“It would make sense.” Theo supposed, not that sense and Brody’s father saw eye to eye.
“It could just be that he was waiting to see who escaped to come after them,” Brody said. “I think that’s the most likely thing. He’s never locked the place down before. Maybe he was bored.”
“Well, whatever it was, we need to get out of town and stay gone.”
“Because he doesn’t know you’re not dead.” Some strange emotion crossed his face then. “Because you think you can fool him.”
Theo stood up as Brody’s eyes started to glow. His friend’s laughter was decidedly unlike him. The possession happened so quickly that Theo froze in place, disbelief filling him.
“Let’s see how well my son takes killing a friend by his own hands.”
Theo backed away, his senses on alert. He had to be ready. Whatever spell the guy threw at him was going to need countered. An endless string of curse words burned through his head before he remembered the witch sleeping on the couch in the other room. Liv could handle this, he had to wake her up.
He yelled for her as Brody’s mouth opened. The whispered words were the beginning of a spell, and it seemed like it was something far more complex than the fatal fire spell. He tried to memorize the words but there were just too many. His lips were moving too quickly, his voice speaking them too softly. Theo was screwed.
“What the…” Liv appeared in the doorway, squinting at them.
“You have to stop him. He’s not Brody.”
She sighed. “Seriously?”
Theo glowered at her. She sighed again, staring Brody down at she touched the pendant around her neck and started to cast her own spell. Theo backed out of the room as the smell of magic brewing started to make the kitchen smoky and warm.
Skye had needed to rest, but he had to wake her. They needed to get the hell out of there, fast.
“Skye…”
The bed was empty. He checked the room and the others. She wasn’t there.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Skye snatched her arm out of the old guy’s grasp and glowered at him. It hadn’t hurt, but she didn’t care. No one put their hands on her without her permission.
“You must be Brody’s father,” she spat at him, looking around the big corridor he’d brought her to. The instant teleport was a neat trick, but other than that she wasn’t the slightest bit impressed. Folding her arms, she glowered at him. “What exactly do you want?”
“I want to know why you said no to that business trip.”
She snorted. “Seriously?”
He shrugged. “I have an unhappy business partner.”
“Well, it’s a moot point now anyway. I’m a vampire. I can’t go to an airport in the middle of the day.” She put her hands on her hips. “This can’t be what this was all for.”
“No, you’re right. It wasn’t. But that would be none of your business.”
She frowned at him. “I died because of you and you’re telling me this isn’t my business?” Was this guy for real? She seriously wanted to punch him right now.
“Anyway, I can see that there might be other uses for a girl like you.”
“You can get that idea out of your head right now.” She had no idea what he was talking about, but he wasn’t sounding all that much different from the perverted boss she’d already said no to.
“You do this, and I let Theo live.”
“Do what?” Not that she intended to do what he told her to anyway, but she might as well know how disgusting he actually was before she told him to shove it up his arse.
“Work at my brothel.”
“I thought it was Brody’s brothel?”
He laughed. “My son has no idea how to run a business. He’s just there so I don’t need to bother myself. Most of the time.”
She could barely believe she was having this conversation, but she knew one thing for sure, this guy could kill her quicker than she could snap her fingers. He had the upper hand here and she wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d be able to turn the tables on him. She’d barely been a vampire for five minutes. Her fighting skills weren’t exactly honed. More than all of that, he could use magic and she couldn’t. It was why Brody had decided hiding from the man was their best option when they’d first heard he was in the brothel.
“How long for?” She settled for buying time with questions.
“Six weeks,” he said, a sly smirk growing on his face.
“Done,” she said it without flinching, because she had no intention of following through. She just wanted to get the hell out of this place, out of his company, as quickly as she could.
He smiled and grabbed her arm. The whoosh of air followed by their surroundings changing this time made her shudder. He left her in the brothel’s reception area, with a shaken looking Stacy clambering to stand up behind the front desk.
Brody’s father pushed Skye forward before he let go of her arm.
“Set her up in a room, and give her something nicer to wear.”
Skye turned, but the guy was gone.
Stacy cleared her throat. “What’s going on, exa— Oh my god, you’re one of them.” The fear in her voice made Skye’s heart sink.
“I’m still me.”
“Yeah, I know,” Stacy laughed nervously. “Only you have a demon in you now.”
“A demon?” Skye didn’t understand.
“Oh. You don’t know. Shit.” Stacy paled. “You should have Theo explain it to you. I don’t totally get it, I mean I’m not…”
A manly sigh from behind the desk was the first sign that Stacy hadn’t been alone behind there. Shayne stood and Skye stared at him.
“What’s she talking about?”
He looked her over carefully. “Your demon has been suppressed. Theo did something to it. Sort of like a hypnotism. It’s a known tactic. Brody probably taught it to him. Makes the thing easier to control if it does start to get rowdy.”
“Um, what?” She still didn’t get it. “I have a demon in me now?”
