Bite

Chapter 10

Chapter

Ten

This bar reeks of cheap cologne, stale cigarette smoke, and spilled opportunity, but they’ve got the best margaritas in the city. Whatever they put in their secret recipe– a little sour, a little sweet, and strong as hell– has kept Bex and me coming back for years.

The vibes of this place are also on point.

It’s a perfect mix of chaos and camouflage: crowded enough to disappear into the background, but not so loud you can’t carry on a conversation.

Plus, there’s never a shortage of men eager to flex their generosity by supplying drinks.

Most of the time, all it takes to keep our glasses full is a little bit of eye contact and a flirty smile.

Bex and I are tucked into a high-top booth near the back of the room, bathed in red neon light from a busted exit sign.

We’re surrounded by Saturday night chaos– laughter, clinking glasses, the low thump of a bass-heavy playlist– but my mind is a million miles away, preoccupied with thoughts of castles and contracts and a pair of frosty blue eyes that have stalked every corner of my brain since the first moment they found me.

Bex lounges on her side of the booth like she owns the place, one arm stretched across the cracked leather backrest and a straw pinned between her glossed lips. Her gaze sweeps over the crowd like she’s hunting, the sharp curl of her grin indicating that she’s spotted something promising.

“Two o’clock,” she murmurs, nodding discreetly to our left while keeping her eyes pinned on mine. “Tall, bearded, wearing a shirt two sizes too small. He’s already looked over here twice. I give him five minutes before he offers to buy us our next round.”

I glance over, catching sight of a jacked mountain man who’s failing miserably at pretending not to stare. He’s so damn huge that he looks like he could bench-press the table if he wanted to. “Is that your type now?” I ask as I swing my gaze back to Bex, arching a brow.

“My type is anyone who can afford these,” she replies, shaking the ice in her empty glass with a wicked little grin.

Ironically, tonight’s one of the rare times we could actually cover our own tab, but old habits die hard.

For years, we’ve treated this like a sport– see who can reel in free drinks first, tally wins on the walk home, laugh about the sleazeballs who thought they stood a chance.

It’s not about the drinks; it’s about the game.

The easy thrill of watching men trip over themselves for just a sliver of our attention.

And god, I need that kind of easy, mindless fun tonight.

After all the craziness in my life lately, I’ve promised myself a long, drama-free evening with my best friend and the illusion of normalcy.

My phone sits face down on the sticky lacquered tabletop, vibrating at regular intervals, but I refuse to touch it.

If I ignore the outside world, I can almost pretend it doesn’t exist.

Sure enough, beard bro doesn’t even last a full sixty seconds before veering toward us. He’s got the swagger of someone who spends way too much time admiring himself in gym mirrors, paired with a sloppy grin that tells me he pre-gamed harder than he should have.

He doesn’t even make it all the way to the booth before Bex nails him with the look– the subtle tilt of her chin, lashes low, lips barely curved. It’s the kind that says sure, you’ve got a shot, but only if you make this interesting.

He fumbles through a few arrogant, half-slurred lines, but he’s nice enough to not raise any red flags. The man’s like a golden retriever– clumsy, eager, and harmless. When he offers another round of top-shelf margaritas, we happily accept.

Lucky for us, a bachelorette party at the bar steals his attention the second the drinks hit the table. He drifts toward the sparkle of tiaras and feather boas without so much as a goodbye, while Bex just shrugs, raising her glass in a mock salute.

“God bless drunk men with terrible priorities,” she says with a chuckle, taking a victorious sip of her margarita before turning her sharp gaze back on me. “Okay.” Her voice drops low, expression turning serious. “We’re now officially three drinks in. Time to spill.”

My pulse skips. I blink at her like I have no idea what she’s talking about as I ask, “Spill what?”

Her eyes narrow, unimpressed. “Don’t play dumb with me, Taylor Holt. You still haven’t told me why you were called into Bite this morning, and you’ve been weird all night. It’s freaking me out.”

I just shrug and busy myself with my glass, sweeping a finger along the salted rim to collect the sharp white crystals and bringing them to my tongue.

I’ve been craving salt constantly lately– I guess all the bloodletting has stripped me down to the basics, body begging for electrolytes I can’t seem to keep up with.

Bex doesn’t buy my distraction tactics for a second. She leans in, straw dangling idly from her mouth, gaze pinning me like she’s waiting for the exact second I crack.

