The Dark-Hunters (307 page)

Blaine scoffed. “What do you suggest? Burn incense to banish his stench?”

Whitney lightly slapped at Blaine’s leg. “Do stop it, Blaine. You’re upsetting poor Margeaux. She actually considered Nick a friend.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

Marguerite stiffened as she narrowed her gaze on him. “Because he was nice and caring.” Unlike them. Nick wasn’t pretentious or cold. He’d been real and he cared for people regardless of who they were related to or how much money they had.

Nick had been human.

“I know what we should do,” Elise said, shutting her book as well. “Why don’t we visit that place that Nick was always talking about? The one where his mother worked.”

“Sanctuary?” Blaine looked completely disgusted. Marguerite hadn’t even known a man could perfect such a lip curl. Elvis would be envious indeed. “I’ve heard it’s down on the other side of the French Quarter. How positively gauche.”

“I like the idea,” Todd said as he tucked his book into his designer backpack. “I’m always up for a good slumming.”

Blaine gave him a droll stare. “I’ve heard that about you, Todd. It’s the curse of the nouveau riche.”

Todd returned Blaine’s stare tit for tat. “Fine then, stay here and keep our seats warm while your ass expands to the size of your ego.” He stood up and captured Marguerite’s attention. “I think we should bid our not quite esteemed member farewell, and what better way than to go and drink cheap alcohol in his favorite place?”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “You’ll most likely contract hepatitis there.”

“No, we won’t,” Whitney said. She looked up at Todd with fear in her bright blue eyes. “Will we?”

“No,” Marguerite said firmly as she packed up her books. “Blaine’s simply a coward.”

He arched a brow at her. “Hardly. Being a thoroughbred on both sides, I have no inclination to waste time with riffraff.”

Marguerite lifted her chin at his low blow. Every one of them knew that her mother was a Cajun from Slidell who had nowhere near the social status of her father. Even though she had gone to college on a full scholarship and had been Miss Louisiana, her mother’s marriage to her father had been scandalous.

In the end, that disaster was what had led to her mother’s death.

It was something only a true dog would hurl in Marguerite’s face.

“Thoroughbred asshole, you mean,” she said between clenched teeth as she rose to her feet. She slammed her book into her Prada backpack. “Nick was right, you are nothing but a prickly wuss who needs to have his butt kicked.”

The women around her gaped at her language while Todd laughed.

Blaine turned an interesting shade of red.

“I have to say that I certainly love a little Cajun spice,” Todd said as he joined her side. “Come along, Margeaux, and I’ll be more than happy to keep you safe.” He looked at the other two women. “Care to join us?”

Whitney looked like a child who was about to get away with staying up past her bedtime. “My parents would die if they knew I went into a dive. Count me in.”

Elise nodded, too.

They looked at Blaine, who made a disgusted noise. “When all of you contract dysentery, remember who was the voice of reason.”

Marguerite pulled her backpack on. “Dr. Blaine, the resident expert on Montezuma’s revenge. We have it.”

By the look on his face, she could tell he was dying to let fly a vicious retort, but good manners and common sense kept him from speaking. It wasn’t wise to twice insult a U.S. senator’s daughter when one had ambitions of gaining an internship with said senator in the fall.

And that was most likely what motivated Blaine to join them as they headed for Todd’s SUV.

*   *   *

“Oh my goodness!” Whitney exclaimed the instant they entered the famed Sanctuary biker bar.

Marguerite’s own eyes widened as she looked around the dark, grungy place that did appear to need a good and thorough cleaning. People were dressed in anything from biker leathers to T-shirts and jeans. The tables and chairs were a hodgepodge of rough design that didn’t even match. The stage area was liberally painted black with odd splashes of gray, red, and white, and the billiard tables looked as if they’d survived many a bar fight in their day.

There was even straw spread out across the floor that reminded her of a barn.

The bar area to her right was occupied by rough-looking men drinking beers and yelling at one another. She could see a wooden stairway before them that led to an upstairs area, but she had no idea what was up there. Trouble came to her mind. A person could probably find a lot of trouble up there.

