Abby couldn’t control the frantic beat of her heart as Brian led her up the stairs. She couldn’t get the image of what was happening below out of her mind. She’d been to clubs with her brothers and plenty more with her college friends. Never had she seen anything like this place.
Part of her wanted to run from here as fast as her boots would take her; the other part was completely fascinated by their freedom with their sexuality. What would it be like to be on that dance floor with Brian? Maybe not in a corner like some of the others, but to be dancing with him, in his arms, feeling his body grinding against hers as he fed from her.
She shuddered at the prospect, her fingers curling into his shirt. His eyes deepened in color when he glanced down at her. Images of his hand sliding over her thigh and rubbing against her core in the cab assailed her. She ached to feel those fingers moving inside of her.
“Well now, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” a woman said in a raspy voice.
Abby’s gaze was torn away from Brian when a sultry woman glided toward them. The woman moved with the confidence of someone who knew she could have anyone she chose. Her hips swayed in a way that screamed sex, and her black hair shone with blue highlights in the dim red lanterns hanging from the walls.
Abby recognized the voice of the woman who had spoken to the bouncer from the shadows of the stairwell. She also recognized a woman she’d like to punch in the face as she stopped before Brian and ran her hand sensually down the front of his shirt. Her fingers fiddled with one of his buttons as her hand paused in the center of his chest.
“I thought you’d forgotten all about us, Brian,” she pouted.
“I could never forget about you, Karina,” he replied smoothly and winked.
Abby’s hands fisted as she fought the urge to hit them both. Karina smiled and batted her sweeping black lashes as she pressed closer, not at all caring Abby was standing right there. This simpering, overt bitch was really pissing her off, and Brian was lapping it up like a dog getting a belly rub.
Her teeth ground together as a barely clad Karina purred low in her throat and all but licked him under his chin. Would they screw right here or at least have the decency to go into a back room? She might kill him if he did, and she’d definitely kill Karina.
Brian’s arm tensed around Abby’s waist when she trembled beside him. Her eyes shimmered with red as she stared at Karina with a look meant to kill. He was afraid she would leap on Karina and ruin any chances they had of getting her to cooperate with them.
He couldn’t deny her anger toward Karina amused and pleased him. There were many who wished to share his bed, it was nothing new in his life, but this possessiveness was new for him, and he liked that he wasn’t the only one of them who felt it.
Bending low, he nuzzled her silken hair with his lips and murmured in her ear. “I told you it would be worse up here, behave.”
If looks could kill, she would have had him buried six feet under in a concrete tomb right then. He suppressed a chuckle, knowing it might send her over the edge, and as a purebred, she was a force to be reckoned with, even if she didn’t know the full extent of her abilities yet. She was young, but she could still do a lot of damage, especially if pushed. As she aged, she’d become one of the most powerful beings to walk this earth.
“Perhaps I should leave you two,” she replied.
She moved to spin out of his arms, but he jerked her back, securing her against him. Her head tipped back and her eyes narrowed, but he kept her pinned. She may be powerful, but he was more so, and she would learn his will was stronger than hers.
“And who is this?” Karina inquired with a sly edge to her tone.
“She’s mine, Karina. Off limits to everyone here,” he told her as he tore his attention away from an irate Abby to focus on the stunning woman across from him.
“Too bad,” Karina murmured as her gaze raked hungrily over Abby. “She’s got an innocence about her that would drive the men here crazy. Perhaps you would consider not being selfish and sharing her, Brian?”
“No.”
“Oh well, come along,” Karina replied with a flick of her black nails and a brush of her raven locks over her shoulder.
Abby walked with him past the vampires and humans gathered within the booths. Her fangs pricked and tingled when she spotted the vamps openly feeding from the humans in one booth. Blissful sighs escaped the humans as their heads tilted back and the vamps bit deeper.
She’d fed from a human boy before, but he’d had no idea what she was doing at the time, and she’d taken the memory from him afterward. He may have enjoyed it, but he certainly hadn’t reveled in it like these humans were. She also hadn’t been having sex with the boy like half of those gathered in here were.
Heat burned her face when she spotted the couples going at it. She wasn’t a prude, but she’d never seen anything like this place, and she had no idea how to react to it.
Is that what it’s like to feed from someone who knows what’s happening, and wants it? She’d never wanted to be fed from before, but if it caused that same look on her own face, she’d happily do it, especially if it was Brian feasting on her blood and pleasuring her body.
