She sat on the steps to the St. Louis Cathedral in a defeated heap. Two days ago her future seemed so positive: she'd been on her way to achieving her dream career, she seemed to be gaining respect at the gallery and among the artists, she'd even met a man she could easily fall in love with — even if she hadn't realized it at the time.
But now...
Reputation in the art community was everything, and Lauren was a very influential curator, especially in New Orleans. That she now thought Kate was not only a whore, but an irresponsible whore, pretty much ruined her chances of making it in the art community. She'd better get used to waitressing, because it was now her future.
She'd have to pick up some more shifts at the café, or maybe even find another waitressing job to cover her bills. Her parents would help if she asked, but she didn't want to go that route.
Desolation washed over her. She loved New Orleans. She was just finding her way here. To have any hope of achieving an art career in the Crescent City stripped away because of a few misunderstandings seemed cruel.
Blinking through her tears, she stared out over the Square. It was one of her favorite places in the Quarter. There was always some activity here and she loved seeing the various artists cycle through. At one time she fantasized about hanging paintings on the wrought iron fence surrounding the park. It would be like having her own mini gallery. She could talk about art all day long. It was what she adored about working at La Prochaine. The mundane tasks of hanging paintings, sweeping and picking up wine and hors d'oeuvres were tolerable because she was able to share a passion with people from all over the world.
If only she'd been gifted with an ounce of artistic talent...
She thought of Slade's spectacular paintings and how beautiful they would look with the sculpture of Andrew Jackson in the background. His dark, abstract images of New Orleans would fit perfectly between the iconic portraits of jazz players on Bourbon Street and the "Be Nice or Leave" paintings.
Her phone buzzed.
Hey beautiful! The bike already misses you.
She smiled. Slade was just the medicine she needed to lift her spirits. Spending the day getting sweaty with him was the perfect way to forget her career woes. Just thinking about riding his cock while he sat on the motorcycle with the engine purring beneath them made her panties wet. She was certain his touch would erase every negative feeling in her body.
Maybe she could even give him a little of her blood. She was anxious to explore the sex and blood play she'd barely experienced at La Luxure.
With the back of her hand, she wiped the last few tears wetting her cheek. She started typing her reply text when the phone buzzed again. It was Melanie.
Can you please pick me up?
An address in the Bywater was written below. When Melanie wasn't at their house earlier, Kate assumed she'd found a guy to shack up with. She suddenly realized that guy was Lohr. She was surprised he lived in the Bywater. It was where starving artists lived, and starving artist Lohr was not, even if he kind of looked like he was.
She replied to Melanie with an, OMW, and then slipped her phone back into her purse. She'd get back to Slade right after she picked up her roommate.
Chapter Twelve
It had been so long since Kate had driven her car, she felt a little unsteady behind the wheel. The car felt like it was lurching everywhere; thirty-five mph felt like a hundred mph and Kate was truly thankful she didn't have to get on the highway.
It was such a contrast to her life growing up in Dallas, where the only place she walked was to the mailbox. College had provided some relief from driving, but it wasn't until she moved to New Orleans that her car became an asphalt paperweight.
The address Melanie sent her belonged to a small, metal warehouse building nestled among a group of rugged rusted warehouse buildings just below the Mississippi River Levee. Besides a silver Mercedes, the crumbling asphalt parking lot was empty.
She was a little surprised Lohr would operate out of an isolated warehouse. It wasn't uncommon for artists to take over these abandoned buildings, but most were sculptors or artists who worked with large media. As a painter/photographer, he hardly needed the extra space a warehouse offered.
She pictured him living in the Quarter or the Garden District, not this isolated wasteland.
She pulled out her phone. I'm here. Where are you?
The responding text was almost immediate. Inside. Come in. You have to check this out.
There was no answer when she knocked on the steel door at the top of a short, concrete staircase. After glancing around to check there weren't any other entrances, she tested the handle. It was unlocked.
