de Sang: Embrace Your Blood Lust (2 page)

Kate waited anxiously as Lauren considered the mouthful she'd just spewed. She knew she might have overstepped the level of opinion Lauren wanted to hear from her but Kate was eager to put her education and talents to use. Not that she didn't like or appreciate the assistant job Lauren had given her but Kate's dreams were to be a curator, or even a gallery owner, and she wasn't going to realize them by being timid.

Besides, not only was
shy
the last word people would probably use to describe Kate, this was one area where she was 100 percent confident in her abilities. She just hoped Lauren felt the same way.

Finally the older woman turned, her sleek gray bob swaying gently as she moved. "You have a good eye," she said with a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. Age had only added to Lauren's beauty. She was the most elegant and truly beautiful woman Kate knew.

Pride swelled in Kate's belly and, when a soft male voice behind her said, "I agree," she thought she'd burst. She actually felt the air get stuck in her throat and had to swallow in order to resume breathing.

"Lohr," Lauren breathed and turned.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Kate lifted her chest and turned to face the famed artist.

His hands in hers, Lauren was kissing the air beside each of his pale cheeks in turn. Lohr repeated the gesture but his iridescent blue gaze was firmly planted on Kate. He was gorgeous in the photos she'd seen of him but he was striking in person. He was the kind of man Goth girls like Kate dreamed about. Tall and slender, his black suit coat fit snugly against his lean form and his straight, sleek black hair glimmered in the gallery lights, looking like glass as it hung in a perfect sheet to his waist. Except for the eyeliner, he had the face of a Calvin Klein model: angular and etched in perfect proportions. Of course, if he'd come in looking like Ashton Kutcher, Kate wouldn't have found him attractive at all.

"I've never had my thoughts echoed so precisely," he said, releasing Lauren's hands. His voice never rose in pitch, staying low and even, like he was trying not to wake a baby. "Your new assistant is lovely," he told Lauren.

Kate's cheeks were hot and she realized in dismay they were probably as red as his silk tie, which on her alabaster complexion would be blatantly obvious.

It was a bunch of bull. She
never
blushed.

"Lohr, this is Kate Miller. Kate, it is my pleasure to introduce Lohr Varius."

He took Kate's hand and kissed it gently. "The pleasure is mine."

There were a million stories on the Internet regarding Lohr Varius. As the self-proclaimed king of the vampires, most of them surrounded his love of blood and blood play. Looking into his electric blue eyes, she didn't doubt those stories for a second. She'd dismissed the darker, more twisted rumors — he killed his subjects himself, or he was actually 150 years old — as nothing more than hype. She wasn't sure she could discount any of them now that she'd met the man in person.

It did make him even more intriguing.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Varius," she said, trying to keep her galloping heartbeat from infiltrating her voice.

"Please, call me Lohr." His pale, unblinking eyes remained fixated on her and he still held her hand. She wished she could remove it. It wasn't that his touch was offensive or anything but she was flushed enough and the look Lauren was giving her was making her extra uncomfortable.

"I love your art," she said abruptly, hoping to turn his gaze and the conversation.

It didn't work, but at least he finally released her hand. She quickly, and hopefully discretely, folded it into the other.

Wearing a tiny smile, he replied instead, "How long have you been working at
La Prochaine
?"

Kate glanced at Lauren and did a quick mental count. "Three months now?" She couldn't believe it had been that long. It felt like only last week she was driving into New Orleans and into her new life.

The Crescent City had been like a refugee camp for Kate. Dying to get out of Texas after college and hopefully into a city where she
wasn't
the weird kid, she'd considered New York but, determined not to live off her parents' money, the enormous northern city and its huge living expenses were intimidating. Besides, she was a southern girl and wasn't sure if New York was her speed. New Orleans fit. Better than she could have ever dreamed.

"She's been an amazing asset," Lauren was saying, the strange expression finally free from her elegant features. "I can't remember how I managed without her." The older woman gave Kate a warm smile.

"I imagine," Lohr said, giving her a small, sultry smile.

Kate knew she should be nothing but flattered by Lohr's approval but his fixation only made her flustered. Maybe it was his exceptional looks, or the fact she admired his work and he was something of a celebrity. Whatever it was, her heart was racing uncontrollably and she felt hot and antsy.

"Will you be at the opening tonight?" he wondered.

"I'm afraid not."