This place was definitely rustic.

But what held her attention most was the high concentration of handsome men working in the bar. They were everywhere. The bartenders, the waiters, the bouncers … She’d never seen anything like this. It was a testosterone smorgasbord.

Elise leaned over to whisper in her ear, “I think I might have just died and been sent to heaven. Have you ever seen so many gorgeous men in your life?”

It was all Marguerite could do to shake her head. It really was unbelievable. She was stunned that the news media hadn’t caught wind of this and sent in a team to investigate what was in the water to make so many hot men in one place.

Even Whitney was gaping and ogling.

“What kind of music is that?” Blaine said, twisting his lips into a sneer as a new song started over the stereo that was piped through the length and breadth of the bar.

“I think it’s called metal!” Todd shouted over the loud guitar solo.

“I call it painful myself,” Whitney said. “Did Nick really hang out here?”

Marguerite nodded. Nick had loved this place. He’d spent hours telling her about it and the odd people who called this place home. “He said they had the best andouille sausage in the world.”

Blaine scoffed. “Highly doubtful.”

Todd indicated a table to the back with a tilt of his head. “I think we should sit and have a drink in memory of old Nick. You only live once, you know?”

“Drink out of the glasses here and you probably won’t live through the night,” Blaine said. He looked less than enthusiastic as they followed Todd to the table and took a seat.

Marguerite shrugged her backpack off, dug her purse out, then placed it under the table. She hung her purse on her chair, then took a seat. The place was very loud and yet she could easily see Nick in here. There was something about it that reminded her of him. Aside from the rather tacky decor, which he’d always preferred. She often suspected that he dressed tacky just to nettle people.

To her it had been one of his more endearing traits. He was the only person she’d ever known who truly hadn’t cared what other people thought of him. Nick was Nick and if you didn’t like it, you could leave.

“Can I get you guys something?”

She looked up to see an extremely beautiful blond woman around her own age. She was wearing a pair of skin-tight jeans and a small T-shirt with the Sanctuary logo of a motorcycle parked on a hill that was silhouetted by a full moon. Underneath the picture was the tagline
Sanctuary: Home of the Howlers.

Blaine gave their waitress a hot once-over that the woman wisely ignored. “Yes, we’ll all have the Westvleteren 8.”

The waitress frowned at his choice of beer before she cocked her head as if to listen more carefully. “What was that?”

Blaine got that familiar smug look on his face and used his do-I-have-to-talk-to-the-simple? voice. “It’s a Belgian beer, sweetie. Please tell me you’ve at least heard of it.”

The waitress gave him a peeved glare. “Boy, I was born in Brussels and the last time I checked, this was my new homeland, America, not my birthplace. So you can either order an American-made beer or I’ll bring you water and you can sit there and act all superior until you puke, okay?”

Blaine looked as if he were ready to choke her. “Does your manager know that you talk to your customers like this?”

The waitress gave him a snide, indulgent smirk. “If you’d like to talk to my mother, who owns this bar, my overindulgent brother, who manages it, or my father, who delights in kicking everyone’s ass around, about your treatment by me, just let me know and I’ll be more than happy to go get one of them for you. I know they’d just
love
to waste their time dealing with
you.
They’re real understanding that way.”

Marguerite stifled a laugh. She didn’t know the woman, but she was beginning to like her a lot. “I’ll have a Bud Light, please.”

The waitress winked conspiratorially at her before she wrote it down on her small pad.

“Here, too,” Todd said.

Whitney and Elise joined in with their orders.

Then they all looked at Blaine and waited for his next nasty comment. “Bring mine unopened, with a napkin and an opener.”

The waitress cocked her head with a devilish gleam in her eyes. “What? Afraid I’m going to spit in it, big boy?”

Todd laughed.

Before Blaine could respond, the blonde left them.

Marguerite’s smile faded as she suddenly felt something odd.… The hair on the back of her neck rose. It was like someone was watching her.

Intently.

Menacingly.