She hastily looked away before her thirst was aroused too much. Some of the vampires watched them as they passed, and a few men slid to the end of their booths to get a better look at her. Brian growled at one who leaned too close to her. The man slid back when Brian flashed his fangs at him.
“I’ll castrate you before you can blink,” he snarled and pulled her away from the questing hand of another male vampire.
He’d be lucky if he made it out of here tonight without killing one of them. Her hands dug into his shirt as they continued onward. A woman walked toward him, but he never even glanced in her direction as he kept shooting lethal glares at the men ogling Abby.
They entered a long hallway lined with doors. As they passed each door, she could hear the sensual sounds of couples, and sometimes more than a couple, having sex. Brian’s fingers caressed the flesh of her exposed midriff. It had been a gesture meant to relax her, but instead it only enhanced her conflicting urges to either run from here or press herself closer against him.
“Here we are,” Karina said, and swung open a door at the end of the hall.
Brian hurried Abby through the door of Karina’s office and waited until she closed it behind them. Abby’s growing distress and arousal beat against him, making it difficult for him to concentrate on anything when all he could think about was dragging her into one of those side rooms and sinking every hard inch of him into her.
Her family would kill him, but right now, he’d happily embrace death to ease the need of both of their bodies. Karina’s brown eyes slid back and forth between them. Abby grasped his shirt tighter and kept her head bowed so her pale hair shielded her delicate features.
It didn’t matter what she said, or how much she fought him on it, he was never going to bring her into a place like this again. She didn’t know what to make of it or how to handle it. Yes, she was in college and had older siblings, but she was still very innocent in so many ways. She was mostly unaware of what their kind was capable of.
Karina lifted a sleek, black eyebrow when he wrapped his hand around Abby’s head to shelter her further by cradling it against his chest. He ran his hand over her hair comfortingly, letting the strands slide through his fingers.
“What can I do for you, Brian?” Karina inquired.
“You know a lot of what goes on in this city,” he said.
Karina grinned at him as she perched on the corner of her desk. Her dress rode up to reveal the edge of her lacy black underwear, a move she’d made on purpose. He’d never slept with Karina, not for a lack of trying on her part, but simply because he knew it would be a tangled web he refused to get ensnared in.
Though striking, Karina was also manipulative, cold, and would run her own mother over to get what she wanted. There was actually a rumor that she had killed her mother after being turned into a vampire.
“I know everything that goes on in this city,” she replied, and slid further back on her desk to reveal almost all of her lacy panties that did nothing to shield her sex from view.
Abby lifted her head from his chest. He felt the ripple of shock that went through her before her eyes turned the color of rubies. Karina chuckled and leaned forward to expose some of her ample cleavage.
“Enough!” he barked at Karina. He pushed Abby a little behind him as he turned to face Karina. “You can play with every other person in this place, leave her be.”
“Or what?” She nonchalantly studied her nails, which she had filed into lethally sharp talons.
“You’re a hundred years old, Karina. You know how I got my power. You are no match for me, and I will drain you dry if you so much as look at her again.”
Dead silence followed his statement. Karina’s eyes shot up from her nails, her mouth parted and her eyes widened. Abby’s breath froze as she gazed between the two of them, waiting to see what would happen. She didn’t think Karina was one who took being threatened lightly, no matter who was doing the threatening.
Karina spun suddenly, lunging for something at the front of her desk. Abby hadn’t seen Brian move, yet he was grabbing hold of Karina’s wrist and slamming it onto her desk. Karina cried out and a stake tumbled from her grasp to land a few feet away from her. Abby jumped forward and snagged the weapon off the ground.
Brian leaned over the top of Karina, using his size to keep her pinned against the desk. Within one of his hands, he held both her wrists down as he fought to control his bloodlust. He’d come here with no intention of fighting, but Karina had dared to pull a weapon with Abby in the room. He relied on Karina’s help too often to be able to kill her, but it was taking everything he had to keep himself restrained from doing so.
“Don’t fuck with me on this, Karina,” he warned. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will.”
“Then let me go!” she cried.
“Brian—” Abby started as Karina’s breasts heaved with her rapid inhalations.
“Tell me what you know about the drug dens popping up again,” Brian said, over the top of Abby.
“What drug dens?” Karina replied, her lower lip quivering as she thrust it out.
Abby’s grip on the stake tightened as she fought the impulse to stake the woman for that contrived, pathetic look.
“Don’t play stupid with me,” he told Karina.
