Chapter 47
They implemented Nala’s scenario two days before she set off for Indianapolis. I’ll be damned if she gets to ship me off… but I digress. Nala didn’t want to focus on that. She wanted to focus on what would be one of the most exhilarating nights of her life.
Although she had pre-planned most of it, Varen brought some of her own ideas to their table.
For one, she would get them a room at one of the nicest places in town – she was willing to take that risk for her.
Second, the woman had a few of her own kinky fantasies she wouldn’t mind incorporating whenever possible.
Nala brought her script back out and went over these additions with her.
They also finalized what props to use and other core locations.
Because it can’t all take place in our hotel room.
That’s where it would end… but it wasn’t where it would begin.
Nala already had that arranged by the time Varen brought it up.
There was also the matter of safety.
“We can’t get too carried away in public,” Varen said what felt like a hundred times. “If someone thinks I’m… well, we could get in really big trouble.”
“That won’t happen,” Nala assured her an equally hundred times. “If anyone thinks I’m actually distressed, then they’re not plastered enough where we’re going.”
“All I’m saying is that now is a really bad time to get taken into custody, even if it turns out to be baseless.”
“Yes, I get it.” The last thing she wanted once they started their role-play was to have Varen completely lose it because she was afraid of what others would think. As she said before, it may be one of the last things they did together. I don’t want to think about that.
Once this was all decided, Nala established celibacy between them.
She insisted that it was to make them appreciate each other more when the time came.
In truth, she wanted to see Varen squirm in desire for her.
Which was readily noticeable whenever she smothered Nala in bed and the heat between them was palpable.
Not that it didn’t bother Nala. The heavens knew she wanted her as much, but this anticipation made the upcoming night even better.
On that day, Nala took out her script and read it over a final time.
After lunch, she would depart their hotel room dressed as the wildest Nightingale Varen had ever encountered.
A bird flying free in the wind. A demonic entity without a slick of morality.
She hoped her mighty hunter was prepared to catch the siren before she enchanted half the idiots in Seattle.
From the moment Nala walked into the underground club, she became someone she was intimately familiar with, as Nightingale had always existed deep inside of her.
Electronic songs with low bass lines thumped through the walls, through the floor, and her body.
The bouncer looked at her fake ID and jerked his thumb inside – but not without checking out her ensemble from head to toe.
Nala wore a tight, off-the-shoulder black dress that tapered above the knee and accentuated every curve she carried…
and some curves that were complete illusions.
She left her hair down. Dark. Tragic. Sweeping across her arms and caressing her bare skin.
Her fringe barely touched her eyebrows which she meticulously groomed before leaving the hotel room.
Otherwise, her makeup was left to a minimal amount of black eyeliner and dark red lipstick gracing her mouth.
Considering how dark things would be that night, she didn’t need anything more.
She didn’t wear the classic heels or flats the Nightingale of The Aviary traipsed around in.
She had bought a pair of heeled boots with intimidating laces that wound all the way up her calves.
Wherever she walked, people turned their heads.
They were entranced with her simple yet effective look.
She looked like the wild, sexual creature she intended to be.
The only thing missing from her ensemble was a pair of wings.
Impractical. Instead, she made sure to pick a dress that dipped in the back, exposing her shoulder blades.
Nala used the last of her eyeliner to paint lines on her back to indicate where her wings would sprout should she truly be a creature of fantasy.
This was the easy part. The hard part was entering the appropriate headspace the moment she entered the club.
Look at this den of sin. I came to the right place.
Nala moved effortlessly through small throngs of people out having a good time.
“Good time” meant a multitude of things.
A ton of pot. A bigger ton of alcohol. Men making out with women, and women making out with women while men made out with men.
This was the kind of action she came to see.
Plus a plethora of other immoral things. Drugs. Solicitation. This place was so seedy she might as well have been an agent of hell come to take notes. Maybe I am.
She bought one drink, not wanting to get too inebriated.
It was strong, though. The moment she put her lips to the fluid, it burned her mouth, her tongue, and the back of her throat.
It reminded her of the many times she drank from Varen’s glass over the past several weeks.
Thinking of her brought Nala back into reality.
While imagining what Varen would think of this scenario was certainly hot, the Nightingale on the prowl would not have thought of her at all.
