After he slipped off his shirt, I took a moment to take him. His skin was tan and soft over the smooth muscles of his chest and stomach. It seemed inconceivable to me that I had ever thought anything was more attractive than him. Jack was completely perfect. A painful happiness spread over me as I thought about how lucky I was that he wanted me. I leaned over, peppering him with kisses, on his mouth, cheeks, chest, everywhere.
When my lips came to his neck, a delicious heat surged through me. I could feel and smell and taste his blood through his skin, and I remembered how wonderful it felt when he had let me drink it before. All of his love and pleasure had coursed through me, filling me with the most intense heat. It had left me dizzy and filled with ecstasy, and every other emotion paled in comparison. There was nothing in the world that felt better.
“Alice, no,” Jack breathed heavily, but he sounded reluctant to stop me. If I pushed it, I knew he would let me drink from him. It would feel almost as amazing for him as it would for me, but it was incredibly dangerous. As much as I wanted Jack, it would nearly impossible for me to stop once I got started. Even though there was a very good chance that I might kill him, it was still extremely hard for me to resist biting him.
“Sorry,” I whispered, using all my strength to pry my lips from his neck.
His hands on my back slid below my pants, pressing me even harder against him. His kisses had gotten hungrier and more aggressive, and I knew it was a battle for him to keep from biting me as well. Maybe we had reached the point where we could have sex, but sharing blood was too dangerous. It would be far too easy for me to get out of control, even if I was the one being bled. Jack started pushing down my pants, and my body started to tremble with excitement. There was this odd sense where I couldn’t believe we were really going to do this. I had spent so much time wishing and fantasizing about this moment, and now it was finally here. His lips again mine, his hands all over me, hot and strong, and I had never wanted anything more than I wanted him. I literally craved him.
I heard the bedroom door open, but it was a very secondary sensation. My hunger for Jack blotted out everything else. Fortunately, he was slightly more grounded in reality than I was, and thinking quickly, he pulled the covers up to hide me, since I was almost entirely naked. He had stopped kissing me, but there was this fog over my mind where I could still taste him. It took a moment to clear, and then I realized that Milo and Bobby were standing in the doorway to Jack’s room. Bobby looked embarrassed, but Milo just looked grossed out and disapproving.
“What the hell are you doing?” I was almost screaming. In all honesty, I had probably never been as pissed at my brother as I was then. Of all the times for him to burst into a room, this had to be the worst possible timing.
“What are you doing?” Milo countered, crossing his arms firmly over his chest and glaring down at us.
Jack had moved so he was sitting up, trying to shield me somewhat, even though I had his comforter wrapped around me. I noticed Bobby sneaking an admiring glance at him, and I glared possessively at Bobby and moved so I was more in front of Jack.
“I don’t think that’s really any of your business,” I snapped.
“Whatever,” Milo rolled his eyes. “You both know you’re not supposed to be alone like this.
And for once, its not you I’m worried about, Alice. You could kill him, and he’d be happy to let you.”
His words stung as true, and feeling ashamed, I pulled the blankets more securely around me.
“Everything’s fine. Nothing happened,” Jack noticed my discomfort and tried to reassure me. He tried to rub my back, but I pulled away from him. The heat of the moment had started to fade, and I hated knowing how close I had come to hurting him just because it felt good. He sighed wearily and turned to my brother. “So, what exactly did you want?”
“We came home to tell you something, but then I heard you guys,” Milo wrinkled his nose in disgust, and Bobby managed some kind of nervous giggle. He had started chewing at his black nail polish, and when he caught me glaring at him, he cowered more behind Milo. I’m sure Milo noticed me giving him the same look, but he made no mention of it.
“So what’s this big news?” I asked, purposely sounding bored.
“Jane was at V, and she’s a blood whore!” Milo said, and I didn’t appreciate how excited he sounded about that fact.
“A blood whore?” I questioned, even though it sounded pretty self-explanatory to me, but I hoped it wasn’t.
