Chapter 19 #2
Does she know that from personal experience with goddesses? What has she been up to for the last ten years? I know better than to ask right now. She was confident when I first met her in that forest, but now she’s different. She’s incandescent with this surety in everything she does.
Except around the dickhead professor. I frown at the memory.
“That’s perfect,” Phoenix grins at me while studying my expression. “Just keep looking broody like that. Women eat that shit up.”
I roll my eyes at her assessment, and she claps me on the shoulder as we get to the front of the line. “Here we go, champ.”
The bouncer asks for the cover charge, but Phoenix just leans in close to him. “You want to let us in for free.”
He stumbles over himself as he leans over to pull back the velvet rope immediately.
“Remember,” she breathes in my ear as we pass through the door and into the pounding music.
“I know, I know, watch for the signal. Wait, what exactly is the signal going to be?”
But we’re already through the entrance and into the club proper. She walks away from me as if she’s never met me before in her life.
I get it—we’re going incognito to catch a predator. Still, I don’t like losing sight of her in the sea of writhing bodies and strobing lights that pulse with the music.
I head for the bar while trying to keep track of Phoenix amid the crowd of people.
If I can’t find her in all this chaos, how the hell am I supposed to know what this mysterious signal is?
Oh well. Now that she’s told me what to watch out for, maybe I can identify Ammit myself anyway.
Plus, I know that even if I can’t see her, Phoenix will be watching me.
A couple moves away from the bar right as I approach. I slide onto one of the empty stools. Unlike my brother Remus, I never found much point in human alcohol, so I don’t know what to order when the bartender yells over the music and asks what I want.
I just repeat the last order I heard someone give. “Whiskey and coke.”
He nods and disappears into the crush of people waiting for drinks. Before my order arrives, a woman smoothly seats herself beside me on the neighboring stool.
She chatters at me in Romanian while angling her barely covered chest toward me. Eventually she asks me to dance. I’ve always been good with languages, and this is just another variation of an old one I knew millennia ago.
I gently tell her in Romanian that no, I’m not interested. She looks offended and flings her hair extensions in my face as she swings off the stool to walk away in a huff.
My drink finally comes and I sip it slowly. It burns my throat a little going down. I look around the space as my eyes adjust to the darkness of the club. Lights swirl from several points in the ceiling. I can feel the bass of the speakers thumping up through the floor and into my chest.
As I’m doing a slow scan of the room, I spot eyes on me from across the huge, square bartop. Phoenix gives me a quick wave before looking like a completely disinterested stranger again. Ah, so that’s the plan. The bar is in the center of the club, with people packing in on all sides around us.
The night stretches on. The club gets wilder and more crowded with each passing hour. The lines stretching out from the bartop get longer and longer as more people shout for the six bartenders’ attention.
I keep sipping my first drink slowly and turn down woman after woman who asks with varying levels of confidence if I want to dance with them.
The ones with giggling packs of friends around them are easy to turn down.
I don’t even have to glance across the bartop at Phoenix for those.
Same with the women who are all but shaking with nerves as they approach.
There are only a few that I need to sneak a peek at Phoenix to double-check. One is a woman with dyed blonde hair and a blinding white smile. “Come dance with me,” she all but orders as she reaches out and puts a hand on my bicep. She certainly isn’t lacking in confidence.
But when I glance across the bartop at Phoenix, she just gives a nonchalant shake of her head.
I frown but tell the woman no thanks.
As I watch her spin and walk away, I wonder if we’ve just let the dangerous spirit slip through our fingers. But then I hear a voice in slightly accented English from my left.
“Well, aren’t you the heartbreak king tonight?”
I spin on my stool to look at the speaker with the sultry voice.
A tiny, delicate, dark-haired woman sits there on the stool beside me. She’s blinking at me from behind dark lashes.
“What do you mean?” I have to speak loudly to be heard above the pounding music.
The song finishes right then, so I can hear her sultry voice clearly as she says, “All night, I have watched you turn down woman after woman with barely a glance. Tell me, do you have a sweetheart waiting for you at home?”
If she’s been watching me so closely all night, I don’t dare even glance at Phoenix now.
There’s something different about this woman that I can’t quite put my finger on.
