Chapter Thirteen
Gangsta rap pounded out of Underbelly’s legendary sound system, but it was the scent that hit Dominic like an uppercut. Perfume and cologne, musk and sweat. Beer, wine, top-shelf liquor.
Sex.
“Thanks so much for celebrating with me,” Mila said. They walked single file through the metal detector, then joined hands as they entered the club.
“Hey, it’s not every day someone gets such a nice promotion. Of course we have to celebrate.” Though when Mila had called him with the news, celebrating had been the very last thing on his mind.
His father had tried to shift earlier that day. It hadn’t gone well.
After the doctors left his hospital room, his dad, face etched with fatigue and hair damp with sweat, had gestured him closer to the bed. “I know I can count on you to do the right thing when the time comes.” What the fuck did that mean? Just as he’d been about to ask, a team of too-cheerful nurses had come in to bathe his father, and see to his bladder and bowel needs.
He’d never been so glad to leave a room in his life. His father deserved a better son.
“I love Guilty Pleasures night,” Mila said.
She wasn’t the only one. Once a month, Sasha Sebastiani let her freak flag fly, pleasing herself and everyone else with her eclectic music choices. The place was packed. The mass of writhing bodies overflowed the dance floor; people were dancing on the stage. Up on the second and third floors, all the tables were full, and people who couldn’t find seats were wedged into spaces along the balcony rails. Every chair, table, booth, and banquette was taken, and the area around the nearest bar looked like a rugby scrum. “Back bar?” he half-hollered into her ear. “There might be fewer people back there.” She nodded. Grasping her hand more firmly, he shouldered his way through the crowd.
“Hey, Dom.”
He turned toward the raised voice. Over near the wall, some buddies from work sipped beer. “Hey,” he called back, waving but not stopping. Their brows lifted when they saw whose hand he held. Craned even higher when they noticed what she was wearing.
Never in a million years would he have guessed that Mila Stanton owned a pair of leather pants, much less that she’d look so fucking hot wearing them. She wasn’t wearing a bra, either. Her tiny breasts shifted beneath the silky, long-sleeved blouse, and her nipples jutted against the fabric. In a club where there was so much skin on display, somehow she, fully covered, was the one who made him want to howl and rut. Her scent, a mysterious combination of shampoo, leather, and pheromones, grabbed him by the balls.
Her fingers tightened around his.
Why was she here with him? Whatever the reason, he wasn’t about to question his luck.
The crowd thinned as they approached the back bar, and he soon saw the reason why. The big table located adjacent to the bar was crawling with Underworld Council members and their bondmates. Before he realized what was happening, a man and a woman who hadn’t been there a second ago blocked their path. He, Mila, and the people walking alongside them found themselves redirected to a path well away from the table.
Security. Very subtle, very slick—and given the importance of the people who sat at that table, very, very smart.
How many people knew he was responsible for putting that fearsome expression on Lukas Sebastiani’s face? With his heavily pregnant bondmate at his side, the big man positively radiated menace.
“There,” Mila suddenly said, pointing at an opening that had appeared at the bar.
He bulldozed his way into the gap. “What would you like to drink?”
“Tequila shot, please. ”
He ordered two. As they waited, Mila tucked herself under his arm and told him about her new office. “It has a door! And bookshelves! And a leather chair!” As she spoke, he took occasional glances at the big table. Sebastiani’s attention was glued to his bondmate. Seated at Scarlett Fontaine’s other side, Jack Kirkland coolly eyed the crowd. Behind Jack, Antonia Sebastiani swayed to the music, her arms looped around the waist of a woman with silver lips and a punky crew cut. The rest of the table—Bailey Brown, Rafe Sebastiani, Lorin Schlessinger, and her bondmate, Gabe Lupinsky—talked, drank, and laughed up a storm. In a massive case of the randoms, Chadden, the vampire chef, sat next to Bailey Brown. His hand rested on the hip of the curvy brunette using his thigh as a chair.
