The Devil and the Dancer

by Elizabeth Hunter

Your sister?

  The string of profanities he typed made little sense to Chloe, but she got the general gist.

  I’m going to have to google most of those, she typed back.

  Wise, considering that as long as Vivian is in town, you’ll be hearing them.

  Going to bed. Night.

  Wish I was with you. See you tomorrow evening.

  Gavin called Chloe into the Bat and Barrel that evening, determined to ease her into some of the more complicated parts of his life. If he was in love with her and he wanted a chance at a real relationship, she would have to know. Eventually she’d have to know it all.

  What are you doing, Wallace?

  He sat at the far end of the bar, second-guessing every decision he’d made with her. The silent riot in his mind lasted only as long as it took to see Chloe walk through the door of the pub, raindrops sparkling in her hair and a red tint on her cheeks from the cold.

  There she is. That’s why you’re doing this, ya daft prick.

  Gavin waited for her to walk toward him, aiming for the hallway and the break room. “Good evening, Chloe.”

  “Gavin.” She smiled. “Hi.”

  He’d worn a suit that evening since he had a meeting with a liquor distributor who cared about that kind of thing. He enjoyed the way her eyes scanned him, up and down, in a more proprietary manner than she’d worn before.

  Excellent. He was feeling territorial, and he quite enjoyed that he wasn’t the only one.

  “I need to see you in my office before you start your shift,” he said, glancing at the server who was polishing glasses behind the bar. “Lettie, tell Brian to cover the bar for about fifteen more minutes, will you?”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  He didn’t give in to his urge to kiss her until they were both in his office and the door was closed and locked.

  “Mmmm.” She groaned against his lips. “I missed you when you woke up tonight.”

  “Not more than I missed you.” His hand ran down the back of her thigh. “I missed these legs. This mouth.” He kissed her again, openmouthed and hungry.

  “How long until your sister leaves?”

  “How long until Beatrice and Giovanni leave?”

  She put her arms around his shoulders while he indulged in kissing every inch of her neck. “Why do we know so many people?”

  He wanted to bite her, but he was waiting. He’d never fed from anyone who made him feel the way Chloe did, and he was oddly reticent. How would it feel? Would it tie him to her even more deeply? Did he want that?

  He indulged in his urge to kiss her while also covering her with his scent. She’d be working around vampires this night. He could not control the instinct to mark her, even if she wasn’t yet taking his bite.

  “We’ll manage this week.” He straightened his tie while she tied her hair back at the nape of her neck. “And then life will return to normal. Or as normal as it can be.”

  “Sounds good.” Her lips were swollen from his kiss, and she looked a bit rumpled.

  Good.

  Of course, the idiocy of calling his new lover to work in his vampire-friendly bar hit him only a few minutes after she walked behind the bar. Gavin wanted to kill every immortal who spoke to her.

  Yer a bampot, Wallace.

  At least Vivian wasn’t here. As much as he hated to acknowledge it, his sister could read him like no other immortal on earth. A consequence of their early years together, but annoying nonetheless. If he wanted to keep his relationship with Chloe private, he could not let Vivian and Chloe be in the same location.

  Even those few moments at the Dancing Bear the other night had made Vivian more curious about “that pretty curly-haired server at your bar.” Gavin had distracted her, but Chloe had clearly caught Vivian’s attention.

  Gavin settled into a corner booth for his meeting while Chloe tended the bar with Lettie, Mathias, and a new server who’d just started that night. All three wore a discreet red button on their lapels that told vampire customers they were available for feeding. There were private rooms in the back for that sort of thing, and Gavin kept all of them monitored with both video and audio surveillance. Some vampires bristled at the intrusion, but he made no secret that his servers were professionals and not pawns.

  “Mr. Gardner.” He rose and greeted the human in the impeccable three-piece suit. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Can I get you a drink?”

  The meeting held no surprises, which was a relief since Gavin was distracted. He couldn’t stop checking on Chloe. Who was she talking to? She’d taken a break; had she been gone longer than normal? She received a text on her phone that made her smile. Who was texting her?

