"These are not your average vamps, dearie. Not by a long shot."
Black and Red have been Nightwalkers for longer than they care to count, and that alone is unusual enough to attract unwanted attention.
Life and survival in the Blue Light District is...
Jhez clacked her mouth shut and hunched her shoulders, crossing her arms defensively. The vamp had a point. Not to mention, she and I were both acutely aware of the Alpha Circle restaurant that recently opened in the heart of Garthelle's territory. Nightwalkers had started going missing off the streets, not long after.
"So then," Garthelle continued, flashing his teeth at her. I couldn't tell if he was simply bad at grinning, or actually meant to sneer. "You'll be off the streets, out of the Blue slums, and well compensated for your services." He paused and studied me, gaze drifting the full length from disheveled hair (thank you for that, monsieur) to scuffed shit-kickers. "Do you consider that prospect so objectionable?"
My opinion mattered little. I saw that much quite clearly.
The vampire smiled, a faint and feeble thing swiftly dead, the runt of the litter. "You are able to speak for yourself, I take it?"
I lifted my head off the couch to properly deliver a retaliatory scowl, then crossed my arms and stared at the thickly veiled windows spanning floor to ceiling. "I accept your price for restraint."
As though there had somehow existed a chance of me choosing otherwise.
"Very good, then. You've provided half the cost."
Infuriating vampire.
The need to look at his face gripped me in a vice. When I did finally, no longer able to restrain the urge, Garthelle braced his hands on the back of the couch and leaned in, hovering mere inches away. His breath ghosted my cheek and I shuddered, squelched the desire to cringe away, sink back even deeper into the velvet upholstery.
He studied me, eyes roaming my face in a frantic, devouring fashion that froze my limbs with fear. "It would behoove you," he enunciated, slowly, softly, "to do your level best to convince her as well, wouldn't it." Tension strained his voice as he finished presenting his question without inflection. As though something of his behavior wounded him.
I frowned. Was this all an act of some kind, a role he played? He didn't do it terribly well. That couldn't be it, though. If he was that terrible at it, his fellow vamps would've called his bluff long ago, and destroyed him, taken his territory for their own. He certainly wouldn't hold the strongest port on the western side of the Atlantic.
That itch between my shoulder blades kicked up a notch despite his continued proximity. I desperately wanted to shift a little, create a bit of friction with my clothing and the couch to get some relief. To distract myself, I followed the line of his neck down to the hard contour of his collarbone and the glimpse of bulging shoulder muscle visible beneath the loose material of his shirt.
The edge of danger, of hostility, outweighed the hint of eroticism, but it still thrummed through my aura. Still palpable. Sure, the vamp scared me shitless— this could go to hell in a heartbeat— yet it blended with my arousal. His lips parted slightly, nostrils flared, pupils dilating.
Beside me, Jhez shifted her weight and cleared her throat softly to draw our attention. "Of course I'll accept his offer," she said, keying her voice low, her tone subdued and compliant. She could tell this vamp had something going on which neither she nor I understood. "But I'd like to negotiate some of the details of my compensation, and clarify the duration of our employment period. We weren't born yesterday, even if Black sometimes behaves like we were."
The vamp's gaze didn't waver. He didn't so much as blink to indicate he'd heard a word. Someone needed to acknowledge she'd spoken, so I took it upon myself, hoping it would jostle something loose.
"Thanks, sis. I feel the love, though I should probably be offended by that last bit."
Still nothing.
"Monsieur?" I kept my voice soft, and didn't dare break his gaze. He seemed not to see me, as though looking through me or at the very least into the back of my head. Inhaling deep in an attempt to remain calm got me a nose full of vamp scent. Faint musk, and a distinct blend of sandalwood and dragon's blood.
Would he kill me for breathing? I took another whiff.
"Shhh . . ." The whisper of sound escaped him like the wind slipping through the crack in a window pane. A strained creak came from the back of the couch. I blinked, confused and startled. Surely he couldn't exert the force necessary to make a piece of furniture do that?
In the split second it took me to blink, the vamp no longer loomed over me.
Jhez muttered "fuck" over and over again under her breath like some demented mantra that would provide escape from this situation.
There I went, forgetting Garthelle wasn't merely human. It didn't take much, apparently.
Just a bit of expensive cologne.
The rustle of the vamp's presence divulged his location, over in the shadows. For one of his ilk, the idea of retreat struck me as horribly out of character. I heard the clink of glass on glass, the slosh of liquid, followed by the gentle yet careless thunk of glass on wood.
Monsieur Garthelle cleared his throat, and when he spoke moments later, the deliberately measured quality of his cadence highlighted intense strain. "I will meet you both tonight, at this location."
An image slammed into my head with a lack of finesse reminiscent of his earlier manipulations. I recognized the small coffeehouse. It sat on the corner a few blocks from our flat in the Blue District. Jhez and I were regulars; he must've pulled the place from my thoughts. I had no idea vamps could do that. Then again, my experiences in the past few hours had given me new appreciation for the depths of my ignorance.
"We can discuss details at that time." A faint gust of air, and the corridor's red illumination once again invaded the blackness of Monsieur Garthelle's den. "Konaton," the vamp said, in a voice that wasn't greater volume but carried all the same, "if you would please see these two back to their current accommodations."
Right. He didn't need to tell me to get out more than once. Jhez had the same idea, and pushed me through the doorway ahead of her. We fled, grateful for our intact hides and auras.
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