Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (26 page)

I was sure the more serious conversations were
happening back in the shadowy booths and in the darkness of the
second floor tables, but I liked the energy up here away from the
darker places. I liked the neon glow of the bar and the way I could
see everything happening out on the dance floor.

I also liked the fact that no one could come up
and threaten me in front of everyone. I felt safer up here.

The people who crowded around the bar were like
most customers at bars I’d worked in the past, here to have a
good time and be around friends and people who were like them.

People like me.

“Where’s Rend?” A man wearing a
black baseball cap leaned across the bar near me. From what I could
see of his face under the cap, he was handsome.

I moved toward him, the mention of Rend’s
name sending an involuntary flare of heat though my middle. “I’m
not sure,” I said. I glanced around the crowded room, but
didn’t spot him anywhere. “I don’t see him. Wait
here just a second.”

Azure had barely spoken two words to me all night.
She’d mostly kept to her side of the bar all night, only coming
over when someone requested one of the more complicated drinks and
she had to get into the cabinet behind me. She would know what to do,
though, and possibly where to find Rend.

“Hey, the guy in the black hat down there is
looking for Rend,” I said, walking over to where she was openly
flirting with a group of guys at the end of the bar. “Do you
know where he is?”

She sighed audibly. “Do you?”

I bit back a sarcastic reply and played nice.
“What should I tell this guy, then?”

“That's Silas,” she said, waving to
him. “I’ll go see if I can find Rend. Tell him to hang on
to his britches.”

“Thanks.”

I asked Silas to wait here while Azure went to see
if she could find Rend. I served a few customers who all wanted Red
Dragon. A few minutes later, Rend appeared on the other side of the
bar and shook the man’s hand. They half-embraced, clapping each
other on the back.

The pure smile that spread across Rend’s
face mesmerized me. I’d never seen him so joyful. He always
seemed either angry or amused or passionate, but this was a new side
to him. The smile animated him, and I was struck by the intense
desire to someday see him smile at me that way.

Watch yourself, kiddo.

Forcing myself not to care was an exercise in
futility. He was magnetic. I was drawn to him despite myself. No
amount of logic could keep me from wanting him, and I might as well
accept that.

As I looked up from pouring another shot to a new
customer, I knew honestly and completely that I was falling for him.

I was falling for a freaking vampire. What the
hell was wrong with me?

“He’s beautiful when he’s happy,
isn’t he?”

Azure stood next to me, mixing some new concoction
that glowed bright pink in the glass.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I
said. I don’t even know why I denied it. She’d obviously
seen me staring at him like a lovestruck schoolgirl.

She laughed. “Okay,” she said. “But
just so you know, whatever it is you think the two of you have, it
isn’t going to end well for you.”

I bristled. Who was she to tell me what Rend and I
had?

“I know you don’t believe me, but
nothing happened the other morning,” I said. I had no idea why
I wanted her to believe nothing had happened between us when
something obviously had. She brought out the worst in me. “He’s
just trying to protect me. So whatever bug you have up your ass about
it can just die a slow, painful death. There’s nothing to be
jealous about.”

Her eyes widened and both of her eyebrows raised.
“You think I’m jealous of you?” She threw her head
back and laughed. “Girly, you’ve been here what? Three or
four days? I’ve been with Rend for decades, working right here
beside him every minute of every day. Trust me, I’m not jealous
of you.”

Decades? I swallowed and glanced back at Rend. If
he was a vampire, that also meant he was old. Possibly centuries old.
If she’d been with him that long, maybe she did know a lot more
about him than I did.

The thought unnerved me.

“Then why are you so intent on making me
feel like I don’t belong here?” I asked. “I’ve
been nothing but nice to you and you keep coming back at me with
anger and sarcasm, like I don’t matter.”

“Oh, you matter,” she said, finishing
the mixture and using a clear glass rod to stir it around. “Just
not the way you think you matter.”

