Queen of the Night Time World

by Kristen Strassel

  Her eyes glowed with desire. “Different. The people who live in that Realm believe in magic, but they fear it. Gabriel’s a god, and I’m not sure what that made me. My job was to seek out impending threats to the Realm and stop them before they became a problem.”

  “Kind of like you were supposed to do with me.”

  “Exactly. Doesn’t matter how good people have it, darkness can smudge the soul.” Rainey spoke like she was having a vision. She chuckled. “It was a lot easier to take care of the problem and move on when you weren’t involved. I used to do this stuff all the time, before I got stuck on my last assignment.”

  “I don’t think you got stuck. I just needed a little extra attention.” Rainey knew exactly what I needed. “And you succeeded. Things were good until you left. Then everything fell to shit.”

  “Yeah.” Rainey picked up her head and gazed past me. “Shouldn’t it be light out already?”

  “It’s been gloomy for days. Like it’s about to downpour any second.” I rolled over and checked the window. I’d been so in the habit of closing the blinds in case Blade slipped in... I gasped. “Blade has a key to that room.”

  He’d be picking Callie out of his teeth if he came back this morning.

  “Of course he does.” Rainey rolled her eyes and my heart broke for her. “It’s out of our hands, Holly. You have to make peace with the consequences of your actions.”

  “The consequences of my actions?” Once the flash of anger faded, I understood what she meant. I invited danger in every facet of my life. “Is this the part where you tell me I’d do better if I managed my expectations? Made sacrifices? Because fuck that. It’s not who I am.”

  “I’d never tell you that. That’s what I love about you.” Any rage she harbored toward Blade faded, and no one else existed outside of this bed. “Your power isn’t your fire, or time travel. It’s temptation.”

  Rainey had no plans of making sacrifices or managing her expectations that night. I led her straight into the thing that she loved about me most. Temptation. She’d spent her time in Gabriel’s Realm judging wrong and right and stopping people from giving into this very urge. I wanted to ask her about the beds, the giant orgy in the front room, but as her lips moved against mine, I fell into a place that only existed when the two of us were together.

  We stripped off our clothes before getting into bed. Under the circumstances, we hadn’t thought to pack a bag, and wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to do it. Her hands roamed over my body and she moaned against my lips. She changed since she left. Or maybe I hadn’t appreciated what I had at my fingertips. She wasn’t as soft as she was before, and she was absolutely irresistible, like she was giving me a taste of my own medicine. I wouldn’t think about the consequences. Not now, not ever. All I wanted was Rainey. I didn’t care what she cost.

  I pushed her on to her back and straddled her. Neither of us made a move. I drank in this moment—the one when I got Rainey back. I plucked her away from all the bullshit and convinced her to come back to me. Temptation. Destruction. Fire. We balanced each other, and our energy sustained this Realm. Without her, I’d self-destruct. I had no limits and I wasn’t interested in setting any. Rainey smoothed my edges and kept me from harm.

  “Why did you come back with me?” The words were little more than a breath against her skin. I could only restrain myself for so long. I had her back. I wouldn’t waste a moment of this second...okay, third chance.

  She knotted her fingers in my hair as my lips moved down her body. Goosebumps blossomed on her skin when I scraped my teeth against her. I’d drunk Rainey’s blood, and it made me better, but I wouldn’t do that tonight. I wanted to give something back to her, to make her understand how much better she made my life. Made me.

  “Life is boring without you,” she said.

  I rolled back, waiting for her to say more. Her nipples strained against her skin, begging for my touch. She closed her eyes, her teeth settling on her bottom lip. But they snapped back open when I slipped my fingers between her legs. “You came back because you were bored?”

  “No.” She sucked in a breath as her hips bucked off the mattress. I didn’t let up on the spot, circling it harder and faster. “Stop that for a second and I’ll answer your question.”

  “Do you really want me to stop?” Or was she just bored.

  “No.” She let out another moan. “But I know you want a better answer than that.”