  Get ahold of yourself, Wallace.

  It was a complication he hadn’t anticipated, and one that gave him pause. Was this normal when one become attached to a human? How was he supposed to moderate his instincts when everything felt so precarious between them?

  You want a commitment from her. Gavin had resigned himself to being in love, but he had no idea if Chloe’s feelings ran as deeply as his own. The uncertainty was maddening.

  He was checking his accounts later that evening when an unexpected visitor walked in the bar.

  Giovanni Vecchio.

  The notorious fire vampire caught Gavin’s eye immediately and nodded in greeting. Gavin waved him over before Giovanni could find another seat.

  “Hello.” He rose to greet Giovanni. “I didn’t know you’d be coming in tonight.”

  “Cormac,” Giovanni said. “I’m meeting him at one.”

  “You’re early.”

  “I am.” Giovanni sat in Gavin’s booth and folded his hands with an air of careful nonchalance. “I thought we might have something to discuss.”

  Ah. Well, he knew he’d have to have the conversation eventually. Tenzin had warned him. Chloe, after all, was under Giovanni’s aegis, which made him her guardian in the vampire world. Lettie stopped by the table, and Gavin ordered two scotches from his private reserve.

  “Both neat,” he said. “And a glass of cold water. Thank you, Lettie.” Gavin angled himself to face Giovanni, unwilling to appear supplicant. “You already knew we were involved.”

  “I did.”

  The two men had been allies in the past, but Gavin would hesitate to call Giovanni a friend.

  “We’re more involved now,” Gavin said.

  “I sensed that.” Giovanni didn’t say he’d smelled Gavin all over the loft, but he didn’t have to. His scent would have been in the secure room and all over Chloe.

  “I’m not asking permission,” Gavin said. “Asking permission would be an insult to her and me. She’s a grown woman.”

  “She’s a young woman.”

  Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “She’s not sheltered. And she knows her own mind.”

  “I know both those things.” Giovanni unfolded his hands and folded them again.

  Good Lord. Was the vampire… nervous? The fact that Giovanni might be as uncomfortable as Gavin was put him at ease.

  “Have you ever known me to be involved with a human?” Gavin asked.

  “More than for your own convenience? No.”

  “Well then.”

  Giovanni’s eyebrows rose. “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  Giovanni smiled a little. “Yes, I do. I saw months ago. Your new bar speaks for itself.”

  Gavin felt his collar grow tight. “The Dancing Bear is a good investment. The theater crowd—”

  “You didn’t build it for the theater crowd. You built it for her. Coming from you, Gavin, it’s practically a love letter.”

  Gavin rolled his eyes. “Italians. So dramatic.”

  “You mean observant.” Giovanni released his hands to take the glass of scotch the server brought. “Don’t be so defensive. I know we’ve never been confidants, but if anyone knows what you’re going through at the moment, it’s me.”

  Gavin glanced at the bar. Chloe caught his eye and offered an easy smil
e. She loved Giovanni. He was Ben’s uncle, and he’d known Chloe since she was young.

  Gavin forced the words through his lips. “When did you know with Beatrice?”

  “You saw me after he took her,” Giovanni said. “You should know the answer to that question.”

  The memory was one of Gavin’s few regrets in life. He’d been cornered into a meeting between Giovanni and his bastard of a vampire son, Lorenzo. Lorenzo had used Beatrice as leverage and put Giovanni into an impossible situation that forced him to let his son take the woman he cared about when she’d been a vulnerable human.

  Gavin had suspected Lorenzo wouldn’t risk harming Beatrice; the bastard wanted her as bait.

  He’d suspected. But he hadn’t known.

  Putting the young woman into the hands of a vampire he knew was a killer was a decision that haunted Gavin. He hadn’t known how Giovanni felt about Beatrice at the time, but he’d known soon after when the fire vampire had erupted in rage and turned the vampire world red in a quest for the woman who would eventually become his mate.

  Gavin sipped his scotch, unable to ease the tight grip on his glass. “Does she still curse every time my name comes up?”