Tia Quinn, socializing and sucking up instead of speaking truth to power.
A spike of rage hammered him. Lukas Sebastiani suddenly angled his head, his nostrils flaring.
Shit.
“Dominic?” Mila pointed to their shots, now sitting on the bar.
Calm down. He paid for the drinks, handed her one of the small glasses, then lifted his in a toast. “To your well-deserved promotion.”
Mila laughed. “You don’t know whether it’s well-deserved or not.”
“Of course I know.” She had beauty and brains, something it paid to remember. “Skol.” He tossed back the shot, savoring the smooth, silky burn. “That’s good.”
“Right?” After a tiny, testing sip, she slammed the shot. After a gasp, she flashed him a happy grin.
Looked like the woman could handle her liquor.
“Let’s dance,” she said.
He set the empty glasses on the bar, then led her toward the packed dance floor. As they melted into the crowd, the music slowed to the lazy, sexy grind that seemed to be Sasha Sebastiani’s specialty.
Mila wound her arms around his neck, flattening her breasts against his chest. “Finally,” she murmured against his ear. “An excuse to get my hands on you in public.”
Excitement sizzled under his skin, and he draped his arms around her narrow waist. She was so small, but her muscles were strong and lithe. As the music played on, he pulled her closer, losing himself in sensation, in lights, in motion. In the feel and smell of her. He was an okay dancer, but she was a natural. All he had to do was hold her, and sway to the sound. Give her something to grind against. She was riding his thigh like a saddled pony.
Beneath his jeans, he was hard as a barbell. He clenched his jaw and scanned the room, looking for something—anything—to distract himself. Much more of this and he’d come in his pants, right here on the damn dance floor— “Shit.” He stumbled.
There, at the edge of the dance floor, Jacoby Woolf sat in one of those electric scooter things, a statuesque blonde draped across his lap. One of the Beta’s hands worked the controls so the chair moved with the music, and the other rested low on the woman’s hip. Their heads were close together. Whatever she whispered made him smile.
They looked…happy.
A wave of helpless fury nearly blasted him broadside.
Mila grinned. “They look like they’re having fun.”
If the rumors were true, the Beta could barely walk anymore, but damned if Woolf and the sexy blonde didn’t make dancing on a high-end Hoveround look pretty damn hot. Dom was tempted to whip out his phone and take a picture.
He could show his father that it was possible to have…a life.
“Hey.” When Mila lifted a hand to his cheek, he realized they weren’t dancing anymore. “Are you okay?”
A giant hand was squeezing his throat, and his chest was about to explode. “Could we get out of here?” There were too many incubi, succubi, and faeries here who could too easily get an emotional bead on him. On the other hand, it might be nice if someone could tell him exactly what he felt.
He was so fucking confused.
“Sure,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Weaving through the jostling crowd, they worked their way to the perimeter of the room, giving the Beta, and the big table in the back, a very wide berth. They walked toward the exit. When the doors closed behind them, leaving them in the lobby of the Sebastiani Building, there was sudden, blessed silence.
Mila sidled close, her lips grazing his jaw. “Could I interest you in a tour of my new office? And of what I’m not wearing under these pants?”
Lust kicked high and hard. He spared a thought to the piled-up laundry at home, to the mound of dishes he told his mom he’d take care of. To the hours of research awaiting him behind his father’s closed office door, and to the next set of letters he needed to write. He still had to figure out what was going on at that storage facility—
“Dom.” She cupped his cock.
Hell, if Scarlett Fontaine, Jacoby Woolf, and Tia Quinn could laugh and relax and enjoy themselves despite everything happening in their lives, so could he.
Damn it, so could he.
He leaned over, clasped her head, and gave her a tongue-tangling kiss. “Lead the way.” He couldn’t wait to lose himself in Mila’s body. Grab onto her.
Grab onto something, just for a little while.
Standing just outside the door to Valerian and Thane’s sitting room, Wyland watched Tia and Thane stare into each other’s eyes. Valerian was nowhere in sight, and the biofeedback machine sat, abandoned, in the corner.