"Unfortunately my budget only allows me to employ Kate part time," Lauren explained. "I'd love to hire her on full-time."

And Kate would love to work full-time. But she was thankful for the hours Lauren was able to give her. It wasn't easy finding work in a gallery, even for someone with Kate's credentials. A Master's degree, even one with Honors, didn't get a person far in this competitive industry. The part-time assistant job at least gave her a foot in the door.

"Maybe if we sell a few of your paintings," Lauren added in a light, teasing tone.

Lohr laughed, or Kate interpreted what came out of his mouth as a laugh. There was a small smile and a rush of air that escaped from his lips.

"That reminds me," Kate interjected. "Before I go, do you want me to pick up the wine and confirm with the caterer?"

"Yes. Please."

Lohr cocked his head. "You are leaving so soon?"

"I wish I could stay but I have a second job to get to and a few unfinished tasks to complete first," she told him.

It wasn't a total fabrication, the wishing she could stay part, but it wasn't the full truth either. The waitressing job she'd picked up to fill in the monetary slack might not be the highlight of her evening, but she would like to put a little fresh air between Lohr Varius and herself.

She headed for the back room. "Good luck this evening, though I doubt you'll need it. The exhibit is brilliant."

Lohr inclined his dark head, and Kate slipped through the door and into the office at the back of the gallery. She could exit through the joint courtyard and out the alley without bumping into him. Before she saw him again, she definitely wanted her head more firmly attached to her shoulders, not sloshing around in some flushed daze.

She couldn't tell if she was merely star struck, crushing on him or something else entirely, but the encounter with Lohr had left her completely frazzled. And it wasn't like her to be so easily rattled.

Chapter Two

By the time Slade opened
Luxure
not even a half hour after Nikki left, he was feeling a hundred times better. He was always amazed how quickly the blood did its handy work. Like the first drag of a morning cigarette, the euphoria was instantaneous, if not short lived. But by the time the warm, gooey feeling wore off, the withdrawal symptoms were already beginning to fade. If he didn't know better, he'd swear the effects were placebo.

The first customer who stepped through the doors minutes after Slade unlocked them was the reason the bar opened so early. The casual Vampyre wouldn't dare step foot into a club until at least ten p.m.; it would be very un-vampire of them. But
Luxure
didn't cater to those who merely liked to live the vampire lifestyle, although it was certainly much of its bread and butter.

"Hey Doc, what's up?"

The middle-aged man loosened his tie as he sat at the bar. He was as unassuming and straight laced as they came with ash-brown hair starting to recede, and a face beginning to show the stress of being an emergency room doctor. "How are you doing, Slade?"

"Better since Nikki came by. What's your flavor tonight?" Dr. Anderson didn't come to
Luxure
to socialize, although he was always friendly enough. There was only one thing he needed.

"Do you have any more of the A positive?"

"Sure do. I'll be right back." Slade returned moments later with the warmed blood in a cognac glass. Some customers liked to shoot their blood, and others like Doc, preferred to sip it. "Beer?"

Doc was midway through a swallow and paused to savor it before nodding. He liked the strongest beer
Luxure
carried: a nice, hoppy IPA. Whereas most men tried to hide the evidence they'd been at a bar from their wives, Doc wanted to make sure his wife could smell where he'd been. Or at least where she thought he'd been.

"So where does Alice think you are tonight?"

Doc shrugged. "I don't give any details. I simply tell her I'm stopping for a beer on the way home."

"You know, you could tell her the truth."

"Absolutely not."

Slade smiled. "You don't think she'd Donate?"

"Not a chance."

"You sure? Vampires are hot right now. With a little role playing…"

Doc gave him a hard look. "Perhaps when hell freezes over. Trust me, this isn't the kind of lifestyle she signed up for."

"Even if you explained the situation…"

"There aren't enough words in the dictionary to explain this to her or somehow make her understand." He shook his head. "I don't even understand it. Though God knows I've tried." Tipping back the cognac glass, he finished the blood to the last, thick drop. Slade took the glass the moment Doc set it down and began to wash it. "If you were my patient," the doctor continued, "I'd assume your blood lust was merely psychological, Renfield Syndrome or something — no offense."

"None taken. I've often wondered the same thing."
Wondered and then dismissed. There was little room in Slade's life for doubt.

Doc shook his head. "I have a hard time believing there's anything in my psyche driving me to crave blood. I have to assume it's physical. But there's nothing I can find in any of the medical literature to explain it." He took a long drink of his beer. "It drives me crazy."

