My mind was racing. Blade could be working with whoever had her. And the best way to make sure they succeeded was to take me out of the picture.
“I told you I’d never do that,” he growled, like he was pissed I considered it. “But I’m not against a little pain for fun.”
I stepped back, still not sure I could trust him. “What does that mean?”
“You shared your fantasy with me, and I did the same.” He swallowed. “That’s what this about, isn’t it? The fantasy. If I’m understanding you right, you want to recreate what you saw in your travels in hopes that it will get you closer to Rainey.”
I nodded.
“So we can go downstairs and let people watch every filthy thing I plan to do to you or we can take my idea for a spin. It’s your call.”
He gripped my shoulder, and there was no hiding the fact I was trembling. It wasn’t all fear, but the little bit that fell under that umbrella was of the unknown. Blade swore he wouldn’t hurt me, but for him, pleasure was pain. And if I gave him a chance, it could mean something besides a tragic end.
I had to trust him. “We do it your way.”
The weird glow faded from his eyes and he softened. “You sure?”
He was infuriating. “Yes, I’m sure.”
His chest rose like he had to breathe to survive. “I only have my hands, but I like it better that way. I like to feel your reactions. We’ll play with a little bit of spanking.”
The handprint Blade burned into my backside a couple weeks back had faded, and I was sorry to see it go. “I can handle that.”
“Nothing you can’t handle. I want this to be as good for you as it will be for me.” He grinned, breaking his serious sex-talk façade. “Remember our safe word?”
“Your safe word?” I rolled my eyes and went up on my tiptoes. “I can tell you all about Callie any night of the week.”
He pulled away, wincing, but couldn’t hold in his laugh. “You know how to make a guy never want to have sex again.”
But at one time, he wanted her. He stood in the dark as close as he was to me and said similar things to her. And she would’ve giggled and played coy and accepted his kiss, just like I did now. Welcomed his hands roaming under her top, baptizing her skin in heat that shouldn’t have felt good. I wouldn’t have a problem growing accustomed to pain. I only wondered if this desire had lurked in Blade as a human, or if death and betrayal had brought it out of him. If trusting him, truly welcoming him in, would change vampire history.
Chapter Seven
“Your body is perfect.” Blade ran his hand over my back. We stripped our clothes and pulled the curtains tight, not taking any chances on sunlight peeking through. He pulled me to the bed by my hair, forcing me to my knees on the mattress, and then lay me over his lap. I relaxed as he ran his hand over my body, and I knew that was his intention.
“I know it is.” I worked damn hard for people to think that, even if I didn’t agree. In my dreams, my body was more like Rainey’s, with dangerous curves everywhere I looked. But maybe if I looked like that, I wouldn’t appreciate what I had. Or miss her so much now that she was gone.
“Cocky, much?” The first blow landed with a slap on my ass check. He didn’t move his hand, keeping the heat from the strike on my skin. I wriggled in his lap, trying to get away from the sensation, but it set off a chain reaction deep inside me. The hotel room may have been vampire-proofed, but I doubted it was fireproofed. I turned to glare at him and realized I was playing right into his hands.
My back curled up off the mattress with the next strike. “I spend eight hours a day training. I damn well better be perfect.” The real torture was the loving massage that he gave me after each slap. I gritted my teeth, trying to stifle a moan.
“You like that, huh?” His voice was deeper, rumbling through me. “I’d love to send you out on stage with your ass red.”
“I’d be down for that.” I’d have to find a way to sneak him into my dressing room, and he could spank the hell out of me before I went on stage. Wearing nothing but feathers, glitter, and the tattooed heat from his hand. I may need to do that anyway, depending on what happened with my fire, two days and counting without Rainey.
Or I could just find Rainey. It was less dangerous than what I was currently dabbling in.
He whacked me again, and an orange flash lit up the room. I whipped my head back, but all that was left was smoke as Blade tamped the flame.
“Too far up to burn the place down,” he said.