I concede with a sigh, giving up the game. “So… Fran wanted to talk to me in person about something,” I mumble, pointedly ignoring the sharp buzz of my phone against the table when it vibrates again.

“Okay,” she says slowly, suspicion dripping from every syllable. “Like a profile update?”

“Not exactly,” I mutter. “She… presented a contract.”

Bex’s brows rocket up. “What kind of contract?”

“An exclusive donor agreement,” I admit, forcing the words out past the lump forming in my throat. “One-year term.”

Her jaw drops, then snaps shut again, lips curving into a grin so wide it looks like it might split her face. “Shut up!” she squeals, clutching her glass with both hands as if she needs something solid to contain her giddiness. “Who?”

I stare at her for a second, stomach twisting into knots. Maybe if I don’t say it out loud, it’ll stay in the realm of fantasy where it belongs. But the silence stretches, my pulse hammers, and I finally whisper it anyway. “James Devereaux.”

Bex inhales mid-sip and immediately chokes, coughing margarita down the wrong pipe. She pounds her chest with one hand, eyes bugging out like I just confessed to sleeping with a rockstar or something.

“James Devereaux?” she hisses once she can breathe again. “As in, the James Devereaux? Vampire king of the northeast, sex god in Gucci? That James?”

I nod, throat too dry to form words.

She presses a hand to her heart like she might faint. “I swear to god, Tay, if you don’t say yes, I’ll crawl inside your skin and do it for you.”

The laugh that slips out of me is half snort, half shaky exhale.

“I don’t know, Bex. It’s… a lot. The money is insane.

Like, more than I ever thought I’d see in my life.

But I’d have to live with him. Be on call.

Let him…” My voice drops low, almost drowned out by the thrum of bass. “Feed from me. Whenever he wants.”

Bex leans forward, elbows braced on the sticky table and eyes gleaming like a cat that’s just cornered a mouse. “Okay, but you like it, right?”

I blink, caught off guard. “What?”

“Feeding. Him. You like it. Don’t even try to deny it, you came back to the gala the other night all dazed and dreamy, like a girl who just had a religious experience.”

Heat floods my face and I bury it in my hands. “Stop.”

She just grins wider, white teeth flashing. “I’m not judging! I’m impressed. He’s gorgeous and terrifying and filthy rich. I’d let him lock me up and throw away the key if he asked nicely.”

A laugh bursts out of me despite the knot in my stomach. “You’re ridiculous. And also… it’s not just the feeding part.”

Bex sobers a little, eyes sharpening. “There’s sex in the contract, isn’t there?”

I hesitate, chewing my lip, then nod. “A lot of sex. Like… pages.”

Her brows shoot up. “Is it gross?”

The question catches me, and I shake my head slowly. “No. That’s the problem. It’s… intense. Kinda filthy. Some of it’s stuff I’ve never even considered. But now that I’ve seen it…”

“You want it.”

My cheeks heat. “I don’t know,” I murmur, voice barely audible. “I think I might. But that’s terrifying. What does that say about me?”

“That you’re a consenting adult with curiosity and a pulse,” she scoffs. Then her tone softens, far gentler than I expect from little miss sarcasm and sass. “Tay… you’ve been surviving for so long, I think you forgot what it’s like to actually live. To want something and actually get it.”

The words land like a sucker punch. Too true, too raw. I stare at the sticky tabletop, tracing the faint ring of condensation from my glass as I whisper, “What if I lose myself in it?”

For once, Bex doesn’t have a quick answer. Silence stretches between us, filled with bass vibrations and the hum of strangers’ laughter. Then, quietly, she reaches across the table and wraps her fingers around mine.

“Then I’ll come get you,” she declares, smile crooking sideways. “With garlic, if necessary.”

I laugh again, shaking my head. “You’re the worst.”

“I’m the best, and you love me.”

I really do.

She raises her glass, the reflection of the neon bar lights glittering in her eyes. “To beautiful monsters and stupid-hot contracts.”

I raise mine to meet hers, the ice clinking like a warning bell. “To possibly terrible ideas.”

We drink. My phone vibrates again, rattling faintly on the lacquered surface. I don’t touch it, don’t even glance down, though I notice Bex’s eyes flick toward it before she deliberately looks back up at me.

