The music had changed tempo but he couldn’t remember when. Now it was not so fast as it was thick and plaintive a tune. The lights flashed so that he could find no peace from their invasion, even when he closed his eyes. Men and women alike rubbed against him in a brutal, sexual dance that had his senses reeling. He’d never felt so out of control, so in tune with a chaos that beckoned with the promise of fleshly love and lust even as it bludgeoned him into madness and confusion. Time lost all meaning. The music played on and he was forced to worship it, along with everyone else.
Cinder gasped for breath that did not have the salty-sweet taste of human sweat. He could catch no sight of his group in the flashing confusion, and upon realizing just how long he’d been immersed in this pagan dance, he searched for a way to the edge of the dance floor. He finally broke free and had a moment to look around, to collect himself and his drunken senses.
A flash of pink hair caught his eye and held it riveted. The vibrant hair belonged to a woman, young in form and face. A lovely woman. Cinder could see, even from this distance that she was heavily painted, heavily submerged in the role—whatever it was—best suited to the atmosphere of this strange place.
Her lips were glistening, glittering red, a full and delicious looking mouth. Her large hazel eyes were rimmed in thick black lines, her lashes dripping with similar cosmetic adornment. She wore a tight outfit—a shiny second skin of some strange man-made material—consisting of a sleeveless top, which also left her toned abdomen exposed, pants that rode low on her boyishly slim hips, and chunky-heeled, thigh-high boots. Of all the people in the club, she looked as though the clothes had been made especially for her. She wore them with a negligent style that drew the eye and held it…at least in his case.
She stood on a dais or stage of sorts, bathed in a halo of blue and red lights. She wore a strange headset at her ear as she moved in time to the music. Her lusciously kissable lips were pursed in concentration as she studied the table before her, and the discs that spun upon it. Cinder instinctively guessed that the music mercilessly pounding through the place played forth at her orchestration. She was responsible for the otherworldly tempos stealing through him like a thief in search of his soul.
He couldn’t pull his gaze away from her. There was just something indefinable about her, setting her apart from the humans gathered around at her feet. She seemed some kind of pagan goddess as the crowd raised supplicant arms to her, begging her for more, crying out for the music to keep flowing. He’d never seen anything like it in all of his many years as a warrior. He’d never seen anything like her.
He stood there for…he couldn’t have guessed how long. Minutes? Hours? He didn’t—couldn’t care. He watched the ethereal goddess orchestrate her music, dance to her music, count out the beats of her music as she changed seamlessly from one song to the next. A singular eternity could have passed and he wouldn’t have worried about it, so long as he could watch her.
A green-haired man stepped up from the crowd, moved to her and whispered in her ear. Cinder felt an inconsolable sense of jealousy and loss. The man was too familiar with her. He knew her intimately; he had to for taking such liberties as kissing her on one of her alluringly bared shoulders. He had no right to feel such things for the woman, was foolish to even come close to such a passion for a human. But there it was—he was weak where she was concerned, in a way he’d never been weak before. He wanted to turn away, wanted to leave this crazy place that was filled with temptation and want and need.
But just as he turned, just as he found the strength to walk away from the siren behind the turntable, the music changed. The woman stepped back from her post and flexed her shoulders as if they ached. Pink and black waves of hair danced about her as she jauntily descended down from the stage and disappeared into the throng of people, leaving Cinder to take in the seemingly endless length of her legs as she walked. His heart thundered.
He especially favored women with long limbs…and she had the longest legs he’d ever seen.
A voice sounded over the loudspeaker as the music boomed loud enough to wake the entire Horde. “Let’s hear it for our own, incomparable DJ SteffyStealth!” The announcement was voiced in thick German words.
Cinder waited a moment, fighting his impulses, which had become irrationally fixated on the woman…and then followed her through the crowd.
Chapter Two
The flashing lights from the strobes overhead hypnotized Steffy. The primitive, rhythmic beats of the music pounded through her veins like sweet honey, lulling her. She became the music. Was one with it as she spun the records on her turntable, counting out the beats in her head with effortless ease and skill. She felt elemental, powerful and alive. In control of herself and the world around her. Behind the turntable, surrounded by her sound equipment, was the only time she ever felt truly free of worry or stress.
It was the only time she felt relaxed.
She undulated with the music, counted off the beats that resounded in the headset she wore on one ear and switched the records, never missing tempo so that the tunes were artfully mixed into one ongoing, endless song. The crowd thundered its approval with the stomping of feet as they danced and moved, one with the music that pounded through the club’s massive sound system. Steffy looked out over her deck and felt a heady thrill upon seeing the massive crowd sway like one giant serpentine body under the lights. In perfect accord with her musical rhythm.
Steffy saw the club’s entertainment coordinator saunter up next to her on the stage and sent him a brilliant smile. The man was truly delicious, dressed in his shining, black bondage wear, with his short green hair spiked up artfully on top of his head. It was a good thing for her libido that Dika was a firm homosexual or she’d be drooling as he drew closer to her.
