Sacrifice Me (7 page)

There was a part of me that was touched he seemed
to care about keeping me safe. I had no idea what I’d done to
deserve that. He could have easily just let me get eaten instead of
offering me a job and personal protection.

“I’d also like to introduce everyone
to our newest employee.” Before he even said my name, everyone
turned to look at me. “This is Franki. I’d like you guys
to really welcome her to the club and take some time to introduce
yourselves when you get a chance. Look out for her, too. She’s
new to all this.”

A few people mumbled casual hello’s, but
Rend didn’t give them time to come over and talk.

He went through the last of the instructions for
the night and about ten minutes later called an end to the meeting.

Several people made a beeline straight to me to
say hi and welcome me to the group. I knew I’d never remember
everyone’s names but it was nice to meet some people who were
nicer than Azure.

“Franki,” Rend called out. When I
turned to him, he cleared his throat. “Can I see you for a
moment?”

“Sure,” I said with a smile, doing my
best to hide my nerves. I apologized and left the group that had
surrounded me, then followed him into the same dark corner he’d
brought me to that first night.

Standing this close to him again made my palms
sweat.

His eyes drifted down to my cleavage and he ran a
hand through his hair. “What are you wearing?”

Okay. Not what I expected him to say.

“I’m wearing what I was told to wear.”

“Unless I’m going insane, I very
clearly remember giving you a staff t-shirt to wear,” he said.
His voice was gruff. “That is most definitely not a staff
t-shirt.”

The girly, highly aroused part of me was loving
the fact that he seemed so affected by my new clothing.

The confused,
did-not-fucking-want-to-wear-this-outfit-in-the-first-place part of
me was angry as hell.

“How observant of you,” I said,
standing as tall as I could next to him.

He reached out like he was going to grab my arm,
but then spread his fingers wide and pulled back instead.

“Why are you wearing that, then?”

“I don’t know why you’re getting
upset with me,” I said. “I wake up Thursday night in my
own bed with no memory of how I got there and no idea how you or
anyone else here might have known where I lived. I show up to work
not knowing if I’m expected to even be here, just because I
don’t want to upset you in case you were wanting me to work
tonight. Then I get here and am told that Azure is in charge. Well,
this is what she told me to wear, so I’m here, doing exactly
everything I’ve been asked to do. If you don’t think I
look good enough to be one of the dancers on a night when you have
friends coming—”

His eyes snapped up to mine. “Is that why
you think I’m upset?”

“How am I supposed to know why you’re
upset?”

He took a deep breath in through his nose, his
chest rising and falling. “Azure told you to wear this.”

I wanted to tell him she threatened my life if I
didn’t, but held my tongue. I didn’t want to make her
more of an enemy than she already was at this point.

“She said you were short a dancer tonight.”

He glanced over toward the bar, his eyes narrowed.

When he turned his attention back to me, he
softened just a little. “I brought you home Thursday,” he
said. “I thought you would be able to rest better at your own
house. As to how I knew where you lived, well, let’s just say
I’m very good at finding people whether they want to be found
or not.”

I could hardly breathe as he spoke. He had this
way of being hard edges and soft tones all at the same time. I had
never met anyone sexier in my entire life.

“As for what you’re wearing? Believe
me, it has nothing to do with you not looking good enough.” He
cleared his throat again, and I could swear his bottom lip trembled
ever so slightly. “I just would have rather had you working
behind the scenes tonight instead of on display for everyone to see.”

I moved one step closer to him and his eyes
searched my face. “Why are you protecting me? You don’t
even know me. Why not just let those guys tear me apart the other
night?”

He lifted a hand to my cheek and brushed a strand
of hair out of my eyes. His fingers lingered for a moment on my skin
and my insides went up in flames.

“There’s something about you,”
he said, his walls down for the briefest of moments. “I can’t
explain it more than that. I just knew you were worth saving.”

My breath was shallow and my body yearned to move
closer. I wanted to feel his hands on me again. My eyes were drawn to
his lips, overcome by the desire to know what it would be like to
kiss a man like Rend.

“You don’t have to dance if you don’t
want to,” he said. “I can find another job for you if you
want to go back and get changed.”

It was a tempting thought, but I refused to let
Azure think I had complained to the boss and gotten my way like some
child. I wanted her to know I was stronger than that.

“I’m good,” I said, letting a
smile tease my lips. “It might even be fun.”

He groaned and clenched his jaw. “I’m
going to keep my eye on you tonight,” he said. “If you
need anything or anyone so much as offers to buy you a drink, you
come find me. I’ll be in the bar or back in the private room
behind the curtain most of the night.”

I hoped he couldn’t see me blush in the
half-darkness. “I can take care of myself,” I said. “Most
of the time.”

He paused, then put a finger under my chin,
lifting my face to his. My lips parted and I forced myself to keep
breathing. Our eyes locked for a few intense seconds, then he dropped
his hand and turned away.

“Azure. My office. Now.”

I looked over just in time to see a look of terror
cross her eyes.

I rejoined the other dancers in a cluster near the
black curtain.

Lyla grabbed my hand and pulled me to her side.
“Oh, my God, what is going on with you and Rend?”

“You have to tell us everything,” Shay
said.