“So,” she says, voice all casual mischief. “Did you land on a name yet?”

“Huh?”

“The cat,” she clarifies. “Which, by the way, I’m still pissed that you didn’t tell me about immediately. You’ve been holding out on me, Tay.”

I roll my eyes, setting my glass down with a soft clink. “It just kinda happened, okay? And no, he’s still nameless.”

“Not anymore.” Her grin turns downright wicked. “I thought of the perfect name for him.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nods with mock solemnity, like she’s about to announce a royal decree. “Ozzy.”

I blink. “…Ozzy?”

“The Prince of Darkness,” she declares, raising her glass in tribute while I snort a laugh. “You’ve gotta admit, it’s kinda perfect.”

“Ozzy,” I echo, testing the way it rolls off my tongue. It fits more than I want to admit. “I’ll see if he likes it,” I add with a shrug.

Bex smirks like she’s already won– but her look of satisfaction falters when my phone vibrates again. She glares down at it like the device personally offended her, huffing out a breath.

“You check it or I will,” she warns.

“Fine,” I sigh, picking it up. My thumb hesitates a fraction of a second before swiping open the screen.

A bright banner from the Bite app stares back at me.

Congratulations, Marilyn!

You have new engagement requests.

My gut clenches. I frown, flipping my phone toward Bex.

“Well?” she prompts, leaning in. “Aren’t you going to open them?”

“No.”

“C’mon, aren’t you curious if there’s one from him in there?”

Dammit. I am.

With a long-suffering sigh, I tap on the notification, the Bite app opening with a flourish of sleek graphics. I’m greeted with not one, but three new requests blinking at me in a neat list.

I click to open the first one, Lucien’s face staring back at me.

Sleek, smirking, every inch the predator who knows he’s pretty.

Our first time was… intense. Sexy, even.

But in hindsight, it felt almost performative, like he was putting on a show for me to admire.

Compared to James, it was smoke and mirrors.

Still, I scroll down to view the details.

Name: Lucien

Physical Age: 32

Engagement Type: Standard Feed

Location: Midtown, Private Residence

Time: 10:30 PM

Duration: 15 minutes

Compensation: $300

I swipe to the next request, a stranger’s face filling the screen.

Name: Dorian

Physical Age: 34

Engagement Type: Standard Feed

Location: West End, Private Residence

Time: 11:30 PM

Duration: 15 minutes

Compensation: $300

New name, new face. My interest doesn’t stir. I swipe again.

And then I see it.

Those icy blue eyes, that silvery blond hair.

Name: James

Physical Age: 26

Engagement Type: Standard Feed

Location: Elm Grove, Private Residence

Time: 11:00 PM

Duration: Open-ended

Compensation: $500

My stomach flips violently, sending a rush of heat up my chest and prickling down my arms. My fingers tingle, mouth running dry. I’m suddenly lightheaded, as if I stood up too fast.

There’s no message attached, no pretense. Just his name, the time, and the place. A higher fee, and no set time limit.

He doesn’t ask.

He doesn’t need to.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Bex whispers, clocking the shift in my demeanor instantly.

I nod numbly, swallowing hard.

“So, are you gonna take it?” she probes, practically vibrating with eager expectation.

“No,” I reply flatly.

“Why not?”

“It’s for tonight.”

Bex leans back, a smirk creasing her lips. “Okay, I officially give you permission to cut our girls’ night short to go see your new sugar daddy.”

I flick her a glare through my eyelashes. “It’s in half an hour. There’s no way I’d make it home and get changed in time,” I say stubbornly.

“Then have them pick you up here,” she says, waving a hand flippantly. “You have to at least see what he wants.”

“I already know what he wants,” I mutter, gaze dropping back to my phone screen. “Besides, I’m not dressed for it.”

“So?” she scoffs. “If you move in with the guy, he’s gonna see far worse. Set the bar low, babe.”

“Gee, thanks,” I snort.

Bex leans in close again, her grin widening. “C’mon, Tay. You know you want to see him.”

I stare down at my phone screen, finger frozen over the ACCEPT button. My pulse hammers in my ears, palms going clammy. Every rational thought clashes with that electric jolt of curiosity, desire, and terror coiling in my stomach.

Thirty seconds stretch into an eternity, then with a shaky exhale, my thumb presses down.

Engagement Accepted.