Chapter 21 Vampire Party of Two
It’s around two in the morning when I manage to get back to the dressing room for a quick refresh.
I’ve had an extremely good, extremely rare night.
Call it luck, or the number of new people who flocked to the bar to get a look at Gray.
I heard it in the back rooms in passing that someone streamed him live, doing his tricks and performing with flair.
After our private dance, wherein he tipped me everything he had made in an hour, I walked him back to the bar.
Trace was more than willing to let him return, which caught Dax’s attention, too.
As I’m rolling out of the back room, coat on and keys clutched in hand, I run right into Dax’s chest.
“Oof!” I stumbled backwards. Dax reaches for me, hands slipping around my waist and back for support. When I’m upright again, he gives me a once over.
“Headed out?” He sounds a little disappointed. I can only assume this has something to do with his many attempts at getting me to come over for another quickie.
“Yeah. Long night,” I say, feeling a little meek.
“Hmm.” He crosses his arms and takes a small step back. “So, Trace says you know that guy behind the bar? Gary or something.”
I almost laugh. “His name is Gray, and he’s a friend.”
“Friend, right,” he says. It sounds a little too smart for my liking, so I square up, mimicking his stance. If he’s jealous, he’ll just have to come out and say it so we can address this like the adults we are. I don’t have the time or the energy for his games.
“Yes, friend. That’s what I said.”
“Friends like us?” he inquires, his shoulders sagging just a little.
“No, Dax. Not like us.” If anything, what Gray does for me is a mercy. Like a nurse taking care of his patient. Still, I feel bad for denying it, but there isn’t a good way to explain what he is without explaining the whole of it. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous?”
“And what if I am?” His arms drop from his chest, and in just one step forward, he’s got me caged in against the wall. One hand dips below my coat, grazing my hip. “What if I’m a little upset you didn’t answer my messages?”
I bite my lip. “I’m sorry about that. It’s been a busy couple of days.”
Normally, this would have my stomach doing wild little flips.
But my mind races back to the VIP room, to that intimate moment I shared with Gray.
He might only look at me like a human he has to babysit, but that doesn’t mean I see him the same way.
There was something raw in that moment, when his eyes were focused solely on the way I moved, that widened the broken dam in my chest. What I saw in those crimson irises wasn’t just lust, but interest and admiration as well.
I know I’m stupid for even thinking about it, but I feel like I might actually be falling for Gray.
“You could make it up to me.” Dax leans in, running his lips a hair away from mine. He smells fantastic, like warm bergamot and rosemary. “Wait upstairs in my bed like a good girl while I lock up down here?”
He kisses me then, but I don’t lean into it.
Instead, I do my best to wriggle away and attempt to move his wandering hand from slipping down between my thighs.
This isn’t the place to be getting handsy, especially not when one of the girls can walk by.
He doesn’t seem to care. Instead, he flips the switch on me and pins my hand to the wall by my head.
“Dax,” I huff, moaning as he ghosts his fingers along the curve of my hip.
“I missed you the last couple of nights,” he whispers against my jaw.
“Dax, stop—”
Someone behind him clears their throat. My whole body jerks, alerted by the sound. Dax retracts with ease, as if there’s no reason to rush his hands away.
“Am I interrupting?” Gray’s voice drifts in low and dangerous. I right myself and peer around Dax’s body. Humiliation washes over me like a cold shower in the middle of a snowstorm. Two seconds too late and this could have looked a lot worse.
“Not at all,” Dax says, unbothered. “We were just talking.”
I know for a fact Gray doesn’t believe a word of that bullshit, but he doesn’t argue the point. Instead, he looks at me and smiles. “Ready to go then, sweet cheeks?”
Dax bristles. “Go? Where are you going?”
“A party.” I finally speak up, adding more to the conversation than just wide-eyed spectating. With a little twist and dip, I move around Dax to stand beside Gray. Within reach, he wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. I know before I even see it on his face that it pisses Dax off.
“Right. Have fun, I guess,” Dax says as Gray ushers me away.
