by Erin Embly
“I’m . . . confused.” I peeled the lingerie off my face as I looked down to see more black silk in the bag.
“I had to guess your size.” Kat shifted her head back and forth as she peered at me, her eyes traveling a bit too much for my comfort. “So you should go try it on. I have enough time to get you something else if I go now.”
“Sorry, I don’t have any . . .” I grimaced into the bag, trying to resist the sudden urge to run my fingers over the smooth fabric. It was clearly some high-end stuff, the kind of thing I’d never worn in my life and probably never would. “I don’t have any occasion for this sort of thing, so—”
I stopped, unnerved by the way she wouldn’t stop smiling at me, her fangs still visible.
“Kat, did I accidentally put on the ‘fuck me, vampire’ body spray today? Cause you’re really giving off that kind of vibe right now.”
She giggled, and her smile grew wider. “No,” she said. “But if you have some, I’d suggest putting it on when you wear that tonight.” She leaned in close to my face and opened her eyes wide before saying, “I got you an audition!”
I looked at her blankly, trying to process what she could possibly mean by that and failing utterly.
She tsked a little as her fangs drew up behind her lips and her smile faded. “An audition at Bite.”
I shifted my eyes, realization dawning on me. That was the club Dirk had been referring to, the one owned by Soma Hospitality. One of the most exclusive clubs in DC, it was run by vampires and catered only to vampires and humans. They’d been advertising it as a place where the two species could play on the same level—the dancers were a mix of both, and the clientele were a mix of both. But as someone who’d spent more time than I’d like around vampires, I knew that had to be a carefully crafted illusion.
“You told me you wanted to meet Soma, right?” Kat prompted, taking my silence for a protest.
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“The club is your best bet. It’s practically the only place he leaves his crypt for anymore.”
“He . . . lives in an actual crypt?”
“No.” Kat shook her head at me like I was a child. “Ever heard of sarcasm? He’s just really old.”
“Okay . . .” I held up the bag of lingerie. “But is this really the kind of thing their bartenders wear?”
Kat actually snorted at me, then burst into full-on laughter. When it subsided, she wiped a bloody tear from her face and said, “Girl . . . since when does anyone audition to be a bartender?”
“Kat, I can’t dance.”
“Why, because you have morals or something?”
“What? No. I literally can’t dance. I was raised by people who thought good music was a regular EKG rhythm.”
“If you survive tonight, I’ll help you fix that,” Kat said. “But really, it doesn’t matter.” She leaned in close to me again. “You’ve got a hot body and hot blood underneath all that delicious . . . mmm. Just try not to fall in your heels and you’ll be fine.”
She stood up straight and ran her tongue over one of her fangs before retracting them back into her gums. Then, with a tiny shake of her head, she spun around and left me sitting in the office alone with a bag of lingerie.
This really does look expensive, I thought, my frown deepening. I doubted I could get the Guardians to reimburse me for whatever Kat had paid for it anytime soon.
And if I hadn’t been worried about my mental state before, I started to worry when all I could think about was how I’d better not get any blood on this lace tonight.
I stared down at my phone from behind the bar a few hours later, fingers scrolling through my address book so quickly the names all blurred together. Not that there were many names in there.
I’d been through the whole thing too many times in the last few hours and had yet to find anyone who was willing and able to look after Noah tonight while I went to my “audition.”
Dirk was the first one I’d called, since he was at my apartment anyway and at least I wouldn’t have to lie to him about what I was doing tonight. But he had failed to pick up his phone, probably napping off the blood loss, and in any case I supposed it would be best to leave Noah with someone who didn’t have botched vampires gunning for him.
I thought about calling Miriam since she apparently had a finger in every damn pie and was a secret Guardian too, but she was working the Metro case with Adrian right now. And if I didn’t want to bother him, it meant I didn’t want to bother her.
For the thousandth time in so many minutes, my finger hovered over Etty’s name on the screen. Calling that one would just be masochistic. I missed her too much—more than I’d actively missed anyone before, even Becca. I still wasn’t entirely sure why, but it probably had something to do with the fact that she might be the only person in the world I’d ever really trusted.
I’d thought she hated me all through the first year we’d lived together, because she’d never hesitated to pick fights with me about all the little ways I made her life hell as an inconsiderate roommate. But looking back on it all now, after she had broken fae laws to save my life, ruining hers in the process, I knew she had never hated me. She was just honest. As allergic to bullshit as I’d always been. And I loved her for it. Even if she’d apparently had some kind of tryst with Dirk instead of saying goodbye to me . . . I couldn’t hold something like that against her.
It was why I still hadn’t moved out of our old apartment, even though I could barely afford the rent on my own. I was still holding on to some hope that Etty might find her way out of the fae realm, and I wanted to be somewhere she could find me if that happened.
I felt my eyes start to sting, so I turned around to face all the bottles of liquor instead of the few people having a late lunch in the club.
I was pretty much only standing here for show anyway, considering how little business we had at the moment and how little they were drinking at this time of day.
