Which meant the bitch had just threatened me.
She sighed noisily, some of the tension easing. “Yeah, this custody battle is getting really messy, and really expensive. I could use that money. I’d hate to do it to you, Willow, but I’m close to losing my daughter. My lawyer’s threatening to withdraw from my case.” She bit her lip like she was holding back a sob. Her desperation was palpable.
I knew she’d been going through an ugly divorce and custody case. Her hubby played for the Texans and was spending a nice chunk o’ change to make her look bad in court and in the media. Even though he’d met Cindy at Hades, her job as a performer here was now being slanted to make her look unfit. It was unfair. She was a great mother.
Her ass should have asked to borrow some money instead of threatening to expose me, but I had an idea. I felt sorry for her and wanted to help. It could be a win-win for us both, and certainly better than driving a wedge between our friendship or losing it altogether.
“I never said I was a vampire, Cin, but I’d like to make a deal with you. I’d prefer not to be investigated based on mere suspicions because I like my privacy. What if your problems with your husband disappeared and money was no longer an issue? Would you be willing to put this behind us?”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You didn’t say you weren’t a vampire either.” She paused as if she was considering my proposition. “Yes, I’d be willing to put everything behind us if my husband was no longer an issue. But Willow, I don’t want him dead. He’s still Lucia’s father. She needs him.”
“I understand.”
Most people believed vampirism meant soullessness, unredeemable evil. In fact, I’d grown up hearing and believing vampires were hell-bound satanic spawns. But when I got old enough to reason for myself, I’d decided that God had to have created all beings, humans and supernaturals. And if so, that meant forgiveness was available for the transgressions of each repentant, even vampires.
My mother had slapped my chap-stick off when I’d suggested that God was actually a vampire himself due to his emphasis on blood sacrifice. My dad had said I was sacrilegious and would die a horrible death and burn in hell for my heresy. Told him I’d see his hypocritical ass there.
Maybe I’d gone too far, but who were humans to judge whether another species was damned? No one could be certain about anything when it came to spirituality. We believed what we believed and prayed we were right. At least my theory gave me hope for when I met my final death. Which meant that even as a naturally vicious bloodsucker, I still followed the Ten Commandments. Meant I had to creatively come up with alternatives for getting what I wanted that absolutely did not involve killing humans.
I’d admit some days it was harder to do.
Like right now while Cindy was standing here smelling sweet with her hands on her hips making demands.
“What if he just wishes he was dead?” I said, looking at her this time.
I was going through a lot of trouble to appease her when I should have just captivated her memories of tonight’s events, erased them and gambled on how long that would last.
She quickly looked at the floor.
Ah. She’d thought about it too, that I’d use my powers of hypnosis over her brain.
Funny, she’d said she didn’t know me, but she knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t take the easiest option. The option most certain to guarantee her silence: killing her. That wouldn’t require me to trust her to uphold her end of a bargain. Didn’t require me to make a bargain at all.
But we both knew I wasn’t capable of that.
Captivation—that, I could do, except it lasted temporarily and worked differently for different people. Sure, she’d forget for a while, but I couldn’t be sure how long it would last and which memories would come back.
Making a deal for her silence was our best bet.
“I can live with that,” she said finally.
So could I. The alternative would be bad for both of us.
Chapter 4
Once Cindy left, I was on the couch alone awhile, looking around, familiarizing myself with the bedroom. Noise from the club above told me I was in the basement for the first time.
My eyesight had come back faster than my strength. Made me wonder what the hell he’d sprayed me with again. I wasn’t used to healing slowly since I’d been undead. Somehow, I didn’t think mace or pepper spray would have had this result.
I really just wanted to leave, but Franco had told me to wait for Punch. I also had unfinished business with Franco. Needed to make a deal with him for his silence as well. Probably had to beg for my job.
The room was done in all black. A king-sized bed with black sheets, no pillows centered the wall opposite me. Only other piece of furniture was the black couch I lay on and the tall halogen lamp illuminating it all. There were mirrors along the ceiling and all four walls. No windows. No pictures. No decorations. I assumed some of the mirrors opened to a closet and bathroom just as the one that opened to the entrance/exit.
The black monochrome furnishings were boring and uninspiring to the human I used to be, and just right for the side of me that was an undead nocturnal supernatural. Since I’d heard Franco had moved his residence to the basement, I figured it was his bedroom even if it was a tad impersonal.
When my strength returned, I started pacing. Not long thereafter, Punch walked in with my duffle bag as if he’d been watching on a monitor and knew I was up and about. He was so massive the bedroom immediately felt smaller.
“I’ll take you out back and drive you home,” he said in the deepest voice I’d ever heard. It was always like that.
“Thanks,” I said as I took my bag from him. “But that’s really not necessary. I can make it home fine on my own.”
Home for me was the motel down the street. Why? Because it was conveniently close to the club. Because I walked everywhere I needed to go. Easier that way, my narcolepsy and all. Wouldn’t want what happened to my beloved aunt to happen to me.
