He was right that I worried. But it wasn’t too much. He’d joked more than once about locking me in this room with the shades set to open before the sun went down, and I worried every morning that he would do it while I slept.
There were times that I couldn’t leave the room. I’d tried several times to teleport out of there with no success. But then, other times, I had no problem. I didn’t know what it was that Dorian did to my room, but I never asked about it. I was always too afraid that he’d think I wanted to run away from him and I didn’t want to start that argument. The only reason I could think of for me not being able to dematerialize at certain times was that he’d had a wizard or witch put a spell on the room. Turning back toward the cart, he grabbed the two small glasses of brandy as he made his way toward me. He handed me one of the glasses, and I took it, sipped, and then set it down on the nightstand.
The fact that Dorian was spending extra time in my room tonight worried me. He’d never wanted me sexually, not completely. I wasn’t the one he wanted. I knew that. He knew that, so his presence here had something to do with the surprise he’d mentioned. A surprise I had a bad feeling about. I picked up my glass again, putting it to my lips as I sipped.
“You said something about a surprise?” I asked, wanting to get it over with and not let the night turn into something else. He may not want to fuck me, but that never stopped him from wishing he did, and I didn’t think I could endure another round of listening to him beat-off while he stared at my bare ass as he rubbed his free hand over it, fantasizing. The fact that he liked guys was no big secret to me or any other person in this household, and he knew he could get me to do practically anything as long as he held my brother captive.
“Ah. Yes.” He clapped his hands twice, and the door flew open. Two seconds later, Julian stumbled in, instantly crumbling to his knees on the floor in front of Dorian.
“Julian!” I cried out and immediately set the brandy down and hurried to him, hugging his thin frame to mine. “Oh, Julian, are you okay?”
Of course he wasn’t okay. He looked as if they’d been starving him of blood. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes were dull. Dark circles shadowed both of his eyes. His clothes . . . I shook my head and sucked back a sob. He wore a skimpy pair of light blue boxer briefs that were so thin his skin showed through the flimsy material. The shirt he wore was as equally see-through. I had to get him out of there. Somehow, someway, before he ended up forgetting who he was or Dorian killed him. But the silver chain hanging around his neck and the silver fetters securing his wrists together not only kept him prisoner, they also kept me from removing them. The flesh around his neck and wrists was marred and singed from the burning of the silver.
I turned to Dorian. “Why are you doing this to him? Please, Dorian, let him go.”
He laughed. “No way! He’s my biggest moneymaker right now. Both the women and the men love him.”
“He needs blood. Please, give him some blood,” I begged.
“Go on.” Dorian waved his arm in the air, and someone handed me a bag. I pressed the plastic to Julian’s lips, and he sucked, looking up at me with gratitude. His eyes were so vacant, too empty. Was he drugged? I wasn’t even sure if he knew who I was right then.
“Julian, I’m so sorry.” I gently stroked my hand over his hair. Why are you treating him this way, Dorian? Why is he just staring into space as if he doesn’t even see me? He can’t make you any money if he’s dead.”
“Pffft. You and I both know he won’t die from lack of blood. And it’s not the silver that’s making him so lethargic.”
“Then what is it?”
“The silver’s there to keep you from helping him. His gaze is blank from the Blaze I gave him.”
“The Blaze?”
Dorian waved his hand in the air. “It’s a harmless drug that makes him not care about things, that’s all.”
“It doesn’t look harmless.”
“It is. A friend came upon it recently through accidental discovery. When a small amount is injected into the vein of a vampire, their energy is drained. Similar to what the sun does without the lasting effect. But it only lasts a short while. Don’t worry, he’ll be back to normal in a few minutes.”
“Well, he can’t perform for you if he’s too weak. Let him go. I’ll take his place,” I offered.
Dorian threw his glass across the room, and it shattered when it hit the wall. “You are not to be touched! You belong to me. No one lays a hand on you. Ever!” he shouted, his voice dipping into a dangerous tone. He’d never once had intercourse with me. He always pleasured himself, ejaculating while admiring my backside. Yet he claimed me as his.
With two wide steps, Dorian lifted me by my hair from my crouched position on the floor next to Julian. I cringed in agony. “I’ve told you many times, if anyone ever touches you, I will kill them. If anyone so much as looks at you with lust-filled interest, they will be sorry they ever laid eyes on you. Do you understand that, Lily? Do I make myself clear?”
I nodded as a tear escaped from my eye and ran down my cheek. I knew his threats well. I’d heard them before, and I always heeded them. Dorian scared me, and I never wanted to do anything that would make him punish me, though secretly meeting Preston has always been worth taking the chance. He eased his grip on my hair, moving his hand to the nape of my neck and covering my lips with his with so much force it hurt. Then he let go of me almost as forcefully, making me lose my balance. I fell to the floor on my ass beside Julian, who sat hunched in a ball, gulping the blood as if it were the first bag he’d had in a month.
Dorian’s face softened as his finger skimmed my cheek. “You’re a female, and I need you by my side when we are in public. No one is to touch you. You have a reputation to uphold. As for Julian, some of the bitches love him. Even some of the males want to be with him. He’s so pretty.” Dorian crouched down in front of Julian and lifted his chin so that Julian’s lips were only an inch away from his, then he kissed him with passion, much more than he’d ever afforded me. I turned my head, not wanting to watch.