“It’s like a whore, but with blood instead of sex, and usually there’s no monetary exchange,” Jack explained quietly. He had never liked my former best friend Jane, but he wasn’t eager for bad things to happen to her, and he knew that I still cared about her.
“Well, if there’s no money, than what is she getting for it?” I asked. Milo lowered his eyes in shame, and at first I didn’t understand. It was actually incredibly obvious, but I was still under the fog of my lust for Jack.
“They got hooked on the feel they get from having vampires drink their blood,” Jack answered. He gave me a sidelong glance, reminding me of how amazing it had felt when I had been human and I had let him drink my blood. I had thought that nothing could ever feel that good… but as I listened to the sound of his pulse beating heavily in his veins, I knew there one thing that would definitely feel better.
Licking my lips, I turned away before I let myself think about it too much.
Milo suddenly became shifty and uncomfortable, and at first, I attributed it to my fading thirst, but then I realized it was something different. A few months ago, he had been wounded trying to protect Jane and me from a couple of vampires, and he had been forced to drink her blood to compensate for a blood loss.
Well, he hadn’t really been forced. He had just been unable to resist, and it was one of the most disturbing things I had ever seen. He had been like a wild animal, and she had been moaning with pleasure. So if she was hooked on being bit, he had been the one to do it.
“Milo-” I was about to tell him that he wasn’t his fault, but Bobby had put his hand on Milo’s back, comforting. Then I narrowed my eyes at him, becoming suspicious of what exactly this kid was doing with my brother. “Wait. Is that what you are?”
“No, of course not!” Bobby protested, looking vaguely ill.
“Alice!” Milo snapped.
“What?” I wondered what I had said that was so wrong. “That’s not an unfair judgment to come to, especially after whatever it was you two were doing earlier.” Bobby’s olive skin burned red with shame, but Milo just glared at me.
“That’s a horrible thing to say to him!” Milo yelled at me.
“What?” I repeated, growing more confused.
“Imagine how you would feel if someone had called you a bloodwhore,” Jack looked at me.
There was something veiled in his eyes, and he quickly looked away. It made me think that somebody had probably called me a bloodwhore, and I wondered if that somebody had just been rescued from Finland.
“Sorry,” I mumbled without looking at Bobby. “I’m just looking out for Milo’s best interests.”
“Whatever,” Milo said, but he didn’t sound as angry as he had before. “Just get dressed, and we can talk more then. I’m not a big fan of talking to you when you’re naked.”
Milo put his arm on Bobby’s back and gently ushered him out of the room. He gave us a warning glare before closing the door behind him, meaning that we better just concentrate on getting dressed or he would bust back in. Jack and I just sat in silence for a minute, letting the weight of what we had almost done and the news about Jane settle in.
“So what exactly does being a bloodwhore entail?” I asked. I had started pulling back on my shirt, and I watched sadly as Jack did the same. “I understand the basic concept, but like… I don’t know. How does it work?” Running my fingers through my hair to smooth out the tangles, I thought of something that made my stomach twist. “I mean… you’ve had bloodwhores before, haven’t yo
u?”
“Most vampires try it once or twice at least,” Jack replied evasively. He got out of bed and readjusted his clothing, purposely avoiding looking at me. “It’s fairly common.”
“Alright.” I swallowed and remembered that I had to take it all in stride when dating a vampire. “So how do you go about that? You just… what?”
“Well, they’re usually hanging around the club. They know what the scene is.” Jack had begun pacing the room, pretending to do things like readjust a picture on the wall or move something on the night stand.
The conversation was making him uncomfortable because I had mentioned that he had done it once, and though I did my best to hide it, he could tell how much that upset me. “You can just go there and find a girl.
Or a guy. Whatever you’re into. Take them to the back room at the club or back to your place. Wherever you’re most comfortable. Then you, you know, bite them. When it’s done, you go on your way, and they sleep it off. Or do whatever they want.” Jack shrugged. “It’s pretty simple.”
