If he’d been in the field and this was one of his military brothers, Adam would have just ripped the clothes covering the wound off with no care for the person’s comfort. Years of being in the military trained him that comfort wasn’t worth losing a life over. But, Mikael wasn’t a soldier and as much as Adam wanted to just expose the wound as quickly as possible, he didn’t. He took care with how much he jostled Mikael.
Mikael gasped when Adam’s hand slipped under his open shirt toward his wound. His sudden exhale of breath had nothing to do with pain. Instead, it had everything to do with feeling the warm heat of Adam’s rough palm caressing his skin almost feather light.
“Sorry.” Adam froze and lifted his gaze to Mikael’s face.
His boss was pale and his eyes were glazed. Neither of which surprised Adam since he knew the man had lost blood and was in pain. Mikael’s lips were parted slightly and the totally inappropriate thought of what those lips might taste like caught Adam off guard. Now was not the time to be thinking about his boss sexually. In fact, never would be the time since Mikael was his boss.
“It’s okay.” Mikael leaned forward and his movement caused Adam’s hand to caress further around his waist. “You didn’t hurt me.” Mikael moved his hand away from where he was pressing the wound on his side.
“All right.” Adam nodded. “I don’t want to hurt you more than you are already, but we need to get this off so I can see how bad it is.”
Adam barely waited for his boss to nod before he moved his hands along Mikael’s chest and up to his shoulders. He kept his gaze on Mikael’s eyes for any sign he was causing his boss more pain. Mikael held his gaze and when a hiss escaped his lips when Adam moved the silk button-up off his shoulders, Adam was almost sure what he saw in Mikael’s eyes had nothing to do with pain. Adam blinked and whatever his imagination thought he saw was gone.
Mikael watched Adam give his head a slight shake before the man’s eyes moved to track his hands that were pushing Mikael shirt off his shoulders. He moved his left arm so Adam could assist him with getting out of his shirt. Adam leaned in close to move his shirt behind his back and Mikael was assaulted by his employee’s scent. Whatever cologne Adam wore had a woodsy smell that made Mikael think of his childhood in Russia. He breathed in deep and closed his eyes.
Adam heard Mikael’s deep inhale and at first, he thought it related to the pain he may have caused from undressing the man. However, even after he froze his movement, Mikael breathed in deep enough that Adam was sure it had nothing to do with pain. His head was next to Mikael’s neck and Adam’s arms were wrapped around the man shoulders in an effort to slide the button up behind Mikael’s back.
Adam knelt between Mikael’s knees while his boss leaned forward on the leather sofa. Their position was extremely intimate and Adam’s body was starting to respond. He turned his head toward Mikael’s neck and the urge to close the scant inches between his lips and the creamy white skin of his boss’ neck was so strong that Adam was leaning closer without even realizing it.
The door to Mikael’s office slammed open and snapped both men out of their own lust fogged minds. Adam startled and he thought his boss did as well. He refocused on pulling Mikael’s dress shirt around his back without turning to see who joined them in the office. Adam was pulling Mikael’s sleeve down the arm of his injured side when the newcomer’s voice broke the silence in the office that had only been previously filled with their breathing.
“How much do you need?” Randy crossed the room and looked down at Mikael.
Mikael glared at his bar manager and shot a quick glance at Adam before meeting Randy’s concerned gaze again. Randy’s eyes slightly widened and he looked suitably reprimanded and embarrassed that he spoke without thinking.
Adam thought Randy’s question was odd, but pushed his bar manager’s inquiry from his mind once his gaze took in the hole in Mikael’s side. The wound was more a hole than a slice and Adam knew that meant most of the damage would be on the inside.
“He needs a hospital.” Adam looked up at Randy who now stood next to where he knelt between Mikael’s knees.
“It’s not that bad,” Mikael countered.
Adam ignored his boss who was once again holding his hand over the wound. He grabbed one of the pale blue towels and gently lifted Mikael’s hand away so he could see the wound again. Blood seeped, not poured, from the hole after he wiped the bright crimson away that was smeared on Mikael’s pale skin. He could admit that once he cleaned up the blood around the wound that it didn’t appear nearly as bad as he first feared because of Mikael’s behavior on the walk up the stairs.
“It could be deeper than it looks.” Adam took in Mikael’s paler than normal face before his gaze met Randy’s deep brown eyes.
“It doesn’t look too bad.” Randy broke the norm’s concerned gaze and looked back at his boss.
“I am sure whatever I was stabbed with didn’t go deep.” Mikael reassured Adam with the small smile.
Adam wasn’t reassured. He knew that even if a stab wound looked superficial that in reality it could be deadly. He wiped once more at the hole in his boss’ side. The bleeding had practically stopped, so maybe his boss was right. Perhaps, he wasn’t stabbed too deeply.
“I’ll take care of him, Adam.” Randy laid a reassuring hand on Adam’s shoulder. “You should get back to work.”
Adam looked up at his bar manager again and wanted to argue. However, he had no argument for why he needed to stay with their boss especially as it seemed Mikael wasn’t bleeding nearly as badly as Adam initially thought.
“Okay.”
