Chapter 8
Rowan
If Violet knew how dangerous this place was, she never would have come. Harsh thoughts that competed with the lighting of the club between sets. It was taking immeasurable willpower to not storm back there and drag her ass home.
As if that would deter her.
Violet had a nasty habit of surprising me lately, and she was beginning to be a sore subject for all of the shit I was having to deal with between her dad and the wild fucking goose chase she led me on.
Her existence was chaos, muddled by the choices she made that affected so many around her that she refused to accept the consequences of her actions.
It was infuriating. Not to mention, I was back in an Oubliette when I had sworn to myself I would never step foot inside one after my last bout. Oh, how the fates laugh at me.
I could do a horse gag tie to keep her in check, or throw her over my shoulder and spank her like I threatened earlier.
No, that wouldn’t work. Violet was a raging storm, leaving trails of terror in her wake, and I could no longer ignore how much space she was taking up in my head, defying my neat, orderly, mapped-out logic with each breath she took. My ward and burden.
Yet when she nearly cried to me. . . I felt my hardened resolve dissipate like the smoke curling from the nearby patrons' cigars. I could handle bratty and unhinged Violet, but the broken girl who looked at me the same way Faelin had? It almost undid me.
Faelin. . .
A name from my first life that I had nearly forgotten. Memories of her wet cough and ferocious fever, followed by a failed deal that had led to my endless servitude. All of which had culminated in my failed attempt to steal that cursed book from The Library.
What a life I had lived indeed.
I pushed the thought away and focused on the issue at hand, setting my hand against the cool marble of the bar, and feeling the synergy of supernaturals resonate all around me.
It was suffocating and deafening being here, knowing the monsters that lurked in the corners.
I may not have the same olfactory sensors as the vampyre I met earlier, but I could feel and hear the subtle differences of them.
In a nearby booth, two identical twins—both of them vampyres—were entwined with a woman.
They spared me a glance and their matching heterochromia, one eye so brown it was nearly black and the other bright blue, was striking.
Their pale bodies wrapped around the light skinned woman with a practiced grace before one twin buried his face between her thighs.
He dove down with the casual possession that comes from centuries of thoughtless indulgence.
I felt the pull of their allure as it touched on those around them, oblivious or simply uncaring, as it fed their delirium that was this hell. No heartbeats, no breathing, just the wet slide of feeding. I only prayed it was consensual.
It wasn’t my fight, so I turned to survey the room more.
My sense of smell wasn’t nearly as enhanced as my hearing. However, it was still far better than a normal mortal’s, and that was how I smelled the wild musk of a shifter on the bodyguard. It made sense for the club to have a wolf as a guard dog, but it did give me pause.
He will be difficult to kill, if it ever comes to that.
My ears picked through the club’s noise, hunting truth beneath the chaos. Behind the bar, the bartender’s breathing came with that distinctive wet gurgle of what I presumed was a siren, like lungs half-filled with water that never quite drowns them. It fit with how his voice had been.
There was one demon—an incubus, possibly—who looked just as human as me and Violet laughing at the other end of the bar; I heard the pulse of his heart thrumming in an impossible rhythm in his belly. A fitting spot for a demon that fed on human lust.
The girl Jules had seemed human enough, either ignorant or simply accepting of those who walked these rooms. The girl whom Violet overheard whispering about needing more bodies was most likely laying bait.
Setting lures for unsuspecting girls who were ripe for feeding.
I was curious to know how far depravity fell in these walls, or how those that are supposed to remain hidden seemed to refuse the natural cycle of things.
And I’m in the fucking middle of this mess, I thought.
When it comes to Violet, nothing seemed to go according to plan.
She was obviously in something that was more complicated than what she could handle, and here I was, ready to accept whatever came this way as her fucked up nanny.
I was beginning to think that the Fates hadn’t glitched when they allowed me to resurrect here, but instead, placed the burden of Violet upon my shoulders, dragging me so deep into the pit of the damned that even Hades would laugh.
