Belonging (2 page)

She had exactly one-hundred-thirty-five dollars and forty-two cents in her checking account, her four-hundred-dollar rent was due in ten days, and the book for her class would set her back another one hundred fifty dollars. She wasn’t sure where she would come up with
that
money. Upon checking her apron pockets, she counted fifty-two dollars in tips from her last eight hours.
Super
.

Screw it. She didn’t need this job that bad. There were plenty of shitty waitress jobs available and she’d just get another one tomorrow. Maybe at a nicer place where the patrons tipped more than fifty cents on a fifty-dollar bill.

She stormed back toward Henry, punching him in the face before throwing a hard knee to his boys. He doubled over; howling in pain, blood gushing from his nose onto the white cracked linoleum floor.

“Keep your fucking hands off me, asshole! This”—gesturing to her body—“is not your playground!”

Her pulse skyrocketed; her heart almost beat out of her chest. She felt like her head might explode. And at the same time, she couldn’t be more relieved. As she turned to gather her things she noticed the entire diner had quieted, watching the melee ensue. Cara stood by the register, mouth agape. Analise rushed past her, grabbed her purse and coat, and quickly left through the back entrance.

Getting into her 1979 Chevy Chevette, Analise gave her a little pep talk before turning the key. “Come on, baby girl. Don’t make my grand exit turn to shit now.” Luck was on her side, for she started on the second try. Her baby may be old, rusted and only have AM radio, but she was still pretty reliable. And most importantly, she was paid for.

Analise drove the six miles to her small rented duplex on the outskirts of Eau Clare. She parked on the dimly lit street, careful to look around before exiting her car. This wasn’t exactly the nicest part of town, but it was all she could afford.

She made her way safely to her side of the duplex. Thank Jesus the other half was dark. She did not need to deal with her pervy neighbor, Johnny, on top of Henry tonight. He continually hit on her, making up one excuse after another to talk to her.

The most classic was when he asked to borrow a cup of sugar.
A cup of sugar?
The guy didn’t even cook, let alone bake. She wasn’t even sure he knew how to operate a microwave. He had empty fast food bags, pizza boxes and beer bottles strewn all over his place. She knew that, not because she had been in his apartment—
that would never happen
—but because he never shut his damn blinds. He was always trying to catch her coming and going.

It took her a minute to open the several locks and deadbolts, breathing a sigh of relief when she finally walked through the door.
Home
. After depositing her keys on the entry table, she kicked off her shoes and removed her coat as she made her way to the bathroom. She needed to wash the stench of the diner away. And her boss’s hands.

Starting the bath, she deposited her stinky clothes in the hamper, taking care to retrieve the cash first. While the tub filled, she poured herself a glass of Two Buck Chuck, turned on her favorite playlist from her iPhone—her one splurge outside of her bi-monthly highlights—and recounted her tips. Yep. She was the proud owner of not quite two hundred dollars. Total.
Shit
.

She eased into the hot water as Sia belted out one of her favorite songs: “Chandelier”. Relaxing against the cool porcelain, emotions overwhelmed her.

Relief.

Guilt.

Panic. She had actually quit her job. A job she couldn’t afford to quit. What the
hell
was she thinking? She wasn’t…as usual. Being a waitress, especially at the shithole where she worked, was barely a living wage, but at least it
was
a wage. Now, she was jobless and practically penniless.
Go me
.

How apt that Sia was singing about holding on for dear life and keeping her glass full until the morning light. She felt exactly the same way as she filled up her now empty wine glass from the cheap bottle she’d brought into the bathroom. In wine, you definitely got what you paid for, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Analise could admit she was a bit impulsive. At twenty-six years old, she
was
trying to get her life on track, but it was a long slow grind. She’d lived a hard life on the streets since fifteen, but at eighteen, she’d started getting her shit together. With her GED equivalent behind her, she began studies at the University of Wisconsin, but with a whole year left, her sociology degree still felt far out of reach. She had bills to pay and couldn’t afford to be a full-time student. Thank God for her grants or she’d have to give up her dreams of a college degree altogether.