Adam wiped what little blood he discovered on his hands off on the clean pale blue towel that sat next to his boss. He stood and glanced at his bar manager and boss. He didn’t want to leave, but had no choice. Adam wasn’t hired to do anything other than security for the club, so staying to take care of his boss wasn’t part of his job description. Neither his bar manager or boss said a word before he closed Mikael’s office door behind him and returned downstairs to work.
~~~
“Two pints,” Mikael said barely a moment after Adam closed his office door.
Randy had already been moving toward his apartment door when he spoke. The concern in Randy’s eyes was heartwarming even if the young life drinker knew something as superficial as being stabbed couldn’t kill him.
Sure, without blood it would take him longer to heal. But, he would heal. Hell, Randy knew they could survive anything but being beheaded or a direct stake to their hearts. Those were the only two things Hollywood actually portrayed correctly when they painted life drinkers as villains labeled vampires.
Randy returned with the goblet. It was warm when Mikael took the clear crystal filled with the nutrition he needed to heal. They both knew drinking cold blood was disgusting, so disgusting that they would have to be desperate to drink directly from their chilled backup supply.
Mikael’s current situation was nowhere near desperate despite Randy still looking at him with worry and concern. Mikael had to remind himself of how young Randy actually was compared to the long existence their kind possessed. Randy was barely more than a child; a child that looked to him as a father.
“There is no need to worry, Randy.” Mikael smiled up at his adopted child. “I will heal and be fine. You know something this trivial could not kill one of our kind,” Mikael reminded gently.
“I do,” Randy agreed, but didn’t relax. “You are just so pale.”
Mikael chuckled and took another gulp of blood from his goblet. He could already feel his body mending quickly and the feeling of rejuvenation coursing through his system. Mikael finished what remained in his goblet and held it out to Randy. The man rushed from the room to get him a refill.
“Thank you.” Mikael smiled again as he accepted his refilled goblet. “I really am doing much better now, Randy.”
“I know. Your color is already almost back to normal.”
“Then why are you fidgeting?
Come, sit next to me.” Mikael moved the bloody towels and his dress shirt to the floor between his feet. He wasn’t sure why Randy still seemed so distraught. “What is wrong, child.”
Randy sat next to Mikael and didn’t flinch when he was called a child. He was a child where their kind was concerned and he knew it. Still, he couldn’t look at the life drinker who’d taken him in after his father died. He and Mikael were both life drinkers, but they weren’t the same.
Mikael was one of the rare drinkers who were actually turned instead of born. Randy didn’t understand how someone could be turned into one of their kind and that difference between them was more than likely why seeing Mikael injured for the first time ever caused him worry.
“Tell me what is wrong, Randy,” Mikael requested. It was clear Randy was still rattled over him being injured.
“We are both life drinkers, but we aren’t the same. What if you can be killed another way than those of us born this way?”
Mikael chuckled and pulled Randy close to his rapidly healing side. “It matters not how either of us came to be. How our existence could end is still the same.”
Mikael kissed the top of Randy’s brown haired head. They sat in silence with only the sounds of Mikael drinking from his goblet filling the space between them for several minutes before Randy spoke again.
“Weren’t you tempted to feed from Adam?”
“Ah, Randy.” Mikael rested his chin atop the younger life drinkers head. “I wasn’t tempted to feed from Adam.”
“Then why did it look that way when I walked in? I actually thought you were feeding.”
Mikael took a sip from his goblet while he formulated his answer. No, the thought of feeding from Adam had never crossed his mind. His mind was too busy fantasizing about the man sexually to think about how Adam’s fresh blood could have healed him far faster than anything in his refrigerator.
“I don’t want to feed from Adam.” Mikael knew it was a partial lie. He wanted to feed from his employee, but sating his hunger was secondary to all of the sexual things Adam made him crave to do. “He is my employee and you know my rules.”
“No feeding on or fucking family,” Randy recited.
Those were the only two rules Mikael enforced on his family. The feeding only applied to him, Travis, and Randy now, but problems in the past had made him institute the rule. Mikael kissed the top of Randy’s head again before he moved the man away from his side.
“Tell everyone to meet up here after the club closes.”
Mikael knew he didn’t need to specify who he meant by everyone. He may have considered all of his employees’ family, but Randy understood the only norms welcome to this after work meeting were Chris and Rita.
“Go on, now.” Mikael nudged Randy to stand.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
Mikael smiled and waved at his injured side. The wound had already closed and his skin looked as if a knife hadn’t stabbed him a little over an hour ago. Aside from the blood that was starting to dry, one would never know he’d been injured at all.
“I’m fine.” Mikael smiled reassuringly. “Now, off you go.”
Randy glanced at him one more time before he pulled Mikael’s office door closed behind him. Mikael hated the worry he’d witnessed in the younger life drinkers eyes, but only age and experience would ensure Randy understood what could be truly fatal to their kind. Mikael finished the remnants of blood in his goblet and stood. He bent and picked up the bloody towels and his shirt without even feeling a twinge of pain. The blood had sped up his healing just as his experience told him it would.
However, it wasn’t how his body felt that was on Mikael’s mind when he stepped out of his remaining clothes and into the shower. Instead, his thoughts bounced between the attack on him and Adam caring for him in his office.
