by Cara Villar
“You already have a costume and a song picked out, don’t you?” I asked over my shoulder.
She sauntered up to my side and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “You know it.”
I sighed, “Fine.” I glanced at Felix and Vince, who were grinning like school boys who just found a spy hole into the girls’ locker room. “But they don’t watch.”
“Oh, hell no, darlin’.” Vince swaggered through the door. “I’m getting me a seat right in front of that pole.”
“You should relish this opportunity, pet.” Felix grinned, walking out backwards so he could dimple at me. If I wasn’t so pissed off, I might have sighed. “You get the chance to make me speechless.”
I glared at him as he darted out after Vince.
Fuck my life.
19
The sound of my foot tapping on the linoleum floor echoed irritatingly down the hall as I waited for the music to start, and yet I couldn’t get said foot to stay still. I’d been scowling at the door in front of me for a good three minutes, and the butterflies in my stomach were only fuelling how pissed off I was.
It didn’t help that the ridiculous high platform of my shoe made the noise all the sharper, especially since I couldn’t feel the damn floor. Damn stripper shoes might look awesome, but I felt like I was floating when I walked. Gah! Why am I doing this? Because of some stupid bet? Are you freakin’ kidding me? I’m over three hundred years old. I’m too old for this crap. Oh, woe is me… Big girl pants now, Red.
That’s when I heard it. The tapping out of synch with mine, the beat, and then the guitar kicked in. My eyes closed briefly in despair. Of all the songs she could pick. With a gusty sigh, I pushed the door open and walked across the crowded club, heels clacking, hips swaying, nothing but an oversized men’s black shirt with the cuffs undone covering a sparkly black string bikini to match my ridiculous sparkly black stripper heels.
I headed for the main stage, and plastered a decidedly sensual expression on my face. A come-hither-if-you-dare smirk, smoky eyes sliding over Felix and Vince as they sat front and center, waiting for me. If their expressions, when they finally saw me, were anything to go by, they hadn’t expected me to show. In fact, they barely even glanced my way until I mounted the steps at the front of the stage.
By the time the lyrics kicked in, AC/DC’s “Back in Black” pumping loud and clear, my legs were shoulder-width apart and I’d bent, hand touching the floor, meeting the Vampire and the Alpha’s eyes between my legs. I’d flashed them a good one of my tiny glittery panties and winked, before slowly straightening to go for the bright polished pole.
Looks like I have their attention now.
The dance wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I got to use my claws, slowly shredding the shirt, bit by bit, until nothing was left but the collar and shoulders from the armpits up. I got to use some gymnastics too, which really is quite a fete when wearing such high shoes. I got to totally molest a pole and call it dancing, and jeepers, who gets to do that every day? I’d walked off stage in my sparkly bikini set, hips swaying, pulling dollar bills from the stringy edges and handing them to Jade who looked like she was having an apoplectic fit she was laughing so hard. Fletch just looked stunned.
I also got to shock the holy crappers out of that damn Vampire and that bloody Alpha. Totally worth the degradation of removing my clothes in a sexual nature in public.
The drive back to the hotel was quiet. Hell, it was utterly silent. Vince still wore a slightly shell-shocked expression, although it was a definite improvement on the wholly aghast look he had worn when I walked off stage. Every so often, he’d look at me as if he wasn’t quite sure anything he thought he knew about me was true. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but right then, I was too elated to care.
Felix was another matter. The male had looked ready to kill every mother F in the club by the time the dance had finished. I think the only reason he didn’t was because we needed Jade and Fletch’s good graces to come back the next night to look for Ambrose. So, he settled for looking murderous, and staying murderous the whole drive back. And then the whole way across the marbled foyer. The whole ride up in the elevator. And then as long as it took for the elevator doors to close on Vince’s startled expression.
“You,” He said, his voice low and scathing, “are never to do that again.” Not a question. Not a request. A command.
