Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Like with the supermarket, I’ve never been to a nightclub before.
The music is blaring, and the flash-flash-flash of the lights makes my growing tension headache worse.
The surrounding people are happily dancing, drinking, and shouting to be heard over the pounding bass.
The club smells of sweat, old beer, and cloying perfume.
I thought my skinny jeans and pretty top would help me blend, but it seems I’m way overdressed. The rest of the patrons of the club are practically naked and I’m standing out, and not in a good way.
I shouldn’t be here—it’s a mistake. I know it’s a mistake, but a big part of my life now is about moving forward, and I can’t move forward with the chains of my past dragging me down. I could continue to ignore her, I could spend a lifetime ignoring her, but my anger isn’t healthy.
I’d also like to somehow stop the vampire, this Alexander…before John pulls his head off.
A twinge pinches my stomach. Nerves. Gosh, I feel so nervous. I cross my arms over my stomach. The demon…although he disapproved, he never stopped me from searching for my mother. As soon as I was old enough to understand, I searched for her online in fury, and found…nothing.
Thanks to an old-fashioned address book that I found while digging through Arlo’s desk, though, I’ve had my mum’s phone number for a week. To think it was in his desk the entire time.
I creep around the edge of the room, avoiding grabby hands, and head towards the back of the nightclub to a bar area that stretches the full length of the back wall. I spot her immediately and grind to a halt, my feet sticking to the floor with shock. Like a statue I stand and just stare at her.
As I watch her work, I fiddle with the bottom of my blouse until my stomach tightens again, and my heart flips.
She smiles and serves drinks to strangers as, laughing, she tucks a piece of blonde hair—so like mine—behind her ear.
Vampirism has frozen her at twenty-four and we look like sisters…
heck, we could almost be twins instead of mother and daughter.
I swallow a lump in my throat. I can’t force my feet to move forward.
Is this what she imagined her life would be when she sold me to a demon so she could bribe the vampires to turn her? I try to push the bitterness away, but it hangs around my neck like a heavy chain.
My mum lifts her head and our eyes meet.
A bright, blinding smile lights up her face.
“Emma,” she mouths. She drops everything and she is suddenly there in front of me.
Her hands shake and she goes to touch me—perhaps to tuck a loose strand of my hair behind my ear.
I flinch away and she drops her hand to her side. Her lip wobbles.
Oh bloody hell.
It takes but a second for me to be flooded with guilt, especially when her eyes flood with tears. “Hi, Mum,” I say with a wave and a matching wobbly smile.
She looks about. “Let’s talk somewhere quieter,” she says as she grabs my hand and pulls me with her. We weave through the middle of the dancing, gyrating bodies and head towards a door that is marked private.
When we step inside I find it’s a staff room.
As soon as the door clicks behind us, the throbbing sound of the club outside fades, and the thud-thud of the music disappears almost entirely.
They have pushed a table and chairs against one dark-blue wall, and a leather sofa backs against another.
There is also a small kitchen, comprising a couple of cupboards, a worktop, a white under-the-counter fridge, a microwave, and a kettle.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Without waiting for my answer and with shaking hands, she fills the kettle with water and clicks it on to boil.
She turns and perches on the edge of the sofa. Her hands settle between her knees, and she trembles. “What can I help you with, Emma?” she asks, blinking up at me. It is then that I realise that I’m looming over her. I grab a chair from the table, spin it around, and sit.
There are so many questions I have, but she looks so fragile.
Her genuine, bright smile when she saw me and the tears in her eyes have thrown me off completely.
She doesn’t look heartless. My stomach crunches and flips.
Suddenly I don’t feel the need to demand answers from her.
As I look into her teary blue eyes, I see worry and fear staring back at me, and it makes me feel sad.
This lady is a stranger. I shouldn’t have come here, and I shouldn’t have even thought about involving her in my problems.
I am selfish.
“You’ve grown. It’s so strange…like looking in a mirror.
” She lets out a painful laugh and licks her lips and bounces her knees.
“Your eyes, though, are so different, beautiful…I thought I remembered them but not clearly enough.” She ducks her head and looks at her hands.
“What kind of mother doesn’t remember her daughter’s eyes? ” she mumbles self-deprecatingly.