And why stay in a motel instead of a cute studio apartment? Well, I needed to remain mobile. The government took vampire extermination very seriously. Priority One. Something about vampires using their powers to gain unfair advantage in politics, sports, and every aspect of life got people anxious. Better to kill us all than risk becoming the underdog.
It was speculated that the Secretary of Defense’s wife took a vampire lover, and that actually began the anti-vamp crusade. Anyway, my point was that if VET sent someone after me, I needed to be able to take my belongings somewhere else in a hurry. Or if I didn’t have time to make a fast getaway with my possessions, I needed to be able to leave untraceable items behind and start over. My paranoia had me changing motel rooms every other month just to be safe.
Better safe than sorry.
“Franco said you’d say that. Always so tough. But I was told not to take no for an answer. He’s worried about you,” he said.
“Tell him not to worry. I walk to and from Hades every night. I’ll be fine.” Besides, I walked really fast. I could be in my room before Punch even turned the ignition in his truck.
“But no one’s tried to abduct you before. We need to be extra careful now.” He swung his neck around so his long dreadlocks landed on his back instead of down the front of his chest. Then he folded his arms. Black eyes set sternly in his dark chocolate face, as if I’d have to fight him to leave of my own accord.
I’d rather reason with him…
“He didn’t try to abduct me. He just wanted a little pussy. I just wasn’t as easy to take down as he thought I’d be.” Besides, how had my attacker planned to get me past security without being noticed? Abduction couldn’t have been his motive.
“He handcuffed you with silver, debilitated you with—from all we could tell—was simply water. He wasn’t after pussy, Willow.”
“Water?”
“Yep, that’s all he sprayed on you,” he said as he held up the tube in question. He looked meaningfully, as if
I should grasp the weight of what he wasn’t saying.
Ohhhh. HOLY water.
He nodded as understanding flooded my face. “So, you see why you…we need to be extra careful? He could be outside waiting for you. We don’t want to take that chance,” he said.
“I heard you beat him up. You think he’d come back after that?”
“All I know is he’s not our typical customer. He’ll probably try to get you again. We’d hate for him to be waiting to follow you. We have to stick together, look after each other.”
Punched reached his hand out towards me. I took it.
By “we” he meant supernaturals. He wasn’t a vampire, but he was something just as threatening to humans, and now I knew for sure Franco was too.
Tonight was full of revelations.
Guess I didn’t have to make a deal with Franco after all.
Punch led me through a corridor behind the mirrors next to the bed. We passed several doors in the corridor that were guarded with combination push-button heavy-duty mortise locks. Made me wonder whether the doors were intended to keep something or someone in or everyone else out. Then we went through a narrow concrete tunnel where I expected to see rats, hear sewage draining, and smell feces. I was pleasantly surprised. It was void of scent, smell and light.
Moonlight and dirt spilt down from the opening above when Punch lifted its hatch. He leaped upward, climbed out and reached for my hands to pull me through. I grabbed hold and was effortlessly pulled to solid ground.
For someone so huge and so strong, he was so gentle…and so warm, no, hot—really hot. I’d bet his blood was hot…
My fangs grew instantly. I growled and yanked my hands back.
He gasped, “Your eyes are glowing red.” Then his features softened. “You haven’t fed in awhile, have you?”
I shook my head. No sense denying it.
Missing a night of feeding was never a good idea, but I missed last night because my regular blood donor, Mr. Cash, had been politicking in D.C. for the past two weeks. I’d forgotten to plan a backup meal. To feed from the same patrons every night was strategic in reducing my chances of getting caught, but it also limited my options whenever a regular patron happened to be a no-show.
Without hesitation, Punch sat on the ground with his back against a tree, and leaned his head to the side. I looked around nervously. Was he doing what I thought he was doing? Offering a vein to a hungry vampire?
I looked around some more. Hades was located in Houston’s Montrose area, and we hadn’t walked in the tunnel long enough to be far away. When I looked up at the dark sky, I couldn’t even see stars, which meant we were still within the city. I closed my eyes and focused on the sound of busy streets nearby. It was only a little after midnight so bar traffic was still in full swing. We were in a wooded area, but not the woods. What if someone happened upon us?
“I’m not going to sit here forever,” he drawled. “You need to be quick about it before someone comes.”
I straddled his thick, muscular thighs and bit his neck without another thought. Hadn’t even been polite enough to ease in to it, to make him feel pleasure rather than pain as I pierced his skin. I was too hungry, too feral.
He groaned and it didn’t sound like an I’m-in-pain noise. In fact, when he grabbed my hips and pushed me into his chest and tight to his erection, I knew he wasn’t in pain at all.
Lust, hunger, passion…everything I’d felt the past few hours flooded my body at once.
I grabbed a handful of the locks dangling on his back and yanked hard, pulling his head back even further. Giving me a better angle to ride him and feed at the same time.
He growled, grinding his hips into mine as I grinded back. The friction between his jeans and the softness of my sweats made us both delirious with pleasure. As I moved my hips back and forth over and over his swollen region, his blood heated to boiling and pumped faster in my mouth. His energy soared. Mine erupted. Then we reached a peak of ecstasy. He came right before I did, howling up at the moon, his tremendous erection jerking, sending me over the edge. I kept sucking. He kept howling.