Tentatively she opened the door.
"Hello? Lohr, it's Kate." The door automatically closed behind her, clicking shut with enough force to make Kate jump. "Melanie asked me to pick her up here," she called into the still air.
Melanie could have given her a more specific location than "inside". A hallway stretched before her: a metal guardrail overlooking the dark, vast expanse of the empty warehouse on her right, and a row of closed doors to her left. She might not have ventured further without requesting better directions, but she could see another door which looked like an office just ahead, light glimmering through the frosted window.
There was no answer when she knocked on that door either.
"Jesus," Kate muttered as she twisted the knob open. It was another hallway. Unlike the one she'd just walked down, this was more finished, with polished concrete floors and solid walls instead of rusted metal railings and peeling paint.
"Melanie? Lohr?"
Only silence greeted her. This was ridiculous. For a moment, she thought about turning around and letting Lohr give Melanie a ride home, but she could hear music up ahead. Besides, the whole thing felt a little weird and she wasn't about to abandon Melanie to it.
And she was curious.
Fifty feet away, the hall turned and she could tell the music was coming from there. She made her way toward it, pausing as she passed a partially open door. Of the half-dozen doors she'd passed, it was the only one not securely shut. Her curiosity was overwhelming. Peering through the crack, she could see rows of pictures hanging neatly from cords.
It was Lohr's darkroom.
Glancing down the hallway in either direction and verifying it was clear, she carefully pushed open the door.
She recognized many of the photos from his collection. Doe in Field hung next to Crow on Perch. The bold, startling images gripped at her soul and she found her eyes trailing over every one. As put off as she might have been by the blood orgy last night and the man behind it, she still found his art beautiful.
With a sad smile, she turned and headed for the door. A row of photographs against the far wall caught her peripheral vision and made her pause. They weren't pictures of animals; they were people.
A quick look. That's all she'd spare.
Steps away from the photographs, shock shook her. She stared at the photo closest to her. It was Death by Fantasy. There was no denying it. The face was different, unrecognizable from the painting, but the eyes gave her away. They were even more haunted in the photo.
The model was mostly naked, and her wounds seeped with a realism that made it hard to believe it was merely makeup. While some of the blood pooled like a liquid, some of it was congealed, crusting to the skin in a thick, red paste.
There was something off about the photo, something wrong about the pose. Kate leaned closer, squinting to get a better look. It was nearly identical to the painting: the model was slumped in the chair, tilting slightly forward, her wrists to the audience...then Kate saw it. Rope. The model was propped up with rope. This was not a woman posing on her own free will. She was dead — or close to it.
No, it couldn't be. That was just a wild Internet rumor.
But as Kate's eyes scanned the other photos, the possibility became more and more plausible. Every painting in Lohr's exhibit exploring women in varying throes o
f death or near death was expressed in photographs.
Most artists painted from photos or live scenes, so it wasn't merely his having the photos that alarmed Kate; it was their stunning realism.
Oh God. Melanie.
Panic settled in Kate's gut. Scrambling to get out of the darkroom, she fell into the hallway. Pressing her shoulder to the wall, she crept carefully down the hall. The music was louder now; a deep soulful violin poured down the hallway in haunting riffs. The only movement coming from the room ahead was candlelight bouncing off the black walls. Still, she eased her body around the corner and took in the room with one eye.
It was a large living room. The furniture looked like it belonged in a medieval castle. Intricately carved wooden chairs and tables, wrought iron fixtures, heavy velvet tapestries... Kate was surprised there weren't torches on the walls.
Melanie was crumpled in the corner, blood leaking from a dozen wounds on her naked body. "Oh my God!" Kate ran to her side and knelt in a puddle of blood. She touched her roommate's face. "Melanie?"