Since he’d open The Witch’s Brew three years ago, the biggest threat of violence ever happening came from the two mob factions that fought over Chicago. Even that threat didn’t last long once he visited the leaders of the mob clans. Aside from the Mancini’s and O’Reilly’s, the only violence they encountered was the occasional bar fight. Hell, even those were few and far between because his security team was top-notch.
It disturbed Mikael that they’d had a shooting and now a stabbing in his club in less than a few weeks. He could only be grateful that he was the one stabbed and not some innocent patron. At least he would survive, whereas if the same wound was inflicted on a norm or hell, even on a garoul, they may not have survived at all. Mikael needed to figure out what was going on because something was definitely going on.
It wasn’t until he was redressed and stepped back into his office that thoughts of Adam reentered his mind. He liked his new security employee, a norm, far more than he should and could only imagine what the man thought about everything that had happened in the club since he had been hired.
Mikael paused with that thought. Adam had only been employed with him for a few days before the shooting occurred. Now, he’d been stabbed tonight and in the section of the club Adam was working security. He didn’t want to think that Adam had anything to do with the recent violence they were experiencing in the club. Mikael didn’t want to, but did.
It was hard to ignore Adam’s employment seemed to herald the violence that happened over the last few weeks. What Mikael couldn’t decide was if the correlation was a coincidence or not. Did he just hire Adam at the wrong time and shit just seemed to be happening? Or did Adam’s employment bring the violence to his club? Mikael wasn’t sure, but he hoped it was the former and not the latter.
***
Chapter Six
It was almost five a.m. when Mikael’s employees filed into his office. Everyone who was not a norm was present along with Chris and Rita. It was clear by the way they all, including Randy, looked him over from head to toe, in order to ensure he was fine, that they had been worried.
His office was crowded with everyone present. They would all be more comfortable and have more space if he moved them into his apartment. However, aside from Adam tonight, only Randy and George had ever invaded his private space. He wanted to keep it that way.
“Did we find the weapon?” Mikael asked without any preamble.
“Marci saw Adam leading you to the stairs before she smelled blood,” George answered.
Mikael nodded before Chris spoke, “Once Adam notified us of what happened, I relieved George at the door and Rita moved into Adam’s zone until George reached her.”
“So, the weapon?” Mikael looked at George.
“I found it kicked against the bar,” George informed with a frown.
He reached behind his back and retrieved a napkin wrapped knife that looked more like an ice pick when Mikael unwrapped it. The handle was a pale wood except for where a rust colored pattern covered the surface. Mikael held the weapon by the thin edge and turned it to view the pattern left behind by his now dried blood. His employees watched him silently.
“The pattern here.” Mikael turn the weapon to catch more light on the handle. “It doesn’t look like fingerprints.”
Travis stepped closer before he spoke, “It doesn’t look like glove marks, either.”
Chris joined Travis and frowned at the weapon Mikael held. “No, it looks like lace.”
“Let me see.” Barb moved closer and Mikael tilted the handle toward her. “It is,” she said after a moment then clarified, “from a lace glove.”
“A woman did this?” Marci asked almost incredulously.
“Women can be more deadly than men,” Travis commented.
Mikael agreed. In fact, he had personal experience with women being more deadly than men. With a man, one could see death coming. Women tended to blindside when they decided to kill. Thoughts of the drug dealer they had in the VIP room a few weeks ago was a perfect example. She was banned from his club, but just the fact that she tried to pull a knife on him made him ask for verification.
“Our VIP guests
from a few weeks ago have not been back, correct?”
“None of them have returned,” George assured. “Even if they had, they wouldn’t have gotten in.” George didn’t sound offended or upset that his boss was asking.
Mikael nodded because he expected nothing less than the answer he’d received. However, the answer regarding the lowlife drug dealers and prostitutes didn’t explain why he was stabbed in his club.
“What is going on?” Jules asked with sincere confusion.
“We’ve never had shit like this happen before,” Rita added.
They all knew what kind of shit she was referring to: a shooting and now a stabbing. It was a reminder that the worst violence to occur in the club since Mikael opened it three years ago had been fistfights. He wasn’t sure he had an answer to give his family, so he was honest.
“I don’t know.” Mikael frowned. “But, it seems like the club is being targeted all the sudden.”
“This shit is too juvenile for it to be the mobsters,” George growled.
“They’ve never given us a problem,” Randy added.
“It is and no they haven’t. The heads of the families know what will happen if they bring their war into my club,” Mikael said with the confidence they all believed.
“So, we don’t know what this is then?” Barb asked what Mikael was sure they were all thinking.
“No we don’t.” Mikael looked around and met each of his employees’, his family members’, eyes. “We don’t even know if the two incidents are connected.”
“But you think they are,” Chris interrupted with surety.
“I do, but we have no proof.” Mikael frowned again. “Until we do, I want each of you to be hypervigilant of your surroundings. Not just in the club, but everywhere.” Mikael met every gaze that looked at him. “We don’t know if this shit that’s going on is Hunters testing us for weakness or something just from the norms.”
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