Heartless (Crossbreed Series Book 9)

by Dannika Dark

  “Because I have a feeling that the furry guy over there wants him more than we do. If you take care of the Lone Musketeer, the furry guy will take care of Romeo. Clyde, after you take down Miami Vice, go for Vin Diesel. I’ll take care of Bon Jovi.”

  Simone blinked. “Who?”

  I grinned at her. “You’re kidding me, right? ‘Living on a Prayer’? You’re the one who started the celebrity look-alike contest.”

  Claude’s eyes narrowed. “He gutted a man.”

  I tapped my wrist. “Time’s a-ticking.” I flashed to the opposite side of the room and stopped behind the deranged rock star look-alike.

  Like the angel of death, he indiscriminately selected his next victim, which happened to be a short-haired woman. He swung his fist in a sweeping motion, and a narrow line of blood appeared on her neck. She reached for the bleeding wound and then looked at her bloodstained hands. My heart sank, but then she suddenly grabbed the hands of the man next to her, and blue light flashed between their palms. The bleeding on her neck stopped, and while she could have blasted her attacker, she fled. Not every Mage knew how to fight.

  I grinned mercilessly at the realization that Mr. Rockstar wasn’t a Mage. Had he been, he would have blasted everyone with energy or flashed after the woman. My fangs ached, but I locked up my Vampire. It was time to handle this situation like a Mage.

  He slowly turned until his eyes locked on mine. The short blade of a bloody push dagger protruded between his index and middle fingers.

  I sharpened my light. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

  A stream of words flew past his lips, but they sounded Latin. It was as if his mind and body had disconnected, and there was nothing coherent in the depths of his soulless eyes.

  When he lunged at me, I hopped onto a coffee table and then jumped behind him. Though I could have blasted him with energy, why not make this fun? I grabbed a beer bottle and smashed it over his thick skull. He staggered for a moment before spinning around and headbutting me in the stomach like a bull. The air punched out of my lungs as I toppled over a chair and hit the ground. Staring up at the dark ceiling, I gasped as the worst kind of agony suddenly tore through my body—as if lions were feasting upon me. He forced sensory magic through my hands, and I experienced all the terror and pain of a victim being mauled and eaten by lions. Each time I closed my eyes, gory images that seemed real filled my head.

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to run and blast the imaginary lions with energy.

  Still muttering in Latin, he backhanded me. When he raised his right arm, the blade shimmered in his hand. I threw up my arms in a crisscross motion seconds before he swiped at my neck. Pain lanced my left forearm.

  “Get the hell off me!” I angrily thrust my legs upward and then flipped him onto his back.

  I bit his arm, and the blade fell out of his hand and skittered across the floor when he swiped his arm upward to get away from my choppers. Though his long hair curtained his face, I could see his eyes closing as he continued muttering Latin. This guy was in another world. Straddling him to make sure he didn’t go anywhere, I turned away from the wall to see what was going on.

  Simone had teamed up with the furry customer as they circled the crazy Mage with the broken beer bottle. Gold lights showered them in an open area near a gilded cage. She threw some kick-ass punches, but these men were high on magic and difficult to control or predict.

  Across the way, what remained of the crowd scattered like leaves in the wind. From a crouched position by a cluster of chairs, Claude slowly raised his head, his lips dripping with blood. He’d bitten the Mage, who was lying motionless beneath him.

  Between Simone and Claude was the red sofa where Romeo was having the sex of his life. They were both nude from the waist down, and he pounded into her as if his life depended on it.

  I winced when fire seared the flesh away from my skin. The pain intensified, and when I closed my eyes, I stood on a pyre, flames dancing at my feet and scorching my lungs.

  The Sensor, now lucid, pushed dirty magic into me through my upper thighs. I punched him in the face and then seized his wrists, slamming his hands against the floor. When our palms locked, I juiced his energy to dangerously low levels. “How do you like that? Huh? I can make your toenails hurt.” Once he was weak enough, I blasted him so hard that I smelled burning hair. “Lights out.”