“Block me, Tia.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re trying too hard,” Thane said.
It looked like it. Tia’s hair was up in a sloppy bun, and the curly tendrils at her hairline were damp with sweat. If Thane had abandoned machine training already, Tia was progressing at a highly accelerated pace.
“Just relax, use your instincts. You’re part faerie; you know how to do this.” Thane’s voice was as smooth as melted chocolate. Tia might not recognize the slight bit of thrall, but he did.
“But trying to repel you is like using my instincts in reverse. My instinct, my default, is to stay wide-open. To absorb, to perceive.”
“But you’ll react—protect—when you perceive people are in danger?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
Plenty of people, but that was beside the point. In one training session, Thane had identified her instinctive lever, her primal trigger. He’d mined the deepest veins of her mind, and had hit pay dirt.
“Visualize the castle moat,” Thane murmured. “The castle is under attack. The people inside are in danger.”
The moat, the drawbridge. Thane was trying to use the same visualization technique to teach Tia as he’d used with him, hundreds of years ago. The same technique Wyland used to this day.
“The castle is mine,” Thane rumbled. “You cannot succeed.”
“This isn’t working,” Tia said, exasperated. “I keep visualizing the Enterprise dropping its shields.”
“Okay, forget the castle,” Thane said. “I’m a…Kardashian, attacking the Enterprise.”
Tia snorted a laugh. “I think you mean a Cardassian.”
“Bah, they’re both toast. Protect your ship, girlie.”
Her smile dissolved. “Bring it.”
The fanciful cuckoo clock in the corner ticked off the seconds as they dueled with their eyes, with their thoughts. Thane kept his expression neutral, but Tia’s face reflected the effort it took for her to stave off Thane’s mental bludgeoning. Her eyes narrowed, then bulged. Her lips tightened. Her fangs flashed as she gritted her teeth.
When she groaned, he barely held himself back.
“Extraordinary, isn’t she?” Valerian murmured from behind him. “She’s really giving him a workout.”
Wyland clutched the door jamb with tense fingers, ready to leap. Across the room, Thane narrowed his eyes, testing, then grinned. “Your shields are holding.” He wiped a bead of perspiration from his temple. “Congratulations.”
Shoving to her feet, she did a victory dance around Thane’s chair, nearly losing her balance when she spiked an imaginary football. “I did it! I raised my shields and vanquished your Bird of Prey.”
“Yes, you did.” Thane gave her a high-five, followed by a hearty hug.
“What’s a Bird of Prey?” he murmured to Val.
“Klingon warship. From Star Trek.”
Thane saw them over by the door. “Did you guys see that?”
“Yes,” Valerian said as they entered the sitting room. He hugged her. “That was beautifully done, my dear.”
As Tia talked with Val and Thane, spilling her unique brand of faerie-dust charm over the men, Wyland focused on the line of sweat darkening her T-shirt along the spine. Yes, what they’d seen was a great start, but Thane had given her advance warning. Once Tia could reliably repel a surprise attack, she’d be less susceptible to being thralled by older, stronger vampires. And then the real work would start, with her learning how to shield her thoughts from someone with whom she shared a blood bond.
Training he could assist with, because she’d shared her blood with him.
Across the room, Thane’s eyes danced.
Tia approached him. She was tired, but healthily so, exhilarated by her accomplishment. Grasping his tie, she pulled his head down and kissed him—just a light kiss, a gentle meeting of pursed lips. As if touching and kissing him in front of his family was something that happened every day.
“Hello,” she said softly.
