“And cut!” Michael bellowed.
“You were filming? You can’t be serious. I said cut.”
“You can’t say cut.” Michael shook his head like I was the biggest idiot he’d ever met. Sorry, buddy, I forgot to go to film school. “Only the director says cut.”
Frozen in the middle of the room, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I looked around, but no one would make eye contact with me. I felt Tristan looking at me, but I avoided acknowledging him as long as I could. When it would have been childish to ignore him any longer, I looked at him, shaking my head and rolling my eyes.
“I hate you,” I spat at him before storming past the crew members picking up the light stand Amanda had just knocked down.
Once I was in the guest bedroom, I leaned against the door, letting my heart settle and the blood drain from my face. When I felt a bit calmer, I dove into the comforter, rolling myself into a ball. I’m sure I’d screwed up my pretty hair and makeup, and probably rubbed off my boob job. Too bad. The show was over.
Someone knocked at the door and I ignored them. There wasn’t one person in this city I wanted to see right now, with the exception of maybe Lennon, and she wasn’t here. They didn’t go away, knocking again, and I still didn’t move.
“Callie, can I talk to you?” It was Denise. She wanted to talk now? A little late for that.
“Whatever,” I said loud enough for her to hear. I hadn’t bothered locking the door. I’d known I wouldn’t be left alone for long.
Denise took the liberty of sitting at the edge of the bed. That was the problem with all of this. No one had any respect for personal space, personal anything. They all just considered Tristan, the band, and now me as walking dollar signs. We might not be alive any more, but we still had feelings. And more scruples than this production.
“It’s not as bad as it seemed.” Denise started talking even though I hadn’t so much as looked at her.
“How, Denise?” I finally met her eyes, and I knew mine were glowing red. I was scaring the shit out of her. She deserved it. “You might as well have put a giant ‘for rent’ sign on my boyfriend, or whatever the hell he is, that seems like such a stupid word for our relationship, and now anyone who watches the show knows he isn’t faithful to me. Do you know how that feels? What if the whole world knew your husband was fucking someone you hated?”
She looked away from me quickly. I’d hit a sore spot. Good.
“It will be edited to look like—“
I cut her off. “That’s never going to see the light of day. So the editors have nothing to worry about.” I smiled as her mouth dropped. “What was the plan, Denise? Were you going to have Tristan fuck that slut right in front of me?” I sat up and crawled closer to her. “Because you know what happened to the last girl who tried to pull that stunt?”
Denise shook her head. I sat forward, just inches from her now.
“I killed her.” I smiled, my mouth was so close to her face I brushed her cheek as my lips turned upward. Fangs out. “I drained every last drop of blood out of her while Tristan fucked her. Not exactly what the sponsors had in mind, I suppose?”
She gasped, and I sat back on my heels. I’d made my point.
“You’re fired, Denise,” I said quietly. “Get your shit, and get the fuck out of here. If you repeat anything I just told you, I’ll make sure you never get another job again. And let your friends know I will find out if they were involved in this little stunt and they’ll be fired, too. They’ll probably want to start looking for a new job when they get home.”
She stood up and nodded. “Yes, Mistress.”
I smiled, baring my fangs. “That’s right. Now go.”
The silence was beautiful. I stayed in the guest room, just staring out the window at the city below. It reminded of the first night I’d spent here, when I hoped somehow I could pick Blade out of the tiny army of ants below. It reminded me that someone else still needed to be fired tonight.
When I went back to the living room, everyone in the production was gone. I didn’t see Tristan right away. Maybe he left, too.
I found him rolled in a ball against the window, black hair and clothes against the black night, staring into space just like I’d been doing in the other room.
His eyes were so sad when he looked up at me. I envisioned a door closing in my mind. I wouldn’t let him in.
“I’m so sorry, beautiful.” His voice was barely loud enough for me to hear.
“I still hate you.” I glared down at him. “But I need you to drive me to Embrace.”