  His eyelids fluttered and his chest heaved. When he finally lay motionless beneath me, I let go and took a breath. Holy crap. His energy was so vile that I doubled over and retched. I still had intermittent pain from the lion attack and torching, and the whole room was vibrating because of it. I scooted back and leaned against a pillar.

  Flynn hovered. “Are you all right?”

  Just then, Romeo and the woman sang out an orgasmic duet.

  “We’re going to have to burn that sofa,” Flynn muttered.

  The furry-chested boyfriend had fled the scene, and we were finally getting the upper hand. Claude pinned the bald Mage down while Simone struggled to get the Lone Musketeer under control as he waved the broken bottle at her. There were lingering spectators, but most had put distance between themselves and the chaos. A few were sitting at the bar, enjoying their drink as if nothing was happening. The music still played, but all the dancers were helping to keep the crowd away. A few people on Flynn’s team were cleaning the tables and chairs where dirty magic had spilled.

  Ready to end this, I stalked behind Simone’s foe, locked my arm around his neck, and swept his feet out from beneath him. He dropped like a stone, and I wrested the makeshift weapon from his hand, cutting my own in the process.

  Simone pounced on him like a lion and then slammed her hands against his chest. As an ominous red glow lit beneath her palms, I turned and walked away. I didn’t want to hear his screams in one ear and the cries of pleasure in the other. After crossing behind the bar, I reached for the bottle of tequila I’d hidden on a shelf. Bad energy coursed through me—Sensor energy. My arm was still bleeding, my eye swollen, and I couldn’t be certain if I’d lost a contact during the scuffle. I wrapped a towel around the cut to stanch the bleeding. The cut on my hand was superficial and had already stopped bleeding, so I wiped it off with a rag while watching Flynn and his men hauling bodies toward the back of the club. The servers righted the chairs while the dancers got back to dancing.

  Officially off the clock, I poured myself a double.

  “That was some show. I have to admit, half the fun of coming here is watching how well the bartenders handle the disorderly.”

  I looked up at Mr. Crawford, who was combing his dark grey hair. I used to think guys like him were too sophisticated for clubs like this, but nothing surprised me anymore.

  “You want a drink? I’m about to take off.”

  He licked his bottom lip while sliding me a business card. “If you want to earn extra money, give me a call.”

  I discreetly took the card and stuck it inside my shorts. “I’m free now. We can talk outside.”

  A smile curved up his cheek. “Clean yourself up. Get some sleep. Then call me.”

  Flynn appeared at the bar. “You all right?” He gave Crawford a long look that made me uncomfortable.

  Mr. Crawford inclined his head and left.

  Flynn watched him sit down by one of the caged dancers. “What did he want? Because it wasn’t a drink.”

  “Nothing.”

  “You should stay away from him.”

  I wrapped my fingers around my glass. “Why?”

  He rested his elbow on the bar and cast a critical gaze at Crawford. “Slander is against the law. Just trust me on this one.”

  I knocked back my drink. “I’ve had enough for the night.”

  “I wish I hadn’t been so bloody busy tossing everyone out. I would have loved to see all of it.”

  While Flynn rambled on about the fight, my body flushed all over. An unstoppable heat pulsed through me, but it was nothing like the fire that burned me ear
lier. This was different.

  Sexual.

  Intense.

  And it was building.

  “You look flushed,” he said.

  A relentless throbbing ached between my legs. The leather bra was suddenly making my nipples sensitive, and all I could think about were visuals of that couple having sex, of someone touching me, licking me, doing sinful things to my body.

  As I moved to set my glass in the sink, my knees buckled, and I dropped to the floor. Being on all fours didn’t help either, because all I wanted was for someone to come up and take me from behind.

  “Fuck,” I whispered. “What’s happening to me?”

  “Robin!” Flynn darted behind the bar and knelt beside me. “Did you lose too much blood?”

  Blood? What blood was he talking about? I no longer felt the gash on my arm, the bruises on my knuckles, or even my swollen eye beneath my mask.

  I began rocking back and forth as if an invisible man were penetrating me.

