Obey Me (7 page)

Not that walking out the front door was easy. I could still hear him whispering through my head, calling me back, so warm and soft, so tempting. It wasn’t until I closed the cab door that the desire to turn around and run into his arms lifted, but only a little.

“Where to, lady?” the cabbie asked.

“Il Piccolo Morso.” My head was still dizzy and the heat of the venom was still stirring through my body, making me acutely aware of the delicious ache between my thighs.

The driver wrenched his neck around, glaring at me through the thick plastic window. “Never heard of no Piccolo place.”

“The Strip District,” I said. “Eighteenth and Smallman Street.”

Chapter Five

“Let me in, Bruno. Alex is expecting me.” I held myself upright with a hand on the industrial metal railing outside Il Piccolo Morso. Bruno had watched me pull myself up the steps without so much as blinking. Even now he remained still as death, leaning on his butt against the railing, his arms folded over his chest.

He lifted his chin in a half nod. “You smell like vamp. Who’ve you been with?”

“None of your business.” I knew he probably didn’t mean it sexually, but I couldn’t help being offended as though he did.

“It is if you wanna see Alex. You under the influence?”

My brain clicked into second gear and I understood what he was worried about. With Octavius’s venom working its hedonist magic inside me, I’d been nearly helpless to refuse his psychic demands. For someone who’s been bitten, someone with less practice in the psychic arts and under the influence of a vamp, they could be made to do almost anything. Including causing harm to Bruno’s boss. He was just doing his job.

I sighed, exhausted from fending off Octavius. He was gone from my head now though. I was sure of it. “No, Bruno. I’m not under the influence. I think the drink I had at Sinners restaurant was spiked. That’s all. It’s wearing off. I’m good now.”

Bruno pushed to his feet and closed the small distance between us. He cupped my face in his hands, lifted my chin, examining my eyes. He turned my face to the side, checked one side of my neck then the other. After a second he let me go and stepped back. “Yeah. Fine. You’re not showing a mark. But you’ve still got a buzz going, so don’t go and do anything stupid.”

“Right.” Already filled my quota of stupid tonight.

He reached for the rusted metal door. As I watched, his normal stubby male fingernails elongated, turned clawlike, and hooked between wall and door. A small tug and the door swung open. I did not want to know what that was about.

I spotted Alex right away, his tousled blond mop of hair bobbing up and down above the seated customers at the bar as he hurried filling drink orders. Between heads and shoulders, I caught glimpses of his face. He was beaming, talking to club goers, laughing, even rocking to the beat of the music now and then.

He sooo did
not
seem like a hundred-and-some-year-old vampire. With his summer tan and bright blue eyes, he looked like he should be standing on a pitcher’s mound, ready to strike out the next batter. Dark and brooding, he wasn’t. He was young and healthy and hard bodied. And the way he moved, like water over smooth stones, grace and agility, I’d bet anything he could go all night. My belly fluttered and a smile tugged the corners of my mouth.

“Hey, barkeep, got any OJ back there?” With Octavius’s venom still warming through my system, I figured alcohol would be like adding fuel to a fire and my libido was already flaming.

Alex glanced my way at the first sound of my voice. His brows creased, his pretty eyes and flashy smile clouding a bit. He finished the drink he was making, then strode toward me, ignoring other customers snapping fingers and waving bills for his attention.

“What happened? Who’s fed on you?” He was in front of me in a heartbeat, leaning across the bar so his face was only inches from mine, totally invading my comfort bubble.

I flinched back. Then realized he was sniffing me. “What the…? Nobody. Knock it off. You’re creepin’ me out.”

Alex straightened, but his expression remained tense, concerned. “I can smell venom on you. On your breath. What happened? Whose is it?”

“First…orange juice.” My throat was dry as a desert wind, and I was still light-headed and flushed. “Won’t do us any good if I pass out.”

He grabbed a short glass from under the bar and turned to snag the jug of orange juice from the mini fridge under the center island. He poured then pushed the glass toward me. “Talk.”

I drank half of it in one gulp. “You know a guy named Octavius Perrotte? Owns a restaurant called Sinners up on Mount Washington.”

Alex stiffened, his concerned expression turning sour, like the taste in his mouth had just gone bad. “Yes.”