“So how would Jane find out about a place like V?” I asked, trying to push past how cavalier Jack was about that.
It was probably the use of the word “whore” that made the most uncomfortable. And that I knew how amazing it felt when he drank my blood, how I could feel some of what he felt, and how he could feel everything I felt. It was the most intimate act on earth, and he had just casually done with random whores he had picked up at a bar. I swallowed hard and refused to think about it.
“If she hung around downtown long enough, and now that she knows what to look to for in a vampire, it’s only a matter of time.” He fixed a piece of tape on his Purple Rain poster, then looked back at me.
“It’s the like it is with any other drug.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked edgily.
Apprehension settled over me. As soon as Milo had mentioned that Jane had gotten involved with vampires, I hadn’t been thrilled by the idea. But I had just gotten so used to Jane being reckless and having her name associated with being a whore that I hadn’t thought much of it. If Jack was showing even a shrapnel of concern for her, it meant things were pretty bad off, and he was looking very severely at me.
“Bloodwhores are addicted,” Jack explained. “So they’ll do really dangerous things for it. I mean, letting a vampire to bite you is pretty dangerous itself, but it’s not the worst thing you can do. They’ll do riskier and riskier behavior, and even if they don’t, they’ll simply crave it more and more.
And there’s only so much blood loss the human body can take. The lifespan on a bloodwhore is fairly short.”
“You’re saying that Jane could actually die?” I sat up straighter in bed, and my mouth suddenly felt very dry.
“No. I’m saying that… unless she gets out of that lifestyle, she will die,” Jack said quietly.
Time seemed to stop for a moment. It wasn’t until somebody threatened to take her away that I realized how much she meant to me. Jane was vain and self-absorbed and a bitch most of the time, but underneath that, she had always been my friend and capable of real emotion. She had become much hotter and much cooler than me when we got to high school, but she never ditched me, even when I kind of hoped she would. No matter who was at a party or what they thought of me, Jane always brought me a long, and most of the time, she stood up for me. She tried her best to make me as cool as her, but I fought it every step of the way. When we had been attacked by vampires a few months ago, she had even saved my life. She had just never believed that she more than a pretty face or stronger than being a stuck-up bitch.
And even through all the terrible things she had done, she had been my best friend since I was seven years old, and she had been there for me as much as she was capable.
Now she was in serious trouble, and it was all because of me. Funny. I had always thought she was the one who would be the death of me.
“We have to get her,” I said dully. Speaking had somehow woken me up, and I jumped off the bed, scrambling to pull on my jeans as I did. Panic had started taking over and I was flying around the room like a maniac. Grabbing my shoes and my brush and then a sweater and then thinking that I had to do something to my hair before we went to a club or Jane wouldn’t even speak to me… and then Jack grabbed my wrist.
“Alice. Slow down,” Jack said firmly. “She’s not dying right now.”
“You don’t know that!” I snapped.
“I’m pretty sure if she was in immediate danger, Milo wouldn’t have left her there,” Jack pointed out reasonably.
“Maybe.” I felt my heart slowing a little bit. Milo had just seen her, and if things were really bad, he would’ve convinced her to come back here, or at the very least insist that we hurry after her.
He hadn’t sounded that worried, though, so things couldn’t be that terrible. “But we still have to go get her.”
“I agree, but you need to take a minute to calm down. We’re going to a vampire club, for the first time since you turned, and it would be helpful if you were in control of yourself.” Jack smiled wryly and touched my cheek gently.
“Okay,” I nodded and looked down at myself. The casual jeans and top combo I was going for would never work at a club, or at least Jane would say it didn’t. If were going there, I might as well fit in. “I’m gonna go get ready. Why don’t you let Milo know, and then we can get out of here?”
“Sounds good.” Jack kissed me gently on the lips, sending tingles through me so much that I almost forgot about Jane. Fortunately, he remembered and made the kiss much briefer than I would’ve liked.
“Everything will be okay.”
I smiled like I believed him, and then I went into the closet to look for something to wear.
