Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr) (5 page)

Him? Did I want him? Or did I want his blood?

“You lied about me getting to have any woman that I wanted.”

“
You dated Melissa for over three years, Jamison. You must have felt
something
for her. You said you loved her.” My voice trembled. I hated it.

“
No. She wasn’t enough. She wasn’t the person I prayed for. I thought I’d never be able to get the woman I wanted. I settled for her because she looked the most similar. But it wasn’t enough.” His grip strengthened, and once again, I was reminded vampires and werewolves weren’t the only things that made things go bump in the night. Witches, although they weren’t as physically strong as other races, still packed a punch and everyone tended to avoid them when possible. Except for the faerie race, witches were unrivaled when it came to magic. Through supernatural powers, they could be very strong. And
no one
messed with magic. After all, you can avoid a punch being thrown in your direction, but the same can’t be said for a hex.

“
Take me.” His voice was harsh, jagged. “Use me. Make me forget.” At his words, my canines elongated, and I wrenched away from him. I couldn’t let him see how close I was to giving in to his plea.

But he was my friend.

He was my
best friend
.

The day I took blood from my friend would be the day I would lose my hard-won vestiges of humanity.

“No. Goddamn it all to hell, I said
no
!”

Jamison backed away, and his jewel eyes grew wide, staring at me with an emotion so strong like he physically smacked me.

“Fine. If that’s how you feel, then there’s nothing more I can do.”

“
Wait. Jamison. Please. Hear me out!”

He took a st
ep away from me and nodded curtly. “Good night.”

Back rigid, he strode out of the door. I knew I should have done something, anything. I should have gone after him, but I couldn
’t. The blood lust boiled within me. I closed my eyes; regret filled me that I ever allowed Jamison the wine.

If he wasn
’t so drunk….

“
My word.
Someone certainly looks like they’ll be needing their comfort blanket tonight.”

A slim form held the door open, and I managed to stifle a groan. On normal days, I could handle this person ju
st fine, but on nights like this, I really needed to be alone. Someone like Cale Black was enough to make me want to pitch him through the nearest window.

Or me. I wasn
’t that picky who left.

My knees sagged, and I sank onto the sofa, wishing I was anywh
ere but there.

“
What the hell do you want, Cale?”

He waltzed into the apartment, dancing to a tune no one else heard. “
Is that any way to greet a good friend?”

Cale was a vampire, and while I could
’ve passed for your average woman, everything he did, everything he wore, even the way he talked, practically screamed bloodsucker. He was turned in the late 1800s, and it showed.

Tonight, he wore a long, black velvet frock coat and a top hat that looked like they should have been in a museum. In my opinion, I al
ways thought he should have been in one of those Anne Rice novels. I wasn’t the only person to think so. At first, he’d been rather flattered, but after a while, he began to whine he was an original, and finally, people stopped comparing him to Armand and Lestat.

A notorious playboy, he adored young ladies, and tended to avoid the more experienced women. I never asked about his preference, and he never volunteered. Which was probably all just as well. Vampires, after all, can be allies and confidants, but t
hey can’t exactly be friends. I wasn’t so sure I ever wanted to be Cale’s friend. Even though I’d known him for a little more than forty years, there was still something about him I didn’t trust. Most people I could read easily, but Cale was excellent at hiding his emotions—or perhaps he was just really stupid and there wasn’t anything deep to him after all.

“
I mean it, Cale.” I stood up and didn’t hide the anger that was probably on my face. “I neither have the time nor the patience to deal with you.”

The
good-natured grin vanished, and he took off the silly-looking spectacles. “Ah.”

“
What was with the ‘Ah’?”

He pulled out a white silken handkerchief and started to polish the lenses of his spectacles. “
You’re hungry.”

I couldn
’t stand it anymore. I had to get out of there.

“
Fuck you, Cale.” I pushed past him and started for the door. “Make sure you lock the door with the key on the nightstand and don’t forget to put it in my mailbox, or I swear to God, I’ll rip out your intestines and use them as suspenders.”

He called out to me, “
Such words of love will surely turn my head.”

Whatever.

I didn’t bother to answer him.

I couldn
’t remember the last time I felt so grateful to be outside.

***

The club writhed with glistening bodies, and my mood started to l
ighten. I’d get to feed and fuck. Could I possibly ask for more?

Not really.

The DJ for the night, Frankie Ramirez, waved in greeting. I did my best to return it, but it wasn’t easy with all the bouncing bodies jamming to the song,
Spitfire
by The Prodigy. Ramirez was a good guy who didn’t take it too hard when I turned him down for a date.

“
Hey, Boss Lady!” Janessa, a pretty Asian, yelled over the music. As she polished a set of shot glasses emblazoned with the club name, I snagged a bottle of Smirnoff from the ice coolers. “Pretty rowdy tonight!” she said. “We had some trouble with some Weres who wanted Ramirez to play some goddamn bluegrass! Country music—can you fucking believe that? But Langsten just shoved some more drinks in their hands. I think they’re over there, passed out by the bathrooms.” She grinned, and her fangs looked practically obscene in her incredibly cute face. Short and slim, Janessa looked about seventeen. In truth, I think she was about a hundred, give or take a couple of years.