I responded accordingly. “Excuse me?” I squawked, absolutely livid. Where did he get off talking to me like that? "I really don't see how that's any of your business!" I gave him a haughty sniff and stalked off towards my rooms the instant the elevator doors slid opened, my pretty shoes taking me there much faster than those bloody stripper heels could any day. I was so-o-o not in the mood to be dealing with him if he was going to be saying stuff like that. I mean, seriously, what the bloody hell? Did he seriously think I would listen? I wasn’t his slave, or his companion. I was his partner, not his girlfriend.
"What kind of impression do you make on your clients when you do things like that?" he said to my back, his tone harsh enough to strip skin from my hide.
"Oh, my God!" I spun on my heel to gawk at him. "Are you seriously giving me the what-will-the-neighbors-think talk? Have you even met me?" I snorted in disbelief. Had he learned nothing? “I’m the girl who knocked you out with a baton for being in my territory, rather than just ask. Since when would I ever consider what other people thought of me?”
“I would have thought a little self-respect.”
“I respect myself plenty, it’s every other fucker.”
“Such a potty mouth.”
“What the bloody hell would you know about my mouth?”
“A lot less than Vince, obviously.”
I sucked in an outraged breath and felt my blood pressure shoot up. “Again, none of your damn business!” I stomped my foot for emphasis, my heart pounding and my blood rushing with my indignation.
“Why isn’t it?” He flung his arms out. “I’m supposed to work with you. What you do reflects back on me. I have my own reputation to uphold.”
“I’m an independent bounty hunter, you stupid turd! Working with me has already damaged your reputation. Pull up those big boy pants and deal with it!” I spun away again, my throat constricting. Why was he being like this? “Besides,” I choked out, striding away, “you had a front row seat, remember?”
"Indeed I did, pet," he purred, tone menacingly smooth, making me slow. “A front row seat to witness all the men in the club watch as the infamous Red Riding Hood disgraced herself again.”
I stilled completely, his words cutting me as deep as any blade he could wield. I doubt he even knew how deftly he wielded it. How closely he cut to the heart.
Felix had no idea what I’d had to do to get by after the change. Not many people did, since no one really new me back then. I lived off the streets for years, begging. I spent more nights in stocks and prison cells that Felix has had back ally sips from hookers. Dancing for money was the least of my low times, but at least it paid well. I may have danced for money, food and a roof over my head, but I never dipped low enough to be anyone's play thing. The fact that, after the time we’d spent together and the person I thought he thought I was, he actually didn't see me at all. It hurt more than if he had just come out and called me exactly what he thought I was.
"Oh, Felix," I breathed, my anger and disappointment churning a ragged hole in my insides, making it hard to swallow and my eyes burn. "I won't explain myself to you. Ever." I took out my key card then, swiped my door, and entered my room. Just as the door was closing, I caught a wispy scent of regret wafting up to me.
But it was too late. The damage was done.
God damn him.
Why did he have to be this way? Why did he have to turn into such a righteous prick? We were having fun, right? Even though Ambrose is a psycho, Natasha had died and the whole of the Immortal world is at risk of enslavement, I thought we were having fun.
; A hunt was a hunt, after all.
I heaved a shaky sigh as I leaned back against the door, my insides shaking, making the urge to vomit nearly undeniable. My dance-induced high had plummeted, and my innards felt shredded with the unexpected confrontation with Felix. An argument that left me as baffled as it did hurt, disappointed, and angry. He was acting as if he had a right to dictate my behavior, as if he owned me.
Jeez.
So he was technically my protector against the Vampire community until I decided whether I wanted in on his clan or not, that didn’t mean I was his property, even if I have taken his blood a few times.
Oh. Oh, shit.
I felt my face drain of color, and then flood with it until it burned.
I’d taken Felix’s blood three times. The first time was before witnesses, when I had been waking from him knocking me out and surrounded by the leading members of his clan. The second time was on the plane, and resulted in—gulp—climax. And the third was after my fight with Des.