  Rainey was always right. Some things never changed. My fingers glistened as I splayed them on her stomach. She had yet to recover from my touch, which made me think she’d abstained from participating in Orgyville.

  “Because you make my life worth living.” She pulled my hand up to her mouth and sucked the taste of herself off my fingers. So hot. “You are my favorite deadly sin.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “You really think it could be a trap?” I asked, riding shotgun on the way to Embrace. I was too nervous to drive, and Rainey was on a mission. Rachel had made a threat on her life when she stole Gabriel’s powers. “Like Gabriel knew what we were up to before Rachel got to him?”

  “He Sees everything. It’s his power. Or it was.” Rainey frowned. “If Rachel’s figured that out, we’re so screwed.”

  “Gabriel was interested in vampires long before we showed up. Tristan says he was instrumental in forming Immortal Dilemma and the TV show. He encouraged them to be as wild as they could. Kind of like what goes on in the other Realm.”

  “Gabriel never intended to destroy this Realm. But he didn’t plan on the vampires becoming so powerful. Immortal Dilemma was a last-ditch effort for him. To see if people would stop hiding behind their hang-ups and let themselves feel pleasure, instead of being assholes to each other. He thought the show would be enough to cancel out...this.”

  It was a failed experiment. “What did he say when Callie killed guys in the band?”

  “That’s when shit hit the fan.” Horns honked as Rainey hesitated in an intersection. “Things look different around here. Like, not nice.”

  Embrace wasn’t in a bad part of town. But now, For Rent signs outnumbered business signs, and we both screamed when a discarded newspaper flew at the windshield. Vampires wouldn’t kill us, but litter might. Rainey got rid of it with a swipe of the wipers.

  “This is the future I travelled to.” I hadn’t realized how fast things had progressed. “The energy shortage. It’s not a kind death. It’s slow and it hurts.”

  “Yeah. It gives you a chance to think about where you went wrong, but takes away all the tools to fix it.” Rainey pressed her lips together. “But we have those tools. We can fix this.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. We had no idea what we would walk into. A hostage situation, with Gabriel’s thugs and the vampires that Rachel collected? Or the same scenario without Team Gabriel. Or worse.

  “Nothing’s guaranteed.” Rainey pulled into the parking lot of Embrace. It was early in the evening, and it was mostly empty.

  I hadn’t told Rainey everything since she’d been back. We got sidetracked by the horror of Callie and Tristan, and the sheer need to be together. We had to do our part to create good energy, and prove science wrong. The quality hadn’t changed. It was better than ever.

  Rainey narrowed her eyes at me as I turned toward her in the passenger’s seat. I took a deep breath and knotted my fingers in my lap. I might be Rainey’s favorite sin, but it didn’t stop my bad decisions from complicating matters.

  “Rachel and I talked about working together for a minute. The vibration that had led me to the other Realm faded, and I was scared I’d never get back to you. I panicked. I started looking for spells to get us both there. For my own sanity, I convinced myself Gabriel was the only thing keeping you away from me—”

  “He was.” Rainey sighed. “That probably explains my trashed supply closet.”

  “Right? I was going to try to project the spell that you used to turn yourself into Callie, and to make yourself lo
ok like that.” Absolutely gorgeous. “Although I’m dying to know what you really look like now.”

  I’d been in love with a figment of my imagination for over two hundred years. It wasn’t her appearance, it was all the other stuff. Her mind, heart, and soul. Her unwavering belief in me. If it weren’t for her love, I wouldn’t exist.

  “This is me,” she said with a laugh. “Sorry if that disappoints you. So, did you cast the spell?”

  “If disappointed means, can’t take my eyes off you because you’re stunning, then yeah, color me disappointed.” I gave her a once over for good measure. Her cheeks flushed, and I could make fire rise inside of Rainey, too. “I never had a chance to cast the spell. But I found another one and, had we cast it, it would’ve made her more powerful.”

  “Do you think she figured that out and that’s why she took matters into her own hands?”

