Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

“Shit!” Calling her sister’s name, Heather shoved the heavy curtains aside and ran across the stage after her. But Annie dove into the crowd pressed up against the rail. Arms passed her to the back. Dropped her. Her multicolored head disappeared from view.

Heather jumped down from the stage, ducked under the rail, and pushed her way through the crowd. The house lights dimmed, and the crowd roared. Heather found her way blocked by burly male bodies reeking of sweat and beer. She bounced up on her toes and looked for any sign of Annie, but a swaying field of heads blocked her vision.

The crowd surged forward, jabbing and shoving Heather with elbows and hips, and the roar intensified. Knowing she couldn’t get free at this point, not as Inferno hit the stage, Heather turned around and resigned herself to watching the show.

ALEX SHOVED AWAY FROM the bar, plastic cup of Rogue ale in hand, and joined a group of idlers at the back of the crowd. Colored spots lit up the stage as four figures took their places. Fog machines churned pale, incense-scented mist into the crowd. Alex downed a swallow of the frosty ale, then twisted earplugs into his ears.

Hard-edged industrial music, a pissed-off wall of sound, slammed into the crowd, and Alex’s heart pounded in time with the heavy bass throb. He fixed his gaze on Dante’s lean, shadowed figure standing before a microphone at the front of the stage, his hands wrapped around the stand, his gleaming black guitar hanging at crotch-level.

Dante curled his hands around the microphone as he sang. His voice, low and simmering with rage, meshed with the music pounding through the club and up along Alex’s spine.

“On my hands and knees,” Dante sang, his voice a seething whisper. “For you. I’ll crawl, on hands and knees, across shattered glass, over splintered hearts, nothing is left of us. Nothing remains. But to crawl. On hands and knees.”

The music came to a sudden halt. But the crowd didn’t stop hurling themselves against each other with bruising and skull-jarring abandon.

“Now that I’ve got y’all’s attention,” Dante said, “I’ve got something I wanna say to the nightkind in the audience.”

Several people—male and female—shrieked “I love you, Dante!” A few laughed, thinking he was just doing a bond-with-the-audience spiel. Enthusiastic screams pierced the air.

Most had no idea that he truly was what their dark fantasies imagined: vampire.

And more.

“Everyone here came to enjoy a show, have a few drinks, and maybe get laid,” Dante continued, his voice clear and strong, his rhythm Cajun-spiced. “If you’re here for a different reason, if you want la passée , go hang out at a Smashing Pumpkins revival show or some other lame-ass gig and drink your fill. Touch anyone here without their consent and you’ll fucking regret it.”

A voice rang out from the crowd. “Is that a challenge?” More laughter followed.

A spotlight focused on Dante, lit him up with blue-gelled light. He slowly extended a middle finger. “Whattya think this means?” Then he lifted his head.

Alex’s heart jackhammered against his ribs, a stunned and frantic tattoo. The sudden collective intake of breath that he felt, more than heard, told him that this preternatural beauty, this Medusa of heart-stopping loveliness, hadn’t ensnared him alone. Lifting the plastic cup of ale to his lips, he drained it.

Light glimmered from the row of hoops in each ear, gleamed blue upon Dante’s glossy black hair; slender coiled muscles; and that pale, breathtaking face—full lower lip, high cheekbones, kohl-rimmed eyes. He moved across the stage with natural and untamed grace.

“Crawl with me, on your hands and knees, for me,” Dante growled, jerking the stand back up, rocking back, and pressing his lips close to the rounded microphone. “I’ll kiss away your fears. If you crawl. With me. Fall with me. For me.”

Every move of his tight-muscled body, every toss of his head, whispered sex. Promised dark pleasure. Hinted at willing, pale flesh. His leather pants clung to his thighs and blue light sparked from the ring on the collar buckled around his throat.

Dante nestled the curve of his guitar against his thigh as his white hands flashed across the strings and frets, his attention riveted on the searing music pouring out from beneath his fingers. His body moved with the music, booted feet sliding, stomping, bracing.

Alex realized as he watched Dante, unable to slow his pounding heart, unable to tear his gaze away, that Dante was dangerous in ways he’d never anticipated. Never would’ve believed possible.

Seductive. Irresistible .

“We’ll go down together. I won’t let you fall alone.” Dante’s low, smoky voice curled into Alex’s heart and set it ablaze. “We’re both to blame. Crawl crawl crawl…”

Alex forced himself to turn around and fought his way through the heaving, moshing, sweat-rank crowd, making his way outside. He leaned against the wall, sucking down fresh night-chilled air, Inferno’s music vibrating into his muscles through the masonry. Alex pounded his fists against the stone until they bled, until the pain cleared his head.

Fury, blade-sharp and cold, cut into him. He straightened and pulled his Winstons and Zippo from his hoodie pocket. He shook a cigarette from the pack, jammed it between his lips, and sparked it up. As he smoked, a new plan mapped itself out, a way to conquer and control Dante after he’d seized him from Father and made the True Blood his own.

Alex would hurt Dante. Over and over. Long and deep and often. If Heather figured into that plan, so be it. And if hurting him in every way possible wasn’t pain enough to keep Dante from spinning another sticky web of lust to snare him in— and Athena? Would she be trapped the same way? Burning hot as a star ?—then he’d tell Dante the truth.

Cram it down his throat. Every last bit of it.

And let him choke.

THE CROWD JUMPED AND slammed to the music, smashed into each other, sweat and fists flying as those behind tried to dislodge those up front from the rail. The crowd handed along a girl in a latex dress and little else, Heather noted, over the heads of the venue’s security guards and to the stage.

Eyeliner-streaked face glowing, she darted for Dante, but he stepped out of reach, still singing. Since her slow speed marked her as mortal, the odds she would ever catch him were nil, Heather reflected, unless he wanted to get caught.

Heather wasn’t sure how she’d feel if Dante allowed the girl to touch him, kiss him, feel him up. The tightness in her chest at the image that particular thought created told her: Not well, Wallace. Not well at all .

One of the venue’s thick-muscled security guards, his bulky torso sausaged into a yellow VESPERS T-shirt, climbed onto the stage, scooped Latex Girl up and tossed her back into the crowd. The crowd roared, but whether in approval or anger, Heather couldn’t tell.

Dante whirled, so fast his movement was a blur, a streak of motion. The mike rolled across the floor. Then the security guard flew into the air, mouth open, eyes wide. The crowd parted, and he hit the concrete floor. Hard.

The crowd roared again, louder than before, and this time Heather had no doubt they were cheering Dante’s violent action. Before Dante had stepped back from the edge of the stage, three other figures hurtled over the rail and the open-mouthed security guards, jumping onto the stage and whirling on Dante—nightkind fast.