As I got up, Julian was being lifted up and dragged away out of the room, but he never made a sound. He’d been made into a sex slave as punishment for something he’d done years ago.
“You know he requires the hardening. Intimidation and deprivation of nourishment are the only things he responds well to,” Dorian said, and as soon as we were once again alone, he slapped me so hard across the face that he knocked me completely back to the floor, my shoulder slamming against the hard surface.
“That’s for shorting me on the drug money. Don’t test me, Lily,” he barked, taking a couple of steps toward the door before turning back and pointing his finger at me. “Don’t short-change me again. You won’t fair well.”
Shit, I’d forgotten to find the money to add in before handing it over to Malik. Was that what this had all been about?
“I’m sorry, Dorian. I . . . those guys were short the cash, but they were regular customers. If I didn’t sell the bag for less, I was afraid they’d find their junk somewhere else. We couldn’t afford to lose them.” I figured by adding in the “we,” he’d take it as utter devotion.
His dark, dangerous eyes stared at me with contempt, then suddenly softened. He surprised me by saying, “Good call. But don’t make deals like that again. I will be gone for several days. Do not, I repeat, do not do anything foolish.” Then he left my room and shut the door. I heard the lock turn before his footsteps disappeared down the hallway. This was the first time in a very long while that he’d locked the door. That I knew of anyway. I sobbed into my hands. Why was this happening to my brother and me? Why did Dorian keep me?
But I knew why.
Mud squished under our shoes as we huddled against a building in the dark. As a carriage passed by, horse manure plopped to the puddle-riddled dirt road in front of us and splattered up onto our clothes. The delicate designs on the side of the conveyance, gave me the impressing that the coach carried
someone important and wealthy.
Once the carriage passed, I latched on to Julian’s arm. “Come on. He has to be gone by now,” he said.
The year was eighteen ninety-seven, and our clothes were in tatters—my dress torn and frayed at the bottom, Julian’s pants in a similar condition from running through the unpaved streets of San Francisco.
We were the last of our family. Our father, Daniel Grey, had been taken from us by tuberculosis just the year before. Our mother, as well as our baby sister, had died several years earlier during childbirth. Now, Julian and I were the only two left. At twenty, I was eleven months older than Julian, though he was six inches taller and much stronger.
After running for what seemed like hours, we headed home, positive the monster had moved on. As we entered our home, we knew we’d made a grave mistake. Julian shoved me behind him and I cringed at the shame that fell over me. I was supposed to be taking care of him. I was the eldest now.
Like a coward, I huddled behind my younger brother as the vampire loomed over us.
Chapter Seven
Elvis, aka Preston
The I.V. was dead—no pun intended. No soul but me and Sting—the bartender, not the singer—occupied the place. It was still early in the evening, though, and I expected the small bar to fill up as the hours went by. The I.V. was one of several all-night bars in the city, but this one catered mostly to vampires. Though there was a straggler human once in a while. Whenever they’d venture in, all heads would turn at the scent. But there was no blood drinking allowed on the premises, so humans were safe if they came in. The rule kept the bar off the police’s radar, though there was no telling what happened after said humans left. I’d been known to trace after a few ladies of the night that came in looking for business before. I wasn’t above drinking from whores, though I preferred a more pure blood source. Not that all whores did drugs, but I’d venture a guess that the majority of them did; at least the ones who hung around The I.V. One sniff of that tainted blood, and I knew.
“I noticed you changed up your style a bit last week at Club Royal. You were good.” Sting nodded, giving me a close-lipped grin of approval as he set my glass of scotch in front of me. Other than the spiky hair, nothing about this Sting resembled the famous singer. This Sting had dark, almost black hair and dark eyes. I’d never seen him wear anything but white T-shirts and black Dockers.
“You were there?”
“Yep. I usually pop over there for a couple of hours to listen to you guys. Keeps my mundane life interesting. Everybody needs a little rock and roll. Helps keep the blood flowing.” He chuckled.
I studied him for a minute. “Ever play?”
“Nah. Though I did manage the Stones for a couple of years.”
“Hmmm . . . Ever hang with the Police?”
He chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Not the Police you’re talking about.”
“Oh.” I smiled. “Then where’d you get your name?”
He laughed and scratched the tip of his ear with his finger. “I used to be known as “the stinger” back in the days of my human life. In the late eighteen hundreds, I led a series of sting operations, leading to the arrest of several famous criminals like Hoodoo Brown, the leader of the Dodge City Gang. Though that one never stuck.”
“I remember hearing about that gang.”
“Yep. His real name was Hyman G. Neill. It’s rumored that he was shot and killed in a gambling dispute years later in Mexico.”
“So, you were a cop?”
“U.S. Marshal.”
I nodded my head with new respect for the vampire-turned-bartender. “How’d you turn?” I was fascinated now.
