by Heather Linn
For a brief second, I wondered if they thought of themselves as the monsters. I mean, after all she was standing up there having the time of her life and it was me that was plotting her painful death, wishing for it so badly that I could almost taste it. Was I a monster too, maybe even more so than some of the rest of them? Did the beautiful woman on the stage lie in bed and cry because she was a horrible beast? Would she give anything to change places with one of the humans that she fed off of on a regular basis? Somehow, I doubted it. She looked like the type that took it all for granted, even the fact that billions of innocent people died just so she could exist. That fact almost made me walk up on the stage and slap the beautiful smile right off her perfect face. I almost had myself convinced that the two seconds of joy that I’d get from doing it before she snapped my neck would be well worth it and then she started to talk again.
“It is almost midnight; I need all the men on one side of the room and the women on the other. Remember men, since there are more of you than ladies, not everyone will get a date this year. Please be respectful and leave quietly. There is always next year.”
As the words came out of her mouth, the dance floor opened up and parted seamlessly. It was like her voice was controlling the crowd, and her words alone had the power to move people where her mind wanted them to go. When she was satisfied that the men and the women were where they belonged, she started to speak again.
“I think everyone knows the rules by now, but here is a quick review just to make sure. No talking until the last couple is in their room and no masks are taken off until the alarm sounds. Simple, right? Anyone that breaks these rules will be asked to leave.” Making her point known, she paused for a moment. I looked around, trying to sober up a little. Darien was across the room; he would get to me; I would be OK. I told myself to soothe the little voice in my head that was telling me at any moment this could all go very wrong. “OK on your mark, get set; go find your sex kittens men.”
The room went from calm and patient to wild and chaotic in two seconds flat. Men were running like crazy after the most desirable women. The women were standing and waiting for the men to claim their prize. Every time one of them was chosen, a little gasp of delight would slip out between her lips. Every woman other than me had her heart thumping to the thought of who was on their arm. Each and every one of them was holding their breath and hoping that it was the prince of darkness himself that would whisk them away and make them feel important for the night. There is nothing sadder than a woman that is so desperate to feel important that she needs to bed a King to matter in her own mind. I, on the other hand, was just hoping that someone would save me before a monster gobbled me up whole.
It didn’t take long for Darien to find me. I felt safe and protected the minute he grasped my hand. It had to have been the alcohol, but as soon as he touched me, I felt calm. The rest of the room was buzzing all around us, but it was like we were the only two people standing there, unmoving and almost as one. There was no need for the excitement; I was where I needed to be, with who I was meant to be with. I knew that and so did he. There is a calm understanding in knowing you belonged with someone and never had to speak of it. I was at ease with Darien and I felt that everyone else was disturbing my peaceful feeling; it was really starting to piss me off. Whatever it was that I was drinking, I was going to have to see about getting some for the long lonely nights, because for the first time in my life, in one of the most dangerous places I could be, I felt happier than I ever had in my life.
“Hot mask,” I whispered into his ear, already breaking the rules. I had done my job; getting kicked out wouldn’t be the worst thing that happened to me. I had to snicker because Darien had the ability to find the dumbest looking ghost mask on the planet every year; it was his secret way of mocking the monsters. Yes, we really were that corny when we were together, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
“OK everyone calm down. To those gentlemen who weren’t able to catch a lady, better luck next year. Please make your way to the nearest exit. Now the rest of you have to line up so the real fun can begin.”
The butterfly maid was talking again; her voice was musical yet indescribable. This time, when I looked up at her, she wasn’t alone. She had been joined by a man wearing a phantom mask. Something about the man that was standing there with her looked familiar. Mentally, I tried to erase the image because I knew I had just seen another one of our group, which meant that my wish for her painful death had been granted. However, it also meant that I knew where one of my guys was, which could be really bad if the worst happened and I got caught.
There was something more about the one of us that was on the stage. I felt that he was looking right at me and screaming for me to notice something, but somewhere among the commotion of the evening, the alcohol in my empty stomach, and the fact I was forcing myself to erase the thought all together, I couldn’t put two and two together, and soon, the man on the stage was forgotten and replaced by thoughts of Darien, who was running his thumb in circles on my hand, sending little pulses throughout my body. The feeling that he was giving me was so nice, everything and everyone else seemed to melt into the background buzz. How sweet! He must have noticed that I noticed it was one of our guys up there and he was trying to make me forget. He truly was the most important person in my world. He took care of me, which was a very tiring and complicated task, and I loved him for it.
Chapter Four
The room that Darien and I were led into was the penthouse suite. By the time the elevator reached the top floor, I was really starting to wish that I hadn’t drunk so much. But the human slave waitresses were told to keep the drinks flowing to ensure that events would go without a hitch and they did their jobs well; all of the women had their inhibitions distinguished. The big problem was, I was drinking to keep up with the crowd and the truth of the matter is the Dominus took a lot more drinks to reach the inhibition-losing drunk. I knew how the game was played and I knew if I slowed down my drinking then unwanted attention would turn to me. I had to play the game or be consumed by it.
