Chapter Five

Club Dead’s grotto was no place for Erica. Not in the state she was in at the moment, anyway. Max felt her shaking as he walked her slowly through the narrow corridor that led to the club’s infamous back room. If he could have left her out front, he would have, but the way she smelled right now, no vamp in the place would be able to resist her.

The act he’d put on for the benefit of Club Dead’s staff and patrons had been a good one. From the delicious scent of arousal on her skin, Max could tell it certainly worked on Erica. That surprised him. At some point she’d transformed from a frightened, naturally defiant ice princess, into the kind of submissive feeder for which the average vampire would pay double the going rate. The way she’d taken his instructions, and the way she’d licked her lips when she watched the couples at the other tables made him hungry and hard.

It wouldn’t be easy to shake it off and keep his needs in check until he got her home--and left her there. He’d not only need to feed tonight, he’d need to sate his sexual desires, too. If he hadn’t been working, he’d have insisted they forget the grotto and go back to his apartment. Max was fortunate in that most of his neighbors thought he was human and it didn’t matter to him if they saw him bring women home. They would assume just what he wanted them too, that he was a bachelor with a lot of dates. The fact that he rarely brought the same woman home twice, was none of their concern.

As he guided Erica down the hallway and into the grotto where a low, insistent beat and the sound of gurgling fountains competed with moans and gasps of pleasure, he reviewed a list of feeders he could call on to provide more than just a fix for his hunger. He refused to acknowledge the fact that none of them would satisfy him completely. He didn’t just want blood and sex. He wanted Erica, and that was bad news.

“What are they--” He cut off her query by squeezing her shoulder. When would she learn not to talk so much?

“They’re all feeding. There are lots of ways to feed. We’ll try them all, eventually.” The darker voice he adopted in the clubs reminded him of the early days when he roamed the streets of London doing as he pleased. Such a long time ago, after he’d gotten over the shock of being turned. He didn’t miss those times. The loneliness had nearly destroyed him.

Things were better here in the States where vampire infrastructure had taken root so quickly over the last half century. Of course, in Europe, his kind commanded more respect from humans, but garnered more fear as well. There, he was still considered a monster. Here, he was ... something else--a member of a shadow society. A curiosity. Most people who knew vampires existed preferred to pretend they didn’t. Whether that was better or worse than being feared, he hadn’t decided.

The back room of Club Dead had been set up to resemble a city park, with artificial trees and bushes, benches and rocks, dimly lit lamp posts and bubbling fountains, some of which oozed cool carbon dioxide mist across the floor. As they moved through the setting, he gently turned Erica so that she could see each scene as it took place.

He hoped she didn’t identify her sister in one of the alcoves. If Elena Talbot was here, lying naked in the arms of a vampire lover, Max wasn’t sure how he’d get her out without getting both he and Erica ripped to shreds. They’d have to stake out the door, no pun intended, and wait until Elena left.

Times like this, Max was grateful his heart didn’t beat anymore. The adrenaline pumping through his system would have choked him. As it was, he smelled the sharp scents of excitement, fear and desire all around him, but most strongly from Erica. It rolled off her in waves that teased his heightened senses unmercifully. Why hadn’t he listened to his inner voice when it shouted at him that this was a bad idea? Was it because he’d been attracted to Erica immediately? Was it because he didn’t want to send her back to her safe human world where she belonged if there was the slightest chance he might entice her to spend some time in his?

When she stopped mid-step he tensed. “What is it?” he whispered next to her ear.

She didn’t respond. In the alcove before them, a female vampire stood naked and chained to the faux lamppost, her thin arms stretched high above her head. A human male knelt at her feet working to fasten leather cuffs at her ankles. She writhed under the ministrations of a second human male who flogged her thighs with a leather strap.

Max tried to pull Erica along but she stood frozen, her lips parted and her pulse racing.

When the vampiress noticed her audience she bared her fangs and smiled. With a tilt of her head she extended an invitation to join in.

Erica shuddered against Max, and he tightened his grip on her waist. He shook his head slowly and showed his fangs, which seemed to satisfy the female. She shrugged her disappointment and turned her attention back to her own pleasure.

Max and Erica moved on to the next alcove where two male vampires fed from a human female. She lay spread-eagled on a flat rock, her eyes wide and her mouth slack. One vampire drank from her neck as he caressed her breasts through the thin fabric of her silk blouse. The other drank from her inner thigh, one hand hidden in the folds of her short, black skirt. The woman moaned and bucked against his hand.

“Do you see Elena?” Max rasped as he pulled Erica forward toward the exit. If he didn’t get her out of here soon, they’d end up in one of the empty alcoves.

“No ...”

“Good. It’s time to go.”

* * * *

The cool night air shocked Erica’s senses after the sultry heat of the club. She drew in a deep cleansing breath and broke from Max’s grasp as the back door clicked shut behind them.

She didn’t dare look at him right now. After what she’d seen inside, and the way it made her feel, she couldn’t face him just yet.

With her arms wrapped around her stomach, she doubled over and stared at the pockmarked surface of the parking lot between her feet. A few more breaths, and she’d regain control, settle the raging river in her blood and start to feel like herself again. She hoped.

“I told you.” His voice reached her from a few feet away. When she peered up at him she saw only his back. A fresh wave of shame washed over her when she realized he couldn’t look at her either.

“I’ll be all right. Give me a minute.”

“It’s time I took you home.”

She shook her head. “It’s only 4:00 a.m. I want to go to another club.”

