Whatever it was they were getting up to, I decided I’d rather not know. I left Chase to his work and tossed the magazine down on the coffee table. I was in the middle of wondering what the odds were that Nicola was going to go to bed early like a good little girl when she came into the room and announced that we were going to her favorite bar.
“Now?” I asked, realizing immediately how old it made me sound.
It wasn’t even ten o’clock.
“Duh, yeah,” she said. “Car’s coming in twenty minutes, so you might want to change.”
Brain working feverishly trying to figure out how to get out of going to a bar instead of crawling into bed with a book, I got up and followed Nicola up to our rooms. We were halfway up the stairs when I remembered she was only seventeen; a year under the legal age.
“Aren’t you too young to drink?” I asked.
“Like that matters,” she said. “I’ve tipped every bouncer at least a hundred bucks over the last year. No one ever asks to see your ID when you drop a twenty in their hands. They want hot girls in the bar, and they don’t turn people like me away unless they look twelve.”
Nicola stopped on the last stair, turning to look me up and down.
“Don’t worry,” she said snottily, “I’ll vouch for you so you don’t get rejected at the door.”
“Gee, thanks,” I muttered.
Once in my room, I upended my bag and sifted through the clothes that tumbled out onto the bed. I didn’t know what passed for bar appropriate, but I was pretty sure the t-shirts I’d brought weren’t exactly on-trend. Figuring I could at least use a reapplication of deodorant, I peeled my sweater and shirt off, freshened up, and put on a clean tee. That done, I zipped a black hoodie over the shirt and went to check on Nicola.
“The fuck is that?” she said when she saw me.
“It’s all I brought,” I said. “No one told me I’d be playing chaperone while you went out underage drinking.”
Nicola made a sound of annoyance, then turned and swept through the racks of clothes in her closet. She pulled down a few items and came over. She held several things up in front of me as though considering how to dress a mannequin, then she shoved a hanger into my hands.
“Wear that,” she ordered.
The shirt in question was a backless deep V-neck halter that was made of cotton so thin you could practically see through it. There was no way I was wearing something like this out in public, and I told Nicola as much.
“Don’t be such a pussy,” she said, wriggling her tights down so she could kick them off. “If you’re going to be seen with me, you can’t dress like a… a… I don’t even know what that look is. Skater hobo? Wear the shirt, or I’ll tell the bouncer you’re a crazy stalker.”
Swallowing a comeback, I spun around and unzipped my hoodie. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew Nicola was right. Worse, I caught myself caring what she thought of me. I’d never done the BFF thing growing up, and although I was ten years older than Nicola, a very tiny and extremely petty part of me still wanted her to like me. Nicola was one of the cool kids I’d only ever seen from a distance. As much as I’d always hated the generic brand of spoiled rich brats, I’d never been able to fully ignore the inkling of jealousy that just made me hate them all the more. Nicola represented so many things I loathed, but that old jealousy flared up when I briefly contemplated ignoring her attempt to dress me up like her.
I pulled my t-shirt off and unhooked my bra before I lost my nerve. I pulled the thin slip of fabric down over my chest, securing myself in the contoured front as much as the fabric allowed. My chest wasn’t so big I couldn’t easily skip the support of a bra, but I felt naked without it. The shirt showed a scandalous amount of side-boob, and I twisted to either side while checking myself out in the mirror. There was no denying the shirt was sexy, but the white fabric was definitely thin enough that I could see outlines of things that I wasn’t used to having on display.
“It’ll be too dark for anyone to notice,” Nicola said. She had a smug grin plastered across her face, and I couldn’t help but notice how much more modest her own off-the-shoulder shirt was.
I thought about asking her to trade, but that’d end up in me having to take the damn thing off in front of her. I’d had enough communal dressing to last me a decade or two, so I stuck my tongue out at her and put my hoodie back on.