  “It’s possible.” I racked my brain, trying to remember how much of my plan I shared with Lennon. If Rachel could read her mind, she had the inside track on me, too. She wasn’t my creator, but the Cash connection was strong and evil. I wished I had that power, because payback was a bitch. “I’m not sure how much she can read my mind, or if she got her hands on your books. Before you panic, there’s good news, too. I found a second spell that should give her a taste of her own medicine.”

  “To Separate a Witch from Her Powers.” Rainey grinned. “I wrote that as a panic button and I’ve never had a reason to cast the spell.”

  “Can you do it without your supplies?” Once we got the show open again, my entire next paycheck would be dedicated to restocking Rainey’s magic stash.

  “I’ve been planning on it the whole time.” She leaned in for a kiss. “Come on, let’s head into the club and see what we’re up against.”

  THE BAR WAS EMPTY. A nervous-looking bartender with a nasty bite on her neck, and a few men with hungry eyes following her every move were the only ones at the bar. A couple of them turned as we walked by, their mouths watering with every frenzied thump of our hearts. Rainey clutched my hand. It had been a while since she’d been up close and personal with real danger, and I’d forgotten how unnerving it was to be surrounded by people who craved the thing that kept us alive.

  The last time the two of us were in this office, it was to proposition Blade for a threesome because I needed my fire. At the time, it was the end of the world if I couldn’t step onstage, because I couldn’t bear to live without a cheering crowd. This time, as I approached the office, I fought for the people who came to see me. It was only a matter of time before the bloodsuckers ran out of donors at Embrace and moved over to the Alta Vista. Maybe it had already happened. We segregated ourselves by closing the show—no contact with the fans. It was a dangerous situation for all of us.

  “Shouldn’t we knock first?” Rainey asked as I put my hand on the knob of the office door.

  “It’s Blade’s office.” I wouldn’t go as far as to say that entitled me to knowing his business. When we fixed this, there couldn’t be any more limits. Either I was in a relationship with both Rainey and Blade or I wasn’t. I hadn’t been fair to anyone, including myself.

  “Whoever is in there will be a lot more cooperative if we knock first.” She hadn’t underestimated the magic of manners.

  No one answered the door. No big surprise there. “Can I kick it down now?”

  “Try the knob.” Rainey grinned.

  The door was unlocked. I braced myself for what I’d see inside.

  “Holy shit,” Rainey said. Ryder, Josiah, as well as Adam and Tommy—the rest of The Afterlife band— were slumped in chairs and wrapped in chains. Any exposed skin was covered in blood, some of it fresh. Embrace always stunk, but a cloud of desperation hung over this room. I rushed to Ryder and Tommy, the two closest to me.

  “Hey.” Asking if they were okay was pointless. “How bad is it?”

  Ryder groaned. I hadn’t realized with all the gore that he’d been gagged. My brain could only process so much at once. Rainey was one step ahead of me, untying the filthy rags that silenced the rest of the band.

  “Bloody hell,” Tommy said. “That bitch drained us.”

  “Rachel did it,” Ryder clarified, closing his eyes and swooning. “She told us to trust her.”

  “You should know better by now.” I rattled the chains, dropping them to look through the desk drawers for keys.

  “She took them with her,” Josiah said. I felt bad for him, because he was totally cool. I never understood how he got mixed up with her.

  “Where did she go?” I asked.

  “Fuck that, lovie. We need blood, or we’ll be dead before you track her down. For real,” Tommy said.

  Rainey looked at me. “We shouldn’t feed them.”

  “What the fuck?” Ryder rattled his chair. His eyes glowed red, but he barely had the strength to keep them open. “We were fucking there for you when you passed out on stage, Holly. You might not be a vampire, but you’re part of this clan. You better act like it.”

  “Let me finish.” Rainey grabbed a handful of the chains that bound Josiah, sliding him closer to her easily. She had to be careful. There was nothing stopping him from going in for a bite. “Holly and I are the only two supernaturals associated with the clan that have our full power. You were weakened when you fed Blade. Holly was the only one who recovered. We can’t help you if we succumb to the same weakness. If there are donors here, we’ll bring them in. Otherwise, we’ll get the other vampires to do it.”