“Hello.” He could still smell Chadden on her body. He hadn’t known she planned to go to Underbelly, or to any of the other places Nick’s report had mentioned. Instead of staying here, safely at her desk as he’d envisioned—as she’d led him to believe—Tia and Nick had crisscrossed the greater Twin Cities metro area since he’d seen her last. After spending nearly an hour at Tia’s house in Stillwater, they’d gone to a convenience store in Anoka, where Tia had met with a young female—one of the sexually exploited teenagers she worked with?—while Nick stayed in the car. Then they’d gone to Underbelly, where she’d stuck to Diet Mt. Dew, distracted a very uncomfortable Scarlett, and chatted with Bailey and Chadden, sitting close enough to the other man that his scent had transferred.
On the other hand, Chadden had no doubt smelled him on her. All over her.
“What’s that smile for?”
Nothing he could share with her. “I watched the last of your training,” he said instead. “You seem to be a natural.”
Though she shrugged off his compliment, she looked pleased. “Thane thinks something about my faerie blood amplifies my abilities, though we haven’t yet figured out how.” She bit her lip. “Sorry again about the machine,” she said to Thane.
“No worries.”
“What happened to it?” he asked.
“She blew it out on the first try.”
Tia blew on her fingernails, then buffed them against her T-shirt. “My work here is done.” Stepping back, she pivoted. “Guys, I really need a shower. Then…” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “I’m off to bed.”
The look latched on, nearly tugging him along in its wake. It was a fight, but he held steady. “Good night,” he managed.
“Good night, my dear,” Valerian said as he and Tia kissed each other’s cheeks.
Thane did the same. “Sleep well, Tia.”
She went into the hallway. After a short pause, he heard a bedroom door open and close.
His bedroom door.
Blood pounded, hard and hot, in every extremity.
Valerian and Thane stared at him. “Follow her, you stupid git,” Thane said. “Do you not recognize a sexual invitation when you receive one?” He turned to Val. “And here I thought we’d raised an intelligent man.”
“So much for that genius-level IQ.”
He shot them both a death glare.
“I wish you’d given me some advanced warning that you’d decided to take a lover,” Thane continued. “I would have baked a cake to celebrate. No candles, of course. We wouldn’t want to burn the house down, would we?”
Damn it. He’d never hear the end of this.
Thane glanced at his watch, then cursed. “I have dough that needs my attention.”
Val’s face lit. “Are you making cinnamon rolls?”
“Just for you.” Leaning closer, Thane murmured something that made rosy color climb into Val’s cheeks. They kissed, and Thane left the room.
Wyland simply stood there.
“Why so indecisive?” Val asked.
He opened his mouth, and then closed it again without saying anything. How could he put such confusion into words?
“She’s nothing like Deirdre.”
Trust Val to zero in on the crux of the matter.
“Come sit for a moment.” Val headed for the couch. “These old bones of mine need a rest.”
After a glance back at the hallway, Wyland followed, ready to support Val, but the other man waved him off. Old bones or not, Val looked strong and spry, and his cheeks were still ruddy with color. Whatever Thane had murmured was effective medicine indeed. “Are we going to talk about the birds and the bees?”
Val laughed. “It’s centuries too late for that. But seriously, Wyland—though they may share some surface similarities, Tia is nothing like Deirdre. Their personalities are like sun and shadow. Day and night.”
It helped to hear Val say it, but….
“If that venal harpy wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her myself,” Val snapped.
“Why?”
“For causing you to question your own judgment for so long.”
Wyland absorbed the bracing slap of his words. Recognized the truth in them.
“Your dedication to our people, and the decisions you make on their behalf, are impeccable. The work you do to protect our culture’s history, and to ensure our species’ survival, is undeniable. But your personal life has been a barren wasteland for far too long.”
“That’s a little strong. I have—”
“Friends? Family? Work colleagues? Of course you do.” Val waved them off with a flick of his wrist. “But a lover? Ah, Wyland…a lover helps fill those dark, empty spaces. Believe me, the centuries are easier to bear with a partner at your side.”
A partner? “Easy for you to say,” he grumbled. “You and Thane have been together for centuries. You have history. He’s proven himself trustworthy time and time again.”
“Because I gave him a chance when we first met!”