“That’s not coming into the bar,” Nicola ordered. “Besides, you look great in that shirt. You’re young and skinny. Well, young-ish. I mean, you’re not old. My point is that you should enjoy it before even more of it is gone.”
Too tired to argue, I simply zipped my hoodie up and followed her down to the waiting car.
True to her word, Nicola made me take the hoodie off before I climbed out of yet another generic luxury SUV. I caught the driver staring at me in the rearview mirror, so I flashed him my middle finger then balled up the sweater up and followed Nicola into the freezing cold night. Goosebumps erupted along the skin of my arms and back. I fought down a violent shiver, trying to keep my cool as we marched past the line of more suitably dressed people waiting to get in. A sultry smile on Nicola’s part got us through the door with a nod of recognition from the bouncer. I left my hoodie at the coat check, losing Nicola in the few seconds it took me to collect my tag and turn around.
I spotted her at the nearest stretch of bar. A group of guys had moved aside to let her in, and by the time I arrived, they were doing their best to impress her.
“Ah, here iz my sister Mikhela,” she said to in a thick and fake eastern European accent. She put her hand around my waist and pulled me close, resting her head on my shoulder in a manner that was far too personal for sisters. “Ve come here for ski and party. You like ski and party?”
“Oh yeah,” said a guy with sparkling white teeth and the kind of messy bedhead that required an hour and three different hair products to achieve. “We love to ski and party.”
“Vat do you sink, Mikhela?” Nicola asked me. “Vould you like to have some shots for varming up?”
“Uh, da?”
Nicola laughed and hit me playfully on the arm.
“Always vis ze jokes,” she said. “Of course ve do shots.”
“You girls like vodka?” the guy I’d mentally nicknamed Bedhead asked.
He plucked a wad of cash from his pocket and peeled off several twenties. Waving them in the air was enough to get the immediate attention of the bartender who quickly set up a row of shots for us and the guys.
“Fuck it,” I growled before slamming the shot back.
I plucked Bedhead’s glass from his hand before he could down it, and I made that one disappear too. See how good I am at magic?
Bedhead laughed it off and signaled for the bartender to pour another round. This one made a dent in my clearheadedness, and not for the first time that night, I questioned how responsible a protector I was for letting my charge into such a potentially dangerous place. At the very least, I should have stayed as sober as possible in order to keep alert for threats.
Then again, I wasn’t even convinced anyone was actually after this girl. Someone was definitely trying to disrupt her father’s development, but I’d learned nothing to indicate anyone was out to harm Nicola. The most likely scenario was that Bloedermeyer was being overly cautious when it came to his only daughter’s safety. I couldn’t blame the guy for wanting to keep Nicola safe, but given how little he seemed to know or care about his daughter’s antics, I had to wonder if he was worried about a problem that didn’t exist. If I was going to be stuck on babysitter duty, I'd need a few drinks to numb myself against the tedious acting out that didn’t show any signs of slowing down in the near future.
I felt a hand slip under the fabric of my shirt to rest on my back while hot air from Bedhead’s lips brushed my ear. He was saying something about taking me out on the dance floor, but that wasn’t going to happen if I had anything to say about it. I’d sooner take a bath in a pit of snakes than make a fool
of myself dancing in public.
Desperate to extract myself from the situation, I grabbed Nicola’s wrist and began pulling her away.
“Come,” I said, sounding less like an exotic bond girl and more like a Russian weightlifter. “I must make the peepees.”
“WTF?” asked Nicola, pronouncing it double-u-tee-eff. “Those guys were good for plenty more drinks. Why’d you drag me out of there?”
“I’m not your mother, but that doesn’t mean I have to go along with your ridiculous games,” I said. “You can go back to them if you want, but no more fake names for me. If I stay out of your way and let you have fun tonight, will you promise me you won’t try to ditch me?”