Turning her head, she scanned the crowd, looking for the source of her discomfort. But there was nothing there. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them at all.

There were several groups of burly bikers playing pool. Tons of tourists and bikers milling about. There was even a group of seven men playing poker in one corner. Waiters and the waitress walked back and forth to the bar and tables delivering food and drinks while the two bartenders went about their business.

No one was even remotely looking in Marguerite’s direction.

I must be imagining it.

At least that’s what she thought until she spotted a man in the corner who appeared to be staring straight at her. Dressed in a baggy, untucked white button-down shirt covered by a dirty white apron, and faded, dingy black jeans that had seen much better days, he was a busboy who had paused in cleaning off a table. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled back to the middle of his forearms. His left arm held a bright, colorful tattoo that she couldn’t make out at this distance.

She had no idea what he looked like, since his thick dark blond hair obscured most of his face and fell over both of his eyes. The back of it hung just past his shoulders. In fact, given his hairdo she couldn’t really tell where he was looking, but every instinct in her body said it was at her.

There was something about him that seemed dark and dangerous. Predatory. Almost sinister.

She rubbed her neck nervously, wishing he would turn his attention back to his job.

“Is something wrong?” Blaine asked.

“No,” she said quickly, offering him a smile. If she mentioned it, he would no doubt make a scene and get the poor man fired from a job he probably needed. “I’m fine.” But the feeling didn’t subside and there was something so animalistic and fierce about it that she was definitely unnerved.

*   *   *

Wren tilted his head as he watched the unknown woman who looked so out of place that he wondered how she’d happened into their bar. Sophistication and money bled from her every pore. She definitely wasn’t their usual clientele.

He could also tell that she wasn’t comfortable under his close scrutiny. But then, no one was, it was why he seldom made eye contact with anyone. He’d learned a long time ago that no person or beast could stand the intensity of him for very long.

And yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her dark chestnut hair that she had tied back into a ponytail held traces of auburn highlights—that and her darker skin tone betrayed a Cajun heritage. She wore a delicate pink sweater set and a long khaki skirt with matching pink espadrilles.

Best of all, she had a lush, curvy body that beckoned a man to hold it close and taste it.

She certainly wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but there was something about her that held his attention. Something about her that seemed lost and hurt.

Sad.

In the wilds of Asia where he’d been born, such a creature as she would have been killed and eaten by something stronger. Fiercer. Vulnerability of any kind was an invitation for death. And yet he didn’t feel that familiar swell of adrenaline that made him want to attack the weak.

He felt an inexplicable desire to protect her.

More than that, he wanted to go over to her and offer comfort, but then, what did he know about comforting a human? He was a feral predator in human form. All he knew was how to stalk and to kill.

How to fight.

He knew nothing of comfort. Nothing of women. He was alone in the world by choice, and he liked it that way.

Marvin, the resident monkey mascot of Sanctuary, came running up to Wren with a new cloth for cleaning the tables. He took it from Marvin’s hand as he forced himself to go back to cleaning the table. Still, he felt the unknown woman’s presence, and before long he found himself staring at her again while she talked to her group of friends.

*   *   *

Marguerite took a sip of her beer while Elise and Whitney ogled the men in the bar. She reached for a pretzel only to have Blaine slap her hand.

He looked aghast at her. “Are you insane? Do you know how long that has been out? How many grimy hands have been in it? For that matter, our termagant waitress probably poisoned it just for spite.”

Marguerite rolled her eyes at his unreasonable paranoia. She glanced back to the busboy, who had moved closer now. He was working again, but even so she sensed that she was his primary focus.

She frowned as she saw a tiny brown spider monkey run up the busboy’s arm to rest on his shoulder.

The busboy pulled a small carrot from his white apron’s pocket to hand to the monkey, who ate it while the busboy returned to work. She bit back a smile as she realized who this guy was. He must be Wren. Nick used to talk about him from time to time. He’d told her that at first he’d thought Wren was mute, since he never, ever spoke to anyone. They’d known each other for a full year before Wren had finally mumbled, “Hi,” one day when Nick had come in to visit his mother.