Dark Xanadu Book One

by Sindra van Yssel

  Fred’s offer, though, did the trick. Alicia couldn’t come up with a punishment that she was actually willing to carry out, and ended up deciding to let the whole thing go. Jean wasn’t so easily satisfied, but with Alicia on their side, Genna and he managed to get her calmed down.

  “Very diplomatic,” Angela said to him as he walked back towards the office.

  He wanted so badly to smile at her, take her hand, and walk her back with him. What if Mario has someone watching? Instead he walked past as if he didn’t know her at all. It was a stupid idea letting her come here. If it hadn’t been for that guy Morgan trying to roll her, he would have kept his distance, but he wanted her close so he could protect her. Who was he trying to fool? He couldn’t protect her from random vampires unless he was at her side every moment of every evening.

  He thought briefly about using her disobedience about staying put in his office to push her away. She deserved to know real reasons for things, and she didn’t need him undermining her self confidence. But she’d never believe the real reason behind his actions, anyway.

  She was following him. The clack-clack of her heels sounded angry, and probably was. If they were going to have an argument, they’d at least have it in the privacy of his office. He opened the door, and caught a look of her face as he let her in. She was definitely pissed.

  “You!” she said as he closed the door behind him.

  That didn’t give him much to go on, so he waited.

  “Walking right by me as if I don’t exist. Hiding me in your office when your duties involve you being out there.”

  “I thought you weren’t into exhibitionism,” Kent said mildly. “That’s what you told me.”

  “And I told you I wasn’t into pain, either, but that didn’t stop you from giving me a spanking.”

  “You seemed to be enjoying that.”

  “Yes, I was, dammit, but don’t distract me.” Her face was red. “And wipe that smirk off your face.”

  He did have a smirk, didn’t he? Well, thinking of her bottom in the air did that to him. He composed his features into an expression he hoped looked serious.

  “Is there some other girl? Someone you don’t want word to leak out to that you’re seeing me? Is that it?” Angela’s voice was rising. It would carry through the thin walls if it got any noisier. Not that she didn’t have a right to yell.

  “No, there’s no one else,” he said calmly.

  “Or maybe I’m too fat to be seen with?”

  He blinked. He’d never thought of her as fat, not for one moment. “Honey, I love your curves. I like the softness of you in my arms, and I’m proud of your beauty and your sexiness. Trust me, I would love to be seen with you.”

  “Okay, then, prove it.”

  Kent sighed. The silence hung in the air for a long moment. “I can’t.”

  “Care to tell me why?”

  “You’d never believe me.”

  “You won’t know unless you try.”

  Morgan’s a vampire. And so is the guy who attacked me last week. And I killed half a dozen vampires in Los Angeles. Heck, not only do I believe in vampires, but I see them at every turn. With a sinking feeling he realized that it was probably best this way, anyway. He’d let her go and stay far away from her, for her own safety, until Mario was dealt with. Even after that, he wouldn’t have an explanation.

  If Mario was dealt with. He’d been assuming, despite the odds, that he would come out on top in the end. But a cold rational analysis would surely say that he was a walking dead man, and that carrying on any kind of relationship with a woman would just make for one more person who’d feel badly when he died.

  He slowly shook his head.

  “Something’s going on with you,” said Angela, in an unexpectedly calm tone. Concerned, even. “You’re pushing your friends away. You’re pushing me away. I won’t turn my back on you, whatever it is. Honesty is a two-way street, and if you don’t like it when I don’t tell you the truth about my feelings, then I’m not going to take it from you either. If you don’t tell me, I’m walking out the door.”

  Pushing his friends away? Brennan must have been talking to her. He still had nothing to say that would make any sense to her. The look on her face, the determination, the promise to accept whatever his secret was, and yes, the anger…she was far too passionate about him for him think of her as just a play date. He’d wondered before if he was falling for her. Now he was beginning to suspect it might be mutual.