Nicola seemed to turn the idea over in her head for a few seconds before finally nodding her acquiescence. Whether the threat to her safety was real or not, her father believed it was. Angsty rebellion aside, she was still enough of a daddy’s girl to worry his concern might not be unfounded. So long as she believed there was a chance someone was trying to get at her, I hoped I could count on her to at least tolerate my presence in the background.
Nicola wasted no time returning to her new friends. I hung back to keep an eye on her, sticking to quieter pockets of shadow where I wouldn’t be as noticeable. I tugged the edges of my shirt self-consciously, happy at least that I wasn’t wearing my hoodie. The room was so hot it could have doubled as a yoga studio. Given the amount of skin on display from both guys and girls, the sweltering temperature seemed like a calculated move by whoever managed the place.
I got a beer from the bar on the other side of the room. It was overpriced domestic swill, but it was ice cold and refreshing after the three shots of vodka. I nursed it until it was flat and warm, finally giving up and replacing it with another. The generic pop music which had been playing when we arrived transitioned into a dubsteppy kind of hip hop something or other, and the lights dimmed considerably. Several tables and chairs had been cleared away to double the size of the dance floor, turning the bar into a nightclub. Judging by how many people had been packed inside, and how uniformly white and good looking everyone was, I didn’t doubt this was the most popular spot in town.
Keeping an eye on Nicola wasn’t hard. When she wasn’t surrounded by a knot of completely enthralled guys who all thought they were going to be the one to take her home, she was on the center of the dance floor. She held one hand in the air while she moved with a fluid and unselfconscious grace I couldn’t help but envy. This chick didn’t give a damn what was going on around her. She was there to party and have a good time, and she wasn’t going to let anyone stand in her way. Wherever she went, the crowd parted before her. Bartenders stopped mid-pour to see what she wanted. Other women eyed her with a mix of lust and jealousy. And every male eye in the room gave her at least a passing glance if not a full-on stare which lingered even after she’d disappeared into the crowd.
Surprisingly, the hardest part of the whole deal was rebuffing the attempts of several guys trying to flirt with me throughout the night. While clubbing wasn’t exactly my thing, I’d been in my share of bars and nightclubs for one reason or another. I’d been hit on before, but nothing like this.
Adjusting my shirt for the fiftieth time, I realized what was different. My idea of dressing up to go to a bar was swapping a dirty black t-shirt for a clean one. Wearing Nicola’s shirt, I looked like a proper bar star. I could only imagine what would happen if I got my hair done and put on a bit of extra makeup.
“If you want to go fuck some guy tonight, I don’t mind,” Nicola slurred into my ear during one of her breaks from dancing. “I mean, it’d probably do you some good to get that stick banged out of your ass.”
I took a sip of my beer and let the comment pass through me. Had I been seventeen, I might have slapped her so hard, her firstborn child would have felt the sting. Instead, I practiced being the bigger person by pretending she hadn’t said anything at all.
“Having a good night?” I asked.
She shrugged. “S’alright. It’s normally insane here on Mondays. This is pretty lame.”
A cheer went up from one side of the room where a shirtless guy standing on the bar poured a foamy stream of champagne from the giant bottles he held in each hand. Men and women alike crowded near, getting splashed with bubbly while they fought to get a bit into their mouths.
The rest of the dance floor was absolute chaos. Packed to what looked like beyond capacity, the place was literally jumping. The floor shook beneath our feet from so many people moving on it at once. My eardrums throbbed from the too-loud music despite my having positioned myself in the quietest corner I could find. If this was a lame night, I had no desire to see what Nicola considered a wild one.
“I’mma go dance again,” Nicola said. “You wanna come with? Guys love it when two chicks grind up on each other. I could probably break ten K likes if I posted a photo of you and me all sweaty and sexy. Fifty K if you let a bit of nipple slip.”
“I’m fine here,” I said.
“No doubt.” Nicola laughed at some private joke as she melted back into the crowd.