She should have never left her with Lohr. She should have stayed at the Forever Dark Vampire Ball and made sure Melanie made it home okay. But she'd abandoned her friend to a situation Kate knew could be dangerous, especially for someone like Melanie, who was always trying to escape into a new drug. Just because Kate didn't realize Lohr was a murdering psychopath didn't make it okay.
"Melanie?" She patted her face harder. Melanie made a tiny moaning noise and Kate felt every last drop of air escape from her chest. Mel was alive, but she wasn't going to stay that way if Kate didn't get her out of there.
"I'm sure she'll be fine," Lohr's breathy whisper sounded behind her. "Or not."
Kate rose slowly, fury building in her. She should probably be frightened but she was pretty sure she could kick Lohr's ass. He probably didn't weigh much more than she did.
"What the fuck did you do to her?" she asked as she turned to face him.
He was standing about a dozen feet from her, his black silk shirt unbuttoned, revealing a lean, chiseled torso. He gave Melanie's limp body a disdainful glance. "Alas, it was not my doing."
"What are you talking about? I left her with you at Forever Dark. She's at your place bleeding all over your floor. How is it not your doing?"
Lohr took a step toward Kate. "Unfortunately, these things have a way of getting out of hand." He took another step. "Especially with women like Melanie." He closed the distance between them. Kate wasn't sure if she wanted to run, slug him, spit on him, or all of the above. "I am not interested in your friend, Kaitlyn. I brought her here with the expectation you would follow. Hers is not the blood I desire, the blood I crave." He reached out to touch a strand of hair that had come loose from Kate's bun and she jerked away. His touch was like poison. It disgusted her to think at one time she desired it.
He leveled his gaze on her. "Pity."
"I'm taking her with me," Kate told him.
He grinned. "You aren't leaving."
For the first time, fear twisted her nerves into a knotted mess. Lohr was a killer and she hadn't appreciated how dangerous he was. Maybe he wasn't huge like Slade, but he was still at least six feet tall, and as a man, automatically stronger than her. Add serial killer to the equation and the fact he was standing between her and the exit; Kate began to wonder if she would live through the night.
She quickly took in her surroundings, her mind formulating a plan even as she asked, "Why are you doing this?"
"No one questions why the lion feasts on the zebra, why question my nature?"
There was a heavy candleholder sitting on a table feet to her left. If she could grab it…
"What are you talking about?" She tried to keep her eyes on him, even as she scoped out the wrought iron holder in her peripheral.
He grinned. She hadn't appreciated how long and sharp his canines were until he whispered, "I am a vampire."
You and half this town, she thought.
But there was something about the way he said the word, vampire, that made her realize he didn't classify himself among the likes of Slade, Angel or even Hail.
"Your blood calls to me," he said, reaching forward and dragging a long, manicured nail down her neck. She resisted the urge to smack his hand away, instead trying to focus on making her escape. "In a way no blood has called to me…" She could grab the candleholder, smack him upside his model face and make a run for it. She'd probably be able to dial 911 as she was running. "...in a hundred years."
That settled it. He was completely nuts. Jerking from his grasp, she lunged for the candleholder, and in one smooth swoop, struck the back of his head with it. She didn't even check to see what the result of the strike was. Jumping over the table, she pushed her heels into the polished concrete and ran as hard and as fast as her thighs could manage.
When she rounded the corner into the hall, the skank from La Luxure was waiting for her, a short length of metal pipe in the woman's hand. Kate had barely registered the weapon when a sharp pain cracked her skull, and the concrete greeted her back with enough force every drop of air was expelled from her body.
Warm darkness immediately flooded her head. She was pretty sure her eyes were open, but the fuzzy surroundings kept blinking in and out of her vision. Skank's blurry face popped into view. As Kate weakly batted her away, the bitch just smiled and disappeared from view.
The next several minutes were a confusing jumble. Someone grabbed her wrists and started dragging her over the smooth concrete. Lights, sounds, and sensations blinked in and out of her mind. It was like being wheeled into surgery, half drugged and out of touch with reality. Kate tried to struggle against her captor but no matter how hard she tried, her body was a bag of sluggish goo, along with the brain in her head she was positive was leaking onto the floor.