"I wish I had some answers for you, man. I try not to question it anymore."

"I don't expect you to have any answers. I wish I had your complacency, though. It would make things simpler."

"Accepting it is easier," Slade said with a shrug. "The alternative for me isn't very pleasant." He did understand where the doctor was coming from. It might be easy for Slade to accept his Vampire condition; getting his family back in Jersey to do the same wasn't quite as simple. But there was nothing he could do to change that and at this point in his life, he wasn't going to try. The doctor wouldn't know whether or not his wife would accept his condition until he told her.

"Agreed."

Slade clicked on the TV hidden behind velvet curtains, pulling them to the side as he set the remote down.
Luxure
wasn't the kind of bar guys visited to catch the Saints game but, when it was early like this and there was only one guy in the bar, the news was a nice distraction.

After the weather report wrapped up, Doc finished off the last of the IPA and rose from the barstool like a compressed spring. "I am forever thankful for the services you and Armand provide," he said out of the blue. "If it wasn't for this place, I don't know what I'd do. I'd probably be sneaking blood from the hospital and risking everything: my career, my marriage…"

"Or you could tell your wife and make her your Donor."

"You don't quit do you?"

Slade's grin was sly. "I'm told I'm tenacious."

The front door opened aggressively and the man who stepped through it made Slade swear. He might have shaved his dreads but the short-cropped Mohawk didn't hide his identity.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Darus?"

The rail of a man just grinned.

Wide-eyed and jittery, Dr. Anderson quickly slid a large bill on the bar. It wasn't that Darus made him truly nervous, the doctor simply did not like anyone seeing him in the club, even another Sang like Darus.

"Let me get your change."

Doc shook his head. "Apply it to my tab. Make sure you give yourself something."

Slade rapped the bar twice. "Have a good night, Doc."

With a rough nod, Doc jumped into his coat. Chin tucked, he slipped past a bemused Darus.

As soon as the door closed, Slade moved from behind the bar. "You need to leave," he told the other man. Tensing his body, no small feat considering how mellow he felt, he prepared his muscles to react. Darus might have a good couple of inches on him height-wise, but Slade easily outweighed him by seventy-five pounds. Tossing Darus' scrawny ass out the door would barely be a warm-up.

"Because I scared off the square?"

"No. Because you killed someone last year."

"That was an accident."

"Really?"

"You have to believe me, Slade. I didn't mean to kill her."

"You bit her and then left her on the street to die."

"I thought she was just drunk."

"So was your phone broken or something? Or did you forget how to dial 911."

"I freaked," Darus sighed. Instead of heading toward the door, he sat on a barstool. It caught Slade off guard and he wasn't sure what to do. He didn't actually
want
to throw Darus out, but he couldn't let him park his bony ass in Armand's bar either.

"I'm not going to lie," Darus said. "I like to bite and when Eve begged me to bite her, I couldn't resist; the opportunity so rarely presents itself. But I swear, I never expected her to die."

The sob story wasn't cutting it with Slade. "Is that why you bragged to Armand you gave her exactly what she wanted?"

Darus' face contorted in disgust. "You know what an arrogant prick Armand can be." Slade felt his eyebrows rise to the ceiling. "Okay, so he's your friend. He's still a prick and you know he doesn't understand our Cravings."

"
Our
Cravings? I don't think I've ever bitten a random chick on the street because I was Craving so hard."

"Whatever." Darus jerked his chin up like he was flipping his nonexistent dreads over his shoulder. It was probably just habit but the hair-flipping gesture looked ridiculous anyway. "Armand might be a Psy-Vamp but he isn't a true Sang, so he doesn't get it. Yet somehow, he sure likes to look down on us from his high horse. I was just trying to knock him down a notch."

"And Julia? Were you trying to knock
her
down a notch when you practically attacked her?"

"The Vanilla?" Darus rolled his gray eyes. "She was terrified of me the moment she met me. You know how much fun it is to fuck with mundanes when they treat you like some sort of monster."

"No, I don't know." Disgusted, Slade shook his head. The sheer arrogance of the man before him was causing him to quickly lose the gooey mellow feeling blood drinking gave him. "You know, at one time I defended you. Tried to convince Armand to deal with you internally, to keep the law out of it. But fuck, dude, you complain about mundanes treating you like a monster and then you pull the Eve shit? It's assholes like you who make it impossible for our condition to be accepted outside the Community. At some point, I'd like to explain my issues to a non-Vamp and have them
not
look at me like I'm a freak. But if you keep running around pretending to be goddamned Dracula or some shit, it's never going to happen."