She replaced the bottles she’d taken from
the cabinet and returned to her side of the bar to deliver the drink
to a beautiful blond woman wearing a hot pink dress that matched the
color of the drink exactly. I couldn’t help wondering what the
special drink would make her feel. The woman leaned over the bar and
planted a kiss on Azure’s cheek, then slid her a hundred-dollar
bill.

I glanced back at Rend. He was still standing with
the handsome man in the black hat, smiling and laughing. I couldn’t
hear what they were saying, but they were obviously old friends.

Azure’s words kept playing in my head like a
broken record. What did she even mean by that? What way did I matter,
then?

A woman leaned over the bar and asked for a shot
of Red Dragon and I held up a finger and told her I’d be right
back. I wiped my hands off on a towel and threw it back down on the
shelf beneath the bar, then marched over to where Azure had resumed
her flirting with the group of guys who’d been lingering around
her all night.

“What exactly did you mean by that?” I
asked. I knew I sounded like a petulant child demanding an
explanation, but I didn’t care.

“Excuse me, guys,” she said, throwing
them a smile. “I’ll be right back.”

She turned to me, her head leaning to one side and
her hand on her hip.

“What did you mean by I matter, but not the
way I think?” I was almost more scared than angry.

“Look, I know Rend better than someone like
you ever will,” she said. “He’s been through things
your tiny brain can’t even imagine, and he escaped all that
when he created Venom. This club is his life and he cares more about
what he’s built here than anything else in this world or the
next.”

As she spoke, I bit down on the inside of my lip,
the pain anchoring me so that I didn’t get emotional or let her
words tear me apart.

“He doesn’t do anything to risk this
club,” she said. “Sure, he may stick his neck out
sometimes to help one of us out or to get someone like you out of
trouble, especially when he sees great potential in someone or he
senses their brokenness. But he never, and I mean never, risks his
heart.”

My heart thumped in my chest and I breathed in
slowly as she spoke.

“Whatever happened—or didn’t
happen—between you two has nothing to do with Rend falling in
love with you.”

“I never said anything about love.”

“I see the way you look at him like a little
lost puppy dog looking for someone to save her. I see that heady mix
of panic and desire flash through your eyes when you look at him.
You’re not fooling anyone,” she said, shaking her head.
“But don’t you even think for a second he’s going
to return that affection. Rend doesn’t fall in love. Period.
He’s incapable of love. At least the kind you’re looking
for.”

I regretted coming over here to talk to her. I
never should have even let her know I gave a shit about what she had
to say. I wished I had the nerve to just turn around and walk away
and not listen to another word of this, but I couldn’t. I
needed to know. I needed to hear this so I would stop hoping for
something that would never happen.

“What I meant when I said you don’t
matter in the way you think is that you’ve somehow convinced
yourself there’s a chance with him and that if you could just
break through that hard outer shell of his, you’ll find a soft,
loving boyfriend on the inside,” she said. “I’m
telling you this for your own good before you end up with your heart
broken into a million pieces. If he’s done anything to make you
think he cares for you, or if he’s giving you a taste of what
it would be like to be with him, he’s doing it for one reason
and one reason only. To get you wrapped so tight around his little
finger you wouldn’t dream of taking a single step without his
permission or acceptance.

“Because if there’s one thing I know
for sure, it’s that Rend will do anything to make sure his club
stays exactly the way it is. He’ll do whatever it takes and
hurt whoever he has to in order to protect what he’s built
here.”

“I don’t understand what protecting
the club has to do with me,” I said. My mouth was dry.

“I thought you said you were smart?”
she said, taking a few steps into my personal space. “Do I
really have to spell this out for you? You show up here because you
were invited by some anonymous stranger. You’re threatened by a
guy who works for one of the most dangerous vampires in existence—a
vampire who wouldn’t think twice about just taking any witch he
wanted from the safety of her own bed in the middle of the night
while she was sleeping. You’re the descendant of one of the
most evil witches who ever walked this earth. All these things lead
to one conclusion. Have you figured out what that is yet?”