  He watched as she opened the door of his office.

  “Stop,” he said, desperate, every instinct wanting to somehow rewind the conversation and make it all work.

  She stopped and looked behind her.

  It wasn’t safe out there, even without vampires. It wasn’t a very good neighborhood, and she shouldn’t be walking alone to her car. And he couldn’t undo either the conversation or the circumstances. “I’ll call you a taxi. My expense.”

  Angela made a face at him. “What makes you think I’m going home? Unless you’re throwing me out of your club.”

  The idea of her in the arms of another man made his heart tighten painfully. But if he was going to send her away, he’d have to accept she wasn’t going to become a nun. He made himself nod, slowly. “Well, don’t leave alone. It’s not safe out there.”

  She nodded. “So I’ve heard.” Her voice was cold. She slipped out the door and closed it behind her.

  Brennan had really let his mouth run, hadn’t he? He should have known better than to send someone else. He hadn’t sworn Brennan to secrecy or anything.

  He waited a few moments and walked out after her. There was no sense in him hiding in his office. He’d been hiding her, not himself. He didn’t want to see her with another man, but the very last thing he wanted was to see her hurt. He’d watch over her.

  He stood against the wall, arms crossed, looking around and trying to avoid staring at her. Five minutes later, she pulled out her cell phone. Genna had added Don’t use cell phones in the main dungeon area to the list of rules after they became a distraction the second week Dark Xanadu was open, but he wasn’t about to stop Angela from calling a taxi. When she hung up, she glared at him and stomped off. Charles was playing bouncer in the front room, and he knew he wouldn’t let her walk off alone. Of course, he couldn’t do that much about vampires, but neither could Kent without tugging the sword off the wall. He’d tried the wooden stake thing and almost got killed for it. Perhaps a vampire could indeed die from being impaled by wood, but it was damn hard to drive a piece of sharpened wood into someone’s chest. Chopping their heads off was much better, or burning them while they lay dead for the day.

  Screw it. Effective or not, he had to be there. And a shot from a gun would at least slow a vamp down for a second. He went back into his office, took the Colt .45 out of his desk, loaded it, and walked out.

  He arrived in time to watch Angela get into a taxi. Good enough. He wished he could pay for it, because he knew full well that the evening’s disaster was far more his fault than hers.

  He paused a moment to inhale the evening air. It might not be technically fresh—too much traffic went by for that—but the coolness invigorated him a bit. He looked around for Mario, but didn’t see him.

  He did see Gerald, however, having a conversation on the sidewalk forty feet away. He hadn’t kicked Gerald out of the club over the incident with Angela, although he’d been sorely tempted to. But Gerald had apologized to Brennan and left the club before he had gotten a chance to talk to him the evening of the incident, and had sent him another mea culpa via email during the week. He was far too personally involved to make a sound judgment in the matter, so in the end he ended up letting Gerald know that his scenes were going to be watched very carefully, and that any further violation of club rules would see his membership revoked.

  Gerald wasn’t alone; he was talking to a lanky young man with spiky green hair and leathers. The outfit was more punk than fetish, and he hadn’t seen the young m
an inside the club before. Maybe he was someone’s guest, or maybe he was a local. He watched, unsure for a moment what was wrong with what he was seeing. Then he realized what it was.

  The air was chilly enough that a thin cloud of vapor appeared in front of Gerald with each breath. None appeared in front of the green-haired punk, however. Unless there was something else in the world that looked human and didn’t need to breathe, the green-haired kid was a vampire.

  Gerald was one of the last people on earth Kent felt like protecting, but that didn’t change anything. He watched as Gerald and the vamp talked and talked, then breathed a sigh of relief when the two finally parted company. Greenie headed down the street, and Gerald came back toward the club. Three vampires in such a short period of time. Coincidence? Unlikely, although a vampire might be drawn to a BDSM club in search of prey. Mario was there for him. Morgan, for Angela. About Greenie he had no idea. But he couldn’t sit and wait anymore. He had to try to make the connections as best he could.