“Got any good tequila?” someone said behind me, and I rushed to wipe away the wetness from my eyes.
When I turned around, Ray stood at the other side of the bar. Great. I’d already seen enough of him for one day. “Yep,” I said. Without any elaboration, I poured him a shot of the cheapest tequila I had on the shelf.
He shook his head at me when I slid it over to him, but he downed it all the same and had the gall to not even give me a grimace.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “We agreed it was too dangerous for us to meet in public, remember?” It wasn’t because we couldn’t be seen together or anything like that. We’d been meeting regularly at his glass workshop, once a week on my day off while the kids were in school, trying with minimal success to figure out how to get the volatile phoenix spirit living inside us under control. The thing got more powerful whenever we were together, so it was risky if anyone else was around. Last time he’d come in here for a drink, we’d accidentally turned my dying friend Becca into a pretty fae torch.
“I remember,” he said. “But I’ve had a rough day, no thanks to you. And this hardly counts as public.” He nodded his head to the side to emphasize how empty the place was, which didn’t exactly make me any happier to see him.
“Okay, sit down,” I said with a sigh. “Thanks for coming when I called. I do appreciate it, and I’m sorry if I ruined your day.”
“Actually, it was a good distraction. Today was rough before you called.”
“Oh?” I perked up a little, intrigued now. “Is it girl problems? Anyone you need me to kill?”
He chuckled. “Maybe . . . Carina’s mother is coming to town.”
“The dragon?”
“That’s the one.” He motioned for me to pour him another shot of the shitty tequila, and I obliged.
He shook out his hand before picking it up, a small gesture to protect the sleeve of his crisp button-down shirt, drawing my attention to his rough fingers and strong forearm that moved with the elegant precision of a craftsman.
I shook
my head slightly, not surprised that this man had managed to attract a dragon. Was that a weird thing to think about my brother? I was still getting used to the idea of having a brother in the first place, so I had no idea.
“Is she coming to visit Carina?” I asked.
“Of course not,” he said. “Dragons are . . . not very maternal. Or paternal. They never raise their own children, and they don’t acknowledge lineage. They grow up orphans and turn into emotionally unavailable adults who are terrified of commitment.”
I pursed my lips, sensing some hard feelings about that last part. It wasn’t difficult for me to imagine Carina eventually becoming such an adult, but she was only half-dragon, so at least she got the luxury of being raised by her actual father.
“I don’t know why she’s coming,” Ray continued when I said nothing, “but it’s not good for us.”
“Why not?”
“Because Popo isn’t going to let us play around out here forever. So even if he had some other reason to send someone . . . he chose to send someone who has a history with me, which means he’s losing patience with me. And with you.”
Ah, so that was really why Ray had shown up here. To make yet another attempt at getting me down on my knees and worshiping some god I’d never heard of until a couple months ago.
Supposedly, this god had been the facilitator and benefactor for the ancient phoenix that had claimed us as its newest corporeal ride when we were just kids. I had been too young at the time to remember any of that, but Ray was a few years older than me and had told me the story in bits and pieces during our weekly meetings.
We had different mothers but the same father, and when the panic of the Opening had hit shortly after I was born, our devoted witch dad had easily convinced both our scared human mothers to gift us to his god, who would surely make us strong enough to survive the supernatural apocalypse they thought was coming.
But the apocalypse didn’t come, and vampires were great at public relations even back then, so it didn’t take long for my mother to regret her decision and steal me away. Knowing what I now knew about the mage mark my adoptive family had given me, the tattoo that functioned as a way to suppress my connection to the god who thought he owned me, I could understand why my mother had brought me there. But I still had no idea why she’d left me there. Why I’d never met her—why I’d always thought my parents must be dead.
I had a feeling I’d need to take a trip to California if I ever wanted to find out.
Until then, and maybe even after, it would be crazy of me to consider crawling back to the god so many people had worked to keep me away from throughout my childhood.
I shook my head. “What part of ‘No’ do you all not understand?”
“It won’t take much,” Ray pleaded. “You’ve already lost your mage mark—”
“Because you had your daughter rip it off my ankle!” I started to yell at him before I remembered where I was. Lowering my voice and drawing out my words, I said, “I’m going to get my tattoo back as soon as I have time to figure out how.”
But my unwillingness to accept Ray’s god and become a full-blown member of his witch family was probably the reason we’d only had minimal success controlling the phoenix inside us. That aggravating bird had chosen to align itself with Ray’s god long before the two of us were born, and it was the god’s power that had allowed it to attach itself to us. Until I could get my mage mark back and block the god’s influence for good, I wouldn’t be able to control magic like I used to.
For now at least, that felt like a small price to pay for my freedom.
Ray dipped his head and curled his shoulders forward, staring into his empty glass. “If you don’t . . .”
With a sigh, I brought out another glass and poured myself a small shot along with his.
Ray ignored the liquid in his glass and looked up at me with eyes filled with dread. “I’ll lose her if you don’t join us,” he said.