She has a different energy radiating from her.
An aura of power that feels ancient. I want to do what she says.
It’s not quite on the level of Phoenix’s compulsion, but I still feel the pull.
Is this just the natural power of a beautiful woman on a man?
Because she is beautiful, even I have to admit it.
My hungry beast wakens even though it knows this isn’t to its particular taste.
I smile as I turn my full attention to her. “No. No one waiting at home for me. Just no one who’s caught my eye until now.”
Her lips tilt up in a knowing smile. She swirls her tiny cocktail straw in her drink. “Until now, huh?”
“You must know you are mesmerizing,” I say while leaning slightly in. My monster yawns with interest. “But perhaps flattery isn’t the way to your heart.”
“My heart,” she scoffs while grabbing her drink from the bar. She tosses her head back and downs it in one swallow. I take the opportunity to look back at Phoenix. Her features look slightly strained, but she nods once. I know I’m right. This is her. The bloodthirsty goddess we’ve been waiting for.
I turn my attention back to the woman right as her head tips back down. “Let’s not worry about my heart just yet. Let’s have some fun first. What do you say?”
“Fair enough,” I manage to say.
“Excellent.” The woman grabs my hand in a surprisingly firm grip. She whisks us away from the bar, through the thick crowd, and onto the tightly packed dance floor.
The music seems more alive somehow as she swings back around to face me.
As she grins at me and puts my hands on her waist, I feel overcome with happiness.
A certainty washes over me that I’m right where I need to be.
I just stand there in front of her with what must be a dopey expression.
For once, I don’t feel my constant hunger gnawing at me. I’m just floating on this warm feeling.
“Like this,” she says while leaning in closer to me.
I nod because she’s so pretty and I can’t think of a single thing to say. She laughs in a throaty way with her dark eyes flashing at me. “Oh my, you are a delicious snack, aren’t you?”
I nod again because I suddenly find myself very agreeable to anything she says.
She lifts her arms around my neck. We dance to the slow song that’s just come over the speakers. It still has a thumping beat underneath that I feel in my calves. The sensation travels up through my thighs and into my groin.
I yank away from her as I feel my cock beginning to stiffen.
She just laughs again and reaches down to loop two fingers in my belt loops before leaning in. “It’s okay, cowboy. You’re a real gentleman, aren’t you? Just getting over someone special?”
“Something like that,” I manage to choke out.
“That’s okay. I’m not feeling too picky tonight.” She leans in and flashes her eyelashes at me. “Wanna get outta here? Go somewhere quieter where we can talk?”
I nod as my senses start swimming. Somewhere in the back of my head, I remember this woman is dangerous. But really, what can she do to me? I’m indestructible.
She lets go of my belt loops and links her hand with mine again. She tugs me toward the back of the club. I go willingly, curious and lusty as a tomcat. When she pushes through a door into a quiet back alley, I follow like a lemming off a cliff.
“I’m just parked this way,” she says while pulling me along.
“Mmm hmm,” I think I mumble. My feet stumble over themselves trying to keep up with her quick pace. Her hand is so warm in mine.
We’re almost to the darkest part of the alley when suddenly a voice calls out from behind us. “Hey bitch. Let go of the idiot.”
I both feel and see the woman’s surprise as she turns to look at where the voice is coming from. I spin around as well and find myself smiling when I see Phoenix standing there.
“Phoenix,” I greet her warmly. “This is—” I turn in confusion to the dark-eyed woman. “I never did get your name.”
She’s glaring at me now with clear annoyance. “I thought you said you didn’t have a sweetheart waiting.”
“Oh, her?” I point a thumb over my shoulder at Phoenix. “She’s not my sweetheart,” I explain helpfully. “She’s just my wife.”
“Why are you assholes all the same?” the woman says while rolling her eyes. She shoves me away from her with surprising strength. I stumble back a few steps, still feeling dizzy and confused.
“Hey,” Phoenix sprints toward us with fury in her eyes. “Don’t touch him.”
The dark-eyed woman lifts her hands in surrender. “You can have him, lady. I don’t mess with married men.”
Phoenix strides right up toward her with narrowed eyes. “Really? Just like that? You’re giving up?”
“I’m out of here.”