  “Hey, Gerald,” he said as the man approached.

  “Kent.” The man nodded to him, but didn’t make any pretense of being friends. Fine.

  “What were you talking about with that guy there?”

  “None of your—” Gerald stopped, and look confused. For a moment, his guard was down. “You know, I honestly don’t remember.”

  Shit. That it was none of his business Kent could only agree with; he was being nosy, although with good reason. But the look of confusion and consternation on Gerald’s face was too unguarded to be false. He didn’t remember, which meant that the vampire hadn’t wanted him to. If it was an ordinary conversation, leaving it be would be the best course of action. Wiping people’s memories after talking to them was bound to attract attention if you did it often enough, and the continued existence of vampires was dependent on being inconspicuous.

  So Kent simply nodded. There was nothing he could do to help Gerald remember. Greenie was nowhere to be seen now. Kent stood aside, opened the door for Gerald, and followed him in.

  The next step in his investigation would be to find out what Angela knew about Morgan. He’d give her a day to cool off, first, though. For tonight, he had a business to run. And he fully intended to get near every single member and make sure they were breathing. It wasn’t a perfect method. A vampire could fake it if he knew he was being watched, but it wasn’t instinctive, and he’d never yet met one who managed to make a habit of it. Forcing air in and out of your lungs wasn’t a natural thing to do, unless, of course, you needed oxygen to stay alive.

  Chapter Eight

  The taxi was halfway to her house when Angela told it to turn around. Damn me and my impatience. Kent hadn’t promised to be her boyfriend. He’d promised to show her what BDSM was all about. The rough sex had rattled her brain into thinking it was all about something more. Wasn’t even really sex. She had disobeyed orders, because she decided she knew best. In the back of her head was the idea that Kent was going to punish her for that, and it was easier by far to be angry than punished.

  She tried to compose herself in the taxi, but her heart was hammering. She would go up to Kent and apologize. And kneel. He liked that. She knew that from his reaction when she’d done it the first time. If need be, she’d ask for what she’d fled from—punishment—and let him guide her further. When he’d finished teaching her, she’d walk away more aware of who she was and why being in Dark Xanadu turned her on. Her heart clenched a bit at that. Storming away angry from Kent she could do. Walking away calmly, shaking hands, and parting friends? He’d burrowed his way into her heart a little too much for that to be anything but a supreme challenge.

  The taxi driver didn’t mind her indecision. “Change your mind as often as you want, hon. The meter’s running.” She remembered that Kent had actually offered to pay for the taxi ride.

  She got out of the taxi. She didn’t know if she’d be allowed back in or not, but she paid the taxi driver, and he drove away. No turning back now. She stood for a moment, watching the cars go by on the busy street in front of the warehouse. She’d have to walk around to get in, but she wanted to go over the whole thing in her mind one more time.

  A lot depended on who was the gatekeeper of the moment. Brennan wouldn’t turn her down, she was pretty sure. She thought Genna would let her in, too. Charles she didn’t know well enough. And if it was Kent…well, she’d kneel right there in the waiting room if it was Kent.

  She walked around the corner, where the shadows deepened away from the main drag.

  She almost bumped into a man who was leaning against the wall. She hadn’t noticed him because she was lost in thought. It didn’t help that the man was in black leathers, had a hood pulled over his head, and it was dark out. “Good evening, love,” said the man in a British accent that struck her as a bit off, as if he were an American faking it.

  “Sorry.” She looked at him for a moment, intending to keep on going. But something about his dark eyes held her still for a moment.

  “You have no idea,” he said. “Here. Smell this.”