When we were finally inside the room with the door shut, I collapsed onto a plush white sofa that looked and felt more like a cloud than a piece of furniture. This room was bigger than my entire apartment. Off to the left, I could see into the bathroom. There was a huge heart shaped hot tub right in the middle of the room. I had never seen anything like it. Sitting on the side of the bath were wine and chocolate covered cherries. The next room over held a bed that put any normal bed to shame. There was no way I would have been able to fit it in the tiny little place that I call home. It had four posts, a canopy, and I was almost positive that I could fit about 20 people in it comfortably. I had lived in a five room underground bunker with 16 other people most of my life so to me this was ginormous. Everything was so oversized and glamorous that I felt small, and for some reason, I loved it. Maybe it was because I felt safe and hidden in the oversized room, or maybe it was because I knew that just this one night I was with Darien and all the monsters were busy so I had nothing to worry about, but I felt at peace, and in my life that wasn’t a word I used often. I also knew that neither Darien nor I would be sleeping tonight; that was for sure. There was way too much stimulation to take advantage of in this room. People like us never got to see the inside of rooms like these, let alone spend the night in one. The first thing that we were going to have to do was go play in that swimming pool sized tub.
“How did we end up with such a kickin’ room?” I heard myself talking to Darien in a voice that sounded way too slurred to be good. I hated myself for getting this drunk, because if I couldn’t think straight in my line of work it was like committing suicide. “I am so glad you found me. I have drunk way too much tonight. This room is so much better than the ones that we have had before. I know I am going to enjoy it. We deserve this just as much as the rest of them.”
I was rambling and that was never good. Feebly, I tried to remove my mask so that I could
get a better look at the room and at Darien’s silly mask, but before I could get it untied, his hands were on mine stopping me from taking off my disguise. They were so warm and when they covered mine my skin buzzed again. “My Lady, I would be more than happy to help you with this, but you are breaking the rules. That could get us in a lot of trouble. You know that right? I don’t know about you, but I have no intention of getting kicked out of here and missing the chance to spend the entire night with you,” Darien replied, sounding strangely mumbled and even more cocky than usual through the mask, which could only mean that he had been drinking tonight too. That was a mistake. How easily would it have been for us to miss each other? I was going to lecture him on this, but I needed to sober up first and I didn’t want to come across even more hypocritical than I already sounded.
He sat himself gracefully down beside me on the couch; the warmth from his body was so inviting that I wanted nothing more than to curl up on his chest and go to sleep. Mmm, he smelled so good. He must have been wearing something other than his normal familiar comforting cologne. I couldn’t quite place it, kind of like the smell of the imitation vanilla that Dr. Walker used to let us girls use when he was teaching us how to cook, but this was more real; something more primal than imitation, something more manly than plain vanilla. I was definitely going to have to find out what he was wearing; it was yummy.
“Yep, you know me, I am just not happy unless I am causing some sort of trouble.” Did I seriously just giggle? What the hell had I been drinking all night? I knew that every time I opened my mouth I was just giving Darien more fodder to use against me when I sobered up. Even the thought of the taunting that was about to come wasn’t enough to shut me up.
“I can tell by looking at you that you like to stir things up a little bit now and then. You have that fire in your eyes that tells me you aren’t happy unless you are in way over your head.” The warmth of his breath with each word that he said was bouncing off my neck making me want to purr. “You know I have been watching you all night, watching the way you danced and flirted your way through half the men at the party. I watched the way that they hung on everything that you said, the way that their eyes followed you around the room. They were all like lost little puppies begging for your attention; it was really quite impressive.”
Darien’s words were no longer making sense; all they were doing was stirring places in me that he had never stirred before. I knew that I should have stopped him but I didn’t want to. I was enjoying the sensations that his breath on my neck was causing lower in my body. “There is something different about you, something that I can’t put my finger on but it is there. Everyone saw it. They all would have given anything to be sitting here where I am right now. In fact, I had to throw a couple of elbows to get to you, but I can tell you are going to be well worth the fight.”
A couple of elbows, was he being for real? I had to laugh; Darien sounded so sincere and thoughtful. Maybe there had been more than whiskey and wine in the cups after all. I mean, I know there were so many drinks in my hand tonight that I lost count early on, but they were never more than half full.
“Darien what are you talking.....”
Before I could finish my sentence, his mouth was on mine and instead of pushing him away like I should have, I was falling forward trustingly, knowing that he would catch me and embrace me in his arms. He was breaking my number one rule and that was a big mistake. He was kissing me, and he knew damn well that I never got that intimate with anyone ever. I would have yelled at him, if I could have thought straight enough to get my body to be more than a tingly mass of nerves ; hell I would have hit him because he knew better than anyone else that kissing me was a boundary that no one crossed. I was just so surprised that he was doing it that I couldn’t catch my breath enough to yell. Yeah that was it, or maybe it was the fact that his lips were so hot that I felt like they were on fire. His kisses were taking my breath away and making my body react in ways that I have never felt before. I knew in my head that I had no intention of hitting him; it felt so right that I was hoping it never stopped.