Jeepers. Blimey. Damn Vampire.
According to him, I was his property. Every Vampire instinct in him was telling him I belonged to him because his blood ran in my veins. I was not quite a Slave, because only humans could be Slaves. Which isn’t as bad as it sounds, since they have impeccable health and elongated lifespan from drinking Vampire blood, and were generally treated like adored pets by their Master. But then, I was also not quite a Consort, since we hadn’t finished the Consort Bond, which involved the need for both his blood and his semen being inside me simultaneously.
Holy crap, I’m a potential life partner.
I groaned and rubbed my temples. I did not need this kind of crap in my life. We’d just have to deal with this until the call of his blood in me stopped beckoning.
Is his blood in me the only reason he’s attracted to me? Oh, now there’s an ego killer.
Feeling about two feet tall, I pushed off the door, pulled it open, and headed for Felix’s room. I wasn’t going to apologize for the dance, but I would apologize for not realizing sooner.
Although, how the hell was I supposed to know he was bonding me? Do I look like a specialist in one specific species? I’m a multiples kinda gal. Snicker, snicker.
I was about three feet from Felix’s door when it opened, and Felix stepped out with his duffel slung over one shoulder. I stopped dead and gaped.
“You’re leaving?” I couldn’t believe it. He was skipping out on me. “You’re seriously leaving me?”
“Red.”
“So I danced, jeez, anyone would think I’d done it down to nothing instead of the bikini.”
“Red, please.”
“I can’t believe you are leaving.”
He pulled the door to. “We have to go.”
“Were you even going to tell me?”
“Red.”
And then I smelled it. A scent no wolf forgets after the first time. An aroma no Vampire could mistake. Realization must have shown on my face, because Felix made a grab for my arm.
“Red, please.”
I dodged him and slid through his doorway, pushing it wide.
And stopped in horror.
Blood was everywhere. Coated everything. Rich and thick and warm. Glistening.
My hand lifted to my mouth, shaking as my eyes focused on the bed and my mind tried to make sense of what I was seeing. It was the maid. The maid who I thought Felix had fooled around with. The same mussed blonde hair, the same glassy-eyed expression, though this was one of utter fear and pain rather than well-tumbled.
God, she’s still gagged.
I swallowed against the rising of my gorge as my eyes travelled down her. From neck to wrists to ankles, she had been…skinned. Veins, blood, muscle, gristle and fat, all exposed and shiny, just like the blood splattered across the room. The skinning looked precise, and yet, it also looked brutal. As if the person responsible knew exactly how to make it painless and quick, as well as excruciatingly slow and agonizing.
If the expression on her face was anything to go by, I think the killer went for the latter. I could smell the pain, fear, anger and satisfaction still ripe in the air, like week-old garbage left to rot in the sun. I could smell the faint lingering aroma of Felix after his shower, and me. Interspersed amid all the scents in the room, I made out one, clear as day. It was the scent of her killer, and I knew who the killer was.
Ambrose.
20
The next hour went by so fast that by the time I eventually stopped and sat down, I couldn’t get up again. I could barely even register that my legs weren’t moving when they should be, and I could only blink up at Felix in confusion.
After the repulsion of his hotel room, he’d whisked me back to mine and forced me to pack. As I’d done so, he’d made a flurry of phone calls to Osiris about the situation, to his contacts in warning, to Vince for clean-up, and then to Jade from my phone. I didn’t know why, and I couldn’t form the words to ask. Downstairs we’d paid and signed out with an unsettling amount of calm, as if the mess of a human being lying in a hotel room upstairs was an everyday occurrence.
We’d met up with Vince and his lieutenants outside. They were waiting for us in a dark silver BMW seven-seat. For a moment I admired the shiny toy, but it felt like I was admiring from a distance. Like I was in a dream, aware but unable to impact, Felix hustled me into the front seat, and then sat in the back with Des and Mark, discussing the clean-up. The murmured details made me queasy. Their voices were cold and direct, as if wasteful death was a regular thing—like seasoned detectives over a dead body. I knew I shouldn’t be effected so, but that woman was a true innocent. Just like Natasha. What kind of man were we hunting?