“It’s kind of the whole point of vampires,” Stacy said, shrugging apologetically. “At least it was, in the beginning or whatever.”
“What she means is that vampires were created as a way to allow demonic spirits to walk the earth in human form.”
Like that made it any less disturbing. Skye sat down on the couch across from the desk. As if being kidnapped hadn’t been bad enough. Turning into a vampire and striking a deal to work in a brothel to avoid the new guy she’d barely slept with being murdered….
“I’m really wishing I was dreaming right now.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Theo went crazy as Brody and Liv snapped at each other in the kitchen.
“What are you even doing?”
“Stopping you from killing your stupid vampire friend!”
“I wasn’t….”
“You were possessed by your psychotic father, Brody.”
“What? No. Shut up.”
Theo slammed the door against the wall, capturing both of their attentions.
“Skye is gone! He took her. One of you needs to take me to her, right damn now.”
He could barely contain his rage. The second he laid his hands on Brody’s father the man was going to regret his very existence.
“Find out where she is,” Liv ordered his confused friend. “I’ll take him to her.”
Brody started the spell, and it couldn’t be cast quickly enough for Theo’s patience. He was ready to bounce off the damned walls by the time Liv touched his shoulder and activated a teleport. A few seconds later and he was inside the brothel’s reception area, Stacy and Shayne staring at him from behind the front desk.
He turned quickly as Skye’s voice said his name, “Theo?”
She got up from the couch and rushed into his arms. He held her close, breathing in her scent and thanking gods he didn’t believe in that she was safe.
“I was so worried.” He took a step back, keeping her in his arms, bu
t loosening his grip to check her over. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, slowly, but there was something in her gaze. She couldn’t quite seem to meet his eyes. “He wants me to work here.”
Theo raised an eyebrow. “Who? Brody’s father?”
She nodded. “I don’t get it.”
Theo didn’t either, but a sense of relief washed over him. “That’s all?”
She shrugged. “I guess it is. I don’t know what he was up to, but I don’t like this. I can’t work here, not like…”
“You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Theo told her. “And we’ll leave as soon as we find somewhere else to go.”
She smiled slowly. “Everything’s going to be okay?”
He nodded and she rested her head on his shoulder.
Stacy cleared her throat and he turned his head in her direction.
“Um, we still seem to be on lock-down. Any idea why that might be?”
Liv snorted. “Wait for word but this is hardly a lock-down.” She gestured to Theo. “We teleported in here. I assume he did as well, with the girl. There’s no magical barrier.”
Stacy bit at her lip. “But we’ve not been told…”
“Yeah. You’d better wait to be told you can go home,” Liv said, smirking slightly. “Goodnight.”
She teleported out and Stacy blew out a breath.
“I know she’s one of my bosses, but what a bitch.” She sat down, grumbling to herself.
Shayne smiled down at her. “I’ll put the kettle on for you. Must be close to breakfast time.”
“We need a new room,” Theo said, not wanting to make it easy if Brody’s father were to come back unexpectedly. “It can be allocated to Skye later. Can you just give us keys now and as far as everyone’s concerned we’re in my room?”
Shayne nodded, passing him a set before Stacy could answer. She swiped at Shayne’s arm.
“That’s supposed to be my job.”
“And you’re supposed to be sleeping while I cover for you.”
Theo walked away with the keys as Stacy grumbled away under her breath, bitching about not getting to go home all night. He walked with Skye to the new room, expecting her to crash out the instant she lay down. It had been a trying day, and he doubted she’d fully adjusted to becoming a vampire quite yet.
His stomach cramped and he realized he still needed blood. The bar seemed miles away and he was reluctant to leave her alone.
“Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
He nodded. “I just haven’t been feeding enough. You could probably use a drink too.”
She smiled sheepishly. “Brody fed me while you were sleeping.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh really?”
She shrugged. “My options were limited. You didn’t tell me humans smelt so damned good. I could barely resist.”
He laughed. “I forgot about that. You get used to it. Doesn’t seem as obvious the more you’re around them.”
“Does other blood taste so good?” She shivered a little after she said it. “I can’t believe I’m even asking.”
“It all tastes a little bit different. Takes some getting used to.”
He led her to the staircase and got ready to let go of her hand to get the light. She smiled at him and didn’t loosen her fingers.
“I can see a little better in the dark now.”
He nodded. That was going to take some getting used to. She wasn’t human any more. She was like him. In fact, so much so that he was going to have to train her on some things before they took her by surprise.
They walked down the stairs, into the darkness, enhanced eyesight activating with a warm amber glow. He heard her gasp as the spirits around them jostled and tugged at their flesh.
“What is this? Are there ghosts down here?”
He smiled. “Don’t worry. They won’t hurt you.”
They moved through the darkness swiftly, arriving at the empty bar in seconds. He looked at the half-full glass she’d left there, feeling as if it had been a century ago. So much had happened since then. So much had changed.
