Athan shook his head. “Any more humans available?”
“I think they’re all at Bite already,” he said. “Big party soon.”
“Ah.” Athan heaved a sigh. “Might have to pay them a visit, then.”
Wyatt’s eyes flicked to me. “What about—”
“She’s not available,” Athan said quickly and firmly.
Wyatt’s jaw snapped shut and he lowered his head a couple of inches. Wow, it was clear Athan was meant to be obeyed. I did have to admit when he gave a command, there was something about his tone that made me want to follow his orders. Every minute spent in his presence, every errant touch of his skin on mine, was starting to heat my blood. I wasn’t just attracted to him, I liked him—his strong presence, the way he guarded me, and the firm way he dealt with his clan. The reverence they all showed him was plain to see. If this was how they reacted to him, how did they treat Idris?
And would I come to feel about Idris the way I felt about Athan? Would I stare at Idris’s lips the way I stared at Athan’s? Would I crave him the way I craved my blood guard?
I studied him now. His brow was furrowed, his skin a little more pale than usual. “Do you need to feed?” I asked.
He nodded. “We’re going to have to go to Bite.”
I pointed at the door we just left. “I’m assuming you can’t feed from Matt because Anya just did?”
“Right.” His smile was wry. “We don’t drain our humans, remember?”
“You’re the good guys of the bloodsucking variety.”
“Sarcasm?”
I widened my eyes dramatically. “Never.”
“Hey,” Wyatt said, scratching his head. “Can you come to my place for a minute? I’d like to talk to you.”
With another glance at his watch, Athan heaved a sigh. “Yeah.”
We followed the vampire to his apartment, and I wondered how Athan dealt with this, because I felt pulled in a million directions. “Is it always like this for you when you visit?”
Athan stared straight ahead. “Yes.”
“So they look up to you?”
Wyatt unlocked his door and ushered us inside. “Look up to him?” he said, focusing on me. “Of course we do. He’s our leader.”
“I’m not,” Athan corrected. “My father is the king, and Idris is next in line.”
The other vampire scoffed. “Sure.”
“Wyatt.”
He bowed his head, but still looked up at me through his lashes. “You going to the house?”
I nodded.
Wyatt risked a glance at Athan, then back at me. “You’ll see what I mean when you get to the family house. Athan’s the leader of this clan and the one who knows what’s in its best interest.”
“Enough, Wyatt!”
He held up his hands. “Okay, okay. Geez. Who’s the human anyway?”
“New house employee. Now let’s get this over with, because I need to feed soon.”
I turned to Athan. “He reminds me of Zeb.”
“She met Zeb?” Wyatt brightened. “And now me? Wow, she’s meeting the best of the best then, huh?”
Athan rubbed his hands down his face while I grinned at Wyatt. “Your humor is a nice break from Mr. Dry over here.”
“Athan’s funny like, once a year. That’s his allotment.”
I giggled, and Athan glared at both of us. “You done?”
“No,” I answered. “How do you know Zeb?”
“He’s my cousin.”
“Oh.” I cocked my head. Yeah, there it was in the jawline. “I can see the family resemblance.”
“We’re handsome as fuck.”
“Okay, you’re done,” Athan announced. “You have five seconds to start telling me why I’m here or—”
“It’s Para,” Wyatt said quickly, rising onto the balls of his feet before resting back on his heels.
Athan froze with his hands in the air. “What?”
“Para has been acting super fucking weird. And I’m not just saying that because I hate her.” Wyatt’s gaze slid to me. “She’s my ex.”
“Tendra doesn’t need the details. I do. What is she being weird about?”
“She’s heading to Mission City a lot. More than normal.”
“What’s a lot?”
“Every other night for about a month.”
Athan frowned at that.
“What does that mean?” I piped up, hoping Athan was in the mood to explain. “What’s normal for you guys to go into Mission City?”
“Once a week at most for basic supplies.”
