Midnight Ash (A Blushing Death Novel) (5 page)

I circled around him, out of the hold of his large hands and ignored his imposing wall of a body. I grabbed my scarf and bag, then followed him out into the brisk winter air. He lifted the door back into the threshold and I locked it from the top lock. The others were destroyed beyond repair.

I sat in his Dodge Durango, silent and edgy. Something, no,
someone
, had been in my house, in my car, and now in my head. The woman in my dream was fast, frightening, and, most important, she didn’t seem at all phased by me.

I didn’t notice we arrived at Damsel until Danny shut off the engine. I glared up to the bright lights of neon in my face and the chatter of cold women on the winter breeze.

“Are you all right?” Danny asked, disturbing the awkward silence filling the SUV. I could lie to him and make him feel better but he wouldn’t want that. He’d smell the lie anyway. It wasn’t worth the effort to keep my heart rate under control.

“No, I don’t think I am.” I stared out the passenger side window. A line of scantily clad women and quaffed guys stretched around the block to get into the club.

Would all these people be safe? Would whatever had been in my house follow me here? Would the people I cared about be safe?

I had to figure out what was going on first before I let my mind jump to horrible conclusions and worst-case scenarios. Once I knew, then I could jump all I wanted, rational or not.

Nova opened my door from the outside with a bright, twinkling, movie-star caliber smile on his face. He was on door duty and the reason for the line around the block being composed of more women than men.

Nova was stunning, almost blindingly beautiful. His dark, charcoal hair was tousled in perfect chaos, framing straight, perfect, symmetrical features and pale luminescent skin. He was striking like etched granite with soft baby blue eyes that could pierce a person’s soul. He was tall, over 6’2”, with broad shoulders toned to solid muscle. Nova was long and lean with the body of a swimmer. Anyone looking at him would be struck by his perfect twinkling smile, even if there were fangs in that gleaming white row of teeth.

Nova, however, couldn’t find his way out of a box without help. He was brute strength, loyal to a fault but good for business. The line around the block of half-naked fawning women and their angry dates proved that much. I didn’t question Patrick’s rationale for keeping him around anymore.

“Good evening, my little flower,” Nova chimed as he offered his hand to me like I was stepping down from a carriage a hundred years ago. I gave him my hand. His naiveté and devotion to Patrick made me want to protect him like a child. He could kill me three different ways before I could even take a breath but he couldn’t protect himself. He would be fodder for vampires who wanted to claim him, use him, and abuse him as he had been long before he’d found his way to Patrick’s colony. Nova didn’t talk about his past but from the things he’d let slip, I knew that someone had used him as a high-priced whore. They’d used him to get what they wanted, power, money, and position. When he thought no one was looking, he had a pained expression on his face and his eyes were vacant, as if he didn’t want to think too hard. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt him anymore. I’d make sure someone was there to protect him.

“Good evening, Nova,” I said as I stepped from Danny’s SUV, plastering a smile on my face that I knew didn’t reach my eyes. Danny had tossed his keys to a waiting human valet and came around the back of the SUV to meet me. “Is the club busy?” The techno pop music pumped from the open door, making my heart thump in my chest in time with the beat of the bass. We weren’t even inside yet.

“It’s really busy. Ladies’ night,” he said with a seductive shrug of his shoulders. He pulled the velvet rope back and allowed Danny and I to cut the line. The frozen slutty army waiting in line behind me started to revolt as we passed.

“Ladies, ladies,” Nova called out with a wide seductive smile, a twinkle in his eyes and a soft lilt of seduction to his voice. “You wouldn’t want to leave me out here all by myself, would you?” His cockiness brought smiles to the faces of 90% of the women standing in line and frowns to the faces of 100% of the men standing next to them. I patted his forearm in thanks and stepped inside.

Luckily, we weren’t going through the throngs of people clustered just beyond the coat check. We veered off to the right and passed through a narrow door with a plaque reading STAFF ONLY on the front and up a narrow set of stairs.