Slade moved to open the door, anger making his steps heavy. "Look, I'm not saying I think you killed Eve on purpose. But you sure fucked up the whole operation. Armand has made it very clear you aren't welcome here and it isn't my place to let you stay. So, either you can get the fuck out or I can throw you the fuck out. Your call."

The expression on Darus' face changed abruptly from smug defiance to pleading desperation. "C'mon Slade. Give a fellow Sang a break. I'm truly sorry about Eve, I really am. I need
Luxure
. I miss the Family here."

"Sorry, bro, can't help you. There are plenty of other bars for you to find a Blood Doll. The Cell is a good place to start."

"I am so tired of the Cell. I want a real Donor, not fucking tourists looking for a thrill."

"Not my problem." Slade jerked his chin toward the door. "There's the door, man. You better get your skinny ass through it."

There was a small part of Slade that felt sorry for Darus. Slade wasn't a biter himself but he could see the appeal of it. Regardless of the few atoms of his body taking pity on Darus,
Luxure
was not Slade's bar, so it didn't matter how he felt. Armand had very publicly declared Darus Invisible and banned him from the club. Slade would physically throw Darus out if he needed to but he'd rather not.

Luckily, Darus reached for the door. "I hope you never find yourself in my position."

The first thought that popped into Slade's head was it would never happen. But was it really that unreasonable? He'd known Darus for four years, and while they weren't exactly friends, they'd been friendly before the Eve incident. As far as Slade knew, the other man had always been a fairly responsible blood drinker. He might take a lot of girls home and participated in his fair share of blood parties, but up until a few years ago, so had Slade. What would Slade have done if he'd run into Eve when his Craving was as strong as it had been this evening? If she had willingly presented herself and he was Craving hard, would he have been able to resist?

Fuck, he wasn't sure he would. The thought gave him the chills. He needed to get a handle on his Cravings and this Donor situation stat. The last thing he needed was his blood lust getting him into trouble.

* * * *

The best thing about waitressing, besides the tips, was the shifts always passed at record speed. The café Kate worked at served a mixture of Cajun favorites: po' boys, jambalaya,
etouffee
, gumbo, red beans and rice, more po' boys… With Halloween right around the corner, the place was packed and barely a minute was spared for her to think about anything besides her orders.

Before she knew it, her shift was up.

Hopping on her bike, she began the nerve-wracking ride through the Quarter. Between the narrowness, impatient cars and pedestrians who had a tendency to walk right in front of her, navigating the French Quarter streets was always a little disconcerting. With the upcoming holiday, it was even worse. She was honked at twice and nearly sideswiped by a tourist blindly stepping from the curb.

She considered swinging by Lohr's opening but had cocktail sauce spilled all over her pants and no change of clothes. Besides, it was after nine p.m. and the opening would be wrapping up soon. And...she wasn't sure she wanted to see the dark artist so soon anyway. She had no idea what it was about him making her heart race at the mere thought of seeing him again. Aspects of the emotion felt like infatuation but it was off. Something else was there but Kate couldn't pinpoint what it might be.

One thing was certain, he'd put vampires on her brain. Not the supernatural vampire, of course, but the human kind. She was vaguely familiar with the Human Vampire subculture. She knew it consisted of a group of people who claimed to need blood to be well but that was about it. Friends over the years had told her stories about covens and blood rituals and blood bars. In fact, supposedly there was a blood bar somewhere in the Quarter. She'd always assumed it was an urban legend, but after meeting Lohr Varius, she wasn't so sure.

Even though she'd never been a part of any vampire culture, she'd always been fascinated by it. Like the art she loved, the vampire myth embraced everything she hoped to find in life: power, elegance, control, confidence, sexual prowess, raw, animal passion… She might not expect Human Vampires to live up to fiction and myth but if someone lived the lifestyle, surely she could find common ground with them. Besides, the idea of blood drinking was positively tantalizing, especially for a Human Vampire who needed it. She wanted to know everything there was about the condition: how they fed, how much blood they required, whether they had any special skills... It was probably something she could look up on the internet but the notion of talking to a live vampire in person was much more intriguing.