The Fire Dancer

by Kristen Strassel

  “That feels so good.” Blade moaned in appreciation, his head tipping back. “All I’ve been able to think about is you touching me.”

  My breath hitched in my throat. The feelings didn’t fade, even though things would never be the same between us. But I needed Blade to keep hope, so I forced a smile, continuing my work as I leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  I pulled another wipe out of my bag and slowly, rhythmically cleaned Blade’s skin while I whispered our plan in his ear. The warden my every move, his eyes heavy lidded and his mouth slightly open. It wasn’t Blade I was trying to seduce, it was the warden. He was so distracted, he didn’t hear a word I said. I gave him something he all but abandoned—hope. I made him want things.

  Once my mission was complete, I brushed my lips almost close enough to touch Blade’s, but I didn’t. I winked at him while I closed my bag. The warden’s hands shook as he turned the key in the elevator shaft.

  “HOW DO I LOOK?” RAINEY asked me as we walked through the parking garage, playing with her hair.

  “Too skinny.” I wrinkled my nose and laughed. “I’d break you in half if you looked like that all the time.”

  We had to wait until the full moon for the Transformation spell she chose to take full effect. In the meantime, we Googled every picture of Callie we could find to make sure we planned the look perfectly. Rainey’s hair was longer than usual, and we pulled the top of it back in a barrette. She picked a tie-dyed sundress, and bought a pair of Callie’s signature china doll cloth slippers. I thought we’d be able to fool almost anyone.

  Giving Rainey her instructions one more time along with a kiss, I sent her alone in the elevator to floor BB. It wouldn’t be believable if I went down with her, but I hoped it was believable for The Mistress to arrive without her entourage. Our explanation was that this matter concerned Callie, Blade, and no one else.

  The vampire jail was about as far from the moon as Rainey could possibly get. I hoped the glamour could withstand the subterranean conditions.

  She was gone way too long. I sat down in front of the elevator bank, dizzy. Several tourists and the garage security guard stopped to ask me if I was okay.

  “I’m fine,” I said more to convince myself. “I’m meeting my friends here.”

  “She should be here.” I jumped at the sound of Rainey’s voice. I wasn’t sure it was it was actually her, because she sounded more like Callie, the register higher and with a Boston accent. The illusion was starting to fade. Her skin had lightened, her hair was shorter, and the curves were back.

  And Blade followed her out of the elevator.

  I wasn’t sure who to hug first.

  Blade felt as breakable as Rainey did in her Callie get-up. He hadn’t had any positive emotions to feed from for so long. His skin was gray in the yellow light of the garage, his wrists purple and raw. They’d be healed by the end of the night.

  A single spark dripped from between our bodies as we hugged. Rainey squealed when she saw it, and we jumped back from each other.

  “I saw it.” Her hand was still over her mouth. “There was fire.”

  “It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything good.” Blade shook his fingers, and more sparks flew. Envy tasted bitter on my tongue. I reached out to catch one of them, and it burned my finger.

  My eyes blurred with tears, but I wasn’t going to show Blade any more weakness. He knew I had no power.

  “Remember, I was the only one who came for you. The rest of them were ready to let you rot down there.”

  “Holly, what’s the matter?” He smiled, and then shook his hand again, throwing more sparks.

  “You promised me nothing in return for this.” I struggled to breathe. “I don’t want more violence, Blade. No more deception. I don’t want to use my fire to hurt people. Give it back to me so I can go back on stage. That’s where I belong.”

  I walked back toward the car, and Rainey ran to catch up with me.

  “Holly,” Blade called after me. I stopped, letting him come to us. I squeezed Rainey’s hand, having no idea what he was going to say. He got what he wanted. Now I learned if I would, too. “Let’s set this whole city on fire.”

  “No matter what...” Cash’s words felt strangely good on my lips. “The show must go on. And this time, it’s my show.”

  THANK YOU!