“I have never seen him look so—”

“So shaken.” Lyla’s eyes were
huge and glimmering.

At this point, my face was probably beet red, and
I was sure they could all see it, even in the sparse lighting.

“There’s nothing going on,” I
said.

“Liar,” Cherish said.

“Big, fat liar,” Lyla said. “Listen,
Rend is untouchable. Unshakable. He never lets himself get rattled.
Not even when he’s about to tear someone to pieces.”

“Literally,” Shay mumbled.

I snapped to look at her. “What do you mean,
literally?”

“Why do you think everyone calls him Rend?”
Cherish asked.

“Let’s just say he’s known
around our kind of people as someone you don’t cross,”
Lyla said.

My hand went to my forehead. The spot where his
fingers had brushed my skin was still tingling. Surely they didn’t
mean that he had killed people before? Is that what they were saying?

It seemed unbelievable, but I had seen the fear in
the eyes of those vampires the other night. They had been terrified
of him and he hadn’t even lifted a finger toward them.

“I think you definitely picked the right
outfit,” Lyla said, giggling. “He could hardly take his
eyes off you.”

“I’m so jealous I could kill you,”
Peri said. “Seriously, I’ve never seen Rend with a woman
and I’ve been working here for almost fifteen years.”

I laughed out loud. “Yeah, right.”

She eyed me. “What?”

“You can’t be much older than I am.
How have you been working here fifteen years? You would have been,
what? Ten years old when you started?”

“Oh,” she said, lifting the back of
her hand up to her mouth to cover her laughter. “Girl, that’s
just the glamour. If you saw the real me underneath all this magic,
you wouldn’t question it. I’m thirty-nine.”

My jaw dropped open and I shook my head. “There’s
no way.”

“I would show you, but no one sees the real,
unmagicked me. No one.”

“I think we’re all going to have to
take a night off coming up and have a girl’s night in where we
teach Frankie here some of our tricks,” Shay said.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Peri. Almost
forty years old? It was incredible how young she looked. And I
couldn’t help but wonder what other truths were being hidden
behind some curtain of magic in this place.

Nothing was as it seemed, and if I could no longer
even trust my eyes, what could I trust?

“If you say nothing is happening between the
two of you, I’ll believe you,” Lyla said. “But I
saw the way you were looking at him, too.”

“All I’m going to say is be careful,”
Misty said. “Prettier, more powerful women than you have fallen
for him and ended up with nothing more than a broken heart. He’s
completely immune to love.”

It occurred to me that I should probably be
offended by the fact that she’d offhandedly insulted my looks,
but the truth was that I didn’t doubt it. Rend was gorgeous
beyond words and it wouldn’t surprise me if the hottest model
in the world was in love with him.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said.
“I have no delusions about his feelings for me. Besides, I’m
just here because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong
time. Rend saved me. End of story.”

I didn’t have a chance to say more, because
the lights dimmed further and the music turned up to near-deafening
levels.

“Ooh, party time,” Lyla said, raising
her voice above the music. “Come with me, Franki. I’ll
show you to your spot.”

I followed Lyla through the dark club, my knees
weak at the thought of dancing in front of a crowd full of strangers.

She led me to an actual cage with strong black
bars. “This is usually my spot, but I thought you might want to
be back here where you had a good view of the bar,” she said
with a wink.

“Thank you,” I said. I leaned in close
to her ear. “What exactly do I do?”

She smiled and squeezed my arm. “Just
dance,” she said. Then she reached into a black bag she’d
been carrying and pulled out two tubes of clear liquid. She uncapped
them, handed one to me and downed the other. “And drink that.
Trust me.”

“What is it?” I stared at it, thinking
about the shot from the other night. “Is this Red Dragon?”

“Mixed with a few other things,” she
said. Her eyes were glimmering again. “This is Rend’s
special brew for the dancers.”

“Rend made this?”

She cocked her head to the side. “Rend makes
everything we sell in here. He’s the alchemist.”

“Alchemist?” I stared at the tube.
Just how much did I still have to learn about this world? It seemed
like there was some new surprise around every corner.

“Just drink it and enjoy it,” she
said. “You won’t regret it.”

I took a deep breath and lifted the tube up in a
kind of salute. “Here’s to no regrets.”

For some reason, an image from a dream appeared in
my head. A hallway with a thousand doors, each one opening my eyes to
some new secret. Some new mystery.

As I brought the shot up to my lips, I wondered
just how far I could go before I lost myself to this new world. And
to a man who was immune to love.

You have just finished Part 2 of a 6 Part serial.

Want to read more of Franki’s story?

Buy Episode 3: The Darkness on May 26 for just 99 cents!!

A new episode will release every 2 weeks for 99 cents each
Episode 1: The Demon
- May 12
Episode 2: The Dream
- May 12
Episode 3: The Darkness
- May 26
Episode 4: The Dying
- June 9
Episode 5: The Devil
- June 23
Episode 6: The Doorway
- July 7

I hope you are enjoying Franki’s story so far. I have loved seeing the Demons world through the eyes of a brand new character. Things are starting to heat up for her, but just wait until you see what happens in Episode 3. Franki’s dream is going to get very real for her. I hope you’ll continue on this journey as the story unfolds through the next few episodes.

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