Danny followed behind me as I climbed, silent, warm, and uncomfortable. The sound of the club faded into the background as the soundproofing became more pronounced with each step up to the second floor we took. By the time we got to the top, all that was left was the steady, quiet thump of heavy bass. I reached out but the door was yanked opened at the same time from the inside.

Jackson was the last person I’d wanted to see staring back at me. He smirked like he knew what I tasted like beneath my clothing. My mind went quiet in warning and I gave him my best cold stare before I brushed by him.

When Patrick rebuilt and refurbished the club, he’d had the office remodeled to be soundproofed and the floor as one-way glass. The office looked like someone had raided a 1930’s art deco movie set. Patrick’s desk, the nickel-plated wall scones with a sunburst motif, and several oversized black velvet couches were spread throughout the large space that covered the entire length of the club below.

His prize piece was the sidebar. Six feet long, with the same high gloss cherry finishes and plated nickel fixtures as his desk. The cabinets on either side were accented with lounging Cleopatra handles. The drawers had nickel-plated scarab beetles as handles. He kept the bar stocked but very rarely drank.

Patrick saw everything that went on beneath him but his office appeared as if furniture and people floated in midair. It gave me a queasy, unstable feeling to look at my feet and see people moving beneath me. I tried to walk on the metal beams that lined the floor. I didn’t want to fall through. I knew it was ridiculous but I wasn’t willing to take that chance. I also couldn’t step on the graves in a cemetery and went out of my way to avoid them. I never knew what would reach up and grab me, literally. Yeah, I had issues.

I took off my coat and hung it up on the coat rack Patrick had put in specifically for me. Vampires didn’t get cold and werewolves had a super high body temperature. I was the only one who needed a coat.

Jackson smirked at me from the door. Kurt stood guard behind the couch where Dean sat. Dean’s eyes darting from one person to the next with a casual expression but I saw the quick glances he shot to everyone and his stiff posture. Alex perched her petite behind on the edge of Patrick’s desk facing the room, playing with her hair as her feet dangled from the edge of the desk. Patrick sat behind his desk, his back rigid and shoulders stiff, all business and impending doom.
Shit!

I turned and leaned my back against the wall, leaving myself with a clear exit as I propped my foot against the wall and my hand near the knife in my boot. If I needed to get out, I wanted to be near the exit. Nova, who had followed us up, closed the door and shut out the thump of bass from below. He sat down on the couch nearest Alex.

Patrick watched me, his gaze like a laser from behind the desk as Roger Markov, his lawyer and the only other human in the room, pushed a pen and set of contracts in front of him.

The corners of Patrick’s lips twitched, mocking me as he waited for me to step away from the wall. I wasn’t moving. I flipped him off with a sneer.
Jackass!

Danny walked to the middle of the room, standing before his Gaoh and cleared his throat. He looked like someone had brushed his fur the wrong way as he glanced at me. I’d done something to hurt him again. If I’d been Danny, I would’ve punched Patrick in the face a long time ago. Danny was a better person than I was though, probably better than all of us. I liked that about him.

“Excuse me,” Danny said, both antagonistic and rude. He stood in the center of the room with his arms crossed over his broad muscular chest. Dean, Kurt, and Jackson all tensed up at his brisk, authoritative tone. “We have a problem,” Danny snapped at the vampire behind the desk.

Patrick signed the papers with a characteristic flare of his fountain pen, ignoring the urgency in Danny’s voice. After several tense moments, Patrick turned his gaze up from the documents, handing them back to Roger Markov and ignoring Danny as he dismissed Roger with a quick nod.

“What’s your issue this evening, Daniel?” Patrick mocked, knowing full well that Danny hated being called by his full name. He wasn’t even trying to hide his disdain. Everyone in the room bristled at Patrick’s tone, even me.

“Watch it, Blooksucker,” Danny threatened, taking a dangerous step forward.