Her thoughts strayed to Beth. They were actually never far from Beth, especially in the three weeks she’d been missing, without a word, without a trace. They’d met on the streets when they were teenagers. She was fifteen and Beth was sixteen. They’d quickly formed a unique bond that Analise never had with another living soul. Beth was her best friend in the whole wide world. Her only friend, really. She accepted Analise for who she was, flaws and all. Hell, she had the same ones. Most of them anyway. Beth knew
most
of her deep, dark secrets and loved her regardless.

Living on the streets was dangerous, especially for two teenage girls. They’d both lived in foster care, which had taken away much of their naiveté, but they were nowhere near prepared for the life they’d ended up living. Some of the things they had to do to survive made her physically ill to remember. She’d lost parts of herself that could never be replaced.

As Starset’s “My Demons” played, she thought about how great of a friend Beth was and how much she’d helped save Analise from her own demons. The memories of her past circled her like a flock of vultures, waiting for her complete and utter demise so they could pick at her meager remains. She tried not to think of those days much, choosing to look forward instead. But some days, like today, it was so very hard to do and the vultures seemed ever closer. She could feel their rancid breath slithering over her. On these down days, Beth was the only person who could save her from her self-imposed quicksand, but she couldn’t now. Not today.

This past winter, Beth had taken a job as a sous chef in an up- and-coming new restaurant on the lower west side of downtown. Like Analise, Beth couldn’t afford much in the way of housing and also lived in a rough, run-down, gang-infested part of town. There were multiple shootings every day. But Beth had taken self-defense classes and carried mace.

Last week in a desperate attempt to find her, Analise had taken two days off and driven to Chicago. Analise had convinced the super to let her into Beth’s apartment, but there were no clues. She’d simply vanished. The police had no leads and they weren’t doing jack shit. At least that’s the way she felt. The detective assigned to the case had even stopped calling her back. It could be because she left a dozen messages a day, each with progressively more curse words, but whatever. If Analise didn’t advocate for Beth, no one would.

The worst part of all was she’d
known
something was off the day Beth went missing, but as usual she couldn’t pinpoint exactly
what
was off. She’d only known Beth was in danger. It was frustrating. That morning, she’d begged her to be extra careful. Beth had come to rely on Analise’s weird instincts just as much as she had and she promised she would take extra care.

In the early years, Analise had ignored these
feelings
. And bad things happened. Living on the streets, she quickly learned to take action when she felt a premonition surface. Did she avoid harm or was she just ultra paranoid? She never really knew, but she was done taking chances. Every time she’d ignored the feeling, things ended badly.

She unconsciously touched the scar on her stomach. It couldn’t have ended worse for her
that
night. But she was not that person anymore and wouldn’t be again. She was a survivor. She would make a difference in people’s lives. She would help others like her. Eventually.

As her skin pruned, the water cooled, and her wine ran dry, her conversation with Smitty resurfaced. One good thing to come of her time on the streets was that she knew people. People like Smitty. She had connections…who had connections…who knew other people. And those people knew very interesting things.

She’d been thinking about what he’d said all week long, running through a litany of excuses on why she should stay here. She needed her job, she had classes to attend, leave the detective work to the trained. She shouldn’t get involved and step into harm’s way. But none of those excuses really held water. She’d quit her job, classes could wait and she had a lead that she couldn’t very well pass along to the detective. Like where to find a certain Vampire lord, for example.
Thank you, Smitty
.

Yes, vampires were real. They did, in fact, suck your blood…and a girl could sign up for that shit at certain places if she wanted. Analise never wanted, even in her most desperate days. And she’d never run across a vampire that she knew of, but she wasn’t afraid to either.

And why would a puny, weak human purposely seek out a powerful Vampire lord, one may ask? Because Analise
knew
a vampire was responsible for Beth’s disappearance. In her premonition about Beth she saw darkness, malevolence, evil. She’d heard that the Vampire lord she sought was extremely powerful, terrifyingly dangerous, but also fair and benevolent.