I followed her progress as well as I could, debating whether or not to get another beer. The clock on my phone read 11:43. Last call wouldn’t be for another couple of hours, and I had a pretty good feeling that Nicola wasn’t going to want to leave much before that.
It took me nearly ten minutes to make my way towards the bar. In the process, my ass was grabbed three times, one guy professed his undying love to me, and two different girls snarled at me for bumping into them while I tried to squeeze past. My arms were slick with other people’s sweat, and my jaw hurt from clenching it so hard. I needed that drink more than ever, but before I could order it I felt a cold chill wash over me. No one else reacted, but the sensation was like someone pouring a bucket of ice water over my head. The resulting adrenaline cleared my alcohol-muddled brain in an instant, and I scanned the bar looking for the source.
I found it at the other end of the bar. Staring at me intently was a blonde twenty-something with the deepest blue eyes I’d ever seen. He wore a plaid shirt with only three buttons done up, exposing the smooth skin of his chest and a few tightly cut abdominal muscles. His sandy blond hair was swept back into a loose bun, and a light layer of ruddy stubble coated his chiseled jaw. Everything about him screamed sex, right down to the way he narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to get a better look at me.
I didn’t need to activate my mage sight to see that he was a vampire.
The hipster vampire pushed off the bar and began making his way toward me. Women and men alike melted at the gentle touch of fingers on a back or a hand on a shoulder. Everyone stepped aside with bashful awe in their expressions as though he was some kind of celebrity. Even I felt myself caught up in the powerful sway of his psychic aura. My pulse quickened. A tiny tsunami of nerves crashed over me. Without realizing I was doing it, I found myself tilting my hips and biting my lower lip along with what passed for my best come-hither stare. A soft sigh rushed from my lips when the vampire stepped in close, his ice-cool hands slipping around my waist. He pulled me towards himself, then began swaying his hips to the music. I dissolved into him. We moved against each other like every other person in the bar had simply vanished. The room faded away. All that remained was the music, and his body — his perfect, amazing body.
I don’t know if it was my idea to spin around or if he’d spun me, but backing up against him seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. I held my hair to the side so he could kiss my neck. His lips were soft and warm, but not as warm as they should have been. His fingers traced the curvature of my body, triggering little waves of icy shivers that made me want to give myself over to him completely.
“What are you doing here, mage?” he hissed into my ear, the intoxicating spell falling away immediately.
I spun around to face him, blinking in confusion. His hands still gripped my waist, fingers digging in a little more tightly than was entirely appropr
iate. I felt superhuman strength in that grip, the kind of strength that could snap my spine in half if I gave him any excuse. Fortunately for me, feeding on a mage without consent was strictly forbidden thanks to centuries-old agreements between our kind. Had the vampire taken full advantage of the situation, I’d have been powerless to stop him. Worse, I’d have wept with joy, begging for more even as he drained the lifeblood from me.
“I’m on a job.” I had to shout to be heard over the music. “The real question is, what are you doing here?”
The vampire’s grip loosened. His pupils flared, and I felt psychic energy hammer my skull. I was by no means a master, but I’d learned a thing or two about blocking unwanted psychic ingress during my years of study and training. A powerful enough vampire could easily smash the barriers I constructed in my mind, but this guy didn’t seem to be that old. He probed for only a second before giving up.
“You’re not here to stop me?” he said, obvious confusion in his eyes when he leaned in to speak into my ear.
This conversation was getting more and more confusing by the second. “That depends on what you’re here to do.”
The vampire took a hand from my hip and swept it out towards the seething crowd of dancers. His smile revealed extended eye teeth. The razor sharp points were intimidating, yet terrifyingly intoxicating. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have them sink ever so slowly into the flesh of my neck, penetrating me more completely than…
Snap out of it, Alex. I gave myself a mental slap in the face and returned to the business at hand. I’d been on the wrong end of teeth like that before. It wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat.
Black Ice (Black Records Book 3) Page 4