“You’ve been going at it for three hours, Steffy, love. Why not take a break?” he asked in thickly accented German, yelling his words into her ear in order to be heard over the din.
“Just let me spin this next track out and I’ll take fifteen,” she yelled back.
“You’ve blown us away tonight, love. I haven’t seen this large a crowd here since…well, never.” He laughed. “You’re making a huge name for yourself, my dear. And to think a year ago you simply waltzed in off the street and demanded a job, with no prior experience. I’m so glad I threw caution to the wind and gave you a chance. Best decision I ever made!”
“Don’t you forget it.” She counted the beats in her mind, keeping part of her attention on Dika’s words and another part—the most important part—on the music. A thick, disheveled lock of neon pink hair fell into her left eye but she was too intent on other things to blow it out of her line of sight. “Now leave me alone so I can finish this session,” she quipped.
Dika leaned over and, as was his way, pressed a flirtatious but totally meaningless kiss to her bare shoulder before winking and trotting off, swaying his rear with the grace of a runway model as he went. A few minutes later her set came to an end and she smoothly switched the play from the spinning record to the CD player below the table. As Rammstein’s Bestrafe Mich played from the sound system, she left her position behind the turntable deck and made her way through the crowd, towards the bar.
“Let’s hear it for our own, incomparable DJ SteffyStealth!” Dika’s voice announced her stage name over the speaker system and thunderous applause was the result, as well as congratulations and compliments from many of the people around her.
God, she was tired.
This weariness had been growing in her for the past year—she couldn’t escape it. Only the music had the power to distance her from the desolation that threatened to take her under. The fire of life that had always burned so brightly within her was diminished. It had been dwindling ever since she’d returned from her stint as a foreign exchange student in the United States. She needed quickening—some inspiration and excitement—and she needed it soon or else she would lose herself to this despair.
Boredom had alw
ays been her greatest enemy.
She thought about boredom. How it had gotten her into all of the trouble she’d ever been in over the years—and that had been plenty enough. It was what had made her drunkard father beat her into submission during the first fifteen years of her life, the bastard. Boredom was what had made her finish her schooling early—the year of her fifteenth birthday—only to take to the streets during the lonely, uneventful days that had followed her graduation and flight from home. It was what had made her such a good car thief for the next couple of years—causing her to seek out the thrill and danger of the life of a delinquent. It was what had made her leave that life behind, after she’d become the best at her craft—such as it was—to enroll in college and subsequently to participate in an exchange program.
Where she had met Raine.
Steffy pushed these thoughts from her mind. Better to suffer the boredom than the pain that lay down that road of memories.
“I liked your music very much.”
Steffy started and turned to face the owner of the purring voice. That she could hear him over the sound system proved how close he’d gotten to her without her noticing—no mean feat with her heightened senses. He was right on top of her. In the cannon shots of the strobe light she caught sight of a tall, broad shouldered, platinum-haired man. He was dressed—surprise, surprise—in clinging black garb from his thick neck down to his large booted feet.
“Danke.” She thanked him and turned away.
“It is chaos and darkness. I’ve never heard the like before.”
So he was one of those people, having to see some meaning and underlying passion in music that she, essentially, threw out on a whim. She liked the music, loved to spin it out, but beyond that it had no real meaning. At least, she didn’t like to think so. It was only math, really. Rhythms and patterns and numbers in her head.
“Thanks,” she said again and made her way to the bar. “Vodka—straight,” she requested from the bartender. She tapped out the rhythm of the music on the surface of the bar with her black painted nails.
“My name is Cinder.”
Cinder? She laughed. “Taking the hardcore Goth image a little far aren’t we?”
“What do you mean?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.
Steffy shook her head with a sarcastic chuckle, took a seat upon one of the bar stools, and accepted her drink. She braced herself and tipped the clear, fiery liquid down her throat. It took all of her concentration not to gasp or cough, but she managed. Within seconds she was feeling a little better—the endless cold of her bones subsiding in the warmth of the drink—and she was a little less cranky towards the man who took an uninvited seat next to her.
“What do you mean?” He repeated his question.
“Nothing. Is Cinder your real name, then?” She sighed with resignation, realizing the man would not leave any time soon.
“Yes. My father gave it to me upon the eve of my birth. He sensed in me my ability to w—” He trailed off, looking a little discomfited. “I’m sorry. The noise of this place has me a little off balance.”
“No shit.”
“What is your name?”
Steffy could see the burn of desire in his eyes. The flame burst of his orange-yellow contact lenses only added to the effect and she shuddered. Instinctively she knew that this man was a danger. She rose from her seat and walked back into the crowd, seeking escape in the camouflage of the masses.
His hand nearly scorched her flesh when he caught her arm.
“I have offended you? I am sorry.”
Steffy gritted her teeth. She hated his familiarity, his strength, which was easy enough for her to sense with or without the aid of her uncanny intuition. “Leave me be,” she said softly, dangerously, locking her eyes to his.