I stared out the front window as Vince drove, interjecting every so often with his own comments to the three in the back and casting sidelong glances at me. I could see him doing it out of the corner of my eye, and I knew why he looked so concerned. I hadn’t said a word since seeing what I had seen in Felix’s room.
What the hell was I supposed to say?
I’d been a bounty hunter for nearly a century. I’d trained with the coldest, meanest, most savagely feral Immortals this side of eternity, and I’d never seen anything like what had lain on that bed. I’d killed my fair share, the innocent and the guilty, but I had never made them suffer. Their deaths were always quick, clean. What had been done to that woman… that was… it was…
There are no words for the senseless violence that had been done to her.
If Natasha was a message, and the maid a warning, the next logical step was… unthinkable. I couldn’t comprehend the behavior, so I couldn’t predict it, and I relied on the ability to study personality to foresee my target’s moves. The most complicated of chess games. With Ambrose, and with everything I’d seen of him so far, his next move could be anything. The ultimate opponent, and deadly to boot.
All I could do was pray we caught him the next night, before I had the misfortune to discover what ‘next’ could be.
My mind could not grasp it, and it left me numb.
“He’s telling you to back off,” Des was saying, her voice harsh.
“He’s been telling me that for months,” Felix calmly replied.
“Yeah, but he’s never harmed or killed an innocent before.”
“I know that!” Felix snapped. “My psychic scent was still fresh on her; otherwise he would never have killed her. This is my fault; don’t you think I know that?”
“No.” The car went utterly silent, and it took me a moment to realize that I’d spoken. “He did this because he could. Just like Natasha.”
“She’s right,” Vince growled next to me.
“So how do we stop him doing it again?” Mark asked. He sounded so much younger than he looked. Naïve. Like I used to be.
The answer to his question was simple. “We kill him.”
The lid was heavier than I remembered, and I threw as much of my ethereal weight against it as I could manage, but the lid didn’t budge. I w
ent to my knees to give myself leverage, and braced to push again-
“You aren’t ready to see what’s inside.” The voice was male, deep, familiar. It made my heart warm in my chest and wish for home. But not the home I had now. It made me long for a cabin in the woods, with its stone hearth and threadbare curtains.
I stilled before the chest, letting my hands fall into my lap, feeling the presence of the voice at my back, acutely aware of the warmth of it lapping against my spine.
“Who are you?” I asked, but my voice was…distant. Pure. Not my voice.
“You aren’t ready to know that either,” the voice replied, wrapping me up in a big blanket that smelt like wood smoke.
I looked at the chest, at the familiar iron and wood, and tried to remember what I had put in it. But I couldn’t remember. All I knew what that something important was inside, and in order to understand why I was here, I had to know what that something was.
I reached out my hands for the corners again, determined to open it.
“You don’t want to do that, Willow,” said the voice, and I stilled once more, the tone making me pause out of habit. “Not yet, anyhow.”
“Why not?” I asked, and the presence rippled, pressing in on my, heating my cold, cold flesh.
“You are not ready.”
“Not ready for what?”
“To believe.”
I smoothed my hand over the carved lid as I listened.
“You’re not ready to accept what is in the chest.”
“Is that why it won’t open?” I asked.
“It will open when you’re ready…”
I awakened to darkness, the words in my dream echoing through my subconscious as if through water. I woke to sheets that smelled like Jade and nail polish, and the distinct feeling that my dreams weren’t really dreams at all. Yet another complication I had no time to deal with. Groggily, I lifted my head off the pillow, then realized the sheet was pulled over my head. I tried to lift my arm to shove it back, but it was firmly flattened to the bed. My confused mind stalled, and a giggle sounded in the darkness.