I downed the mouthful of awful tequila, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at him. He was talking about Carina, his daughter, whose dragon-shifting abilities were an obvious boon to their god. Ray’s abilities, on the other hand, were useless without me by his side. And their god was apparently not the most generous when it came to freeloaders. Did I want to be responsible for my half-brother being separated from his daughter? No. Of course not. But it wasn’t fair of these strangers to come into my life out of nowhere and expect me to become a slave to their god just so they could stay together.
I opened my eyes and gave him a hard glare. “You won’t lose her,” I said, and I meant it. I wouldn’t sacrifice myself to a god to keep their family together, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t fight for them. “We’ll find another way to keep her with you. I’ll find another way.” I forced a smile onto my face. “Hell, I need Carina around more than you do at this point—the way Noah worships her.”
Ray still hadn’t picked up the shot I’d poured for him, but he swallowed down whatever he might have wanted to say to me, and I could see him try to match my forced smile. It struck me then that he must trust me, to some extent, even though he didn’t have much reason to. Even though, had I been in his shoes, I probably wouldn’t trust me.
But he’d known he had a sister his whole life, so I wasn’t a stranger to him the way he was to me. And more importantly, he needed to trust me. If I couldn’t help him, no one could.
That realization made it a little easier for me to trust him in return. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you, short of worshiping your god, if you do me a favor tonight.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Watch Noah while I work a late shift.”
Ray lit up instantly, sitting taller as his eyes brightened. He’d been trying to get me to let him spend time with Noah since our first meeting. And I’d been resisting since then because he wanted the same thing of Noah that he wanted of me—another “creature of fire” to add to his god’s devotees. But he didn’t need Noah like he needed me, so at this point I felt like I could at least trust him not to steal the kid away.
Indoctrination was another story, but Noah was smart, and how much damage could one night do?
I immediately regretted asking myself that question when Ray said, “That’s perfect! Tonight is our spring rain festival ceremony, and Noah will love it.” At my icy glare, he threw up his hands. “Calm down, it’s nothing gruesome. We won’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
“You know he’ll do anything Carina asks whether he wants to or not.” My tentative trust definitely did not extend to Ray’s daughter.
“This is true.” Ray smiled. “But Carina will do anything I ask, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t take advantage of your boy.” Probably trying to keep me from changing my mind, Ray changed the subject. “What are you doing working late tonight anyway?”
“Something I very much don’t want to do,” I said, even though it was only partially true. I didn’t want to put on Kat’s outfit just so I could take it off again in a room full of overexcited vampires, but I did want to get a lead on whoever had been making kids disappear. I wanted to be useful, to help take down a bad guy, to feel like myself again.
“Sounds like you need to worry more about yourself and less about the boy,” Ray said.
He wasn’t wrong, except that it was too late for me. Noah hadn’t signed any documents stating that he had to jump at Carina’s every whim, but I had done so with the Guardians years ago. They would own me for as long as they wanted me, and tonight that meant getting naked and flirting with vampires.
Flirting with death.
5
The rose gold light of early dusk shone in my eyes as I stepped off the escalator from the Metro where Noah and I had stopped this morning.
I shifted uncomfortably in my jeans as I walked up to the entrance to the club. I was still wearing my comfy boots, for now, but Kat’s lacy nightmare was itching me in all the wrong places und
erneath my clothes, and I had a pair of Etty’s heels—the shortest I could find—in a bag slung over my shoulder.
I had gotten ready at Ray’s place to save time and avoid Dirk, since I’d had to take Noah there anyway after picking him up from school. It was a miracle my evil half-brother had steadier hands than I did, because if I’d had to put on my own eyeliner evenly after nearly killing myself in the shower shaving places that had never before seen a razor . . . I let out a short breath, in more awe than usual of the women who went through this routine every day.
More than anything, I was lucky to have had his help healing all the places I’d cut myself shaving. At a vampire club, going in with even a tiny nick was the kind of amateur mistake that could be the end of me. Bleeding was the one thing you didn’t do around vampires unless you had a death wish.
When I opened the door to the club, I was met with darkness. I walked forward blindly, taking small steps, until a creak ahead and a sliver of dim light indicated a door was being opened for me. A man stood stiffly holding it open, more like a soldier than a bouncer at a club. His eyes never moved, and he said nothing to me.
I tried to imagine Mitch with all his bad jokes standing at the door unmoving, unseeing at our club while customers filed in, and the thought simply did not compute. I’d been hoping to pick up some useful business tips while I was here, but maybe this place was just too different for that.
I walked down a dimly lit hall, slightly more comfortable with every step as my eyes adjusted. I tried to look more nervous than I felt as the hallway opened up and I walked out onto the empty floor of the unfamiliar club.
Looking around the open space, I saw no one. Just the gleam of an especially tall pole and plush seating all around. The ceiling was so high that I could see the railing on the second floor, where customers could probably sit to watch the same show as those below. I’d bet there were VIP rooms up there too. Off to one side was a bar much bigger and shinier than the one I tended.