Lennon was thankfully working that night. I made a beeline for the bar, hopped up and climbed over it because I needed to hug her so badly.
“Are you alright?” She stood super straight as I wrapped my arms around her.
“Bad night,” I said against her shoulder. “Can Melanie watch the bar for a minute? I’ll tell you about it in the office.”
“Sure. I’ll meet you in there in just a second.” She pulled down the draught tap to fill beer orders as I walked away.
Lennon startled me when she opened the office door. “What are you doing, doll?”
I couldn’t blame her for asking. Standing on the desk poking at the ceiling with a ruler couldn’t look normal.
“Do you know if there are cameras in here?” I continued prodding the ceiling.
“Have you lost your mind? Sit down.” Lennon tugged at my leg. “I doubt it. All the vampire big wigs like to do business in here. Why do you even care?”
All the vampire big wigs didn’t include me, and I needed to let that roll of my back. I had enough to be angry about. I came down off the desk, but made a lap around the room, checking the bookcase and the knick knacks for any signs of surveillance. So absorbed in my mission, I didn’t see Lennon get up and stand in front of me. Like it mattered if there were cameras. I didn’t even know what was going on in front of my face.
“Sit down,” she insisted as she led me over to the desk chair. “Now tell me, what happened tonight that’s made you a paranoid lunatic.”
I burst out laughing. “Yeah, I must look pretty crazy.”
“Just a little bit.” Lennon winked at me, and sat on the desk so close to me her legs touched mine, maybe to make sure I stayed put.
“So we filmed the scene for Immortal Forever tonight, the response to that stupid sex tape, and someone thought it would be a good idea to show one with Tristan screwing Amanda.”
“That red headed bitch that Janelle hung out with?” Lennon rolled her eyes and I nodded.
“Oh it gets better. She showed up, and I threatened her life. Then I fired most of the production staff.”
Lennon laughed. “Way to show them who’s boss.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Blade’s plan is working perfectly, as a moneymaker. Amanda said all the girls were excited to know Tristan wasn’t totally off the market.” I buried my head in my hands. “How am I supposed to rule a clan if a bunch of groupies don’t even have any respect for me?”
“I really don’t think any of the major players care about that.” Lennon rubbed my shoulder.
“They care about money!” I cried. “And not only is Blade’s little plan bringing in bank, it’s totally undermining me. It doesn’t take a business mogul to see that. I have to figure out a way to get the control back.”
“I always thought Talis must have put some spell over the city to rake in money the way she did.” Lennon sighed. “But Tristan was her cash cow. And you have that.”
“Right, and Blade is using him as his cash cow.” I let Lennon’s words sink in for a second. “Cast a spell, is that what you said?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Maybe that’s what I need to do.” I squeezed her knee. “You’re a genius.”
She looked suspicious. “I’m not sure that’s the most realistic solution, doll.”
“Hello, who are you dating?”
“Oh, just the most amazing man on the face of the planet.” Lennon’s face
lit up like the sun. “I thought you’d never ask.”
I hadn’t asked, but now it would be rude not to. “And how is your sex life?”
Lennon waved her hand dismissively. “Sex is something commoners do. We make love.”
Both of us burst out laughing. Whatever they were doing, it sounded a thousand percent better than what I had going on at the moment.
“So your amazing sex, I’m sorry, making love partner is a magician, who just happened to be in Talis’ clan before they were leaders. Chances are, if she did know any magic, she would have learned it from Cash.”
“Now you’re the genius.”
I shook my head. “Nope, this is all you. So if we talk to Cash, he might have a way to take that power away from Blade. I mean, he’s a clan leader. He can’t be totally powerless over Blade.” Blade couldn’t be the most powerful vampire in the city. I refused to believe it.
“I can arrange that. He has a show tonight, but the next night he’s off, I’m sure he’d be happy to teach you a trick or two.”
“You’re the best, and so isn’t Cash.” I declared as I stood up, hugging Lennon before we headed out of the room.