I sm
acked one hand on the counter. “I’m going to go hit the floor. See if there’s something that can…interest me, you know?”

She nodded and turned her attention to a pair of human women, both with big hair, asking for margaritas.

I maneuvered through the crowd, and the song changed to a remix version of Hoobastank’s
Out of Control
. Ramirez was really working the crowd, and I made a mental note to give him a bonus for this night’s efforts.

But meanwhile
…I needed to feed. And fuck.

The order didn
’t matter. Just as long I got to do both.

A tall man grinned at me, the rave lights catching the glint of his synthetic fangs. I smiled back, although I wasn
’t interested in him. Dark hair flopped into his eyes, and he held out a hand to me, hollering something over the pounding music. I shook my head before ducking deeper into the mass. He looked like a fine boy, but a bit too smart. I needed someone dumb and good-looking.

Easily two hundred people danced here, maybe more. I knew I
’d find my toy for the night. Kieran and Jamison vanished from my mind. I let the music sway my body, let the rhythm pulse through my blood.

God, I loved this place.

A finger tapped my shoulder. “Pretty rocking, isn’t it?” a male voice hollered.

I turned around to face a blond extending a martini
glass to me. By this time, I’d walked to the edge of the dance floor, and the sounds of the music had lessoned to a point where people didn’t have to scream to be heard.

“
For me? You shouldn’t have.” I laughed and took it, even though the martini was the last thing on my mind.

He was roughly the same height as Jamison, and unlike most of the crowd here at the club, he was actually dressed in a normal pair of dark blue jeans and a gray jacket with a black turtleneck.

He nodded to the people on the dance floor. “This is the only club I’ve seen that has this many people on the floor at any given time. The DJ here kicks ass.”

“
Of course,” I said.

Ramirez was the best of the best. That was, after all, the reason I hired him.

He leaned a forearm on one of the many marble columns that littered the floor and smiled down at me. Blond hair fell in soft waves to his wide shoulders. I couldn’t believe my luck. He was certainly easy on the eyes. By no means did he rival Kieran or Jamison, but he’d do.

Oh...yeah.

“So, you come here often?” he asked.

“
Not very often. I came with some of my friends.” I waved in the general direction of the bar where a cluster of people were intoxicated. I smiled tremulously, and as Prep Boy’s gaze heated, I knew the prey was hooked.

All
I had to do was reel him in but that was hardly going to be a chore.

“
You know, this music is great, but I’m starting to go deaf. You want to go someplace quieter?”

His smile widened. “
What about your friends? Won’t they wonder where you are?”

“
I live close by, actually. We can get there and be back before they even realize I’m gone.”

He did not miss the subtle hint I dropped, and the smile vanished.

“Let’s go, then.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd, back toward the exit.

Sandalwood.

The smell of ashes and sandalwood filtered through the air, smacking me in the face with the force of a two-ton sledgehammer.

A witch. This guy was a witch. Maybe it was the fact Jamison was one, too, but I wasn
’t so sure I wanted to deal with another caster. Not after what I just muddled through. On the other hand, I
was
sure I didn’t want to expend time and effort just to snag another blood source.

Fuck it.

We finally managed to push our way outside. The night air brushed soft kisses along my face, and I relished it.

So what if he was a witch? Witches didn
’t taste any worse than humans.

The walk back to my apartment was quiet, his hand in mine, warm, soothing. I fetched the set of keys from my mailbox and let my victim in before me.

My hands slid up towards the light switch, but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“
What?” I asked.

“
Why bother with the lights? We both know why we’re here. You don’t have to pretend.” He shed his coat as the moonlight streamed in through the windows. “Why should we waste time that could be better used on other things?”

There was something about what he said that seemed eerily familiar, but for the life of me, I couldn
’t place it.

“
What’s your name?” It was the first time I ever asked someone their name without my lover of the night telling me first.

By this time, he was already starting to pull his shirt out of his pants.

“Again, I have to ask…why bother? As soon as this is done, you’re just going to leave me, aren’t you? So let’s call a spade a spade and just get what we both want, yes?” His voice muffled as he tugged the shirt over his head. “You’re a vampire. You want my blood. I’m a witch. I want your body. Simple as that. Isn’t that what you want?”

I stopped. “
How the fuck did you know?”

“
That this is just a one night stand?”

“
No. Not that. About who I really am.” Tonight had been one of the few nights where I’d dressed sensibly with minimal skin exposure. I could’ve passed for a college girl headed to the library or something equally tame.

He pulled his head out from
his shirt and grinned. “I took a wild stab. You’re pale, beautiful as Hell, and you trusted yourself enough to bring a guy home after having a ten second conversation with him. I figured you were either stupid or a vampire, and you didn’t strike me as the stupid type.”

“
Oh.” Said that way, it
did
seem logical. “I see.”

It seemed easy.
Too
easy. Why was I so worried about this? Any other night I would’ve played this off, but there was something about this situation that just struck me as
wrong.

But the sc
ent of his pale skin, light and nearly indistinguishable, was impossible to ignore, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Or maybe I didn’t try hard enough. No, it was more I didn’t
want
to try at all. So what if he knew? At least he was honest about what he wanted.