“So why would she be going up there?”
Athan’s frown was quickly morphing into a disgusted grimace. “If she’s meeting with the Valarians, I’ll kill her.”
Wyatt paled. “Y-you think she’s doing that?”
“Maybe. Whatever she’s doing can’t be good. There’s no reason for her to be up there that often.”
Wyatt looked miserable. “Fuck, I hadn’t even thought of the Valarians.”
Athan was scratching the back of his head and staring at the floor. “Fuck.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll get a guard on her tomorrow, find out where she’s going.”
“Yeah, she’s going to Bite later, so she’s not heading street-side today.”
Athan stepped forward and patted Wyatt’s face gently. “Thanks for telling me. You did the right thing.”
Wyatt preened a little under Athan’s compliment. “Course.”
“You have any food?”
He gestured toward the kitchen. “Yeah, actually, I do.”
Athan pushed me forward. “Feed Tendra. I have some calls to make before we head to Bite.”
Wyatt took her hand. “Come on, pretty lady. I have something called Easy Mac?”
Chapter 7
Tendra
I’d always liked clubs. Dancing made me feel alive, and finding a hot guy to grind up against was even better. I’d never known that when I shook my ass in Mission clubs, that there was a whole underground community teeming with life below my feet. And this club? It was like nothing I’d seen before. And I’d been around.
We trudged down several sets of stairs to get to Bite until we reached a fairly nondescript door. Only the word BITE was written in black and red letters above it.
Athan opened the door, which must have been sealed up well, because a bone-shaking bass beat hit me like a punch. I reached down to the duffel at my side, and stroked Brex through the fabric. He was probably scared to death, and I couldn’t wait to get out of here. I clenched my hands into fists and steeled myself for what I might see inside a club full of vampires. While the bass rattled my teeth, I placed one foot in front of the other as we walked inside a massive room with ceilings at least twenty feet high. How the hell the vampires got this space, this large underground, was a mystery. I’d have to ask Athan later.
The only sources of light in the room were dim lamps perched randomly along the perimeter and the headache-inducing strobe lights on the dance floor.
Athan strode ahead confidently, intimately acquainted with the place and able to see better in the dark than I could. Once my eyes adjusted, I was able to get my bearings on where the hell I was.
When I inhaled, I smelled the body heat, alcohol, and the unmistakable iron tang of blood. The male vampires I spotted wore leather pants, skull-crushing boots, zero shirts.
Zero shirts.
So all around me were rippling abs and sweaty pecs and beaded nipples. There were a zillion dark eyes and full lips and jawlines carved by God himself. Then there were the female vampires—all big busts and curvy figures and sultry lips. I should have been fanning myself and taking in all the eye candy I could. But I was also very well aware that this was not a human club. Some of the liquid dripping from muscled torsos was not sweat but in fact blood. Human blood.
Blood like mine.
I stayed close to Athan, his presence the only thing that was familiar in this pla
ce. The bass pounded the floor, my eardrums, and rattled my bones. I couldn’t hear a damn thing but that incessant deep thump, so I clung to my blood guard with white-knuckled fingers.
He had to eat. I needed to remember that. He said he could go a couple of days without fresh blood, but then he needed to feed. He was no use to either of us if he was weak.
The strobe light hung from the ceiling, illuminating the writhing bodies on the dance floor. A couple stumbled into us, and the white of tooth enamel flashed as the woman’s head descended to the man’s neck. Athan leaned down to speak in my ear, his scowl directed at the dancers. “Club rules is there’s no drinking on the dance floor, because they’ve had some problems with humans passing out and getting trampled. But clearly some assholes aren’t listening.”
An inappropriate giggle bubbled up my throat. No drinking on the dance floor. Not because some woman in high heels will slip on vodka. No, because a human will pass out from blood loss and get stepped on.
What world was I getting into?