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Before the door even closed behind me, I stopped dead in my tracks.
“What’s the matter?” Lennon asked when she realized I wasn’t following her. Now she must really think I lost my mind.
“Look. Over there.” I pointed out at the tables, right at Amanda, who was sitting in Blade’s lap with her head thrown back in laughter.
Nothing was a coincidence tonight. I glanced over to the bar, expecting more trouble. Tristan was busy in a conversation with Ramsey from his band. They were laughing about something, and totally ignoring Blade. Thankfully, it appeared that everyone was playing nice and keeping to themselves. Although Tristan couldn’t point any fingers at Blade for this one. Why would he care that Blade and Amanda both seemed to have a penchant for sloppy seconds?
Without saying another word to anyone, I marched right over to the table. “You’re making it really easy for me to make good on my promise, Amanda.” Rachel and a couple of the guys from Soul Divider looked at each other knowingly. I had to wonder if Rachel was the only one who thought Blade was a maniac. And I thanked God Noah was nowhere near us. That was the last thing I wanted to put up tonight.
“Oh, Amanda just told me about that.” Blade smirked. “It sounded so cute. Did Melanie ever tell you what I did to Talis?”
Hopefully in the dark room, he couldn’t see how hard I swallowed. “Yeah, she did. Did I piss you off?” I asked with a smile, echoing his tone.
He scrunched up his face in confusion. “What did you have to do with that?”
Another fumble. Jesus. How was I supposed to subdue him if I couldn’t even catch him off guard? “You can both leave now. Do it quietly, I don’t want to fight with anyone else tonight.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Mistress.” Blade’s eyes flashed red. “And no one in this bar is going to come to your defense, besides Dirk Diggler over there.”
I grabbed a handful of Amanda’s hair and yanked as hard as I could. She cried out as she fell off of Blade’s lap, then looked up in horror at the clump of hair in my hand that was no longer attached to her scalp. I stared at it, a little bit of blood on the tips of the strands twinkled in the light. Now I knew Amanda didn’t wear extensions. I brought the hair up to my mouth and ran the strands between my lips, cleaning the blood from the hair before I threw it at her.
She screamed, recoiling back from her hair as it fell all around her. “You crazy bitch!” She kicked at me, but I hardly felt it. I didn’t budge.
Blade pulled me into his lap roughly, and cupped my chin in his hand, pulling my face to his. “Don’t. Do. That,” he growled. He squeezed my jaw, so there was no way I could respond. “I will make you burn.” He stared at me, not another word. He didn’t blink and neither did I.
A trickle of something that felt like sweat ran down my forehead. I shouldn’t be able to do that anymore, should I? All the sudden, I was awfully warm. Way too warm. I wiped my forehead, and my fingers came away red. I was either sweating or bleeding. Neither could be good.
I looked at my hand in disbelief, and back up at Blade. He smiled, then pulled me in tighter. My insides felt like they were melting. Hot fingers licked at my bones, making my organs liquefy. Finally, I looked away from him, desperate to get Tristan’s attention. Blade was going to burn me alive right in the middle of this room and no one was even going to notice.
“Do I make myself clear, Mistress?” Blade brought his forehead down on mine. I nodded.
He let go of me and I fell back against the table. Looking at the people sitting around me, it was clear none of them realized anything was wrong. Or cared. Both options were equally disturbing.
Trying to keep my cool as much as possible, I crashed into Tristan when I got to the bar. “We need to go.” I interrupted him mid-sentence.
“In a minute.” Tristan waved his drink at me.
I grabbed it out of his hand and slammed it on the bar hard enough to make it splash out of the glass. I took Tristan’s arm in both of my hands. “Now.”
“Fine.” Tristan sounded totally indignant.
“I got what I needed here.” And more than I bargained for, but I wasn’t going to say that. Tristan would be compelled to try to defend my honor or something equally troublesome. “And it will benefit us all.”