  “She hasn’t done that in years. She appreciates what you’ve done for Ben.”

  “Ben is a friend,” Gavin said. “One of the few that I care to claim.”

  “I know that. So does she. And she also knows you’ve taken our side in fights that could have meant your end.”

  Gavin swallowed, and the scotch burned. “Fair is fair.”

  “I think you’ve paid your debt—”

  “Have I?”

  “—but make no mistake; Beatrice will take your head off if you hurt Chloe.”

  Gavin offered a rueful smile. “She did it to Lorenzo, so I don’t doubt it.”

  “I’m serious, Gavin.”

  “So am I.” His eyes rose to Giovanni’s. “I want to kill the vampire she’s talking to at the bar.”

  Giovanni glanced at the grizzled vampire with silver hair and pox scars on his face. “Isn’t he one of Cormac’s crew?”

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter. I want to kill him. I want to kill every man she smiles at. I want to hide her in the mountains and put a dozen guards on her. I’m having her followed every time she’s not with me.”

  Giovanni’s eyes were sympathetic instead of judgmental. “Does she know?”

  “I told her the other night. This particular obsession is a relatively new development since…”

  “I see.” Giovanni took a long breath. “As long as she knows about the surveillance, you’re fine. It’s when you don’t tell them that they get really angry. Trust me on that one. I speak from experience.”

  Gavin gripped his glass tighter. “Does it get better?”

  Giovanni grimaced. “Honestly? No. Yes and no. Once you make your claim public, your status and alliances should help keep others away. They already keep their distance knowing she’s under my aegis and one of your employees. You’re in a better position than I was. You studiously avoid having enemies.”

  “Enemies aren’t profitable.”

  Giovanni’s voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “But Chloe will be seen as possible leverage until she becomes a power in her own right.”

  Fuck me. “All this… I didn’t expect it. And it’s not entirely welcome, to be honest.”

  “I understand completely. But don’t second-guess yourself for taking the chance. If it’s real—if it’s meant to be—you’ll never regret it.” Giovanni spotted Cormac a few seconds after he walked through the door. “My meeting is here.” He rose and finished the scotch before he looked down at Gavin. “I trust you to guard her, Gavin. Not only her safety but her heart. You’re capable of both; don’t doubt yourself.”

  Gavin watched him walk away.

  Dammit, why was Giovanni fucking Vecchio making Gavin feel like he’d just patted him on the head and said “good lad”? He swallowed the rest of his drink and turned back to his paperwork.

  Chloe watched Beatrice and Sadia from the corner of her eye as she completed her last set. Beatrice was smiling, and the little girl’s eyes were rapt on the twisting and turning dancers. They had been in New York for three nights, and this was the first chance they’d had to watch Chloe rehearse.

  When the music went silent, Chloe followed her fellow dancers to the front of the studio to sit for notes from the director, which were thankfully minimal. Then she exchanged polite good-nights with everyone as she walked to the back of the room.

  “Sorry you couldn’t see from the front,” Chloe said. “This space is pretty cramped. Did you enjoy it anyway?”

  Sadia walked toward her and held out her arms before she spun in a circle.

  Chloe was delighted. “Very good, Sadia! You want to practice with me more at home?”

  To answer her, the little girl toddled over to Chloe and grabbed her fingers to tug her toward Beatrice.

  “I think that’s a yes.” Beatrice smiled. “It was great. Really great. When is the show?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “I may have to fly out to see it. You guys already look amazing. That was wonderful.”

  “Thank you.” It warmed Chloe’s heart to have someone she respected so much compliment her. She’d never hear anything like that from her mom. She couldn’t even imagine her mom coming to a performance. “The City Dance Collective is also going to be live streaming it on the first night. So if you can’t come out, you should be able to watch online.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Beatrice rose and held her arms out for Sadia, who went immediately to her mother. “But I’d really love to be here if we can work it out. I’ll talk to Gio when we get home.”