“Right. I’m thinkin’ he feels the same way about you.” I finished the rest of the OJ and pushed my glass out for more. “Anyway, I was cordially summoned to dinner by your old buddy, Perrotte. He sent a car. Sent this dress. The guy seriously wanted to talk to me.”

“About what?”

“You.” He blinked at that, confusion flashing behind his eyes. “Well, I mean, that’s all we ended up talking about. He asked how you were doing, how the business was going, stuff like that. He was sure you and me were…a thing. I told him we barely knew each other but I still don’t think he believed me.”

Alex’s nostrils flared and he clenched his jaws so tight I could see the muscles flexing in his cheeks. “Did he…kiss you?”

“What? No.” Offense made my voice go high. “Well, okay. Yeah. Once. But it wasn’t my fault. He drugged me. I think. Otherwise he wouldn’t have stood a chance. I just met the guy. Sheesh, what kind of women are you vamps used to dating?” Then again I’d kissed Alex the first night I’d met him. And if not for my sixth sense warning me off, I might’ve done a lot more with Octavius tonight.

But that was the venom doing a number on me. Never mind that Alex was sexy as hell that night, being all protective of his club and his customers. And even now, watching him fume at the thought of Octavius kissing me was a helluva turn-on. His hands fisting on the bar, flexing muscles in his forearms up to his rolled sleeves and beyond. His broad shoulders tensed, so very male. Seeing his reaction had my heart doing double time and muscles low in my center turning liquid hot.

“Drugged you? Drugged you how?”

I gave myself a quick mental shake, trying again to stay on topic. “I…I think he spiked my drink.”

Come to think about it, that might have something to do with my current amorous mood. Their venom worked like some sort of date-rape drug…except I didn’t really mind. Then again, it could be all Alex.

Alex cursed under his breath, pushing from the bar, scrubbing a hand over his face then paced back to me. “Sounds like something Octavius would do. He’s territorial. Likes to mark what he sees as his. His scent on you is a kind of mark, a claim.
Asshole
.”

“Right.” Couldn’t argue that. The guy had used his mind tricks and venom to try to get me alone. Was he really planning on turning me? I didn’t want to think about it. “He told me about Bess.”

Alex’s gaze snapped to mine, his angry fidgeting stopped. “What did he say about her?”

“Only that she was killed and that you were so upset about it you wouldn’t see him.” I dropped my gaze, traced the rim of my glace with my finger. “I think he kind of blames you.”

He laughed but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “He would.”

“What happened?”

After a moment’s thought, Alex gestured with a nod of his head toward the tables that lined the far wall. He walked around the inside of the bar, and I grabbed my orange juice and followed along the outside. We met at the hinged section of the bar top.

“Her name was Elizabeth,” he said as we settled into an intimate table for two. “She hated the name Bess, but everyone was using the nickname back then and Octavius was only ever concerned about what he wanted.”

“Octavius said she turned him.”

“She did, though it was well before I was born.” Alex tipped his chin at the bar and raised a finger when the other bartender nodded back. “He’d stayed with her fifty years when I met them.”

“Wow, they really must’ve loved each other.”

Alex snorted. “Love had nothing to do with it. When a vampire turns someone they’re responsible for the fledgling for the first thirty years. It takes about that long for the sire’s mark to fade from the fledgling, and for their venom to be fully replaced by the fledgling’s own. The responsibility quickly becomes a burden. No one—no one sane—stays with their sire longer than those first thirty years.”

A thin, statuesque woman dressed the same as Alex and the other bartenders, white button shirt and black slacks, placed a glass filled with deep red liquid in front of Alex. He gave her a half nod. “Thanks.”

“Is that blood?” I had to ask. Couldn’t help it.

“No. Bloody Mary mix. I love this stuff.”

Too weird. “So Octavius was what, like a stalker?”

Alex finished his swallow nodding. “In a way. They’d had an infatuation before she turned him, but it was far more to Octavius. He’d become obsessed with her and it only got worse after the change. Later on she realized she’d seen signs, but her loneliness kept her in denial. I couldn’t blame her. An eternity walking outside the world, bearing witness to humanity but no longer a part of it, can be maddening.”

I looked around the nightclub, customers bumping shoulders, tables filled, people standing two deep at the bar. “Doesn’t look too lonely to me.”