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t so weak and confused that I couldn’t think straight. In fact, it was just the opposite; I had never felt more alive in my life. The truth of the matter was that I wasn’t pushing him away him away because I didn’t want him to stop. Not only did I not want him to stop, but I was kissing him back. My lips were just as hot and as needy as his were and everywhere that his hands touched was tingling. I didn’t even have to think about what I was doing; my tongue was dancing with his, exploring, feeling, and trying to drink him in just as he was doing with me. His mouth tasted so sweet, I could think of nothing that I could compare it to. I opened my mouth and let him taste me just like I had tasted him, in between exploring and a little bit of lip nibbling.
I allowed my tongue to move along his teeth. That is when I felt them. Even through the alcohol haze I could tell that his fangs were real; I was sure of it. Darien’s fangs would have felt more like my own, not like this. It was just enough difference that we were the only ones that could tell, but I knew I was right. Part of my brain was being rational and screaming at me that there was something wrong, but every other part of me was telling the little voice to just shut up and pretend that I never noticed the difference because this couldn’t be wrong when it felt so right. The rest of the body won. I just tried to ignore the annoying nagging portion. I was so busy threatening my rational self that I didn’t even notice what was truly going on. I had never let my body take control before and it was a little frightening how I could be arguing internally with myself while my mouth was on autopilot.
He was inside my head, going through my mind; his heart was beating with mine. I could feel him inside of my body where no other person was ever supposed to enter. He couldn’t be there; no one was ever supposed to get as close as he was. He was no longer a separate being, he was me; we were two souls inhabiting one space. It was no longer my blood that was swimming through my veins, it was his; we were breathing together in perfect harmony. It was like we blended together to form the perfect being. I needed him to stop; I needed to get as far away from him as I could. This was way too unreal and even more dangerous; I wasn’t entirely sure who he was. It had to be Darien; it just had to be. I was letting him have all of me, more of me than anyone else has ever seen. Yet, I didn’t stop him. I couldn’t bring myself to push him away. I couldn’t do it because I wanted him there....
There were bells ringing in the distance and for a second I thought wow those old movies really were true.... no, they weren’t bells, it was an alarm; the one that signaled the mask removal. The sound of the bell made Darien break the kiss, and for a second, I thought my heart was breaking in two. There was no feeling I had ever experienced to compare this to. There was a quick and sharp pain and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to recover from it at first. I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t remember how to, and I thought for sure that death was coming. With a gasp of air, that burned through my lungs like a wildfire, my body taught itself to breathe again. I don’t know why, but I somehow felt empty and alone, like I was not a complete person and at that moment, I hated Darien for it. He showed me something that I didn’t know existed until now, so I never until now had a reason to miss the feeling. He knew that I never kissed because I didn’t want to feel this kind of attachment with anyone. I didn’t want to know that every time I went out on a mission that there was someone worrying about me. I really didn’t want to have to deal with the thought that someone could possibly ever care enough about me that they would put themselves in danger to save me; I wasn’t worth it. I was just Cat.
I decided what I was going to do with my heart when I decided to be a foot soldier. I had no room for love in my life, and if I ever did fall in love with someone, I would take myself out of the situation. I was not a level headed person. I didn’t make my decisions with my head, but instead with my instincts, which usually meant I jumped in head
first without thinking. I didn’t want someone else to have to deal with the consequences of this personality quirk because I was smart enough to know that one day it would be the quirk that finally killed me.
The way I felt when he kissed me was more dangerous to me than the job that I did every day. It scared me way more than any monster could because I knew what the monsters would do to me if they caught me. I had no idea what this meant for me and Darien. It felt like forever before the world began to make sense again. When I finally pulled myself together enough to open my eyes to yell at him and find out what the hell he was thinking or trying to prove I was hit with sudden shock. My mouth fell open and for the second time of the night I couldn’t remember how to breathe.
The eyes staring back at me didn’t belong to Darien. After a few seconds when I realized whose eyes they were I went completely numb and my world just shattered. I, Catalina, had never been speechless until this moment. There was nothing that I could say that would undo the damage that I had already done. If this wasn’t a bad dream I was in serious trouble. The face that was sitting less than three inches away from me belonged to the one and only King Dominus, Akia.
My reflexes were slowed down way too much. I knew no matter what, I couldn’t let him see my face, but before I could get my motor skills intact he reached up and tugged the scarf away.
“You are beautiful,” was all he managed to say.
I found a little bit of comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the only one blown away by the kiss, but I also knew if I didn’t soon throw my wall back around myself, he would find out I was more than he had bargained for and I would be signing my own death certificate. Pull it together Cat! I screamed at myself, or do you want to die tonight? The final thought did it. I might not be living a sought after life, but at least I was still alive.