He finally had to throw me to the ground. I was taking more than a fair share of his blood, with no signs of stopping. I’d waited too long to feed. He’d tasted too good. Felt too right.
His girlfriend, Fire, was a performer at Hades too, and she was going to kill me when she found out…or at least try.
After the last of my aftershocks subsided, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and sat up. I began adjusting myself, needing to regain some sense of dignity. Thankfully, my fangs retracted. Best to put those things away.
He got up slowly, adjusted his crotch, and extended his hand to help me up.
I took it, this time with very little reaction. I was good, more than good. Withdrawing blood with my kit and drinking from vials kept me satisfied, but never full. It also kept me from killing my source, which was good for both of us. Nothing like drinking straight from a live body though. For the first time since I’d returned from living with my clan, I was fully sated.
“Thanks,” I said.
“My pleasure,” he said lazily. “Man, I’d forgotten what that was like.”
I assumed he was referring to a vampire bite. Some people became addicted to sex with vampires for that reason. After you got past the initial sting, the bite was an aphrodisiac—another reason humans wanted to kill us all. Human lovers couldn’t compete. Just ask the Secretary of Defense.
“I need to lick your neck to close the wound,” I said, hoping I’d actually be able to do that without sinking into him again.
He used his fingers to wipe blood from his neck that had already started running down his black sheer muscle shirt. Then he swayed and staggered before starting to walk through the trees. “I think I better keep you away from my neck, shorty. I already gotta figure out what to tell Fire about the come in my underwear.”
What could I say? I’m sorry? Well, I wasn’t. I was full. Finally. And I was high from the potency of his blood. I’d always heard human blood had nothing on supernatural blood in terms of power. Now I knew. Remi’s blood was comparable in taste, but not energy. I felt like singing hey-diddle-diddle and jumping over the moon.
We walked a short distance in silence until we came upon his white truck. He must have moved it because it had been in the club parking lot earlier.
He helped me in even though we both knew I didn’t need help. He was such a gentleman. Maybe I was a little sorry that I’d used him. But he’d offered.
“You think Fire will keep my secret?” I asked just as we pulled up to my motel.
I’d actually had him stop a few doors down and pretended we’d arrived right in front of my door. He’d let me feed from him, but I wasn’t ready to trust him knowing I was a vampire AND knowing where I rested during the day. That’s when most vampires were killed—in broad daylight...in their own lairs. You never could be too careful.
“She keeps mine,” he said, like that solved everything.
“But she’ll be pissed with me after what just happened.” Why did he have to be one of the honest guys and tell her about me at all?
“I think she’ll understand just this one time. Anything beyond this and I’m moving to Canada to get away from her wrath.”
“Well, thanks for the ride.” And the blood. And the orgasm.
This was probably a bad time to tell him one of the effects of me having his blood was us being more drawn to each other. Even though we hadn’t actually had sex, having a metaphysical relationship with him was potentially more damaging than a physical one.
No good deed goes unpunished.
But I wasn’t his first vampire. He knew the deal.
“Wait, I’m coming in to make sure no one’s lurking,” he said.
A vivid image of Punch lying across my bed, exposing his neck for me to feed came to mind. I licked my lips. My cookie tightened involuntarily. The thought of him in my room was arousing. I’d never had a visitor. Not ev
en Max had been here in the flesh.
Punch had said Fire would forgive just the one time. This would be pushing it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why don’t you just watch as I make it to the door? Don’t get out unless you see I need help.”
He grunted then started grinding his jaw, but he didn’t get out. I jumped out while I had the chance and quickly scanned the lot.
Hair on the back of my neck stood up. I had a strange feeling someone was waiting for me. I sniffed the air, recognized the smell. That motherfucker! How did he know where to find me?
I smiled at Punch, pretending everything was cool. He needed to get back to Hades, back to Fire.
“I think the coast is clear,” I said. Like hell it is. “You can go now.”
He scanned the lot too with his enhanced senses…eyes first, then nose, then ears. He noticed people driving up, getting out of their cars. He noticed pedestrians on the sidewalk. But he didn’t notice a potential threat. Everything looked normal to him, because he hadn’t had blood from the man hiding in the bushes.
“I’ll wait ’til you get to the door, like you said.”
“Suit yourself.” I got out, waved, and made my way to room #10. Mine was actually #3.
When I got to the door, I pulled out my keycard and waved goodbye. I hoped he’d just leave. He did.
I waited until Punch had driven to the exit and turned onto the highway. Then I intentionally dropped my keycard and bent to pick it up. I knew the vehicle parked in front of me blocked the view for the man in the bushes. It was the perfect smokescreen.
Moving with super speed, faster than the eye could see, I ran to the far corner where I was well-hidden by the garbage dumpster. To anyone watching, it would have looked like I’d disappeared.
As suspected, my stalker looked around wildly. His brain couldn’t process that I was there one moment and gone the next. Then he messed up. He came from behind the bushes into the lot and light, looking around like he’d lost his poodle. I moved with lightning speed again. This time when he turned, he ran smack dab into me.
1 Dicey Grenor Page 3