He led me past the dance floor. As vampires raised their heads to see who passed them, they quickly spied Athan and parted. I jogged to keep up with his long strides. “So they all know you here?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Wow. So you really are vampire royalty, aren’t you?”
His lips twitched into something like a smile before smoothing out again. “You could say that.”
I held on to his arm in a death grip as we entered an area that struck me as…a smorgasbord of foreplay? For food or sex, I wasn’t sure. Plush black couches were arranged in random patterns, and they were covered with bodies. Kissing, growling, moaning bodies. I felt like I was in a porn studio.
We passed one couple—two women—and the one woman locked eyes with me while the other’s hands squeezed her bare breasts, rolling the nipple between fingers tipped in long black nails. The woman smiled at me with human teeth, and then closed her eyes as her companion’s hand went up her skirt.
A cry caught my attention, and I glanced the other direction to see two male vampires kissing each other. Their tongues tangled as the one held the other’s shoulder-length hair in his fist. At their feet was another man on his knees. With loud moans and wet suction sounds, he sucked one vampire’s dick while fisting the other in his hand.
When we walked by, the larger vampire pulled out of the kiss. His lips were red and swollen, and he licked them as he watched me pass.
With a jerk, I lowered my gaze to the ground. My heart pounded, and sweat broke out on my forehead, a single bead dripping down my temple. I had never felt simultaneous terror and arousal. I hadn’t known those were feelings I could have at the same time, but there was no mistaking the twisting in my gut and the heat raging in my core. My breasts felt full, my legs wobbly. One foot in front of the other. But it was hard when the sounds of pleasure were all around me. Pleasure that skated on the edge of fear. One missed hit of somnus, and these humans would be turned. Maybe that was part of the game to them? Maybe that was what they found so arousing.
My eyes strayed up again, and I saw a male vampire standing against the wall, his jeans open at the fly. A woman knelt at his feet, bobbing her head on his thick cock. I couldn’t stop watching the vampire, the way his lips curled back to reveal his fangs, the hunger in his eyes—hunger for blood or sex? Or both? I tried to imagine what Athan would look like turned on, and now all I could picture was his dark eyes watching me like a predator. And I’d lie back, reaching for him, wanting to be his prey…
We left the main area of the club and walked down a hallway. I checked out Athan to see if he was as affected as I was by what we just saw. His nostrils were flared, like he was scenting the air. Could he smell how turned on I was? Did he know I was turned on because I was fantasizing about him?
I shook my head, the lights in the hallway bringing me out of my daze and forcing me to remember where I was and why. As we passed some closed doors, I swore I heard sounds behind them, but decided it was in my best interest to ignore it. I cleared my throat. “So, that was a little intense back there.”
Athan frowned at me, then his face relaxed. “Ah, the Greeting Room.”
“The Greeting Room?” I asked. “Goddamn, if that’s what you vampires call ‘greetings’ then I’d like to see an actual, ‘hey let’s fuck.’ ”
He swiped a card in front of a door at the end of the hallway and waited until the green light illuminated on the pad. “Well, then, we’ll have to keep you out of the Feeding Room.”
Feeding Room? I didn’t have any words as my heart stopped, then started back up double-time. So all I did was nod.
As we walked through the door, the club atmosphere melted away. A giant foyer greeted us, with a black-and-white checked floor, in the shape of a semicircle. And along the outside rounded curve were more hallways. There was also a set of stairs that led up to another floor. As I craned my neck back, I saw a total of four more floors. All the same with hallways leading off the curve.
“How is there this much room down here?”
“This area used to be storage for subway cars. And we did a little more construction on our own to make the areas down here larger.”
“Wow,” I said.
Athan pointed. “There are ten rooms down each hall. On each floor. This is where we feed.”
“And fuck,” I said, despite my mouth drying up.
Athan hesitated before nodding, but he was watching me with those dark eyes. “Sure, sometimes to fuck.”