Alex followed my gaze. “Things are different now. Back then our kind were spread far and wide with no easy way to keep in touch. We are not a pack species but we do feel the need for companionship from time to time, however brief. Now, with telephones, TV, the internet, communication is instantaneous and air travel can have us with others of our kind in a matter of hours. Back then you could go centuries believing you were the only one left.”

I finished off my orange juice and Alex pointed to it with a questioning raise of his brows. I shook my head. “I take it, Octavius never felt the need for alone time?”

“No. He never weaned himself from Elizabeth and she didn’t have the strength to turn him away. She became cruel with him, even physically abusive at times in trying to end his obsession with her. But even her unabashed hatred wouldn’t deter him. His attachment to her was turning her into someone, some thing, she couldn’t bear to be.”

“You sure?” I had to ask. Alex’s version was the exact opposite of Octavius’s. One of them was lying. I wanted to give Alex the benefit of the doubt, but that may have been my hormones talking.

His brows pinched tight. “Of course. The night we met, Elizabeth was trying to commit suicide in an attempt to ultimately, finally, escape him.”

“How?”

His lips sealed, and he glanced away. After a moment he sighed. “Guillotine. She couldn’t reach the lever though and when I asked her if she’d like my help, she cried yes, and then rushed into my arms sobbing.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t imagine the level of desperation that must’ve taken. “But if it was so easy to get lost back then, why didn’t she? I mean, why didn’t she just sneak off? I can’t believe in fifty years there wasn’t a single moment she couldn’t have slipped away without his notice.”

Alex’s gaze swung back to mine, a weariness I hadn’t noticed before darkened at the corners. “He would’ve found her. A vampire is always and forever able to locate their fount. Another safeguard for the fledgling.”

“Is your…sire still, y’know, walking the earth?”

Alex shook his head, staring at his tomato juice. “No. She succumbed to her loneliness before I could help her.”

Our table was on a raised level that ringed the nightclub along the wall. I watched as a couple sauntered toward the table nearest us on the lower level. The guy made eye contact with both Alex and me.

Alex nodded. “Todd,” he said.

Todd lifted his chin back at Alex—a very guy-type greeting. The woman he was with didn’t even glance our way, her long chocolate brown hair curtained around her face, brushing her slender waist. Her dark blue dress that wrapped tight around her body and tied at her side made her legs look like they went on forever. She struck me as pretty, too pretty for a guy like Todd. I have no idea what she was doing with him.

He wasn’t scary ugly or anything, but he had spiky platinum blond hair, little brown eyes and his head looked too small for his body. It was probably the overly broad shoulders. He looked like a weight lifter and the extra muscle was probably what made his head seem small. Or maybe it really was small. Who knows?

It didn’t matter. My mind was busy with other things. As they slid into the half-circle bench seat, my thoughts filled with images of a woman hounded, pushed beyond her limits, where her only escape was death.

I turned my focus back to Alex. “How’d you get her away from him?”

He shrugged. “Like you said. One night when Octavius was out, I had her gather her things from our villa in Paris and we left.”

“Did he come looking for you? Did he find you?”

“He found us.” Alex finished off his Bloody Mary mix and leaned back in his chair. “Elizabeth and I had moved to a small apartment outside of Naples. For nearly two months we lived in freedom, without someone constantly looking over our shoulders, controlling who we spoke to, where we went, how we interacted with humans. We’d even begun to believe Octavius wouldn’t follow, until one night we came home from an evening swim at the beach and found him sitting on our bed.”

“Our bed? So…you were lovers?” Yeah, I know, bigger picture and all, but a girl likes to know.

Alex nodded. “We’d become very close. Until that night Octavius was able to hold fast to the fantasy that he and Elizabeth were meant to be. That night he knew he’d lost her long ago.”

“So what, did he just leave?”

His brows hiked high beneath the swag of his blond bangs, a ghost of a smile played for an instant across his lips. “No. He tried to kill her.”

“You stopped him.”

“Yes, but the fight was long and bloody. Octavius had insanity on his side. A sane man has moral limits, pain thresholds. Insanity freed him of such things. In the end though, we left Octavius near death on our apartment floor. Elizabeth…” He looked away, his eyes suddenly glistening with unshed tears, his chin quivering.