Authors: SM Johnson
She had already started a campaign to elicit a promise from him to kill no longer, but he knew such a promise would never come to be. It was too much a part of him, too much the price he already paid for self-control. He rarely killed indiscriminately, but he swallowed the lives of his chosen victims with relish, and would continue to do so.
Lily claimed she could not fathom such a thing, but DeVante believed she simply would not allow herself to take pleasure in what, intellectually, she considered horrifying.
Both of them held stubbornly to their positions. Stalemate.
He stepped from the street to the shower, to wash away the death and make it easier on both of them. It did not really conceal anything, of course, but the grateful smile Lily had flashed him last night told him she appreciated the attempt. She would drink the blood of DeVante’s kill right from his very throat, but preferred no trace of the actual death.
Tonight he had perhaps miscalculated the depth of her sleep, for she was awake, sitting on the bed waiting for him, when he came out of the shower and into the bedroom. She watched him towel himself dry, and he paused to let her, shivering when a bead of water dropped from his hair to slide down the center of his spine. She was fully dressed, which was unfair, DeVante thought mildly, as her wide-open eyes examined him without guile.
“Shall I turn around?” he asked.
Her face had held no expression when she stared at him, but now softened with a small smile. She shook her head. “I’m hungry. Do I have to wait until you get dressed?”
Last night he had made a point to be dressed, to be non-sexual and non-threatening, but such efforts had been purely for her comfort, not his own. “Of course not.” He faced her and spread his arms to the sides, inviting her to come to him.
“No. You come to me this time.”
There was command in her velvet woman’s voice that had not been there even yesterday. DeVante was glad to hear it, glad for her to find her own strength. Perhaps she was healing even now, and would one day command her own destiny.
He went.
Her thin arms wrapped around him and her fangs slipped into his throat in one smooth movement. Her voice box rumbled a purr that aroused everything in him that was male, and he curled his fingers into the blankets, fighting the urge to claim her as a human might. So many pleasures were denied him in this damned modern world, and he felt the loss acutely as he mindfully surrendered only to Lily’s desperate need for blood. He had too much power in this moment, power akin to Reed and Daniel’s new bondage games, except Lily had asked for none of this.
He would visit cherished memories of past indulgence. Those he had courted with full intent to kill, dragging a courtship out for months when a beautiful woman stunned him with human complexity. Late night talks and illicit embraces, sharing poetry and wine, the bittersweet moment right there at the end, when he knew that she would perish if he did not stop, and, even knowing it, he did not stop. The instant of realization, horror, on her behalf as her soul parted from her body, and she recognized his ultimate betrayal. Ahh, sweet, sweet pain, that.
Lily’s full-throated moan mingled with DeVante’s mournful sigh, and she pulled away, cheeks flushed and eyes wet with tears.
“Was that real?” she asked. “Were you showing me a memory?”
Of course she had been along for the ride. He had been too aware of his own nakedness, the contours of her body, the feel and scent of her hair in his face, and had forgotten to shield her from his life, himself. He felt so strongly that he needed to protect her body from rape that he had forgotten to protect her empathic mind.
He stared into her eyes. “Yes. A memory. I apologize. It was not my intent.”
“I know your intent. You were using it as a tactic to stop yourself from tearing my clothes off.”
“Without question,” he acknowledged.
“But why? Why stop yourself?”
“Is it not obvious?” he asked.
“Umm. No. That’s why I ask. I mean, I would have let you.”
“There is yet to be affection between us. If I indulge every whim just because I can, then I am an uncivilized monster. And I am nothing, if not civilized. And speaking of... I do believe clothing would suit me at this moment.”
She laughed, and it was the first time DeVante had ever heard her laugh. It was a low, slow chuckle, drawn out until she seemed nearly breathless. “That’s rich, really.” She turned away from him and straightened the bedcover. “Thank you,” she said without looking at him. “I have known few civilized men.”
“Exactly.”
DeVante got up and went into the walk-in closet, where he dressed in tailored pants and a black silk shirt. As he tucked buttons through button holes, he made a decision based on the strength in her voice, and her ability to laugh. “Tonight, you hunt.”
Her sharp intake of breath was expected. “DeVante, no, not yet.”
He knew that more than anything, she was afraid to hunt. And yet... she had to do it, and sooner would be better, before she created in herself a phobia that would color the rest of her potentially long life.
“Tonight is perfect. You are well-fed. There will be no reason to lose control. And I shall feed as well, this time for myself.”
He stepped out of the closet and looked at her. “Who do you hate, Lily?”
She looked startled. “Hate? What do you mean?”
“I mean, what sort of person would you like to see punished for their sins?”
Her eyes widened, but she had an immediate answer. “People who hurt children.”
“That was easy enough. A successful and happy vampire—” he felt his lips twist into a wry grin. “Well, no. Let us say... a civilized vampire... maintains within himself a roster of acceptable death. For some of us it is a long and varied list. For others it is short and precise. Once you figure out your list and discover where the herd congregates, hunting becomes relatively simple. And so long as you do not starve yourself into losing control, your conscience remains essentially unburdened.”
She was staring at her hands. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“You can do it. In fact, you can do it without killing them, if that is your preference. You can take very little blood and still scare them silly.”
She looked up at him. “You won’t force me to kill anyone?”
“Not tonight,” he answered. If something happened that someone needed killing, he would handle it tonight.
“Ever?” she asked.
“That I cannot promise.”
Her consent came in the form of a whisper. “Where are we going?”
“The Tenderloin.”
***
The advantage of not sleeping was that Tony could go back to the strip club at four o’clock in the afternoon and check things out while it was quiet. Part of him was terrified that Callum would show up, but the stronger part of him wanted to find the girl from the party who’d called herself Angel. He wanted to talk to the girl without Roderick pulling his attention five different ways with five different schemes. He’d learned already that Roderick would much rather make something happen than wait for something to happen.
