’d nearly reached the swinging door to the kitchen. I called as much power as I could and made one final suggestion to a waiter who was just coming through the swinging doors. “Please. You don’t want to let him take me. You want to make him let me go.”
He balanced a huge tray at his shoulder, the “X” on his wrist plain to see. Almost instantly he dropped the tray and snagged Octavius’s wrist. “Hey. She shouldn’t be here. Let her go.”
Octavius jerked free of the man’s grip. “Get a hold of yourself, Bartholomew. She’s only human.”
But Bartholomew wasn’t listening to him. He was obeying me. And suddenly so were the other two waiters I’d suggested to. One of them pried Octavius’s hand from my wrist, placing his body between us. The other blocked his way into the kitchen. They had him surrounded and with the vampire’s need to appear the respectable human businessman in front of his customers, there was nothing he could do to stop me from walking out the front door and hailing the first cab I saw.
Not that walking out the front door was easy. I could still hear him whispering through my head, calling me back, so warm and soft, so tempting. It wasn’t until I closed the cab door that the desire to turn around and run into his arms lifted, but only a little.
“Where to, lady?” the cabbie asked.
“Il Piccolo Morso.” My head was still dizzy and the heat of the venom was still stirring through my body, making me acutely aware of the delicious ache between my thighs.
The driver wrenched his neck around, glaring at me through the thick plastic window. “Never heard of no Piccolo place.”
“The Strip District,” I said. “Eighteenth and Smallman Street.”
Chapter Five
“Let me in, Bruno. Alex is expecting me.” I held myself upright with a hand on the industrial metal railing outside Il Piccolo Morso. Bruno had watched me pull myself up the steps without so much as blinking. Even now he remained still as death, leaning on his butt against the railing, his arms folded over his chest.
He lifted his chin in a half nod. “You smell like vamp. Who’ve you been with?”
“None of your business.” I knew he probably didn’t mean it sexually, but I couldn’t help being offended as though he did.
“It is if you wanna see Alex. You under the influence?”
My brain clicked into second gear and I understood what he was worried about. With Octavius’s venom working its hedonist magic inside me, I’d been nearly helpless to refuse his psychic demands. For someone who’s been bitten, someone with less practice in the psychic arts and under the influence of a vamp, they could be made to do almost anything. Including causing harm to Bruno’s boss. He was just doing his job.
I sighed, exhausted from fending off Octavius. He was gone from my head now though. I was sure of it. “No, Bruno. I’m not under the influence. I think the drink I had at Sinners restaurant was spiked. That’s all. It’s wearing off. I’m good now.”
Bruno pushed to his feet and closed the small distance between us. He cupped my face in his hands, lifted my chin, examining my eyes. He turned my face to the side, checked one side of my neck then the other. After a second he let me go and stepped back. “Yeah. Fine. You’re not showing a mark. But you’ve still got a buzz going, so don’t go and do anything stupid.”
“Right.” Already filled my quota of stupid tonight.
He reached for the rusted metal door. As I watched, his normal stubby male fingernails elongated, turned clawlike, and hooked between wall and door. A small tug and the door swung open. I did not want to know what that was about.
I spotted Alex right away, his tousled blond mop of hair bobbing up and down above the seated customers at the bar as he hurried filling drink orders. Between heads and shoulders, I caught glimpses of his face. He was beaming, talking to club goers, laughing, even rocking to the beat of the music now and then.
He sooo did not seem like a hundred-and-some-year-old vampire. With his summer tan and bright blue eyes, he looked like he should be standing on a pitcher’s mound, ready to strike out the next batter. Dark and brooding, he wasn’t. He was young and healthy and hard bodied. And the way he moved, like water over smooth stones, grace and agility, I’d bet anything he could go all night. My belly fluttered and a smile tugged the corners of my mouth.
“Hey, barkeep, got any OJ back there?” With Octavius’s venom still warming through my system, I figured alcohol would be like adding fuel to a fire and my libido was already flaming.
Alex glanced my way at the first sound of my voice. His brows creased, his pretty eyes and flashy smile clouding a bit. He finished the drink he was making, then strode toward me, ignoring other customers snapping fingers and waving bills for his attention.
“What happened? Who’s fed on you?” He was in front of me in a heartbeat, leaning across the bar so his face was only inches from mine, totally invading my comfort bubble.
I flinched back. Then realized he was sniffing me. “What the…? Nobody. Knock it off. You’re creepin’ me out.”
Alex straightened, but his expression remained tense, concerned. “I can smell venom on you. On your breath. What happened? Whose is it?”
“First…orange juice.” My throat was dry as a desert wind, and I was still light-headed and flushed. “Won’t do us any good if I pass out.”
He grabbed a short glass from under the bar and turned to snag the jug of orange juice from the mini fridge under the center island. He poured then pushed the glass toward me. “Talk.”
I drank half of it in one gulp. “You know a guy named Octavius Perrotte? Owns a restaurant called Sinners up on Mount Washington.”
Alex stiffened, his concerned expression turning sour, like the taste in his mouth had just gone bad. “Yes.”
“Right. I’m thinkin’ he feels the same way about you.” I finished the rest of the OJ and pushed my glass out for more. “Anyway, I was cordially summoned to dinner by your old buddy, Perrotte. He sent a car. Sent this dress. The guy seriously wanted to talk to me.”
“About what?”
“You.” He blinked at that, confusion flashing behind his eyes. “Well, I mean, that’s all we ended up talking about. He asked how you were doing, how the business was going, stuff like that. He was sure you and me were…a thing. I told him we barely knew each other but I still don’t think he believed me.”
Alex’s nostrils flared and he clenched his jaws so tight I could see the muscles flexing in his cheeks. “Did he…kiss you?”
“What? No.” Offense made my voice go high. “Well, okay. Yeah. Once. But it wasn’t my fault. He drugged me. I think. Otherwise he wouldn’t have stood a chance. I just met the guy. Sheesh, what kind of women are you vamps used to dating?” Then again I’d kissed Alex the first night I’d met him. And if not for my sixth sense warning me off, I might’ve done a lot more with Octavius tonight.
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