I cleared my throat as I pushed off the wall. I hadn’t reached for my blade. I had no intention of using it. Both Patrick and Danny looked at me instead of each other. Distraction. Good.

Patrick exhaled a deep breath of resignation and closed his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, his dark eyes were neutral and blank again. Danny sneered at me, curling his lip up as his hazel gray eyes bled to the Amber of his wolf. The Gaoh harrumphed to himself as he leaned back on the couch.

I took a few careful steps along the middle beam, in toward the center of the room without looking down. “Danny thinks someone was in my house.”

Patrick’s anxiety skyrocketed through my gut and my knees buckled under the weight of his unease. My breath caught in my lungs, making them burn with the pressure. I shut down the empathic link between us like slamming a vault closed. I breathed again, alone, swimming in my own emotional hell.
Thank God!
Patrick rounded the desk, shifting his focus between Danny and myself with careful movements and a controlled, blank expression I knew was a lie.

“Are you sure?” Patrick asked.

“There was someone else there,” Danny stated with confidence.

Patrick gazed down at me with an unreadable expression in his dark eyes.

“Did you have anyone new in your house?” His gaze bore through me like an arrow, slowly turning in the breeze. I didn’t deserve the interrogation or the accusation in his tone. The implications of his question sent gooseflesh skidding across my skin and my fingers itched to pull the knife.

“No,” I snapped. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin in defiance. Who the hell did he think he was? I wasn’t a prisoner to be interrogated.
Fuck him. Fuck them both.

Patrick took a deep breath and clasped his hands behind his back, turning as he strode back behind his desk.

“There’s something else,” I added and watched worry creep across Patrick’s face. I hated that furrowed brow above his beautiful dark eyes and that I was the cause of it.

“Whoever it was, smelled . . . different,” I said, shoving my hands in the pockets of my jeans. He cocked an eyebrow at me like I’d finally said something that intrigued him. “Like rotten flowers. Gardenias or Magnolias I think. Jasmine, maybe? The flowers smelled white, if that makes sense,”

Patrick nodded and closed his eyes. Dread filled me.

“There will have to be a change of plans,” Patrick whispered to Alex.

“What plan?” I asked, agitated. They’d all been sitting around talking about me again.

Danny glanced anywhere but at me as his shoulders slumped a little in shame.

Sonovabitch!
Now, I was pissed.
The fragile little human can’t take care of herself. Well, fuck them and their physical superiority.
I was tired of it. I could take care of myself just fine and had proven just that on several occasions.

My face flushed and my cheeks warmed with my anger as my blood rushed through my body, boiling over with rage.

I shot a quick glance over at Dean, the only person who didn’t seem to be caught up in the ‘let’s protect Dahlia’ game plan. I imagined him holding that damned tiger in his giant hands and slowly twisting its neck until its face was wiped from my memory.

A chill ran up my spine and Patrick reached out his cool hand to caress my cheek. I jumped at the sudden contact and drew the gun at my back without a second thought. I met his dark eyes with my own and what I saw there made me swallow, hard. His expression was filled with surprise, caution, and finally fear. I guess I was more spooked than I’d thought. He hesitated, reaching out with slow steady fingers to touch my face.

I lowered the gun. The heated flush in my cheeks retreated as I gained at least some control over my emotions.

“There’s something else?” he asked.

I’d pulled a weapon on him. My response had been too drastic and my heart pounded too hard. His eyes softened. Patrick was a smart guy. He knew something was wrong. My reaction to his touch was too extreme, even for me. I hadn’t realized how much that dream had gotten to me until I saw the panic in Patrick’s eyes.

“Later,” I said. “What’s the change in plan? What’s the plan, period?” I asked, ignoring the concerned looks around the room. I straightened, standing taller and shifting my gun back into the holster at the small of my back. I felt more relaxed touching the butt of the gun with its weight in my hand and the smell of gun oil on my fingers. That should have worried me but I was surrounded by things that could kill me and I was pissed as hell to boot.