I rolled out of his lap, another stage-worthy move. I did it during my routine every night, and usually fully engulfed in flames. Knowing they were inside me gave me the fuel I needed. I could do this—star in the show and find Rainey.
I straddled him, steadying myself with my hand on his cock before arching my back. He caught my nipple between his lips, those sharp fangs scraping my skin.
“Don’t bite me.”
“You are ashamed of me.” He sucked my nipple hard.
I let go of his cock and gripped his hair. “No, I’m not. I’m realistic.” I rested against his forehead, and both of us were in a place where words weren’t the best mode of communication. “The crowd is human. I can’t go out there looking like a chew toy.”
“If I’m helping you, there can’t be any secrets. I know your job is on the line. But I won’t play second best anymore.”
He knew he could never have first place, by himself anyway. What he was asking... I didn’t think I could deliver for him. But for Rainey’s sake, I had to try. I’d explain it to her when I got her back. If I ever had that luxury.
“I know that.” I was shaking, and I knew better than to ask the next question. But he’d stripped me raw, blow by blow, and I couldn’t stop myself. “What do you want, Blade? And don’t give me some bullshit answer like ‘total domination.’ Tell me what would make you happy.”
He groaned. “You want to talk about this now?”
“No.” I angled myself over his cock and he guided me with a steady hand on my back. “But I want you to think about it while you fuck me.”
It had been a long time since it had just been Blade and me. We’d only been alone together once before, back when Cash was alive, pushing us together so we could learn to control the fire. I’d been timid and unsure because I’d never been with a man before, never expected to be drawn to a man like I was to him, and Blade’s body felt forbidden. It still did, for different reasons, even though we fit together perfectly. It had nothing to do with him thrusting deep inside me, stretching my body in a completely different way than Rainey did. We understood each other; how to cultivate something no one else wanted and make it work for us.
I grasped Blade’s shoulders but missed, and my nails scraped his chest. Sparks followed the movement, and flame poured out of him in place of blood. His head fell back and he groaned, like he shared a deep, dark secret. It was safe with me. The flames burned my tongue on contact, but it didn’t stop me from taking his fire and making it mine. With his heat inside me, I shattered, screaming as I came.
“Told you they’d hear you,” Blade chuckled as he lay me down on the mattress. My fingers trembled as I traced the path I’d torn just moments before. He was whole again. Maybe for the first time.
Blade passed out minutes after he came. I was afraid to peel the curtain back, to see if the sun had graced us with its appearance. Talk about a show-stopping performance; a ball of fire I couldn’t top. But unlike the vampires, the sun didn’t stop me.
I took a long, hot shower, but I couldn’t shut off my brain, and I couldn’t afford another sleepless day. I didn’t think Gabriel would move Rainey further away from me, but time would widen the gap all the same. She couldn’t get comfortable wherever she was, or worse, forget about me. I wondered if the people in Gabriel’s Realm realized another world bubbled below the surface of theirs. A place where dreams didn’t come true.
It was the first time I had a chance to take in the room. It was a little bet
ter than a basic hotel room, somewhere between the décor in the lobby and Tristan’s penthouse. I wondered if he had any say in how the Alta Vista was designed. That was the type of thing that no one would expect him to give a shit about, but Tristan knew it mattered. And I wondered if I was the first person to be harbored here. It wasn’t home. That was probably why they invited me to stay, so I wouldn’t have a chance to get comfortable in my life without Rainey. Which meant Callie understood what was at stake, and that scared me the most.
I crawled into bed beside Blade and kissed his head. He never had a chance to answer my question before the day claimed him, but from the way his lips curled up in a smile and he snuggled against his pillow under my touch, I had a feeling I knew the answer. But we were in the place that dreams didn’t come true, and I had to find a way to bridge that gap for both of us.
