Vow of the Vampire (Deathless Night: Into the Dark #6)

Dae-Jung

The low frequency of the bass thrummed against my ribs like a second heartbeat, deep and relentless, vibrating my bones in a familiar rhythm.

I rolled my hips to the downbeat, letting the music move through me the way it had a thousand times before.

A flash of bright white light sliced across the stage, catching the sheen of sweat on my smooth, bare abs as I lifted my shirt in a teasing gesture and grinned as—predictably—the two women directly in front of the stage screamed and waved handfuls of dollar bills in the air.

I pointed at one of them, and her friend smacked her arm with mock jealousy as I kneeled in front of her and held my waistband open so she could stuff those bills down the front of my jeans.

In a few minutes I wouldn't even remember what she looked like, but I'd remember the way she groped around in there trying to find my cock.

However, I knew the game we played as well as I knew this song, and pulled away before she could make contact.

For one, they had to pay extra for that shit.

For two, there was only one woman whose hand I wanted wrapped around my cock, and I wasn't taking any other offers.

My body knew the choreography so well I could dance this entire set in my sleep.

The drop, the roll, the slow drag of my hand down my stomach that always made someone in the audience start digging around in their purse for cash.

I hit every mark. Flirted on cue. And flashed my fangs when the lights dipped low enough that the humans would think they were just part of the show.

But tonight, my head wasn't in the game.

It was stuck somewhere else. Specifically, the memory of what had happened three nights ago in this same club, when an ethereal witch laid in my arms as I watched in disbelief as her eyes turned gold and she spoke words that weren't hers in a voice that wasn't hers either...

We've been waiting for you, Dae Jung.

I faltered. Just a half-beat, my shoulder dipping when it should've lifted, but I recovered fast enough that I seriously doubted anyone noticed.

Actually, I could probably stop dancing completely, and no one would notice.

That was the problem. The crowd was thin tonight.

Tuesday thin. Except it was Saturday, and the women who were here had come for the cheap drinks, not the show.

Except maybe for the two ladies who were still in front of the stage, one of them wearing a tiara and a "Divorced AF" white sash draped over her too-tight red mini dress.

The show just didn't have the draw it used to, not now that I was the only real vampire still dancing on this stage amongst the human males who'd taken the place of my now-mated brothers.

The song shifted into something slower, heavier, and I used the transition to slowly peel off my shirt. It was one of my go-to moves, a reliable crowd-pleaser. A few bills hit the stage. One of them was a five.

We used to pull hundreds on a Saturday. Thousands. Sometimes more during Mardi Gras.

"Come on, ladies," I said into the mic clipped to my jaw, and the grin I gave them was practiced enough to look real. "I know y'all can do better than that. I mean, I'm up here working hard for you." My hand skimmed the front of my pants suggestively.

I heard some laughter from the direction of the bar, then a small group of ladies wandered over to join the other two at the front of the stage.

A woman in a Saints jersey whistled and waved a twenty, and I dropped to my knees at the edge of the stage to let her tuck it wherever she liked.

Her fingers lingered on my hip, warm and human, her aura a muddy gray.

Loneliness and two-for-one margaritas. What a combination.

A few weeks ago, I'd have leaned into it.

Taken her into the back for my dinner and sent her home happy and full of good memories.

But tonight my skin wanted to slide off my bones and walk to the Garden District without me.

I didn't want any hands on me that weren't attached to a witch with a fondness for rainbow dresses and sunshine emojis.

I winked at the Saints fan, anyway. Old habits and all that.

For fifty years, we've been waiting for you to find her.

A shiver ran through me at the memory of the voice that had crawled out of Alice's throat. The way her body had gone rigid in my arms, first convulsing, then going terrifyingly still...

I'd thought she was dead. I'd thought I was holding a corpse, and the sound that ripped out of me wasn't human. Hell, it wasn't even vampire. It was something else entirely. Something that couldn't express the level of grief rising inside me.

My fangs punched down hard as a ghost of that pain whipped through me with the memory.