He grabbed the bottle of Johnny Walker and poured me another round. “Vegas was wild and lawless back then, riddled with thieves and murderers. And vampires. The railroad was new and easy prey for robberies. Jessie James was active, and a large sum of cash was being transported. Sixty grand to be exact. There were several of us marshals scattered around, staked out and waiting. A female vampire named Rita feigned being a damsel in distress and staggered through the brush as if she’d been thrown from her horse. Being the gentleman was, I quickly dismounted to help her out. As soon as my feet touched the ground, she was on me, sinking her fangs into my neck. I honestly don’t know what happened to the other five marshals who were part of that sting; I can only assume they were killed by Rita, though when I asked about them later on, she only shrugged and said I was in no position to press the matter. Later, when I awoke in her bedroom—I guess it was a few days later—she confessed that she couldn’t kill me because she found me too attractive.” He laughed and ran his palm over his mouth. “I have to admit, she was beautiful. I ended up staying with her and helped run a speakeasy in the early twentieth century. That’s how I became a bartender.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was beheaded by some vampire bootlegger who wanted to capitalize on the market. She was good to me, and it broke my heart. I went into hiding for about ten years after that. What about you, Elvis? What were you doing when you were turned?”
The door opened, and two young human men—clearly out of their element—entered.
Sting tapped his fist on the bar in front of me. “Another time.”
I nodded.
The two men sat at the bar, a few stools away from me. They were dressed in jeans. One of them wore a black down jacket, while the other donned black leather. They each ordered a shot of whiskey. As Sting poured their drinks, a third guy walked in and sat next to them. He nodded at Sting and pointed at the glasses filled with amber liquid. Sting grabbed another tumbler and let the liquor flow into it. The third guy wore dark jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as leather jacket guy pulled out a wad of money from his pocket, keeping it low under the bar. Hooded sweatshirt guy quickly snatched it up, exchanging it for a bag full of white powder that I assumed was heroin or meth. Maybe cocaine. I hated all that shit. After the exchange, hooded sweatshirt guy drank his drink and then got up and left. The two remaining punks drained their glasses and got up, as well. One of them placed a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. “Will that cover all three drinks?” he asked Sting.
“That’ll do it. You boys stay safe, now.”
When the door closed behind them, I made a small tsk sound and shook my head. “Slam bam thank you, ma’am. You do know they just used your place for a drug buy, right?”
Sting shrugged. “Heroin. Sometimes meth. It used to bother me. I complained to the local PD once years ago, and the very next day, I found my bike smashed to holy hell in the parking lot of my apartment building with a note attached to it. It said, Try interfering with my business again, and next time it will be your head. Only it won’t be smashed, vampire, it will be severed. I did some asking around and found out that the guy who runs the drugs not only has strong ties to the cartel in Mexico, but he’s also a very old and powerful vampire. My law enforcement days are long gone, and I like my head where it is. So I’ve learned to turn a blind eye.”
“That guy that was just in here wasn’t a vampire.”
“No. He’s very much a human. A human controlled by a vampire. One I don’t want to be on the bad side of.”
I nodded. What the hell did I care? If humans wanted to destroy their bodies with heroin, who was I to mind? Only thing I cared about was the blood I drank. If it was tainted with drugs, it tasted nasty.
Sting poured me another glass of JW. “You’ve been coming in here for several months now. Is that the first time you noticed the drug deals?”
“Yeah. I guess.” Most of the time, my eyes were on Lily.
“Well, take my advice. Pretend you didn’t see it. You don’t want to mess with that group. I’d hate to see you lose your head.”
Chapter Eight
Lily
Dorian left me secured in my room and never came back before he left, leaving me locked up the ent
ire time he was gone. Malik brought me my daily doses of blood—always Malik since Jace, Dorian’s other servile, had most likely gone on the trip with him.
I paced the room, waiting for the shades to go up, indicating that it was finally nighttime. Or, at least dark outside. I needed to get out of there. Not only because I was going stir-crazy, but I needed to see Preston. I could only imagine what must be going through his mind regarding why I hadn’t been around to see him.
My feet hurt from wearing five-inch high-heeled boots all day, waiting for Malik to bring me blood. I needed the height of the heels to do what needed to be done since Malik was at least six-foot-two to my five-eight.
The door handle turned, and Malik stepped into the room, carrying a tray with two bags of blood and a glass.
“I’m famished. What took you so long?” I asked with a great amount of desperation in my voice as I stepped closer to him, feigning starvation.
“Sorry, love. Couldn’t be helped. There were several new turnouts that came in, and few needed some extra tending to. With Jace and Dorian gone, it took extra time.”
“Turnouts?” I’d heard the term before while eavesdropping on one of Dorian’s conversations.
“Ahhh. You know. The new prostitutes. We had a couple reckless eyeballers who couldn’t keep their peepers on the ground. Dorian would be as pissed off as yellow snow if one of them had to ‘choose up’ by mistake next week when he takes them to market.” Choosing up was a bad thing from what I understood. If one of the prostitutes made eye contact with another pimp—accidentally or on purpose—it meant they were choosing him as their new handler. And if the original pimp wanted that prostitute back, he’d have to pay a fee to the new guy. “Then, after that bit of training,” Malik continued, “we had to brand them. And you know that takes a while.”
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