And while she was shitting her pants at the thought of actually confronting a vampire—okay, maybe she was a little afraid—if that gave her a lead on what happened to Beth, she’d do it. But how far would she go? Could she let someone take her blood and, God forbid, touch her? And wasn’t it ironic that she worried more about someone touching her than taking her blood? Just the idea of someone, a man in particular, touching her body was akin to an arachnophobe being covered in spiders. She was hyperventilating just thinking about it.

But she’d do it. She’d do anything necessary to find Beth, even let a man put his hands on her. She’d survive. She had before. Mind made up, tomorrow she would head south to Milwaukee.

To Dragonfly. Lord Devon Fallinsworth’s new nightclub.

C
hapter
2

Damian

Stepping into Dragonfly, Damian was quite impressed. Looked like he may learn a few things from the Lord of the Midwest, after all. And fuck if that didn’t sting, just a little. He decided to come through the main entrance so he could check out the entire club at its height of busyness.

He’d been anxious all day that something radical was about to happen. He blamed it on the premonition he’d had about Xavier, but he wasn’t entirely sure that was it. His life was about to tilt on its axis, he just didn’t know how yet. Most of his premonitions were more like a gut feeling, intuition some would call it, but it was more than that for him. Every one of them came to fruition. Occasionally he had actual visions, but that wasn’t the norm.

The sound of the bass thrummed through his body, pulling him to the present. He fucking loved it. Rhianna’s “Don’t Stop the Music” blared through the speakers and the dance floor was packed to capacity, humans dry humping each other in the dim lighting. He could smell the pheromones oozing from them, making him hard.

Tearing his gaze from the dance floor, he took in the rest of the place. Walls were painted a deep, blood red.
Subtle
. A long walnut bar spanned the entire right side of the open space. Bartenders frantically tried keeping up, serving fruity concoctions and dry martinis to males lined three deep, hoping to score.

Tables, chairs, and black leather couches surrounded the dance floor. A black iron staircase graced both sides of the room, leading to an open upper level that overlooked the main floor. Scanning from down here, Damian could see more of the same decor upstairs. There was a small bar to the left side, also very busy. Since there was no room on the dance floor itself, many people upstairs were bumping and grinding around the railing. The place was hopping for sure.

He made his way toward the back, enjoying the scantily clad females along the way. At six foot six, Damian knew he was imposing and good-looking. It wasn’t ego; it was just a fact. He loved sex; he exuded sex, and women knew he would give them immense pleasure. And he never failed to please. They regularly, and willingly, opened their legs for him. Tonight he would enjoy sampling some of the goods, but the darkness was starting to surface and demanded to be fed by particular needs. He could dabble in vanilla, sometimes even enjoyed it, but his preference tended to be darker and it took a particular type of woman to handle those needs. He hoped he would find just the right one tonight.

After stopping several times to interact with beautiful women, he reached the back, greeting the main club manager, Frankie.

“How are things this evening, Frankie?”

“Just fine, my lord.”

Frankie seemed nervous. As Vampire Lord of the East, Damian was imposing and intimidating and it’s normal that humans felt like a predator was in their midst. But Frankie knew their little
secret
, of course, so he should also know they were fair. He wondered if it was just him or if he was like that with Dev also.

“Place seems to be doing well.” Damian flagged the bartender for a drink. Not surprisingly, he was served right away. Patrón, neat, was his drink of choice.

“Yes, sir. Very well.”

Damian laughed to himself. Frankie didn’t seem to be very well spoken. He must have excellent management skills instead.

Damian threw his drink back in one gulp, shaking his glass at the bartender to indicate another. When he had it in hand, he turned back to Frankie.

“Why don’t you show me the underground.”

Beads of sweat dotted Frankie’s brow. Priceless. Guy better grow a pair or he was going to end up vampire bait. If he were Damian’s club manager, he’d be fired on the spot. Maybe Dev needed some help after all.