“You’re more than human now,” he said as he went under the bar. “That means a lot of things.”
“Like?” She leaned on the bar and poked at her glass. “Can I eat or drink normal food?”
He shook his head, and then nodded. “You can, but you won’t want to. It can make you sick, but it’s not impossible to do it. I haven’t eaten in a long time.”
“Have you had a drink?” She picked up the glass.
“Sometimes. It’s less likely to hurt than eating something. It just doesn’t really give the same effect anymore. It’s not as if we can get drunk.”
She pulled a face. “Then what does a vampire do at the end of a long, boring ass week?”
“We don’t have long, boring ass weeks.”
“You’ve been here for a few years, right?”
He nodded as he put a couple of bottles of blood on the bar.
“So you like what you do, in the brothel?” She raised her eyebrows.
He smiled. “It’s not what you think.”
“So you don’t sleep with women who pay to experience that?”
He shook his head. “I used to bite women who wanted the rush. We call them blood-rushers. That’s more than enough for the average human. The ones that come back again and again are usually the ones who end up craving more. Luckily for me there are vampires here who cater to that kind of thing.”
“So vampires here do have sex with clients, or customers, or whatever you want to call them?”
He nodded. “A few of us stay away from that side of things. We’re not here because we’re hedonists.”
She took a deep breath and asked her last question on the exhale. “What am I going to be expected to do here?”
His grip on the bottle he was uncapping tightened. “It doesn’t matter what you’re expected to do. You’re not going to have to do it.”
She swallowed. “Those girls I met here before, they like it here.”
“They’re not like you.”
She smiled wryly. “And you know that…”
“They’re ruled by their demons.” He put the open bottle on the bar, sliding it over to her. “You’re not.”
Her blue eyes brightened. “I have one though, don’t I?”
He nodded. “There’s a way to cast the spell when a maker creates a new vampire, a way to keep the demon from gaining control.” He shook his head. “It’s a little more than that, actually. Brody uses part of the trick when he makes his vampires, but he’s a witch so that’s all he can do. As a vampire I can do a little more.”
“And what did you do exactly, when you made me?” She sounded fascinated, twisting the neck of the bottle through her fingers as she gazed at him.
“I told the demon that entered your body to sleep. It obeyed. It had to. I called it forth to create the vampire. I command it.”
“What if it wakes up?”
He shook his head. “I won’t let it. You don’t have to let it either. It’s bound by my command right now, and even if something happened that broke the order, the demon would be too weak to take you over. You would still be controlling the vampire.”
“I am the vampire.”
“You both are.”
She was quiet for a while. “I don’t exist without the demon?”
“There was no other choice.” He looked at the bottle of blood in front of him. He couldn’t convince himself it was anything other than necessity but some small part of him wondered if he’d been so desperate that he’d only considered his own selfish desires when he’d turned her.
“I know,” she said, picking up the bottle and taking a sip.
He didn’t feel quite so starved now, but he took a drink of his too, hoping to stave off his hunger pangs later. He glanced at the fridge. “We should bring a stash to the room. I’m not sure how long we’ll need to…”
She looked at him. “We’re
waiting, aren’t we?”
He nodded slowly, wishing it weren’t true.
“For what, exactly?”
“For the storm to pass.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Skye followed Theo to their new room, the clinking of the bag of bottles oddly loud to her improved hearing. She tried listening out as they passed the rooms, but there didn’t seem to be much going on inside, unless there was some kind of sound-proofing in place.
Her nerves were rattled. The nightmare wasn’t over, she knew that as definitely as she knew the heart in her chest no longer moved. Her emotions were still wired in, but the lack of physical response was the most unnerving thing about the new version of herself. She’d bumped into the wall on the way out of the tunnel of ghosts, and it hadn’t even nipped a little. She’d poked and nipped at the skin on her hand and it felt like nothing. She worried for what that meant. She was dead, but so far not on the inside.
“I can’t seem to feel pain.”
“You won’t. Not physically, at least. Not unless you starve yourself of blood.”
He opened the door to their new room and hit the light. She closed the door behind them. It looked exactly the same as his room. The layout, the décor, everything. Fancy hotel room with no widows seemed to be the brothel’s look.
“What about pleasure?” Surely, there couldn’t be one without the other?
He put the bag down and pulled her to him. “Your responses might be slower, but believe me, they’re very much alive and well.”
He crushed his mouth to hers. She gave in to him as he lifted her into his arms and onto the bed. She understood what he meant gradually, as his kiss deepened and she started to feel that first flush of heat below her waist. She pushed him back suddenly.
“Take off those clothes,” she told him, screwing up her nose as she remembered who they’d belonged to. “And never put them back on.”
He did as ordered and she stripped at the same time, eager to find out how everything felt in this new state of being. There had to be advantages she wasn’t aware of yet.
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