But Tony was all right with watching and waiting. In fact, he doubted he’d find Angel any other way.
He pretended to be invisible as he pulled open the door to the club, and maybe it actually worked, because no one seemed to notice him. No one asked how old he was. No one told him to leave. He sat up close at the right side of the stage that jutted out into the club. The stage floor was paneled in square mirrors, and Tony had a pretty good idea what the view would be, and was close enough to the jukebox to hear voices.
He might not know her face, but he was positive he’d recognize her voice if he heard it. She’d called herself Angel, and she’d sounded like an angel. The first person at the fateful party to acknowledge his existence.
Okay, it hadn’t been much, not really. Just a sentence here and there, a musical laugh, things that made him feel safe and not insane.
He knew now that going to the party in the first place was a really stupid move. But that’s what everyone said about hindsight.
He sat there by the stage pretending to be invisible for at least an hour. Every now and again a girl would plug the jukebox and then kind of sort of dance for maybe fifteen minutes, but Tony was the only person in the audience, and they seemed more like they were practicing than putting on a show. They certainly didn’t get naked.
But then things started to get more interesting. A gray-haired guy and a really fat guy came in. The gray-haired guy got a drink for each hand from the bar and sat opposite Tony—close up at the far left side of the stage.
The fat guy parked his wide ass only two tables away from Tony.
The next girl to hit the stage danced for real. She used the pole in the center of the stage sometimes like a dance partner and sometimes like a jungle gym. She took her clothes off and played with the pole wearing the tiniest pink panties Tony had ever seen. Her leg muscles were well-defined when she climbed the pole, wrapped her legs around it, and twirled down to the floor, arms in a graceful ballet curve above her head. He thought it was erotic, although he couldn’t have said why.
When the music stopped, she gathered her outfit from the floor and disappeared backstage, only to appear in a robe at the gray-haired man’s table a minute later. She sat on his lap and picked up one of the drinks. The man smiled and laughed and one of his hands slid underneath her robe, and Tony had to look away because it twisted him up inside, and in a way that he couldn’t tell if he was jealous or angry.
He looked two tables over, and saw that a beautiful young woman wearing practically nothing had joined the fat guy. She threw back her head and laughed at something the fat guy said, and it was the musical laugh that Tony remembered.
Angel.
He’d found her.
The fat guy must have been regaling her with funny stories, because Angel was quite absorbed in talking and laughing with him. But just as Tony focused his attention on them to listen in, she excused herself, and walked past Tony to plug the jukebox.
She went backstage while the first song played, and came back three minutes later in a wedding gown, just as Billy Idol started singing ‘White Wedding.’
Odd choice, Tony thought, but settled back to watch. By the time she was down to just a teeny-tiny white patch of lace that hardly covered her rear, he was getting hard. He tried to talk himself out of the erection, but his eye caught on the blue garter around her thigh, and there was no way.
He forgot to pretend to be invisible, and she smiled at him from the stage, then walked to the rail and leaned over to say, “Hey, baby, nice to see you.”
“You too,” he answered, and felt a dopey grin plaster itself on his face. If he had money in his pocket, he’d gladly tip her for her smile, and for her strong, smooth thighs, lacey panties, and sweet blue lace garter that lent a touch of innocence to the whole degrading performance.
The song ended and another one began, a wild tune, guaranteed to make her sweat. AC/DC, ‘You Shook Me All Night Long.’ And she danced. She mounted that pole, and shook her breasts, and dropped to the stage floor to grind her hips into the floor, and left sweaty body prints on the mirrored tiles.
A few minutes after her set, she was at Tony’s table. “Do I know you?” she asked.
“Yeah, I was at a party not so long ago. You were there, too.”
“Ahh,” she said. “Yep. The high rollers private party. I believe I got you out of the blindfold. You’re sure a cutie. But way too young to be in this club.”
Tony grinned. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t too young to party, now was I?”
“Only because they don’t check ID’s for those. How’d you make out, anyway?”
Tony snorted. “Not that well. I got dumped unconscious in an alley and nobody paid me.”
“That sucks,” she said. “Sure wasn’t the greatest party. They hustled me out of there right early, and only paid half of what they owed. I was going to get the rest of it out of Callum tonight.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Tony told her.
And more
, he thought to himself.
Angel made a face. “Well, I hear he’s not going to come around tonight. Found something better to do then write out payroll. He’s kind of a fucker.”
“Shit.” Tony said. “Do you think he’ll be around tomorrow night?”
“He’d better be,” she said. “Or we’ll be raiding the till for our pay. And that’ll piss him off to no end. Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay. For awhile there it sounded like things were getting a bit too rough.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Tony said. “I don’t think I’ll be attending any more parties.”
She smiled. “Aw, they’re not that bad. Callum’s got some pervy friends, though, that’s for sure. And speaking of... I need to rejoin my li’l friend over there. He’s a regular.”
“He’s not little,” Tony laughed.
“But totally sweet,” she assured him. “Stick around, I dance again in an hour. The place will be filling up by then.”
Tony looked at his watch. Roderick might be awake in another hour and he’d probably freak if Tony wasn’t there. Of course, Roderick should be smart enough to look for Tony here before flipping out, because it was the only place on their agenda tonight.
More men came in, one after another, and the tables started filling up. The girls started dancing for real, back to back. One on stage and five more milling through the crowd in robes or skimpy lingerie, talking and laughing. Flirting with those pocket dollars.
Tony watched it all, and wished Callum would come in so they could be done with this crap and they could go back to San Francisco and find out how Lily was doing. He wanted to watch over her, night and day, and make sure she didn’t hurt herself. There couldn’t possibly be a worse vampire candidate in the world than Lily.