On the way to my car, I can’t help feeling like I’ve done something wrong.
It wasn’t bad enough that he saw everything, but heard the whole exchange before he ever reached us.
My car is a short walk from the back exit, but it feels like miles.
I carry my humiliation like five bags full of bricks.
Either of us could say something to diffuse the awkwardness, but we don’t.
Instead, we walk solemnly to my car, which I find easily enough.
Most, if not all, of the cars from tonight’s crowd are gone.
A few do always linger for the responsible lot that call for a ride if they’ve had one too many shots.
“I’ll drive,” Gray says suddenly.
“You’ll what?” I gawp. From his other hand, the one not around my shoulder, he produces my keys. How the hell did he get those? I pat my pockets and he chuckles. The only thing I find in either of them is cash and my phone.
With a little jangle, he grins. “I said I’ll drive.”
“I didn’t know you could… drive.” My eyes follow him to the passenger side door. When he opens it, my mind reels a little. He’s serious. “I mean, can you? How?”
“Like I said, you learn a thing or two over time. Bartending, driving a car…” He shrugs as I hesitantly climb in. “And when you’ve lived as long as I have, there are endless opportunities to learn.”
“How old are you exactly?”
“Seven-hundred and fifty years old,” he says right before shutting my door.
The way my jaw hits the floor is indescribable. I’m shocked. Completely speechless right until he’s settled in the driver’s seat, at which point I unload every single question flooding through my mind.
“How the hell are you that old? You’re joking, right?”
Gray fixes the mirrors with a patient hand. “No joke. I am that old, in fact.”
The car starts, and I hurry to put my seatbelt on. “How is that even possible?”
“Vampires have been around for as long as anyone else. Is it really that impossible to believe that I’ve been living for several centuries?
” The car revs to life, and with an unexpectedly heavy lead foot, Gray peels out of the parking lot like he’s some kind of street car racer.
I fall back against my seat and grip the belt across my chest until my knuckles are white.
“A little,” I manage to squeak out when he slows after turning on the main road.
“You just don’t look seven-hundred,” I add.
He laughs at that. “Immortality might have something to do with it.”
“I only meant that you don’t strike me as a person… er, a vampire… that really comes across as seven-hundred. You don’t have that world-weary air about you.” I’m not sure he gets it, but I don’t know how else to explain it.
It’s like the millennial anomaly. No one born during the 90s looks or acts like they’re pushing mid-thirty to forty. In Gray’s case, he was born in the 12th century, and he definitely doesn’t act like it.
“I was still relatively young when I was turned,” he says, then adds, “It was my 27th year.”
“What was it like being alive then?”
“What? The 12th century?” He ponders this for a brief moment. “I don’t remember much. In fact, the benefit of being so old is that most of my memories from the first three to four-hundred years of my immortal life aren’t… memorable.”
“Why?”
He taps the steering wheel, his expression thoughtful. “Seven-hundred years is a lot of life to remember.”
There’s a weight to his answer that feels a lot like grief.
“So when did you meet Dante?” I ask, throttled by the insta-guilt that follows.
Gray tenses. “Do you really want to talk about Dante?”
“Kind of?” I look out the window and frown. “I don’t know.”
The streetlights blur by, one after another. Fleeting little bulbs of light against a dark sky. We’re not in the city anymore, in fact, we’re far from it. We’re on some back road I don’t recognize. I’m starting to wonder if he knows where he’s going.
“16th century. I remember because I was in Italy at the time, and it was nearing the Renaissance,” Gray says a little too tightly. “Dante came from a greedy, power-hungry family, but when we met, he wasn’t like that. He was an artist.”
“An artist?” I recall his good looks and his rich ensemble. Dante did not strike me as an affluent, yet suffering artist. He looked like the heir to a Fortune 500 company that specialized in beauty products and conventional industry lies.
“Yes.” Gray nods. “And an exceptional one, too.”
I go quiet. There’s more I want to know, but prodding for more answers feels invasive.