  “Uh, Robin?” Flynn took my arm to help me up.

  I lowered my head to his hand and smelled his skin. Dark desire consumed me, and I moaned.

  “Simone!” Flynn yelled. “Get the bloody hell over here!”

  Hearing his panic made me pull myself up. “I need to go,” I whispered. But when I took a step, I collapsed in his arms.

  And he felt so… damn… good.

  I toddled against the bar and knocked over a beer bottle. All I could do was lean over the bar and grip the other side.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Simone asked.

  I tried to look, but it was as if I were watching television and they didn’t exist.

  Simone rested her hand on my arm, and her eyes widened. “Who touched her?”

  Flynn shook his head. “No one. She was talking to me one minute, and the next she’s on the floor, begging for it. I get that a lot, by the way.”

  When Simone touched me again, she hissed and clutched her hand to her chest. “What was she doing before this happened?”

  “Talking. Drinking.”

  “Drinking what?”

  He bent over and dipped out of sight. Then he set my empty glass on the bar.

  Simone lifted to her nose and sniffed it. She touched the inside, but there was no reaction until she licked her finger. Then she flew toward the sink and rinsed her mouth out.

  With my cheek against the bar, I closed my eyes as carnal images filled my head. It was as if I could feel every experience at once. There was no resisting the desire that clutched me in its arms. Shutting it off was an exercise in futility, and my sexual appetite was growing by the second. Behind my flushed chest, my heart raced like a hummingbird.

  Simone huffed. “Where did this bottle come from?”

  Then I heard the glug-glug sound of liquid going down the drain.

  “The whole damn bottle,” she said grimly. “And she had a glass? I wouldn’t even serve a thimbleful of that swill. Someone’s going to get fired for this, and it’s not me.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean, Flynn?” She chucked the bottle into the trash.

  “The new girl’s cutting in on your tips. You didn’t like Lizzy either. For that matter, you didn’t like Roe.”

  “If you think I had something to do with their disappearance, you can kiss my ass.”

  “Maybe Rena’s selling on the side.”

  “It takes a powerful Sensor to put that kind of magic in a whole bottle. Rena’s weak; that’s why she has fewer customers.”

  I started making out with the bar. My tongue polished that wood like it was Christian’s cock. If there was a tiny voice in my head trying to reason with me, someone had gagged it.

  Flynn pulled me off the bar and onto the floor. “We can’t let anyone see her like this. How long does it take to wear off?”

  “You’re asking me something I don’t know.”

  “You’re a Sensor. This is your specialty.”

  “Dark magic isn’t my specialty, and I don’t know how much she drank.”

  Standing next to me, Simone looked like a skyscraper, and all I could see were her beautiful, dark legs. I rolled to my side and pressed my lips against her ankle. The urge to taste her blood hit me hard, but I managed to keep my fangs retracted.

  How long would that last? I was unraveling with each passing moment.

  Claude craned his neck and looked down at me from across the bar. “My nose is burning. What’s wrong with that female?”

  Simone threw my glass into the trash. “She drank pure sensory magic. Undiluted.”

  “And a lot of it,” Flynn added. “The sex stuff.”

  “You can’t let her walk home in this condition,” Claude growled.

  Simone stepped away from me and leaned against the bar. “Hey, new guy. Do you know where she lives? Because none of us do.”

  He mashed his lips together.

  “Get back to your tables and let us handle this,” she ordered him. “Flynn, pick her up.”

  “And do what?”

  “We’ll put her in room twelve until it wears off… or closing time. Whichever comes first.”

  “Something tells me she’ll be coming first,” he muttered, hoisting me to my feet.

  I moaned against the feel of his hard body and clutched him to me.

  “Someone’s feeling randy.” He led me away from the bar. “Stand back,” he barked at a man encroaching on our space. “Unless you want vomit on your shoes, clear a path for the sickly woman.”

  Flynn dragged me through the club and down a hall. My knees wobbled like Jell-O, and all I wanted to do was dry hump his thigh.