I turned upstage with a movement that was just a little too fast, away from the audience, pressing my tongue against the sharp points until the sting grounded me.

Breathe, Dae. Just breathe. Alice is fine. She woke up, and Judy came and took her home. And Alice texted you the next morning to say she was okay, and you said good and get some rest, yeobo, and she sent back a little sun emoji.

That was three days ago, and I hadn't heard from her since.

But she was fine.

Probably.

The song was only halfway through when I caught Tyler's eye in the wings. He was one of the new human dancers Killian had hired recently. He was twenty-three, with a good body, decent moves, and absolutely zero supernatural magnetism.

He blinked at me, confused as I jerked my head toward the stage. I had better places to be tonight.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I announced, cranking up the charm as I tried to rile up the small crowd, "let's give it up for Tyler, coming in hot to close out the night."

Tyler scrambled out onto the stage with a slightly panicked look, and I grabbed my shirt from where I'd thrown it and ducked behind the curtain before he could ask questions.

The corridor backstage smelled like cheap cologne and energy drinks.

We had five human dancers now, rotating shifts to cover what used to be wall-to-wall vampire.

And they were fine. Competent, even. Brogan had helped me train them before he'd stepped back entirely, his green eyes going dark any time Esme came up in conversation, like even the suggestion that he might still be taking his clothes off for other women was an insult to her.

I couldn't relate to that, because I was the only one left of our coven who hadn't found their mate. And not the stepping-back part either, because stepping back meant stepping off the cliff into nothing. The stage was the only place my mask still fit.

Or, at least, it used to be.

I shrugged my shirt back on without buttoning it and pushed through the door back out into the main part of the club.

The Purple Fang looked tired. That was the only word for it.

It had the same obsidian bar, same black tables, and the same low lighting it always had, designed to make everyone look a little more beautiful and a lot less sober.

But the energy was all wrong without my vampire brothers here.

Like someone had pulled the plug on the current that used to run through this place and replaced it with something that was all show and no power.

Elias still stood behind the bar, polishing a glass that was probably already as clean as it was gonna get.

But that didn't stop the crazy bastard from trying.

His dark beard was neatly trimmed, as always, his bottles perfectly aligned, and the compulsive precision of his movements should've been comforting in its familiarity…

But there was a mug of coffee next to his elbow. Coffee. I could smell it from twenty feet away. And underneath it, the scent of his not quite human blood, which had been doing strange things to my self-control ever since his little transformation.

"You stopped early," he said without looking up. "Everything okay?"

"Sure. Tyler could use the stage time." I dropped onto a bar stool and ran both hands through my oiled hair, checking that it was in place. Ginseng oil. It kept everything nourished and shiny. "When he tries to do a body roll, it looks like he's having a seizure. And practice makes perfect."

Elias set the glass down and stared me down.

His eyes were the same dark brown they'd always been, but there was something behind them that hadn't been there before.

Warmth, maybe. Mortality? That was yet to be seen as time went on.

And every once in a while, the faintly bewildered expression of a man who'd woken up to find his entire existence rearranged overnight.

"You haven't been sleeping," he said.

"I'm a vampire. We don't sleep, we die for the day. Totally different vibe."

"Dae."

"I'm fine, Elias."

He gave me a look that said he didn't believe me, which was fair, because I was totally lying.

But Elias had never been the type to push.

If he got concerned enough about you, he'd say something, you deflected, and he went back to polishing his already spotless bar.

It was one of the best things about him.

"Coffee?" he offered.

"Hard pass. Give me a bourbon."

He poured without comment, and I took the glass with a mumbled, "Thanks.

" The liquor did absolutely nothing to help me, but I still liked the way it burned its way down my throat and warmed my chest, if only temporarily.

And it was one of the few things I could still tolerate from my human days, although I still loved to cook when there were people around to feed.

From the back office, I heard Kenya's voice, low and clipped, running numbers on the phone.

She was probably talking to the liquor distributor, or the DJ service, or one of the other vendors she dealt with on a nightly basis.

Kenya handled the books because she was brilliant and precise and kept this place from going under even when we had no customers.