I shivered at the thought. Every muscle in my body burned with the need to intervene, to yank her from this place before she stepped onto that stage. The urge crawled beneath my skin like frost spreading across a winter lake.
But that isn’t an option.
If it were any other person, I would have left them to deal with digging their own grave, but this is Violet—and Charlie would never forgive me.
If I stormed back there now, made a scene, searched for Violet.
. . there would be trouble. The problem was that Violet was too damn stubborn.
I could have tried to throw her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and she would have responded with violence.
And she would have every right to do so. You would do the same. I ran my hand down my face.
I had spent so many years in the Wastelands protecting myself that when I tried to protect another, it had gotten me a life sentence. Now, I was repeating the same mistake. I hated not sticking to my original plan. Subterfuge and simply reporting back home.
So, I sat imprisoned by circumstance, a wolf forced to watch a member of its pack walk into a trap, maintaining the fiction of indifference while terror for her clawed at my insides.
My hands gripped the edge of the bar, knuckles white with restraint, as I battled the raw, primal fear of losing someone again. I’d vowed to protect her.
If I didn’t have this fucking bleeding heart.
The music slammed into my chest, matching my heartbeat beat for beat, vicious and unrelenting.
Bass crawled up through the floor and into my marrow while synthesizers screamed across the packed room like souls trapped between worlds, sounds reaching for me from every direction.
Yet, try as I could, I could not hear past the stage.
It was almost as if there was a ward or wall prohibiting my hearing, which only heightened my paranoia.
Fuck, what was I thinking? I should not have let her go back there. She could be getting coerced or kidnapped for all I know. I know what resides in these shitholes. It’s always the same—supernaturals indulging in controlled chaos, always at the expense of another. This was no exception.
I couldn’t even imagine what they’d have her doing back there and with whom. Something harsh dug into my ribs at the thought of her grinding her hips on some siren scum’s cock. I’d be damned if I’d let these fucking dipshits see an ounce of what wasn’t theirs.
I told myself five minutes, and then I would go back there, damned or not.
I sipped my kompot, letting sweet berry notes flood my tongue. Bits of strawberry and blackberry swam in the blood-red liquid, their bite slicing through the sugar syrup. I didn’t ask for it to be made alcoholic, but I wasn’t surprised to taste a splash of vodka.
Underage serving is the least of their concerns given the type of clientele they serve, I mused.
I took another sip as it burned a path down my throat. The icy glass against my palm was cool and distracting from my guts tying themselves into knots.
Andy arrived with a water to accompany my drink and asked, “So, my dashing young gentleman, do you think your friend will dance well for us this evening?” He nodded his head towards the stage, and the bells in his hair tinkled with the movement.
The noise—his siren voice mingled with his jangling bells—scraped against my eardrums like nails on frozen glass.
I shot him a dismissive look, though I could not quite hide the pride threading through my words as I said, “She is as stubborn as a stone mule. When she decides to do a thing, the thing will be done.”
But in truth, I was not sure if Violet had the first clue how to dance on a stage, on a pole, in front of a crowd. Why would she? Where would she have learned anything of the sort? I prepared for this to devolve into a disaster.
“And to see her nude must be exciting for you.” A smile broke across Andy’s face, genuine and wide, exposing those sharp canines that caught the light like polished knives.
That simple change in his expression froze my blood: partly from the predator sitting inches from me, but more from realizing what Violet was indeed about to do.
Shit, shit. Levi would skin me and hang me like a pelt if he knew I saw his daughter. . .
The music transformed, its rhythm slowing to a seductive crawl that hooked every patron’s attention like fish on a line, including mine.
Fuck, too late now. With grim realization, I accepted my fate.
The club’s atmosphere thickened as conversations died mid-sentence, glasses froze halfway to lips, and breathing synchronized with the vibrating bass.