She quit fighting her eyes' desire to close and the next thing she knew she was on something soft. Her right wrist and both ankles were already bound, and someone had her left wrist. She tried to pull it away, but the rope looped around her wrist only tightened further, cutting painfully into her flesh.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a woman's voice said.
With great effort, Kate turned her throbbing head toward the voice. Skank was securing the rope holding Kate's left wrist to a wrought iron post. Her eyes drifted over her surroundings. She was lying on a bed, tied spread eagle to the iron frame.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. Her voice sounded like she'd gargled milk.
Skank flopped on the bed next to her. "For some reason Master wants you."
"Lohr?"
Skank grimaced. "Master Lohr." With a disdainful eye, she looked Kate over, lifting a corner of her shirt and peering at the naked flesh beneath. "I can't begin to understand his attraction to you. Or Slade's for that matter. I don't even think your blood smells good." Skank rose. "Oh well. It is not my place to question what Master wants. At least playing with your friend was entertaining enough. You should count yourself among the lucky. Lohr considers few special enough to go to such lengths to lure here."
Kate closed her eyes and tried desperately to keep the room from swaying.
It was an impossible task. Liquid black swirled around her in a churning vortex that finally sucked her down into its inky depths.
The last thing she remembered was Lohr's soft, breathy voice cooing words she couldn't make out, a sharp pain as something pierced her flesh, and then a warm, wet mouth on her skin.
* * * *
Slade stared at his phone. Still nothing. Not only was she an hour late, but he'd sent her two unanswered texts already. He'd even called and left voicemail, which felt like complete desperation from where he was standing.
With a sigh he pocketed the phone.
Should he really be surprised she'd flaked out? She'd twice proven to have some rather dramatic tendencies. Maybe, after hobnobbing with the snooty artists at La Prochaine — or more likely, Lohr Varius — she'd realized she didn't want to hang out with a mea
thead like him after all. No matter how phenomenal the sex had been.
He hated to think that way about Kate. They'd shared some pretty powerful shit this morning and this line of thought only tainted it. But he had to be realistic. It wasn't like he knew her that well and their brief history had been pretty rocky.
He had to face it; she was blowing him off.
To make his suck-ass day even better, the twinge of Craving gripping him earlier had turned into a full on ache. He couldn't bring himself to call Nikki, though. The Craving had to be in his head; it had only been two days for fuck's sake.
Still, even the bagged blood was starting to sound appealing. Maybe if he chugged some Pepto he could stomach the anti-coagulants…
He ignored his shaking hand as he pulled out his phone and checked the messages. Again. It didn't matter that he hadn't felt the phone's text message alert vibration.
For a brief moment he thought about swinging by her house to make sure the thing hadn't burnt down. But that had crazy stalker written all over it, and he wasn't ready to assume that title just yet. If she didn't reply, he should be man enough to accept her dismissal.
The thought of never seeing her again made every bone, every muscle, every hair on his body ache. It also sent his Craving into a flurry of urgency and he had to breathe through the shakes that overtook his body.
It was ridiculous. He was an adult fucking man, not a thirteen-year-old girl. Whether she called or not, life would go on. It might suck a little, but it would go on. He sure as hell wasn't going to shrivel up and die because Kate Miller was blowing him off.
Chapter Thirteen
Kate drifted in and out of her mind for what seemed like days. She was swimming in warm pudding, her mind trapped in a thick soup she couldn't seem to crawl out of. She woke once to the click of a camera and blinding flash. Cold shook her out of the fog another time, but it took her minutes to realize she was cold because she was naked. She woke once to find Lohr hovering above her, his silky black hair a caress on her skin even as his teeth pierced her flesh.
de Sang: Embrace Your Blood Lust Page 13