  I hope you had as much fun reading Holly’s story as I did writing it. Holly came to me during an Alice Cooper concert. He introduced his badass female guitarist and I thought he said Holly Octane. I prayed I misunderstood him because Holly’s story kept me entertained while I drove through the creepy backroads of Connecticut and Rhode Island on the way home. Seriously, they could film a horror movie on some stretches of Rt. 6. Anyway, Alice’s guitarist at the time was Orianthi and Holly Octane was born.

  If you love hair metal and haven’t seen Alice live, you need to go. His band is comprised basically of all-stars and they’re amazing. 12/10 would go see again.

  The Vegas Vampire universe is getting huge. In Cirque Macabre, you can check out the story of how Holly became The Fire Dancer in Stardust. It’s a 20K novella that originally appeared in the Sultry and Sinful collection. It’s also told from Rainey’s POV.

  And does Holly get her fire back? Don’t miss Sin City Vampire Club!

  Want the other side of the story? Callie is our Vegas tour guide for The Night Songs Collection. You’ll meet everyone put Rainey in that series. If you haven’t started it yet, check out Because the Night.

  And if you have read it already, first of all, I love you. That might be a little much, a little soon. I know. If you told me in person, I’d hug you. Please consider this my hug. I’m super appreciative of any time anyone decides to give one of my books a try. If you loved them, please tell a friend or take a moment to leave a review. We authors are always rambling on about reviews but they’re seriously gold to us.

  Please stay in touch!

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  www.kristenstrassel.com.

  XX

  Kristen

  Keep reading for chapter one of Sin City Vampire Club and Stardust!

  Sin City Vampire Club

  Blade Bennett needed to reclaim his stake on Las Vegas, and he wasted no time starting with me.

  His kisses hadn’t lost any of their fire while he was trapped in a low-rent ring of Hell. They intensified. The flames consumed me, and the cool concrete wall of the parking garage was a relief when he backed me against it.

  I shivered when his hungry lips moved away from mine. Blade needed blood, and he was drawn to the throbbing pulse in my neck. Energy sustained vampires, but he’d been denied everything for so long he no longer recognized the difference between want and need.

  Or those things had changed for him when he’d been locked away and prevented from leading the most powerful vampire clan in the city. He certainly hadn’t wavered on his blind determination to take what was his while he was incarcerated. And he planned to mainline his way back into the spotlight.

  I prayed he didn’t sink his fangs into my flesh in the middle of a dirty Vegas parking garage. We were the only two creatures in the city with fire. Or we had been, anyway. Now it was only him. I couldn’t give him what he needed.

  I hadn’t prepared myself for how it would feel to be so close to the fire. Blade was my best chance to get it back.

  “Holly,” Rainey said sharply.

  Blade had no problem getting to work in front of the person who kept my world spinning. Calling Rainey my girlfriend was taking the easy way out. That wasn’t something I was good at. Rainey and I had been together as long as I could remember, which was pretty close to forever. Blade and I separated with a grunt.

  An apology was in order, but I wasn’t sure to whom.

  “We have to get him back to the apartment.” I pulled up on the car door handle, but Rainey hadn’
t unlocked it. “The sun will come up soon.”

  The moon moved through the sky like a ticking bomb.

  “We can’t bring him back to our house.” Rainey’s tone had yet to soften. I’d broken my promise to her in one shared heartbeat.

  So much time was spent on planning to get Blade out of jail, we forgot to discuss what to do with him once we succeeded. We’d agreed on an outcome, but not how to get there. The hungry determination had yet to fade from Blade’s eyes.

  “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.” I glanced at him, knowing too much contact with him was dangerous in every facet of my life.

  “Just for the day.” His voice was gravelly, stolen away from him along with the rest of the kiss. “Give me a chance to get my shit together, and I’ll go.”

  My heart throbbed as the two most important people in my life played tug of war with it. Rainey and I should’ve thought this part of the plan through. But the problem was that we made decisions for Blade without consulting him first. The three of us had no time to come to grips with the fact I loved them both.

