Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
acelynn
The night blurred into a haze of drink orders and blaring music.
By last call, I felt like I could collapse where I stood.
Every muscle in my body screamed in protest as I made one final trip between the liquor shelf and the ice bucket.
I slid a drink down in front of a nameless man just as Astoria appeared at my side.
She had her lip pulled between her teeth, nerves practically radiating off her.
“Please don’t kill me,” she whispered, almost too quietly to hear her.
I turned, quirking a brow in question and bit back the sarcastic remark as I came upon her pale face.
“I think the only thing I’d kill you for right now is if you told me we were staying open for another hour.” I winked at her, trying to lighten the mood. She began to pick at the skin by her fingernails, causing my brows to furrow at her. “Astoria, what’s up?”
“We…do a last—” The music swallowed her words.
“Huh?”
She sighed, throwing her hands down. “We do a last call dance.”
“A dance?” I asked, my eyes bugging out of my head.
If she thought I was getting up on that bar to make a fool out of myself, she had another think coming. Astoria smiled awkwardly, and I had my answer. I slammed my hands onto the bar top.
“Absolutely not. You’d have to drag me up there kicking and screaming, Astoria Mordred.”
“And the claws have returned,” Kaius’s amused voice called out behind me.
I spun around to find him leaning against the bar, his smile practically glowing under the neon lights. He tapped a finger on the counter, the metal of his Knight’s ring clicking against the wood.
“I guess I was wrong about you, kitten.”
“Wrong about what?” I snapped, angling my body toward him.
“I just figured the girl who came flying into the roundtable without an ounce of fear, and stood up to their king with a mouth that could get her killed, wouldn’t be scared to dance on a bar in front of a crowd that won’t remember it tomorrow,” Kaius said, his eyes sparkling with an emotion I couldn’t quite place.
He took a slow sip of his beer and shrugged. “Guess I was wrong.”
There was something in his taunts that lit a fire in me.
There was no way in hell that I was going to let Kaius think I would back down from a challenge, even if it was over a simple dance on top of his bar.
If there was one thing he was going to learn about the true me, it’s that I had a stubborn need to prove myself to others.
I turned to Astoria. “Is there choreography involved in this last call dance?”
“Not tonight,” she squealed before grabbing hold of my wrist and dragging me toward the end of the bar. Astoria scrambled up the three steps with practiced ease.
I hesitated for a moment. The knots in my stomach were tightening.
My gaze traveled back to where Kaius still stood.
Nolan was now talking to him, but his eyes were laser-focused on me.
He raised his beer in a mock toast before taking another sip from the bottle.
That was the last push I needed to clear the steps and make my appearance on the bar’s platform.
The stage lights were blinding, and I had to squint to get my bearings.
Astoria reached out a single hand toward me to beckon me closer to her, hips already swinging to the beat of a remixed pop song.
I took a breath, letting the beat of the music fill me with the confidence I was severely lacking.
A kaleidoscope of colors spun over the bar top in waves, the wood glowing beneath our feet.
Astoria spun me around once, sending me in front of her and closer to Kaius, watching like I was the only thing worth seeing in the room.
“Loosen up,” Astoria shouted over the music. She stepped closer to me, placing her hands on my hips to steer my movements. Her spine pressed against mine as we moved in sync, the crowd erupting with cheers.
A blur of movement to my right caught my eye.
The dark-haired girl, who I had learned was named Josie, jumped on the bar a few feet in front of us.
Her body swayed with an effortless grace as she threw her head back, hair cascading in wild waves around her shoulders, blue streaks standing out against the dark ink that littered her pale skin as she lost herself to the rhythm.
Every roll of her hips was a testament to her way of capturing every eye in this room.
Except for one set. No, that set was on me, and it made the breath in the back of my throat hitch as I continued my dance.
It was an intoxicating feeling to be seen like that.
To be admired. Even if it was from someone I’d rather see staring up at me from a body bag.
There was still no denying the spark that burned hot between the King of Lovelen and me.
Not when I could still feel where his hand had been earlier, the ghost of it on my thigh like a brand.
Kaius Mordred was dangerous, magnetic, and far too tempting.
And I couldn’t afford to fall for the King of Lovelen.
The song began to wind down when Astoria stopped her to reach behind the bar. I blinked in confusion and looked over my shoulder at her. “What are you doing?”
She popped back up with a bottle of vodka and a matchbox in hand. “Let’s give ’em the grand finale, Ace.”
I opened my mouth to object, but she was already shoving the bottle into my hands. My head whipped to where Kaius had been standing all night, but he was suddenly nowhere to be found.
“Saturate the top of the bar, but don’t fall, and watch for Josie. She’ll be pouring final shots.”
My eyes flickered between the bottle and the glossy bar. I paused, then flipped the bottle upside down, letting the vodka spill across the wood as I walked. My feet weaved around Josie as she lined up small shots of Patrón in front of a group of waiting customers.
At the far end of the bar, I turned the bottle upright, heart hammering with giddy anticipation.
Astoria was at the opposite end now, and I watched as she struck a single match.
Her eyes twinkled with excitement as she dropped it.
The flames hissed, dancing over the vodka trail as it crawled toward me.
Cheers erupted as patrons took their shots just before the fire got to them.
I watched in awe as the flames slithered closer to me. And then I realized my toes were standing directly in the vodka, and if that flame hit them, I was going to get burned.
Shit.
“Jump,” a man’s voice called out to me.
I twisted, taking the outstretched hand, and leaping blindly toward him just as the blaze got to me, the heat licking up the back of my legs.
I landed hard against the person, stumbling on my feet as I tried to find my bearings.
The man’s hand anchored at my waist, keeping me from falling on my ass.
I sucked in a shaky breath, my mind wandering to how close of a call that was before looking toward who had helped me, to find Nolan standing inches away from me, one hand firmly resting on my hip.
“Are you okay?” Nolan asked, a bright smile shining down at me. He chuckled once as a shadow loomed over the two of us. “Maybe keep the flames to second nights, Tor.”
“And where would the fun in that be?” Astoria called down to us.
“Fun? I don’t know what your idea of fun is, but mine doesn’t include scraping up a freshly crisped Acelynn off our bar top.” Nolan shook his head at the girl. “She seems like she would be hard to remove, like mold or some kind of flesh-eating bacteria.”
I stepped away from Nolan, hand swatting at his chest at his comment. “Hey, you both love having me around. If you didn’t, I would have been sent to that shady motel to fend for myself last night.”
“Eh.” Astoria shrugged at me as she bent at the knee to come closer to the two of us. “I needed to fix my record when it comes to who I have dragged through here. A stray turned permanent employee is a personal best for me.”