He couldn’t remember the last time Val had raised his voice, or flashed his fangs, in anger. Val’s cheeks were cherry red, and a vein throbbed in his left temple. Calm him down. “I’m listening.”
“Stop looking at me like I’m about to keel over,” Val snapped. “I’m not going to die tonight.”
Silence.
“Damn it, Wyland, you’ve sipped from the girl. If there was a single self-serving thought in her head, you’d know it already. Don’t let a long-dead woman corrupt the relationship you could have with Tia. Do not give her that power.”
“I’m working on it,” he finally replied.
“Well, work harder,” Val advised, exasperated. “Other men aren’t stupid, or blind. Did you smell—”
“Yes.”
“Good. She’s very easy to talk to, isn’t she? And the questions she asks! She’s made me remember things I haven’t thought about for hundreds of years. I’ve quite enjoyed our conversations, though I don’t know who’s going to listen to all the recordings she insists upon making.”
If Val only knew the plans Tia had for those recordings.
“Wyland, she’s passed every possible background check. She’s never published information that could put our culture at risk, never even danced close to the line. Again and again, she’s complied with our culture’s confidentiality imperative, and she did so before we came to know her. She takes her responsibilities very seriously—so much so that she’s etched a reminder on her very skin.”
He raised a questioning brow.
“You don’t know the origin of her tattoo?” Val shook his head in disgust. “Why am I not surprised. It’s a line of dialogue from one of the Star Trek movies.”
“I thought Star Trek was a TV show?”
“It’s both. Anyway, the ship’s first officer, Mr. Spock, enters a radiation-filled room and makes the repair that allows the Enterprise to escape their enemy, knowing all the while that doing so will kill him. When Captain Kirk realizes what Spock has done, he asks his friend why he made such a sacrifice. Spock, near death, replies, ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.’” Val paused. “It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”
He’d traced the tattoo’s cursive letters with his tongue, but hadn’t asked her about its significance.
“Wyland, be honest with yourself. You wouldn’t have allowed Tia anywhere near the Archives if you didn’t, deep in your gut, already know you could trust her.”
He wanted to deny Val’s observation, but…he couldn’t. He took a shaky breath. “Working with her at the Archives has been…enlightening,” he admitted. “She can argue a subject from every perspective, seemingly judging none.” Tia saw the world not in black and white, but in endless shades of gray. “She might not change my mind, but she makes me think very carefully about my position.”
Val smiled, nodding. “A good partner challenges you.”
His pulse gave a kick. “Who said anything about partners?” He was still coming to terms with the fact that he wanted to be Tia Quinn’s lover.
“We need our partners to challenge us, Wyland,” Val said, as if Wyland hadn’t spoken. “The right partner does so in a manner that invigorates. That makes you feel enriched by the experience rather than diminished.”
He crossed his legs to disguise his current state of…invigoration.
“An extraordinary woman has entered your life,” Val murmured. “The man I raised would have the testes to do something about it.”
“My testes have been plenty busy.”
“Don’t split sexual hairs with me, boy. Where are your guts, your gonads?”
“I told her about Bram,” he admitted. “And about Deirdre.” A little bit about Deirdre, at any rate.
“I’m glad.”
Rising to his feet, he said, “Do you need anything before I leave? According to Thane, a lady just issued me an invitation. It would be rude to keep her waiting any longer.”
Val waved him toward the door. “She broke a date with me to do so.”
A bump of guilt. “Did you and Tia have plans?”
“Boundary training, then a movie.”
Tia and her movies.
“Blackula, followed by an episodic television show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Val pursed his lips. “Her media collection is really quite fascinating.”
“Last night, Tia suggested to me that movies, books, and TV shows have helped disguise the reality of our existence from humanity.”
“She’s right—so stop beating yourself up about Bram and Deirdre. Let it go,” Val advised. His gaze shifted to the door, where Thane lounged against the door jamb. “Focus on the here and now, because tomorrow is promised to none of us.”
Val was right; fate had put an extraordinary woman in his path.
Now he had to figure out what to do about it.