“I thought you said humans can’t help it, that we’ll always want to fuck after getting fed from.”
He shrugged. “They will, but that doesn’t mean the vampire who drank from them has to do it. And some of them aren’t as affected by our saliva.”
“Oh.” This was fucking creepy, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “So…”
“You can come with me and—”
“Whoa.” I held up my hands. Because the thought of being in the same room with some woman while he sucked her and then fucked her filled me with an anger that I wasn’t comfortable confronting. “I think I saw enough feeding for the day. Can you lock me in a room while you feed from your female? Or…”
Athan raised an eyebrow, and was that a smile? “How do you know it’s going to be a woman?”
I clacked my jaw shut.
He laughed. An actual laugh that echoed down the long hallways. He sobered quickly. “Come.”
He led me around to the other side of the staircase, where a pale vampire sat behind a desk. I was starting to recognize vampires on sight now—by their bone structure, the way they talked.
She smiled. “Athan, how may I help you?” Her eyes flicked to me before looking away.
“I’d like a room.”
Clacking filled the foyer as she typed at her computer. “Of course. For how long?”
“Half hour. A female human, please.”
She hesitated as she glanced at me, then returned her gaze to the computer. “Sure, I can get one for you,” she said as casually as if we were checking into a hotel.
She pointed down a hallway to the right with a red frame. “Door number six, then. We’ll send the human in for you. Anything else?”
He placed a hand on my back. “I need a room for her, too. Just her.”
She didn’t even flinch at the request. But then what would shock a vampire? “The room beside yours is open—”
“We’ll take that one.”
She nodded and handed us two key cards. “There you go. Doors lock from the inside.”
Athan didn’t remove his hand from my back as we walked through the red-framed doorway. The carpet beneath my feet was black—better to hide stains? I shuddered—and it was plush. When we reached a door with a gold number five on the front, Athan took my card from my hand and swiped it. When the lock clicked open, he pushed in the door and walked inside.
I followed behind him as he did a quick sweep of the room, including the bathroo
m. I sat on the edge of the bed, fidgeting with my hands in my lap, not eager to touch anything. This was going to be a long half hour.
Athan returned to my side and stared down at me. With a sigh, he crouched and placed a hand on my knee. “I’m sorry, Tendra. If there was another way, I’d do it, but I need fresh blood, and we have rules about that—”
“It’s fine.” I’d intended for my voice to be strong, and sure, and instead it sounded wobbly.
Athan’s brows drew in.
“I’m serious,” I said. Stronger this time. “I want you to feed. You need it, and I need you, so circle of life or whatever.” I made a symbol like I was lifting up a baby Simba, and he stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
I dropped my hands in my lap, a little peeved my Disney reference was lost on a vampire bodyguard. “Go.” I shooed with my hands. “Go eat.”
He rose but didn’t make a move toward the door. “If you need anything, yell and bang on the walls.”
I nodded. “Right. No problem.”
He lifted a hand as if to touch me, then quickly dropped it. With a curt jerk of his head, he was out the door. Right before he closed it, he said, “Lock this behind me.” Then he was gone.
Knowing the bastard was probably waiting to hear the lock click, I rose and turned the lock.
After that I let Brex out, who looked thoroughly pissed and after investigating the room, curled up in the corner, facing away from me.
I had to keep myself busy for a half hour. I leaned back on the bed and closed my eyes, picturing the three men…except when the one looked at me, I saw Athan’s face. And a woman was sucking on his neck, her hand reaching into his pants…
Fuck. I bolted upright, my arousal doused now that I imagined him in the room next door with another human. Was he fucking her? He hadn’t said, and I hadn’t asked. And while I knew it was unfair, I couldn’t help the anger beginning to surge through my veins. Another female was getting to feel those hands on her, that wide mouth as he ran his lips down her neck. Another female was getting to feed him, provide him with what he needed. Something I couldn’t give.
Blood Guard Page 8