The man’s face hardened and grew shadowed beneath the flashing lights. “You are very rude. I don’t know why I expected more of you.”
“I don’t either. So buzz off.” She used Raine’s favorite slang phrase. Americans had a slang phrase for every occasion, it seemed.
The man crowded against her, the heat baking off of his body nearly suffocating her. He moved with the ebb and flow of the people that surrounded them, taking her easily into a dance that she had no desire to join in. His eyes burned down into hers, intimidating and predatory, and for a moment she felt her courage falter. She sensed something in him that could frighten her if she let it.
She wouldn’t.
“If you don’t let me pass this instant, I will call security and have you thrown out.”
“Try it.”
She felt her eyes grow wide with the force of her shock. “Are you threatening me?”
“No. I am daring you. Call your security. Let’s see what happens.”
“Are you some kind of mental case or something?”
“All I want is your name.”
“You are a mental case.”
His hand tightened on her arm, pulling her closer to him. He was tall. Very tall. She was tall for a woman at five foot eight, but he towered over her despite her own stature. It was not a little discomfiting, to be so shadowed by him at this close range. She took in his features, which were exotic and unique. He appeared savage and decidedly foreign in some indefinable way that had her studying him more closely out of sheer, mesmerized curiosity.
He was unlike any other man she’d ever seen, the sum total of his appearance seeming alien to her stunned senses. His cheekbones and nose were honed blades beneath smooth golden skin. His mouth was almost cruel in its sensuality. His chin was hard and strong. Incredibly stubborn. Again came the sense that he was dangerous.
Far too dangerous for her to underestimate.
“Your name,” he bit out.
“You’ll get nothing from my name, ass. Everyone in this place knows me. If you try anything, you’ll regret it.”
“Why is it so hard to give me your name? Will your green-haired man become jealous if you share it with me?”
“Green-haired man? You mean Dika?” She laughed. “Dika’s just a friend. Besides, he’s gay.” What had possessed her to admit that much to him? She couldn’t have said.
His eyes burned with something close to triumph as Steffy bitterly regretted giving him so much information. His teeth blazed white with his smile. “Well, if everyone knows you here, then I could get your name from them with much less trouble. But I’d rather hear it from you. And with your stubborn refusal to share it, you have made it a challenge. I’ve never been able to resist a challenge.”
Steffy felt her arm burn beneath his hand.
“Your name. Please.” He softened his tone and his hold. The heat of his touch ebbed.
“Stefany Michanke. I am the DJ here. People will miss me if I am gone,” she warned him with a diamond-hard look.
“Stefany, was that so very hard?” His lips twisted in a small smile. He leaned into her, swaying against her slowly, sexily. He inhaled a long breath. “You smell great.”
Okay. He was getting way too forward for her liking. She wrested herself from his hold and prepared to flee but something—someone—caught her eye before she could make good her escape.
A black-haired man, taller and broader than Cinder, had appeared at their side. Her senses must be failing her tonight—she’d never been taken by surprise like this before, twice in one night. Maybe it was the vodka…but Cinder had come upon her in stealth before she’d drunk it.
“Cinder, come at once.”
And as quickly as that he was gone. If Steffy had blinked she would have missed the two men walking away, towering over the people in the crowd, somehow set apart from all the rest not only by their height but by their grace and bearing. Wherever they were going they were headed there with deadly intent.
Steffy watched as they left the club. They were so different from the people who surrounded them. Something about the way they held themselves, the way they walked and spoke…it puzzled her. Intrigued her. She hadn’t failed to notice that their
eyes took in the surroundings as if they were scoping out the place, reassuring themselves of the advantages or disadvantages of their positions within it. She would have bet her every last CD that the men knew exactly where all the entrances and exits were located. That they knew where every member of security was stationed.
They were dangerous, these two, she could feel it.
She gritted her teeth against a sudden, inexplicably foolish urge. She tried to ignore this urge…but it was hopeless. She waited several minutes, warring with herself, knowing what she was about to do was probably pretty stupid. She couldn’t help it. She had to do it.
Boredom had fled. Her interest was piqued. Where before she would have left Cinder standing alone on the floor—quite content to never see the guy again—she was now ready to pursue him. Doggedly. She wanted to know where he was going. Signaling to Dika that she was leaving for the night, she made her way through the maze of people. Senses keen and at the ready, she followed in the direction the two men had taken.
* * * * *
Steffy walked down a few winding back alleys, sensing more than really knowing what direction they had chosen. Before long, she approached what she knew to be an abandoned lot, mostly overgrown now with an old, dilapidated petrol station rotting down in the middle of it. From the shadowy lot came sounds she instantly understood and recognized—shouts, groans, and the thudding sound of flesh against flesh. Being a former delinquent herself, she was no stranger to the unmistakable cacophony of a knockdown, drag out fight.
She wondered idly if the two men were in some sort of gang together.
Probably. They had looked dangerous enough, that was for sure, even if they did look a little too well bred for such pursuits. They looked more like wild CIA rejects, actually, than gang members.
Wanton Fire Page 2