  Chloe gathered her things and walked toward the door with Beatrice and Sadia following her. The car that had brought them to the rehearsal space in Hell’s Kitchen was already waiting for them.

  “You need to come to rehearsal more often,” Chloe said. “I could get used to service like this.”

  Beatrice buckled Sadia into the car seat while Chloe sat on the other side. “Doesn’t Gavin have a car?”

  “He does. And he’d tell Abe to cart me anywhere if I let him. It just seems silly to me.”

  “Hmmm.” Beatrice nibbled on Sadia’s fingers, causing the little girl to laugh.

  “I mean…” Chloe felt oddly defensive of Gavin. “He already has someone guarding me all the time as it is. It feels wasteful to have a car following me around too. It’d attract more attention.”

  Beatrice’s eyebrows rose. “He told you about the tail?”

  “Oh yeah. Like… the day after he hired her.”

  “Interesting.”

  Beatrice didn’t say more than that, but Chloe sensed approval.

  “So you spotted Audra?” she asked.

  “Quickly. Most humans won’t. She’s good.”

  Chloe glanced behind the car where she knew Audra’s motorcycle would soon be following them. “I try to pretend she’s not there.”

  “That’s usually the best policy.”

  Chloe felt like the elephant in the car was sitting on her chest. “Why don’t you like Gavin? Can I ask? Is it for supersecret vampire reasons?”

  The corner of Beatrice’s mouth turned up. “Yes, you can ask. The short answer is, I don’t trust him to look out for people other than himself. I think he has good tendencies—and I can’t lie, he’s been a friend to Ben—but I have a hard time trusting him.”

  “Because of something that happened to you personally?”

  “Yes.”

  Chloe nodded. “Okay. I mean, I can’t argue with that. But I guess…”

  Beatrice didn’t jump in. She waited for Chloe to speak as she handed Sadia a soft-sided book.

  “If you acknowledge Gavin has been a good friend to Ben—someone that he can trust—why don’t you think he’ll be a good friend—or more than a friend—to me?”

  “Honest answer?”

  “Alw
ays.” Chloe braced herself.

  “I trust Ben to take care of himself.”

  It bruised her, but Chloe could only nod. What did she expect? Beatrice knew all about her ex. She knew that Chloe had allowed herself to fall into an abusive relationship. It was hardly surprising that she didn’t trust her to—

  “Ben grew up with us. Grew up with vampires. He started training when he was twelve. He grew up on the streets before that. You’re still new to this world and I worry. I know you’re smart as hell. I know you’re training with Tenzin now. But I worry. I can’t help it.”

  “Oh.” The hurt eased a little. “So you don’t doubt me because…?”

  “Because what?”

  Her voice was small. “Because of Tom. Because of what he did to me. What I allowed to happen.”

  Beatrice’s voice cut like a blade. “You were young and you were in love. Tom’s actions are his own fault. Not yours. If anything, that experience makes me less concerned for you, not more. Experience is a hard teacher, but you’ve earned a level of wisdom about relationships that Ben doesn’t have. I don’t doubt you because of that, Chloe. Don’t think that even for a minute.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  Chloe forced a smile past the lump in her throat. “I do. Mostly. I’m still processing all this. The world he lives in—the world all of you live in—it’s a lot to take.” Chloe blinked back tears. “I’ve spent too much of my life being afraid, and I can’t”—she forced the words past the lump in her throat—“I can’t ignore that risk because of how I feel about him.”

  “You’re smarter than I was at your age,” Beatrice said. “If you need to talk, let me know. When I say I’ve been there, I mean it.”

  8

  Gavin strode into his penthouse already irritable. He’d woken that night to an empty phone. He had messages, but none of them were ones he wanted to read.

  He hadn’t heard from Chloe. Usually she texted him during the day, and he would wake up to one or more messages from her telling him what her plans for the night were, where she was staying, or some random amusement she’d seen or heard.

  He’d met with Audra in the lobby, but as he’d instructed her, she didn’t report on Chloe’s movements, only that she was safe and Hassim had taken over her shift since Gavin would be occupied for most of the night.