“Sunrise is at 5:03 today. The bars are closing now.”

She shook her head, hiding a faint smile as she pulled her hair down from the tight band that held it off her neck. “Of course you know exactly what time sunrise is.”

“Did you bring a car to After Dark?” he asked, ignoring her comment. She wondered if it offended him to be reminded of the limitations of his kind.

“I walked from the bus stop on Dwight Avenue. I was concerned someone might trace my plates if they saw my car in the lot.”

Now Max turned and met her gaze. For a brief moment she thought she saw admiration in his eyes.

“Who are you hiding from?”

“I ... have a conservative life.” Perhaps that was an overstatement. ‘Life’ was too strong a word to describe what Erica had. By day, a stoic, proper insurance claims adjuster, filling out complicated forms in triplicate. By night, more often than not, Elena’s keeper. There was nothing in between. She hadn’t had time for friends in months, didn’t have the energy to make up lies about Elena anymore. She kept her coworkers and neighbors at a polite distance to isolate herself--though she wasn’t quite sure from what.

“By vampire standards, so do I.” Max smirked again.

“You seemed pretty comfortable in there.” She regretted that her statement sounded like an accusation. He didn’t seem to notice, though.

“I swing by now and then to keep an eye on things, but that’s not where I feed. It’s just part of my job.”

“They all have jobs, too, don’t they? Like regular ... like humans?”

He nodded. “Most of them. The nights can be long and boring. We’ve all got to do something. Come on. Let me take you home.”

Erica straightened and followed Max toward his car. Though her stomach had calmed, a slight tremor played at the back of her jaw, and the giddiness hadn’t dissipated completely. When she slid into the cool leather passenger seat, she sank back and let the kinks in her spine work themselves out.

“Why?” she asked as he started the engine and backed out of the parking space. She noticed other cars queuing up to leave the club as well.

“Why what?” He glanced at her, and then deliberately looked away as he guided the car through the white painted posts that stood guard at the lot entrance.

“Why everything? Why are they like that? What was in that drink? Why do humans allow themselves ... ?”

“It’s a complex symbiotic relationship.” Max smirked as he spoke. The line was obviously well rehearsed. “It took centuries for us to come to terms with our true need for humans. Most of us don’t think of you as enemies anymore and fortunately for us, there are more and more of you who don’t think of us as enemies, either. But on the other side of the coin, years ago no one became a vampire by choice. Turning someone was the closest thing to procreation we could do. And there was the idea that if vampires outnumbered humans, the world might be a safer place for us.”

Erica closed her eyes, torn between wanting to absorb what Max told her and understand it, and wanting to drown it all out and forget everything. She had so many more questions but she was afraid of the answers.

“Where do you live?” His question diverted her thoughts from the dark places where she didn’t want to dwell.

“On Rochester Drive in the apartments at 101.” She answered him easily and regretted it. She should have given him Elena’s address and caught a cab from there, but if she had to walk another block in her heels, she’d have collapsed. Her legs ached, and she indulged in the fantasy of asking Max to massage them for her when they reached her apartment.

Replaying flashes of the evening in her mind, Erica found herself alternately aroused and disgusted, enticed and ashamed. Whatever spell she’d been under in the bar, she could not have been completely in control.

“The drink ...”

“There was nothing in it. Honest.”

She still didn’t believe him. Out of the corner of her eye she regarded his handsome profile. A muscle at the back of his jaw twitched. He’s hiding something, she decided.

“Right here,” she said a while later when her building came into view. “You can pull up over there.”

Max stopped the car and turned to her. The look he gave her made her heart pump a little faster.

“Erica,” he said her name slowly, his voice low and smooth. “I don’t want to put you through any more of this. Let me look for your sister. I’ll keep you informed of what I find.”

Disappointment surged through her, and she glanced away. Why had she been hoping he was about to kiss her?

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his business card. A phone and fax number were embossed below his name in small black letters.

“Call me with any information you have, and like I said, if you can give me something of your sister’s that I can trace ...”

Erica bit her lower lip and nodded. “I will. I’ll go to her apartment tomorrow and get something. But, I’m not giving up, Mr. Hart. I’m going to keep looking for her myself. I can’t just sit around and wait.”

“Erica ...”

“No. The things I saw tonight.” The things I did. “I can’t bear to think of Elena involved in that.”

“It still may be her choice.”

“No. I don’t believe that. I’m not saying there aren’t people who ...” Like it? Find it arousing? She refused to think about how aroused she was at the moment. “It’s just not Elena.” Who was she trying to fool? She wrenched the door handle and stomped one foot onto the curb.

When he grabbed her wrist, she pulled back halfheartedly, but he didn’t relinquish his grasp. His gaze was hard, like it had been inside Club Dead when he admonished her, when he commanded her. It killed her that her body responded to the authority in his voice.

“If you insist on looking for her yourself, then I’ll take you. You have to understand that there are places you just can’t go alone. In order to keep their secrets, there are vampires that will hurt you. You need someone to protect you.”

“I thought we’d been through this already, Mr. Hart. If you want to do that, that’s fine. I’ll go along with your investigation--only as long as I’m part of it. If Elena thinks that you’re a cop or that I’ve hired you to find her, she’ll make herself harder to reach. She’ll withdraw and I won’t ever be able to help her.”

“How far are you willing to go to find her?”

Erica met his gaze and held it as she disengaged her wrist from his grasp. “All the way.”

“I don’t think you know what that means.”

“Then show me.”