  “Why will they listen to you?” Josiah squinted. He looked mean, even though he probably just couldn’t see without his glasses.

  “Because she’s The Dominia.” I smiled at Rainey, never feeling more love or pride for her. She was the queen of the night time world. “She decides who lives and dies.”

  Tommy whistled low. “Well, I say we listen to the lass, then.”

  Rainey didn’t have to tell me what to do. I ran out to the bar, grabbing the arms of the nearest vampires. They didn’t put up much of a fight, since my hand burst into flames when they pushed me away. If they were regulars at the club, they’d seen enough scary shit to know better than to tempt fate.

  Returning to the office with two vampires, a donor, and the bartender, no one had to tell them who was in charge. They fell to their knees in front of the bound vampires and held out their arms. It was brave of them; there was no guarantee their good deeds would go unpunished.

  “There’s got to be a wire cutter somewhere,” Rainey said when she came closer to me. Her statement was punctuated with the slurps and groans of the blood exchange. We should’ve put the music on because it was nauseating.

  Her questions snapped me back from the queasiness. “The storeroom? Behind the bar?”

  “Behind the bar.” The bartender’s voice was raspy, and she had a hard time holding her head up. “There’s a drawer full of weapons.”

  Lennon helped us out after all. That had to be her doing. I didn’t know what any of that stuff looked like so I pulled the entire drawer out and brought it back into the office.

  Ryder smirked when I came back with the junk drawer. I dropped it at his feet, and the vampire who fed him grabbed the cutters and handed them to me.

  I hooked them onto a link and snapped Ryder free, and then repeated the motion assembly line-style. The donors in front of them, human and vampire alike, collapsed to the ground as the captives shook free of the iron and stood. My heart pounded. We could lose control here. The guys would have an agenda, too, and it wasn’t necessarily kicking Rachel’s ass and getting back on stage.

  “When did you last see Blade?” I asked. I was disappointed, not surprised, that we didn’t find him with the band. It would’ve been too easy to find Rachel lording over her prisoners.

  “Couple nights ago.” Ryder wiped blood from his chin and licked his fingers clean. He was still hungry. “He went looking for you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The answer was Blade never made
it to me, which should’ve negated the where, why, and how. Instead, it made it even more important. “How long ago?”

  The guys looked at each other. The donors crawled out of the room without waiting to be dismissed. Tommy smirked at me. I got the heebie jeebies when he gave the same look to fans backstage. “Forgot to charge my phone, lovie. Bleeding out is distracting.”

  “Recently, then,” Rainey said.

  Fuck. “If he went to my hotel room last night...” I didn’t want to imagine the scene, him walking in on an already wrecked Callie. I pulled my phone out of my purse, relieved and sick to my stomach at the same time that Lennon hadn’t messaged me. No news didn’t seem like good news.

  I had the spins. Our plan of save everyone was easy in theory, but no one survived an attack without an agenda. Not me, not Rainey, not my bandmates. “Where can you guys go that’s safe to recover?” I asked.

  Ryder shrugged. “I’m going home.”

  “Terrible idea.” Rainey shook her head. “It’s too far away. We need to stick together. Strength in numbers. Come to the Alta Vista.”

  I wouldn’t question her methods, because I never had the best judgment, and Rainey with power was smoking hot. The Alta Vista was dangerous. It put us closer to a powerless Gabriel, who would be wild with anger and search for any way to take back what was his. Rachel made his home her playground. None of us stood a chance between Gabriel’s poison and Rachel’s wrath.

  I grabbed Josiah’s arm. “Are you getting messages from Rachel?”

  Rainey put her hand out. “Give me your phone.”

  He shook his head, but it was his only protest before handing it over. My heart hurt for him. He had loved Rachel, and she left him half dead.