  “The apartment isn’t vampire-proof.” Rainey unlocked the doors and Blade and I jumped into the passengers’ seats before she had a chance to take off without us. “We just finished fire-proofing it.”

  Tires always squealed on the garage concrete, but Rainey’s shrieked as she high-tailed it out of there.

  “You can put a blanket over the window. No place I’ve ever stayed has been meant for a vampire,” Blade said from the backseat.

  My heart went to Blade in that round. I turned to put my hand on his filthy knee. It poked through his torn jeans. Besides the fire, there was another thing that Blade and I had in common—we were both desperate to find the place we belonged. For completely different reasons, we’d decided that place was Las Vegas. It would’ve been a much smoother transition if anyone else wanted us here.

  Want, need—those things got tangled easily, and complicated quickly when you were used to having nothing.

  “HOW SHOULD I DO THIS?” Rainey eyed the sliding glass door in the living room as soon as we got home. As reluctant as she was to host a sleepover with Blade, she wanted an in-house vampire explosion even less. Forget getting the security deposit back after that. “I have an extra set of sheets, but it’s not enough to block the sun.”

  Blade looked as anxious as she did. “How big is your closet?”

  “Pretty big, but Holly took it over with all her stuff.” She had to twist the knife and get that detail in there. “Her stage clothes take up a ton of room.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t care. I’ve slept standing up ever since I was captured. Let me take a shower and I’ll do anything you say.”

  My stomach flip-flopped at the visual he’d painted. “The bathroom’s the door on the right.”

  He was in worse shape than I’d realized. I’d visited him several times while he was in jail, but dungeon lighting left a lot to be desired. So did parking garage ambiance. Now that he was on my turf, I could get a batter look at him. He was covered in soot, but his blue eyes glowed, and several lines on his face shone with fresh blood. Dirt matted his blond hair.

  The shower ran behind the closed bathroom door, and he groaned when he stepped under it. I winced; his pain was a tangible thing.

  “What the hell were you thinking, kissing him like that?” Rainey snapped me back from Blade’s plight. “I won’t share you, Holly. If I realized you didn’t understand that, I would’ve never gone along with this ridiculous plan.”

  “Calm down.” Worst thing I could’ve said. Rainey didn’t spontaneously combust on the regular like I did—or I used to—but it was about to happen. “Did you take a good look at him? He’s ripped to shreds.”

  “He was in jail. He didn’t just come home from war,” Rainey muttered. I begged to differ.

  “We have to talk. All three of us. And we have to listen to him, too. Let’s make it through the day first. Get some rest.” Jail didn’t destroy Blade, but a sleepover at Rainey’s might.

  Rainey headed to the bedroom, tearing the closet door open and tossing my shoes and stage costumes to the side, under the guise of creating space for Blade. “They could come looking for him. I don’t want those people in my house,” she said as she worked.

  “Those people wouldn’t survive above ground.” If they were even people anymore. That underground jail was a suburb of Hell with an easy commute.

  “That’s not who I’m talking about.” She glared at me. “Monsters roam free in Las Vegas. I know you’ll do whatever it takes to get your fire back, Holly. But you have to realize that I have limits.”

  Blade would have expectations, too. I’d led him on, given him hope because he had what I wanted. All I’d thought about was my fire. I’d been accused many times of being selfish, and this was a shining example of it.

  “We’ll all be happier if I have my fire back.” The water shut off in the bathroom. I needed to wrap this up before Blade came out. He knew enough of my weaknesses. I had one advantage right now.

  I was his savior.

  “Best shower ever.” Blade came out in a towel and kissed the top of my head, batting the rage ball back to Rainey. “Where’s that closet?”

  Rainey smiled brightly through gritted teeth. “Right here. Hope you don’t mind—I snore.”

  She never snored. I considered sleeping on the couch.

  “I’ll wash your clothes for you.” I ignored Rainey rolling her eyes and grabbed the bundle of filth from under Blade’s arm. “Are you hungry? Oh, never mind.”