My hands trembled and I pressed them hard against
my legs to make them stop. I hadn’t realized he’d been
keeping Azure in the loop about me. It was unsettling.

“My blood is valuable,” I said.

“Ah, so you’re not entirely stupid,”
she said. “Yes, your blood is extremely valuable, which means
you matter to a lot of people right now. Some evil and some just
looking to profit from you in some way. Which do you think Rend is?”

I swallowed, the realization of what she was
saying finally soaking in. I bit down harder on the inside of my lip
tasting the sting of blood as my teeth pierced the sensitive skin.

“The truth isn’t always easy to hear,
but I’m telling you this for your own good, Franki.” She
moved in closer, her face uncomfortably close to mine. “Because
I don’t want you to ever think for one second that you’re
anything more than currency to him.”

The room around me began to spin, throwing me
off-balance internally. Anger and regret and disappointment swirled
around me and the slightest wisp of wind blew across my skin.

Breathe, little bird.

I breathed in through my nose, filling my lungs
with air, but my heart continued to pump faster.

Currency.

My blood was valuable, which meant Rend only cared
what he could get for me in trade or negotiation, anything to keep
the Devil, one of the only vampires he feared, from destroying
everything he’d built.

He’d all but told me this himself, but I had
failed to connect the dots.

Was this really all just a game to him? Were we
back to this?

Azure didn’t even bother to wait for a
response from me. She casually grabbed a clean glass from the stack
and poured a shot of Blue Frost, filling the glass to the rim so that
some of it spilled out onto the floor at her feet.

She shoved it toward me, the neon liquid sloshing
onto my shirt. “Do yourself a favor,” she said. “Drink
some of this. Get some clarity before you end up making some huge
mistakes that put us all in danger.”

I wanted to throw it in her face, but instead I
took it from her. My hand trembled slightly as I held it, but I
didn’t drink it. Not yet.

Azure rolled her eyes and turned around, going
right back to her friends without missing a beat, as if she hadn’t
just turned my entire world upside-down all over again.

I wanted to leave. To walk away from this place
and never look back, but in the space of a few short days, my life
had become so entangled in this new world it felt like there was no
way out.

Or at least no way out alive.

I couldn’t leave. Even if Rend had only
kissed me to try to convince me to stay or to drag me deeper under
his spell, he was still the only one who could offer me any kind of
protection from the evil that wanted to destroy my life.

I needed to stay strong.

I thought I had faced dangers in my life before
this, but my life since receiving those black roses had brought new
meaning to the word danger. There was so much darkness surrounding me
now, maybe the only way out was to start looking for the light.

And right now, the light meant taking the veil
from my eyes and seeing things for what they really were.

I downed the shot of Blue Frost, a cold chill
spreading through my body like ice through my veins.

I closed my eyes and held onto the edge of the bar
as the magic worked its way through my system. I felt my head begin
to clear and my skin cool. My heartbeat slowed back down to normal,
control restored.

I opened my eyes, ready to find my way out of the
darkness.

“Red Dragon.”

A guy at the far end of the bar snapped his
fingers at me, and when I glanced his way, he held up three fingers
and tapped them on the top of the bar.

Normally, snapping your fingers at me will get you
damn slapped in your face. Tonight, though, with the shot of Blue
Frost cooling me down, I offered him a smile instead.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three other
previous customers step to the bar and look my way expectantly. The
clarity of mind the potion provided gave me access to memories I
never would have been able to recall without it. I remembered each
customer and exactly what they’d ordered. Even without looking
directly at them, I could tell from the angle and tension in their
bodies that they weren’t coming to order something different.

I lined six glasses up on the bar and poured from
two bottles at the same time, my brain working on extra channels,
processing the weight and pour of each liquid with no effort.