Rainey’s phone was in my bag on the nightstand. The message light blinked through the fabric, and even though I knew it couldn’t possibly be good news, I couldn’t keep myself away. I flipped through the messages—mostly notifications about me and the show. I was too exhausted to read them and had to trust Callie and Tristan when they insisted no one wanted me to be perfect. I just had to put on a show. I froze when I saw the text icon with symbols that didn’t look quite right—like I’d downloaded the magic app on my phone and Rainey could contact me from her Realm.
I love you, the message said.
It took everything I had not to try to wake Blade. Sleeping vampires were not to be disturbed. Blade had newly indoctrinated me into his pleasure and pain club, but I never wanted to experience his wrath. Sitting in bed with my hand over my mouth, I could imagine I was with Rainey. We’d broken through to Gabriel’s Realm. Now I just had to figure out how to get to her.
Hopefully, my message would make it there. I will do whatever it takes to spend forever with you.
Chapter Eight
Gabriel was right. There was no balance in the universe, and it was putting me in danger. The energy of the crowd fed me like I was full vampire, but all it did was amplify my emptiness. I needed more, and Blade’s fire was the perfect antidote.
No one could bitch about my performances anymore. Not Callie, and not the reviewers and bloggers who watched my every move. Especially not those nosy producers. This was exactly what I trained for—all eyes on me. I scrolled through the notifications on Rainey’s phone, registering the adjectives in the headlines, but not reading the stories. All I cared about was another text message from that mysterious code. But it had yet to come.
On my phone, the message behind Blade’s texts took no deciphering. You should stay here tonight.
No, I texted too quickly. You’ve got to come here. I could control what happened at the Alta Vista. It had become my stage, and I could choreograph my movements. At Embrace I could succumb to the evil that consumed Blade.
Stop playing into their hands, Holly. Why don’t you see what it’s like in my world? When I didn’t answer, he added, there’s nothing holding you back anymore.
I dropped the phone. It was too soon after my performance to deal with him. That was the problem with caring for someone with a black soul. The evil bled through the best intentions. To think that he’d take me when I was weak and feed me lies... No. I wouldn’t let guilt, fear or anything silly like convention sway me into thinking I chose the wrong path. If I had a prayer of seeing Rainey again, I had to balance the element that Gabriel found so distasteful. I’d knock on every door in this damn resort and find which one lead to his Realm. And when I found him, hopefully with clothes on, I’d ring his neck.
What’s holding you back, Blade? I texted when some of my strength came back. You know where to find me if you want me.
He didn’t answer. Whatever. There was probably death and destruction to deal with and it got in the way of a perfectly good booty call. Blade wanted to get off in the comfort of his own home, and if that were the case, he got his wish.
It was probably better he didn’t come, anyway. I couldn’t get caught up in Blade and rely on him for fire or anything else. I was failing my own test for him; not trusting him. More like I didn’t trust myself. This gnawing deep in my belly would be better used by exploring the hotel, and finding the place where the vibration was too much. The entry to Gabriel’s Realm.
Funny thing was Rainey and I had deduced that the angels would hang out where evil was most prevalent, and that was before we realized they were so into balance. We never guessed the Alta Vista was ground zero. It made me wonder what I was missing behind the scenes. I’d always thought of this as the place that had the good energy. Now that my performance was on point, I could get my head out of the clouds and pay more attention to the band, and especially The Mistress.
I hadn’t brought much with me to the Alta Vista when I went home to pack. I didn’t plan on staying long. In my heart, this was a done deal. Rainey belonged to me, not some sex-crazed ogre. I put on one of Rainey’s favorite outfits. Booty shorts, over-the-knee socks, and I added one of Rainey’s tops. It was big on me, but I tied the bottom of it into a knot. I braided my hair and didn’t bother with makeup. I wasn’t sure where my journey would take me, but I didn’t want to get recognized again. I couldn’t risk fans tainting the energy around me.
Slipping the purple key card with silver scrolls into my sock, I headed down the hallway. So far during my stay, I hadn’t gone anywhere but my room, the theater, and the penthouse. I pressed the up button on the elevator. VIP and angels harboring prisoners wouldn’t be hanging out in the cheap seats on the lower floors. I stepped in and considered the numbers.