  Was he ever. A malnourished vampire was lousy at keeping secrets. “I wish you two would stop fighting. It’s like crunching on nails,” he said.

  He clutched the towel, but my gaze was drawn to it as it slipped. His lean body rippled with power, and the indent of his hipbones directed my attention to what I shouldn’t have been thinking about. Damn that V. Even bruised and broken, Blade was still beautiful. In a totally different way than Rainey. It was a painful reminder that no one could have it all.

  I pulled my pillow and a blanket from the bed, ignoring Rainey’s grumbling. Blade juggled the new items and the towel. Please don’t drop it. He’d choke on my desire.

  “Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow when our heads are clear and we know what we want. We’ve got work to do. It doesn’t get any easier from here,” I said.

  Blade nodded, but didn’t say anything before he closed the door behind him.

  “Come to bed.” Rainey was my lifeline. Without her, I’d slip into Blade’s nightmare without a second thought. It would be too easy to believe I belonged there. Rainey was a constant reminder I deserved better. “You’re not totally recovered, either. Tonight’s taken a lot out of you.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I crawled under the sheet. Our lips met in a wordless concession. Love was supposedly never having to say you were sorry, but that was bullshit. I’d spend the rest of my life making this up to Rainey.

  She’d nursed me back to health after I’d lost my fire. I’d burned from the inside out, and from the sound of it, she’d brought me to her house in an urn. I lost many things the night of the fire. My father, Cash Logan, perished at the same time I burned. And Cirque Macabre, the show that had made me a household name, had to go dark with its two biggest stars out of commission. But Rainey had always been there for me.

  She sighed against my lips. Sleep would claim her any moment. “You know I’ll do anything for you, Holly.”

  I held her until she fell asleep, kissing her as I figured out how to explain I’d do the same for her. I wanted so many things. My fire. For Rainey and Blade to get along. Another chance to perform on stage. After that night, I swore I’d never need anyone again.

  Keep Reading Sin City Vampire Club!

  Stardust

  Holly got all the cool powers. Depending on who she talked to, she embraced her powers as a blessing, or screamed to Hell that they were a curse. She was more than my best friend, we we
re destined to be together, our souls and pasts and futures singular... so I was pretty biased toward to blessing column. Holly traveled through time with the ease and grace of a ballerina and when she came back to me, flames dripped from her fingers like a warm summer rain. It was Holly’s world, and we were simply living in it. But her greatest power was that she always made me feel like I was the center of the universe.

  And for that reason, I’d do anything for her.

  I had powers, too. At least, that’s what I called them. Lucille, the woman who cared for Holly and I since we were children, tried to convince me I was crazy. I was an adult now, but the stigma of her claim would never fade. I heard voices, as plain as Holly smoothing my hair behind my ear and whispering to me. As the messages became clearer, I began to See them. But I doubted every single one of them, wondering if my eyes lied to me.

  “You have an overactive imagination,” Lucille insisted any time I tried to warn her of what I Saw in my vision. “Learn to mind your own business. We won’t change our plans because you’re afraid. This move is best for all of us.”

  If I had a tail, it would’ve been between my legs as I retreated my bedroom.

  The messages were coming fast and furious ever since Lucille announced we’d be moving from Santa Fe to Las Vegas. They involved fire and loss, but since they were all about the future, I had trouble putting what I saw into words in a way that made sense to anyone else. It took me a long time to understand that other people solely lived in the present.

  How boring.

  “She’s an idiot.” Holly didn’t give a crap about pleasing Lucille, while I did everything I could to get her approval. We both managed to piss her off. “Your Sight is a gift. Now tell me what will happen when we get to Las Vegas.”

  She lay on her stomach on our bed, chin in hands, her blazing red hair trailing over the edge of the mattress. She’d kicked her bare feet in the air, and her gold eyes sparkled like topaz. Gazing into them had the same effect as holding the stone in my hand. Holly calmed me and gave me center. And if my visions were right, she was about to become a star.