“They change colour,” I say, to make her feel better.
“Every day they are different, depending on my mood and what I wear.” I tug at my top and smile uncertainly at her.
“Urm…thanks for seeing me so quickly.” I cringe and let go of my top and instead twist my hands in my lap.
“I’m sorry that the circumstances aren’t better.
As I said on the phone, I found your number and I needed some information.
” I shrug and attempt a reassuring smile.
It doesn’t work, as my mum frowns and leaps from the sofa.
She busies herself with finishing the tea.
I sigh and continue anyway. “A master vampire is attempting to…urm, I guess, kidnap me? I’d like to find out why.
I need his contact details so I can persuade him to back off before he loses any more of his minions or his life.
There’s this hellhound…” I tug at my hair.
“I am not worth this amount of trouble,” I finish lamely.
My mum pours the boiling water into the cups, places the kettle back on the side, and turns to face me.
Confusion fills her eyes, and she shakes her head.
“Sweetheart, you’re not that na?ve. You know what he wants.
” She gives me a sad smile and drops her voice to a whisper. “It is what all wicked men want.”
Behind me, the door to the staff room clicks open. For a moment, the loud music from the club blasts inside, and I wince and rub my temple as my head pounds painfully in protest. The door closes and I swivel in my chair to eye the newcomer.
A pureblood vampire strolls across the room. A pureblood. A born vampire. My lips part in shock.
Born vampires are entirely different from turned vampires as they were never human; they never had mortal, human failings to start with.
Born-vampire DNA produces exquisite-looking creatures.
They are the supermodels of the creature world.
There aren’t many born vampires around, and the ones that are have an almost cult-like status among other creatures—everyone seems to worship them.
As I stare at him, the pureblood, I don’t see the appeal.
Yes, he is handsome, with his tailored bespoke navy suit from London’s Savile Row that perfectly accentuates his wide shoulders and narrow hips.
His floppy blond hair has a warm golden hue compared to my mum’s ice-white, and his dark-blue eyes are almost the same shade as his suit.
To me, he looks fake—airbrushed. Photoshopped. Perhaps even doll-like. Creepy.
I can feel his powerful energy and the monster inside him. On a danger scale from one to John, he is a level six.
My body twitches as if it wants to automatically stand in deference, but I firmly keep my bum planted on the seat. I pin my shoulders back, straighten my spine, and lift my chin. I watch him approach with narrowed eyes.
I instinctively know that on the power scale, I’m somehow stronger than the pureblood. Huh, well, that’s a recent development.
My eyes narrow further as I watch my mum deflate before me, her shoulders rounding and her body shrinking an inch at a time. He frightens her, even when he glides across the room and envelopes her stiff body in his arms and kisses the top of her head.
“Martine, who is this?” Huh, a game player. He knows who I am…unless my mum has other kids or clones stashed about.
“Luther, this is my little girl, Emma. Emma, this is Lord Gilbert, I don’t think you remember, you were such a little thing…” her voice fades.
That’s strange…I’ve met this guy before? “Hi, Lord Gilbert.” I wave.
He tilts his head down, chin almost to his chest, as he assesses me.
“Hello, Emma, how marvellous that you are as beautiful as your mother.” He rolls his fingers in a wave of his hand and his nose goes up in the air with a sniff.
“I didn’t think that would be possible, what with all that disgusting demon DNA. ”
I huff out a startled breath.
What. A. Dick.
I slowly nod in acknowledgement of his words.
My lips tug themselves into a small smile.
Oh dear, was I rude, not standing? Yep, definitely.
Arlo trained me how to greet other creatures, and not standing and giving the pureblood a formal bow is a real no-no.
I know I shouldn’t press his buttons and piss him off—I already have one vampire problem.
But for some stupid reason, I can’t help myself.
Mhm. I watch as he turns to the side, angling his body and face just so, highlighting his physique as if on a photo shoot.
My eyes flick around the room as I search for the hidden cameraman.
It’s odd—normal people don’t do that. This guy loves himself, and it’s like he is in another world of his own making.
“Emma has an issue with a master vampire,” my mum rushes to tell him.
“Who?” he asks me.
“Alexander.”