This life had afforded me lots of very fancy outfits, but it was hard to pick out one. What exactly did one wear when going to rescue their former best friend from an underground vampire club?
Chapter 11
Milo and Bobby rode in Mae’s Jetta down to the club, since Jack thankfully wouldn’t let him drive the Lamborghini. Still, it did little to ease my nerves knowing he was driving. Jack was a notoriously speedy driver, but the trip downtown had never seemed to take so long. Since it was after two in the morning, most of the clubs and bars had let out and cleared out, and Jack easily found a parking spot a block away from V. Milo pulled up behind us a minute later, meaning that he had been speeding as well. I considered launching into a speech about the importance of driving safely, but then I saw a vampire walking towards us.
After becoming a vampire, other vampires are a lot easier to spot. The number one give away is their heartbeat, which is always the first thing a vampire notices about any living creature. A vampire’s heart beats much slower and much quieter than a human could and still walk around. The one walking towards us was tall and slender and pale, reminding me very much of the way Tim Burton would design a vampire, and the human girl he had at his side looked even shorter and chubbier than she actually was in comparison to him.
His skin almost glimmered white in the street lamp, and hers had a blotchy ashen quality to it, a symptom I associated with recent blood loss, and her eyes were glassy with overly dilated pupils. Her Tim Burton companion was leading her along carefully to keep her from stumbling or simply passing out right there, and while he looked happy, there was an offhand way that he treated her. Like a dog walker who had no real interest in dogs. Or more accurately, like he was leading a cow to the slaughter.
I shivered involuntarily, and she smiled dazedly at me, her pudgy cheeks dimpling. She couldn’t be more than sixteen herself, if that, and I fought the urge to steal her away from him. He had already drank from her, and she wasn’t dead, so that was a good sign. He wouldn’t be eager to part with her, though, and even if I could get her away, she wouldn’t appreciate it, and it would be at the expense of creating a new vampire enemy. Besides that, the horrible truth of it was that this was the way of life. My way of life. Vampires
are going to drink from people, and at least this way they’re both willing participants. This is probably the best I can hope for.
“Come on,” Jack said quietly, putting his hand on my back. He saw me watching after the vampire, and while he empathized with her like I did, he knew there was nothing we could do for her.
Besides, we had more pressing issues on hand. “We should get going.”
“Yeah, come on. Before Jane leaves,” Milo agreed. He had taken Bobby’s hand and started walking ahead of us.
Milo turned off of Hennepin Ave onto a darkened street. The nearest streetlamps had gone out, and I suspected that was a constant occurrence. Vampires liked night as dark as it could be, which was why the doorway of the club was hidden on the darkest street in Minneapolis. Bobby gripped onto Milo more tightly, probably because he couldn’t see where he was going and didn’t want to trip over anything.
Jack and I followed directly behind them, and Milo glanced back once at us before opening a nondescript door.
The bouncers were all but blocking the door. They were two massive vampires, and they barely looked at any of us, but I saw one of them sniff at Bobby. The movement was too small for his human eyes to catch, but Milo glared at him. We squeezed in between to them to the narrow hall lit by a single red bulb, and I saw Bobby cling onto Milo even tighter, and I remembered why.
At the end of the narrow hall, there was a rather steep set of cement stairs leading down into what appeared to be black nothingness. The only light in the stairway came from the red one upstairs. It was more than enough light for me to see the way down, but Bobby went down them slowly and carefully, and Milo kept his hand on him to catch him if he fell. The last I had been here, I had been human, and I had been terrified that I would plummet to death at the bottom of the steps.
As soon as we had opened the doors upstairs, I had been able to hear the faint sound of the music, but I’m sure that Bobby was just starting to hear it when we hit the landing. The narrow hall went on forever, but we stopped at a pair of massive doors. Jack pulled them open, bathing us with a blue light that was almost blinding after the darkness of the hall. I’m sure to all the people dancing inside, it seemed dim and reasonable for a club, but it was a different story for us.
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