Michele Hauf - Forever Vampire

After a five-minute walk they stood outside Club Vert. Hard, growling music pounded through the brick walls, and patrons danced outside the back doors, which were curvy and appealing, designed after the Art Nouveau style.

Vail and Lyric sat on the hood of a black Renault Mégane, watching the crowd shift in and out of the club. The interior was decorated in more Art Nouveau and plenty of green, Lyric explained. The club offered absinthe that mortals inhaled through a long straw, à la freebasing, as opposed to drinking. Provided a faster, cleaner high. Vail favored absinthe himself, but not extracted from mortal veins.

“Those two.” Lyric jumped from the car and smoothed palms over her hips and down her backside.

Vail couldn’t help but appreciate the tight curve of her derrière. The soft red dress conformed like skin on skin, emphasizing the slight cleft and the sexy dimples at the base of her spine. Those long legs had to end somewhere in the vicinity of her armpits. Legs like that could wrap around him and hold on for the ride.

Legs like that could also kick him in the jaw, which he entirely anticipated should he put the moves on this wicked vixen.

“Not going to happen,” he muttered, as he watched her approach the mortal pair who, hand in hand, searched for their car. They chatted with Lyric. She pointed over her shoulder at him. Vail offered a nod, hiding his disgust. The woman, a redhead sporting a nose ring and a bare midriff, smiled drunkenly.

He suspected Lyric had done this before. Not getting two mortals to succumb to a vampire foursome, but rather, lying to achieve a goal. She was lying to him about the fence. Had to be. But he could play her game. He must if he was ever to get the answers he needed.

The trio approached, the man’s arm around his girlfriend’s waist, and the other arm draped across Lyric’s shoulders.

“Nice,” Vail said to them as they walked by, leading him toward the end of the parking lot where the streetlight flickered and a dented black van sat parked in the corner.

Chain-link fencing surrounded the parking lot, bent up here and there to admit a person or a stray cat through the overgrown weeds that probably never saw a mower’s blade. Security lights beamed over the entire lot, but here, the van shadowed their encounter.

Lyric was already cozying up to the man by the time Vail rounded the back of the van. The sight of her running her hands up the man’s arms and whispering in his ear increased Vail’s heartbeats. But for the life of Herne, he wasn’t sure if it was arousal or—no, couldn’t be jealousy.

The mortal woman threaded her arms about his shoulders and tugged him around toward the front of the van. She breathed whiskey onto his face. “You’re sexy,” she tried, enunciating carefully as drunks often did when they thought they could conceal their inebriation.

“And I love redheads,” he replied, allowing her to kiss the corner of his mouth sloppily. Mortals. No attraction whatsoever.

Keeping an eye on Lyric, he nudged his nose along the woman’s jaw, following the rapid pulse that did not call to him. It was just a heartbeat.

He bent closer to her skin, drawing in the acrid scent of whiskey, yet beneath that something deeper lingered. Life. It gushed and throbbed. So unique how mortal blood took on the scents and taint of the things they consumed and put on their bodies, which was why it did not attract him. Ichor remained pure, no matter what the sidhe had consumed.

Remembering his captive, Vail glanced aside, pushing curls of red hair away to better see. His ice princess hadn’t bitten her mark yet; she was prolonging the tease, working the mortal to a sexual frenzy. Spiced with adrenaline, it must make the blood hotter, perhaps even tastier.

And yet, it was just a tease. Vail maintained the staunch insistence ichor was the only sustenance for him. And it was. But a weird part of him, something he didn’t want to examine too closely, suddenly tilted his head down to inhale the scent of mortal blood. It didn’t smell awful. Actually, it smelled appealing, whiskey and all.

What was that about?

The woman read his subtle exploration incorrectly, and palmed his cock through his leather pants. That both pissed him off and pushed him over the edge he’d been toeing since kissing Lyric earlier. The vampiress had gotten under his skin, and he had wanted to get under, into and all over her skin—until she’d touched her blood to his mouth.

He’d never take vampire blood.

Moans slipped from Lyric’s mouth now, her mark matching the sensual tones. Scent of jasmine and cherries distracted Vail from the mortal woman’s whiskey perfume. She kissed the edge of his mouth, but he didn’t want her sloppy attempt at intimacy.

“Swoon for me,” he whispered, penetrating her mind with persuasion. You feel so good. Better than you’ve ever felt .

“Kiss me back,” she murmured. “Don’t you want me?”

The persuasion was not working. Why couldn’t he utilize the thrall in the mortal realm? Was it akin to the power Hawkes insisted he claim?

He considered dusting her, but mortals didn’t drop like vamps, they usually went into a swoony kind of reel.

Pressing his fingers along her neck, he found the subclavian nerve below her clavicle and increased pressure. Just a second or two … Sleep took her quickly. She relaxed in his arms.

He dropped the woman noiselessly at his feet. He glanced to the van—the mortal man hugged the rear fender, delirious. Blood ran from his mouth.

The vampiress was gone.

Vail leaped over the sprawled female and tilted the man’s head to the side. “Did she bite you?”

“Bite me? Dude, she punched me. Think she knocked out a tooth. What’s up with that?”

What was up was that the wily vampiress had been waiting for him to drop his guard so she could escape.

“Stone-headed vampire!” he cursed himself.

Trotting along the row of parked cars, he spied a large gap in the chain link. Ducking through, Vail emerged in the pristine parking lot of a car dealer. Hundreds of cars were parked row after militant row. Perfect place for a vampiress to hide.

Vail kicked a tire and swore again. His cell phone rang and he angrily tugged it out from a front pocket and answered. “What?”

It was Rhys Hawkes wanting an update. At one o’clock in the morning. Their kind did keep odd hours.

“I had her. Yes, the Santiago chick. But I lost her.” His eyes scanned the cars, searching for movement. She couldn’t have gotten far. “Yes, I know. I’ll get her back. But she says she fenced the dress.”

“We need that bloody gown,” Rhys muttered. “When you find her, you put the screws to her to get her to talk. Torture her if you have to.”

“With pleasure. I’ll call you tomorrow, Hawkes,” he said, and snapped the phone shut.

Torture, eh? This job was turning into a real riot.

A rail train rumbled by, the horn blaring as it passed a nearby crossing. Ducking and eyeing the cars at hood and trunk level, Vail didn’t spy anything out of place. So, he lay on his back, looking heavenward. He turned his head left. No feet or crouched bodies tucked behind a wheel. And then right. A pair of red heels peeked out from behind a rear tire. “Gotcha.”

LYRIC WOKE AND WRINKLED her nose. Mildew. Smelled like that damned awful bed in the apartment where she’d been squatting.

Her wrists stung and her jaw hurt. Then she remembered looking up at Vail’s kick-ass snakeskin boots. He’d found her crouched behind an SUV. Thanks to a passing train, she hadn’t heard his approach. Asshole.

She worked her jaw back and forth, wincing. When she tried to reach for the painful spot, her hands tugged against something that wouldn’t budge.