Karina’s expression became one of boredom as she realized the lower lip wasn’t going to get her anywhere. “Fine, I’ve heard rumors of them cropping up all over the city, but I don’t think they’re true.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one is going to be stupid enough to get mixed up in that again. I mean, everyone knows Ronan and his group destroyed every vampire who was mixed up with it all those years ago. I’m sure some idiotic vamps have been secretly feeding on drugged humans over the years, but no one would flaunt it in the way the rumors say they are.”
“Have you heard where these places are located?”
A crease ran across her forehead; she glanced between him and Abby. He moved to keep Abby blocked from her view. “I’ve heard they move about. Few know where the next location is going to be. Another reason to assume it’s nothing but a rumor.”
“Who knows where they are?”
“No one I know. That’s not something I’m willing to get mixed up with, Brian.”
He believed her on that. Releasing her wrists, he took a step away from her and straightened his shirt. She sat up, pulling her dress down over her thighs as she rubbed at her wrists and pouted prettily at him. “You hurt my feelings,” she murmured.
“What feelings?”
She flashed a grin as she leapt off the desk and ran her fingers over the front of his shirt again, her hurt feelings already forgotten. “When you’re done with virginal princess, you know where to find me.”
Abby’s fingers flicked over the grains of the wooden stake. Would anyone really be upset if she staked this bitch or Brian if he kept letting her touch him like that? Lucky for him, he grabbed hold of Karina’s hand and pulled it away from his chest.
“Keep an ear out for anything unusual or for someone who knows where those parties are,” he told Karina.
Karina leaned against the desk once more. “Did Ronan put you up to this?”
“This is my own mission, for now.”
“I don’t want any trouble, Brian. You know Ronan and I don’t have the best history. He’d happily shut this place down on me.”
Brian reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. “I promise nothing will come back on you.” Grabbing hold of her hand, he shoved the money into her palm. “Call me if you hear anything.”
Her eyes lit hungrily at seeing the hundreds in her hand. The only thing Karina loved more than sex and blood was money. “Whatever you want, gorgeous. Are you going to stay up here and enjoy the place for a bit?”
“I think it’s best if we return downstairs,” he said, and stepped back to take hold of Abby’s hand.
Abby’s head had been bouncing back and forth between them during the exchange. Her mind spun from how swiftly it had gone from a life-and-death situation, to a stay-and-have-drinks one. She’d been born a vampire, but some of her species truly confounded her, Brian being the number one leader in that category.
“Free bottle of champagne to loosen things up a little,” Karina offered with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows at Abby.
Yep, she officially hated this woman.
“Another time,” Brian said, and tugged Abby in front of him, using his body to shield her as he moved her toward the door. He pulled the door open and removed the stake from her hand. Turning, he tossed it to Karina. “Next time you pull one of those on me, be prepared to have it driven through your heart.”
Karina caught the stake and placed it on the desk. “Next time, the only plan I have for the two of us is zero clothes and hours of carnality.”
Abby shot a look over her shoulder. She was contemplating going back to beat the woman to death when Brian closed the door. He rested his palm in the small of her back as he propelled her forward.
“Is she going to stab us in the back or have her guys jump us?” Abby inquired.
“Karina may be a lot of things, but she’s far from stupid. None of her men are enough to take me on, she knows that, and she knows it would mean her death if she had them try anything.”
“Did you ever date her?” she demanded as he led her down the hall.
“No.”
“Did you ever have sex with her?”
An amused smile actually quirked the corners of his full mouth when he glanced at her. Abby’s nails dug into her palms. “No. Would it bother you if I had?”
Abby snorted and forced herself to relax her hands. “Of course not,” she lied with far more ease than she’d believed possible. “But it’s good to know you have some standards.”
He laughed, actually laughed as they stepped into the main part of the upstairs again. All of her annoyance with him vanished as that deep, baritone laugh rumbled out of his chest and his eyes sparkled with amusement. His laugh was better than she’d imagined it would be, and she decided then and there that she would try to make him laugh as often as she could.
She couldn’t help but smile as he slid his arm around her waist again. She was so focused on him that she didn’t notice the vamps and humans in the room when they passed through this time.
“I do have some standards, but they are few and far between,” he told her as he led her down the stairs.
The massive bouncer at the bottom stepped out of their way. “Now what do we do?” Abby asked as her delight over his laugh vanished and she realized they were no closer to finding Vicky than they had been before coming here.
“Now, I’m going to talk to some of the people and vamps here before we go. There may be someone who knows something.”