“Don’t touch me.” I shrugged Tristan’s hands off my shoulders as we headed back up to the apartment.
“You still hate me?” Tristan smirked as I looked back at him, disgusted.
I nodded. “Yeah.” I’d had enough. I sat down on the couch. Someone had put it back where it belonged sometime after we had stopped filming. The scene of the evening’s first crime. I wrapped my sweater tightly around myself, I couldn’t stop shivering after getting internally microwaved by Blade. Being affected by temperature now, for the first time since I’d crossed to the afterlife, made it even more uncomfortable.
Tristan flopped down beside me, landing with the intention of putting his head on my lap. I crossed my legs away from him, so he landed on the cushion instead. He rolled over to his stomach, and met my glare with light eyes. “Come on, Callie,” he teased, poking at my leg. “It’s just a TV show.”
“It’s way more than a TV show.” My voice was flat. If I let any emotion creep in I’d never stop screaming. “It’s what you think of me. If I can’t make you happy, then I think you should find someone who can.”
Not waiting for his reaction, I looked away from him as soon as I finished speaking.
“You don’t mean that.”
I turned back to meet his eyes. I watched his face fall as he realized that I couldn’t be more serious. I closed my eyes, rehearsing what I wanted to say in my head. “Ever since we started talking about this, the other girls, all I can think about is how I’m not good enough for you. Everything I do, I feel like I have to measure up against all these girls, and you don’t even care enough about them to know their names. But they have something I don’t. And you say you need it. I can’t live like that, Tristan. I can’t constantly think I’m not good enough.”
Sighing, he buried his head in his arms. He stayed like that for what seemed like forever. I stared at his body, so still next to me.
Finally, he looked up at me. “I don’t want to live without you.”
It took everything I had not to break. “I can’t live like this. I mean it.”
“Okay.” It was all he said.
“Okay what?”
“No more girls.” He was still serious. I waited for him to tease me, or make a joke out of it, but it didn’t happen.
“Just like that?” Sounded like lip service to me.
“Just like that.”
Exhaling loudly, I got up off the couch and started pacing. Being so close to him was always dangerous. “How can you just snap you fingers and say you
’ll give up something that just last week, you insisted you needed to survive? I know you don’t really need it, but you want it. It makes you happy. That can’t just go away because I want it to.” I stopped in front of the couch. “I think we’re both setting ourselves up for failure.”
Tristan sat up on his knees and rolled his eyes, grabbing me by the arms and pulling me back on the couch. I landed stiffly. “You’re being impossible, you know that?”
“I’m being realistic. I need to protect myself.” I played with the edge of my sweater to avoid making eye contact. “This isn’t working for me. And honestly, I think you’re making a promise you can’t keep. You’ve always been up front about this. You can’t just make it stop.”
“Then what changed?” Tristan sounded annoyed. His reaction didn’t surprise me at all. He was the master of the quick, easy fix. Future be damned.
“It wasn’t real until you made me a part of it.” My voice wavered. “Before, when we didn’t talk about it, it was just something I didn’t have to face. Even if I knew it happened. And now that I’ve been a part of it, it won’t leave me alone. Every thought I have, it taunts me. If I do this, will he go running to someone else? If I do this, will he not want to do that with random girls anymore? I can’t compete with those girls, and I don’t want to.”
“Jesus,” he said under his breath. “There’s no competition.”
“Then why do you do it?” I cried. “I don’t want you to tell me. I know. But you tell me one thing and then you do another. I’m not expecting you to apologize.”
“You won’t even give me a chance!” He didn’t sound mad at all, in fact he smiled. I felt heat rise inside me again, this time painful. Blade must have created scar tissue with his attack. “I told you, I won’t do it anymore. You aren’t accepting it. I’m trying to do what you want me to, you won’t let me.”
“That’s it!” My eyes widened and Tristan looked startled. “You said it. You’re trying to do what I want.”
We Own the Night (The Night Songs Collection Book 3) Page 16