  He held up a palm-sized translucent brown bottle, half-full of a clear liquid. Even as it approached the sickly-sweet odor of it was noxious, but rather than holding her breath she followed directions and inhaled deeply. She stood there for a couple of seconds, feeling nauseous and a lightheaded. He’d done something to her. The chemical. She batted at him weakly, succeeding only in knocking the hood off the man’s head. His bright green hair was easy enough to see in the dark, at least. Pretty, pretty green hair.

  “Anyone seeing you will think you’re someone who had a little bit too much to drink,” the man told her cheerfully as he put his hand around her waist. She took a few steps with him, and after that, everything went black.

  * * * * *

  Dark Xanadu had come to full life. Every station, including the new St. Andrew’s cross Brennan had built during the week, was in full use. People were starting to recognize new friends from the week before, and the conversation was lively. Kent watched with pride. He couldn’t have made it all work without his friends, he knew, but he was glad to have had a part in making Dark Xanadu a reality.

  One person, he noticed, was still standing by himself. Jack was a Dom, according to his application, but apparently he and his sub had broken up shortly after their first night. Kent tended to reject the membership applications of single men, unless Brennan or Charles vouched for them. Too many hanging around made the women uncomfortable, and the same was not true in reverse. Jack’s former sub, Karen, had showed up without Jack on week two, and Jack was there without Karen today. Jack’s approach to finding a partner to play with, or even someone to talk to, seemed to consist of waiting around for other people to make the first move.

  That trick, thought Kent, almost never works.

  He walked over to the lonely man, who was about his age. Tall, dark, with a crooked nose that prevented him from having a handsome face, Jack looked anything but confident as he shifted his weight every half-minute.

  “Hey, Jack. How’s life treating you?” asked Kent. He wasn’t looking forward to getting dumped on, but Jack needed to be pulled into the community somehow.

  “Crappy,” said Jack. “Still missing Karen, my sub. She broke up with me.”

  Kent nodded sympathetically. He thought of sharing his own experience, but he hadn’t been with Angela long, and he didn’t know how long Jack and Karen had been going together before the split. “That sucks, man. Still, plenty of fish in the sea.”

  Like I’m taking my own advice. He had good reason not to get mixed up with any woman, though, with Mario after him.

  “Meh. The fish aren’t biting.”

  “It usually works better if you approach them,” Kent observed, resisting the temptation to take the fishing analogy any further.

  “I think I’m going to call it a night. Nice place, though.”

  Kent grinned. “Thanks.” He thought about the possibility of Mario out there, or Greenie. �
�I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “Nah, I’ll be all right.”

  Kent hesitated. Actually, Jack was probably safer without him, for much the same reason Angela was safer without him. He couldn’t do much to stop a vampire, not with just a gun on the inside of his leather jacket. He had a wealth of experience at turning the enemies’ strength against them, but that only went so far. So he nodded. “Good night.”

  People would start to be leaving soon; Jack was the first of the wave. The action built until eleven o’clock or so. After that it slowly trickled off, although there would still be a number of people there at one when the place closed. At the staff meeting afterward they were going to talk about whether to stay open later, or open a second night. All but Kent had full-time jobs. In Charles’ case, more like sixty hours a week than forty. Extra hours meant finding a way to share the burden, and possibly getting some extra help.

  And I’d really like to take care of the Mario problem first. In the mean time, no one is going to leave alone and unwatched. He walked over to his office, reached up, and took down the sword that was above the door. Obviously, he couldn’t walk on the streets with the sword at his side without attracting some very unwanted attention, but if he was hanging out in front of his own club, it would come across as mere eccentricity.

  He walked out to the reception area and smiled at Genna. “I’ll take over here for the rest of the night, Gen. Go have some fun.”

  Genna looked up from the romance she was reading. She noticed the sword and raised her brows. “Yes, Sir,” she said, hopping off the tall stool she was sitting on. For a moment, Kent thought she was going to say more. He looked away. He didn’t really want to be quizzed about Angela, and neither did he want to deal with Genna’s attempts to distract him from Angela. He wanted to be outside, anyway, so he kept going.