“You want the twenty-fifth floor,” a female voice said, and I screamed, not realizing I had company. I turned around, wishing I had a weapon, but then realized I had the ultimate vampire extinguisher—fire. So it was a good thing I was dealing a vampire, even if it was Rachel.
“Why are you here?” I asked once I caught my breath. She wasn’t in all leather this time, but she’d clearly been working on her badassery. Everything was black— from her knee-high lace-up boots, to her shredded jeans, to her military-style jacket. “What’s on the twenty-fifth floor?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to the after party. You should probably show up once in a while. You need all the friends you can get. But the twenty-fifth floor is the residences.”
For a moment, it stung that I wasn’t there, but it only reinforced that my invitation here was only temporary. “What kind of person lives here?”
“You’re about to find out.” The doors opened to the residence floor. Rachel appeared in front of me, leaning against the open door. If that trick was meant to impress me, she had some work to do. She crossed her arms and looked me over. I conjured a spark to remind her she had no real advantage over me. My powers were back, and unless she was interested in helping me find my girlfriend, which I was pretty sure she wasn’t, she’d outlived her usefulness. “Blade will be busy at Embrace for a while. He doesn’t have time for you.”
Oh. That stung deeper than I wanted it to. She had weapons I didn’t account for, and they had blond beards and washboard abs. “Did he send you to do his dirty work?”
The bitch had the nerve to laugh. “That’s not how things work. You make an awful lot of assumptions. Remember what happened the last time you forgot your place on the food chain.”
The elevator door buzzed, protesting the weight of the bitch against it, and she let me pass, holding the door open, like she knew I’d turn around and glare at her. “Food chain. I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Tell Blade to call me,” I said before turning away. I let her take this round because she fought dirty and we had no witnesses. She was the wild card. She sipped chaos like a cocktail, a taste she inherited from Cash. Like me, she had a foot in both worlds.
Rachel had fallen from good to somewhere in between, but her true colors had always shown, and she was wearing them tonight. Black. She has a boyfriend, so wanting me to stay away from Blade
has nothing to do with jealousy, I thought as I wandered through the maze of hallways on the twenty-fifth floor. But she did need him.
The difference between her and Blade was she had chosen evil, when Blade didn’t think there was any other way. Blade could be saved.
But Rachel would have to be destroyed.
I WAS LIKE A JUNKIE, searching everywhere for my next high. But the high was Rainey and the vibration that I convinced myself would lead me to her wasn’t here.
I walked by every guest room in the Alta Vista. I stopped at the conference rooms, rattling the doors. If security got involved, it would probably lead me to The Mistress. Not that I wanted to see her, but I expected a sympathetic ear. I wasn’t exactly sure how she met Tristan but it sounded like she came back to him after they’d been apart. Callie didn’t like to lose, either.
But I couldn’t get Rachel out of my head, and that whore stole my vibration like the greedy bitch she was. She said she was on her way to a penthouse party, but I didn’t think for a second our meet-up was random.
Her power was that she neutralized others’ powers. Stole them was more like it. As I kicked off my boots in my lonely hotel room, I tried to figure out why she spent so much time here. She wanted something. Her boyfriend, Josiah, played bass in my band, but we never talked much. He kept to himself, and Rachel created a force field around him with her bad attitude any time she was around. I bet she stole from him, too.
She wasn’t here because she wanted to make friends. She planned to rip lives apart. Weakening her stranglehold of evil on the city was the way to get to Rainey.
Chapter Nine
“I knew you’d come to me eventually.” Blade sat on the front of the desk in his office at Embrace, his denim-clad legs going on for miles. The noise from the other side of the door, the ever-present stench of desperation in the bar, all faded. It was just him and me. He liked this too much, having me all to himself behind enemy lines. I shouldn’t have come here.
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