Chapter 14 Sebastian #2
Servers materialized at our sides with drinks then quickly faded back into the crowd, smiles on their faces as we took what they offered.
“What’s everyone doing?” Kayla whispered her question after she took a small sip of the champagne she’d been handed.
I glanced at her as I stepped around a couple of vampires. “Serving you.”
“Yes, but…why?” She looked genuinely perplexed, her brows drawn down in the center.
I shrugged, pressing my mouth closer to her ear so I didn’t have to shout above the music already beating a steady pulse for people to dance to. “Because you’re Kayla McKenna, the headline act…and I’m me.”
“But I haven’t changed. I’m no different.” She glanced back into the club as we reached the curtain that led to the dressing rooms. “When I sang here and it was The Neutral Zone, I was never anyone special. I was mostly background noise while people ate or met or chatted.”
“You don’t belong in anyone’s background.” I kissed her forehead before she had chance to draw away, and her lips flickered in a brief smile.
“I need to go get ready for my set. And we still need to talk, Sebastian.” Her voice was a little harder again, but her smile returned, soft and almost apologetic as I released her hand, then she slipped between the curtains and out of sight.
I turned and surveyed the club briefly, satisfaction welling in my chest at the sight of so many people enjoying the space.
Nightfall was becoming everything I’d hoped — an exclusive meeting place for a mix of local supernaturals, and more importantly, somewhere I could keep an eye on those people.
Hopefully, the more I listened, the more gossip I’d hear.
Or the more gossip my trusted employees would hear, anyway.
I walked up the steps to my office and paused at the top, looking out over everyone’s heads. From here, the atmosphere was even more obvious. Every breath I drew was full of the scent of sexual tension and the sharp copper tang of the blood exchanges happening in the darker corners.
My gums ached for Kayla, but as I waited for her to appear on the stage below, Kyle came out of his office and beckoned to me.
His lips stretched into his usual line of disapproval, and he rubbed a hand over the back of his head, filling the air around us with the rasp of his close-cropped hair, and making the scar on the top of his head shift like it was alive. “I’ve got some information on who broke into Kayla’s place.”
I nodded and opened the door to my office, letting him walk in ahead of me before I closed the door behind us.
“It was vampires from the nests of the three captains we met with. They’re working together now.
Apparently, they see you and Nic as a pretty big threat if they’ve banded together like this. ”
“Do we know their purpose?”
He drew a breath. “They went for Kayla.”
My chest tightened immediately, no breath moving in or out of my body at all.
“They wanted to use her as leverage. They must have seen or sensed her importance to you.” He stood in an at-ease posture, his legs apart, his hands clasped loosely behind his back as he spoke.
“As leverage? For what?” But I knew. Kayla could be leveraged against me, just as we’d once worried about Leia being used to manipulate Nic.
A mate was the most important thing in a vampire’s life. Whole kingdoms would be forfeited and the lives of family gambled and lost for the safety of a mate.
“She’s a liability, Seb.”
Kyle rarely used my name, and certainly not the shortened version, and it refocused my attention on him when my head had been full of thoughts of Kayla and her safety.
“She’s too close to you. We need to get rid of your association with her or move her somewhere far away, where New Orleans vampires won’t chase her because the local vamps feel challenged by Nic and you establishing the Dupont rule.”
I held up my hand to try to prevent him saying anything further. “No.” I spoke with the full authority gifted to me by my position as Nic’s brother, as the regent of New Orleans, as Sebastian fucking Dupont with endless years of entitlement behind me.
Kyle’s eyes widened.
“Kayla’s not going anywhere.” My words were almost a growl now. “She’ll remain by my side because that’s where I want her. For now, just make sure the vampires you’ve identified pay for what they did.”
He grimaced. “I’m not sure that’s the way forward. Things are so finely balanced right now that if we piss off the wrong nest, we could be looking at an uprising.”
“There’s no other way.” Certainly, the other way wasn’t sending Kayla into some sort of exile. Not when I’d only just found her.
Her exile would be a punishment for both of us, and it would only send the message that we were willing to bend to these rogue nests. What did humans say? They didn’t negotiate with terrorists? Well, neither the fuck did I. I simply removed heads or hearts.
His answering nod was reluctant. “All right. I’ll talk to Temple and see how we can take care of things quietly.”
The noise outside the office changed and the bass-beat faded away under a growing swell of clapping and crowd noise. Kayla was about to sing.
“Thanks, Kyle.” I was a touch dismissive as I hurried from my office, but the prospect of seeing Kayla, or listening to her sing, was like a siren call I couldn’t ignore.
She drew me to her simply by being mine.
I rested my forearms on the silver-colored railing as she took her position on the stage.
She wore another dress that clung to every curve, and my dick made a bulge in my pants as my fangs pressed against my gums. Her dress was a deep black with a sprinkling of sequins or diamantés that made it sparkle like the night sky—again, it was perfect for our theme.
Her voice was rich and throaty and an exercise in seduction, and more than once she glanced at my position at the railing. An answering jolt of desire shot through me every time our eyes met.
She really was like a siren, calling to me with every note. I relaxed into the sound of her singing, and it was like every word was meant only for me.
It seemed impossible to believe she hadn’t entranced people like this before, that she’d only been a background singer.
Either Francois hadn’t realized what he had in her, or he’d known completely, and kept her in her place and feeling unimportant. That wouldn’t have surprised me in his madness.
Every now and then, I allowed my gaze to roam the crowd below, looking for anyone who might pose a threat to Kayla—especially now Kyle had said she’d been the target of the home invasion.
That put an entirely different spin on things, and I’d have to bring Nic up to speed on it all ASAP.
Maybe after Kyle and Temple had taken care of it, though.
I stood and watched over Kayla for each of her songs, but even as her last notes died away, I was already moving down the stairs to catch up to her.
Nic had been right before. A line really would form outside her dressing room door, and I wanted to be at the start of it.
The start of it and the end of it. Just me.
Me alone.
I wanted to be her everything.
I made a mental note to post bouncers on the inside of the curtain so no guests could get through to the back.
Possibly not everyone who wanted to visit Kayla’s dressing room would be an admirer. Especially if she was now a target. It was my worst fear, and my heart went cold at the thought of her being in danger.
Still, I had a better chance of managing things at home or here. She really was safer at my side. I hurried to her dressing room door and knocked.