He’s revealed a lot, and based on his earlier reaction to my asking, he didn’t seem all that open to telling me.
The clipped way he spoke, the rigidity in his posture, it all spoke to a level of anger that I didn’t quite yet understand.
Dante must have done something awful to him to leave behind such a deep scar.
Gray slows and makes a right turn down a long, winding drive.
There are little solar lights glittering its path on either side of the smooth blacktop, providing some lighting in the pitch darkness.
There’s flush greenery and big, beautiful flowers growing everywhere.
I’m starting to think he’s taking me to some midnight botanical garden when the drive opens up to reveal a large, well-lit mansion at the end.
With Dante forgotten, I turn to stare out my window with wide, ogling eyes. “Who the hell do you know that lives here?”
The mansion itself is mind-blowing. It’s a gothic two-story made up of dark stone and a black-tiled roof.
There’s an overhang by the front door where people are gathered, bathed in the low golden light of a twinkling chandelier.
It’s like every mansion I ever imagined someone from ‘old money’ might own.
As if someone took every bit of the history in its stones and revived it.
“Distracted?” Gray’s face takes up the view, pulling me from my momentary awe.
“A little.” I say.
“Come on.” Gray offers his hand as he opens the door, a small smile pulling at his lips. “Let’s take a closer look.”
“Where are we?” I stumble out like a baby deer and fall right into his chest. With a chuckle, he rights me, and snakes an arm around my waist to secure me against him.
I can’t help but blush at the contact. He’s being very protective, if not bordering on a little possessive, tonight. It’s kind of thrilling.
“Home,” he says simply.
“Home?” I echo, but he doesn’t answer. There are people everywhere, hanging out all over the lawn and in between the other cars parked along the drive. Ahead of us, there’s a big, beautiful fountain at the center of a roundabout full of naked people splashing around inside of it.
Gray leans down and whispers against my ear, “Stay very close to me. There are vampires everywhere.”
Everywhere? Sure enough, when I glance back at the fountain, I see flashes of red, small bright points from far away gleaming in the dark. The longer I look, the more I can make out the curve of a fang, and the wet shimmer of blood running down lips and chins.
“What the hell is going on?” I whisper.
“A party for vampires,” he says, as if it should be obvious.
I swallow. “Right. Guess that explains the naked people in the fountain then.”
Gray laughs again, a deep and satisfying sound that starts in his chest and vibrates throughout his body. It warms my skin to hear it.
We pass through the front door easily, and it’s like I stepped into an underground rave.
There’s a heavy fog rippling soundlessly at our feet, and the distinct smell of incense and alcohol ripen the air.
The music is a bumping, rhythmic blast of tech and pop threaded together like the people dancing to its tune, and the only light inside is coming from the glow of those painted in neon, bathed in the black light.
It’s like I’m walking through a fever dream, lucid and unwilling to wake myself up.
“Give me your coat.” Gray startles me, shouting above the music.
“I don’t know…” I hesitate. My heart is hammering in my chest with anticipation. I want to dance, to slink into the crowd and sweat out the last few hours, but I can’t let go until I know why we’re even here.
“I promise”—he shrugs off his own, then holds his hand out for mine—“it will be returned to you intact. Not a single item missing.”
It isn’t that I’m worried so much about my belongings as I am about my person.
I’m showing a lot of skin, even if it is covered.
The sheer bodycon dress I have on over my lingerie isn’t exactly a shield against wandering fangs.
I might have Gray with me, but I’ve been separated in big crowds before.
He isn’t the only vampire here.
Gray must sense the reason for my hesitation, and his face softens. He leans in close. “You’re safe with me.”
Silent submission is my answer as I shrug off my coat. Gray takes it, then hands it over to the valet. They hand him a ticket, which he tucks into his back pocket. A second later, he has his arm wrapped around me again, though this time it’s a little tighter.
“Shall we?” He smiles down at me, looking a little too devilish in this light.
With a deep breath, I nod. “Lead the way.”