  Flynn stopped in front of a door with a piece of paper taped to it that said CLOSED. When he flipped the switch, red lights came on. Chains hung from the ceiling and walls, and the only furniture was a table with straps and two X-shaped pieces of equipment with cuffs for the hands and ankles.

  “Stay here.”

  When he turned to leave, I followed him toward the sound of thumping music and the pulse of raw energy.

  “Oh no you don’t.” He pushed me back.

  Though my knees were weak, my legs insisted on taking me where the action was.

  He shut the door and blocked it. I could see why Simone would have been attracted to Flynn. He was a bit of a swashbuckler with his messy hair—the kind of kinky hair that a woman could tunnel her fingers through while riding him hard. He smelled like cheap cologne and beer, and I wondered what it might be like to kiss those tempting lips. Would he let me drink his blood? Would he let me take it from anywhere?

  Flynn gripped my arm and led me to the center of the room. “I’ve never seen a woman fight like that before. Did you have professional training?” He lifted my arm and cuffed my wrist. “You’re not supposed to drink on the clock. Don’t you want this job?” He cuffed my other wrist and gazed down into my eyes. “You’re trouble.” His fingers traced down the length of my raised arms, caressing my middle before resting on my hips.

  When the door swung open, Flynn jumped back a foot.

  “Simone said you were in here.” A flustered young man with a crew cut tilted his head to get a look at me. So did a few passing by the door. “We’re having trouble with one of those dickheads. He’s trying to get back inside, and it’s drawing a crowd of humans.”

  Flynn walked backward with a devilish grin and inclined his head. “On my way.”

  When they closed the door and left me alone, I realized Flynn had shackled me to a chain hanging from the ceiling. That also meant I couldn’t lie down or touch myself.

  I threw my head back, the heat between my legs unbearable. Seconds turned into minutes. First fifteen, then thirty. I didn’t have a coherent thought in my head. Lust had overcome me—never had I experienced anything so powerful as to take away all my rational decision-making skills. Instead of finding a way out of the shackles, I crossed my legs at the ankles and squeezed my thigh muscles in a sad attempt
to satiate my cravings. The red lighting was entrancing, and I wondered what was going on in the rooms upstairs.

  The door opened.

  Then closed.

  A man approached, and I didn’t know him. The only thing I recognized was the lust in his eyes.

  Chapter 12

  Sensory magic had reduced me to nothing but carnal desire. The chains that bound my wrists were strangely familiar, but no memories were attached to these sensations. Anytime I tried to remember anything about my life, the fever would grip me like the devil’s hand. I was no longer a vessel of memories, opinions, and thought.

  The man who entered the room wasn’t dressed like staff. His bushy black beard was a stark contrast against his shiny bald head. When he reached me, his massive biceps and shoulders eclipsed everything else. A musky scent filled my nose when he stripped off his tank top, and he cupped my breast with his large, beefy hand. Cool air hardened my nipples when he pulled my black bra down, releasing my breasts.

  “You’ve been a bad girl, and I’m gonna punish you.” He reached around and smacked my ass. “You like that?”

  I did and I didn’t. Through the haze of desire, a voice in my head was screaming no. Something about feeling pain while shackled. Something about seeing desire in a man’s eyes while I was helpless. Yet I couldn’t stop the renegade pleasure that had me writhing in anticipation as he circled behind me.

  “Take it harder,” he said, slapping my ass again.

  I cried out, because this time it hurt.

  He appeared in front of me and pinched my nipple. Tears hovered at the corners of my eyes. Was it pain or pleasure? The two sensations had merged, and I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

  He unzipped the sides of my leather shorts, exposing more skin. “You’re a little slut, aren’t you? Daddy’s gonna keep spanking you until you promise to be a good girl.” His jaw slid forward and his eyes narrowed. “Then I’m going to make you get down on your knees and suck on my dick. After that, I’m going to spank you so hard that you’re gonna scream for mercy.”

  A shadow moved behind him so fast that it was dreamlike. Christian gripped the man by the neck and hauled him away from me.