Because they had yet to meet.
Nala ran her fingers through her hair as she kept her drink close to her chest. Her eyes scanned the room, searching for the perfect target. Her character had come to this club to let loose and take a sample from the bottoms of humanity. Surely there was a specimen worthy of her time.
She didn’t have to find anyone after all.
“Hey.” A young man with frat boy hair and clothes sidled up next to her as she clutched her shadowy wall. “You alone tonight?”
Nala pursed her lips and took another drink. “Sure am. How about you?”
The young man didn’t answer that. “You’re a darkish woman, aren’t you? Yeah, I like the Goth thing you’ve got going on. Real subtle. Nothing garish. Not like the other girls I know.”
“That so?”
Aftershave filled her nostrils as the man pushed up against her from behind. Nala hugged her drink to her chest and tried not to look startled. This wasn’t like being with Varen at all. This guy had no finesse, no desire to be actually seductive. That’s my job tonight, anyway.
“Yeah. You’re really classy. You from around here? Go to the school nearby?”
Nala smiled coquettishly. “No, afraid not. I’m new in town. Don’t know anybody. Just out for a good time and to, ah, meet some people.”
“Cool, cool.”
The guy couldn’t hide his true intentions if Varen herself came through the door and offered the entirety of her fortune.
The way Mr. Suave bounced between his feet, salivating over Nala, made her think he was about to cry.
Well, Nightingale didn’t care about that.
She was here to ruin as many lives as possible. That’s what a succubus did.
She saw the guy make eyes with another woman across the room. He tilted his head up, and immediately Nala knew what was going on. “So you, uh, up for anything? Because my girlfriend has had her eye on you ever since you walked through that door.”
No shit. Some girl dressed in a plaid skirt, punk boots, and a shirt so baggy she practically swam in it smiled in their direction. Nala had to suppress an epic eye roll to keep her propriety. “I like girls. What you got in mind?"
“I think you know what I got in mind.”
Once again, this guy had absolutely no finesse.
Nala pushed herself off the wall and sauntered across the room, approaching the oddly dressed co-ed who probably either had a fake ID at twenty or a freshly minted real ID at twenty-one.
Either way, Nala felt ages older than her, and biologically they probably could have been in the same graduating class.
“Hey,” Nala said, smiling. “I hear you like me. Is that true?”
The guy came up behind her, but Nala paid him no mind. She only had eyes for the girl in front of her. “Yeah,” she admitted, sheepish, but doing her best to put on a brave face. “You’ve got a nice style. Haven’t seen a girl like you around here before.”
“Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.”
In her usual life, Nala would let the conversation drop there. A little harmless flirtation with another woman. Except she was Nightingale now, and the real Nightingale was a woman who really, really loved toying with the hearts and loins of anyone and everyone around her – including women.
Nala went for the kill right away. The girl didn’t stand a chance. She folded like a sweet thing in Nala’s arms, immediately sinking to her knees as the demonic succubus took her life force through her lips.
“Wow,” the girl muttered. She stumbled against the wall as Nala took a large step away, content with what she had accomplished. “Hey, where are you going?”
Nala glanced over but did not commit to anything more than that. “You’re not the first person I’m going to kiss tonight.”
No one stood a chance against Nala. She was a rogue on the prowl, out to break some hearts and jot down the names of every victim breathing her kisses.
When she was done with this city, there wouldn’t be a person left alive who could think of anyone but her for the next ten years.
From the way that girl clasped her hand over her mouth and looked longingly in Nala’s direction?
She had accomplished the first part of her mission.
Nala finished her drink and slammed the glass back on the bar.
The bartender gave her a wary eye before snatching the glass and nodding in understanding.
Good. He was one of her people. A man who ran a house of ill-repute so she could have a grand hunting ground.
She had been doing this for a thousand years.
The more the humans of the mortal world sinned, the easier it would be for her to get her sustenance and continue on her merry way.
Nobody could stop her.
Well, except for perhaps one of them.
Nala – no, Nightingale – hadn’t encountered a hunter in a long time.
Such mortals had systematically fallen to the wayside over the years.
Used to be she couldn’t go into civilization without a hunter tracking her down and trying to do away with her.
Now she was “lucky” to see one every hundred years.