Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (25 page)

Rend’s eyes questioned me, then he seemed to
remember something and softened. “I can’t believe I
forgot,” he said. “You never got your mark.”

“Mark?”

“When someone becomes an employee here, I
give them the mark of the serpent,” he said. “The mark
holds power and allows the staff to see things normal patrons can’t
see.”

“Like the colors of the drinks?”

“Among other things,” he said. He came
around to my side of the bar and reached inside a cabinet to pull out
a long needle filled with silver liquid.

I shook my head and backed away. “No way am
I letting you near me with that thing,” I said.

He lifted the needle and smiled, his eyes dancing.
“This little thing?”

The needle was huge. Just looking at it made me
want to pass out.

“Are you serious? What are you going to do
with it?”

He kept coming toward me and I kept backing up,
but eventually, my ass hit the wall and I had nowhere else to go.

Rend reached toward me with his free hand and
swept my hair back on the right side, exposing the skin just behind
my ear. I shivered at his touch.

“This won’t hurt, I promise.”

I closed my eyes and turned my head to the side as
Rend inserted the needle into that strip of flesh. I braced myself
for pain, but he was right, it didn’t hurt at all. Instead, my
skin flushed with warmth as the liquid gushed under the surface of my
skin, writhing around like a snake.

Rend backed away and I lifted my hand to the spot.

“What did you do to me?”

He looked from side to side, then grabbed a silver
mixing tumbler and lifted it up in front of me like a mirror. “I
just gave you my mark,” he said. “A silver serpent. Like
a tattoo. And don’t worry, it’s only temporary. When you
want it removed, just say the word and I’ll take it out.”

I pulled my hair back and stared at the snake
tattoo just behind my ear. Everyone had one of these? How had I not
noticed that before?

The spot still felt tender and warm, but at least
the thing had stopped wiggling around.

“Now look at the bottles of liquid,”
he said. “What do you see?”

I looked down and my eyes grew wide. “Holy
crap, they’re all different colors.”

“Exactly,” he said with a laugh. “It’s
a little trick I came up with to give patrons of the club a little
bit of extra privacy. That way no one else really knows what type of
shot they’re drinking tonight.”

“Except us.”

“Right.”

He moved back down to where we had started our
lesson and placed a new spout on top of the blue bottle. “Try
again.”

I picked it up much more carefully this time,
ready for how light it would be, then poured. The liquid flowed much
slower than I expected, confusing me. It should have flowed faster if
it was lighter than normal liquid, right?

I lifted the bottom of the bottle higher and the
liquid poured out faster. I stopped when I’d poured the
standard one and a half-ounce shot.

“Great,” he said. “You’re
getting a feel for the weight of it and how it works. These potions
don’t always act the way you’re expecting them to because
they don’t follow the basic rules of physics. Everything in
this world acts a little differently than you might expect.”

“So I’m learning,” I said.

His eyes met mine for a long beat before he looked
away and grabbed another empty glass. He set it on top of the bar.
“Red.”

I reached for the bottle of red liquid. I lifted
it carefully, ready for anything. This time, it felt totally normal,
just like any bottle of liquor. I relaxed.

But then the bottle grew warm beneath my hand. In
seconds it began to burn my skin and on instinct, I opened my palm
and watched in horror as it dropped toward the ground.

Rend caught it without a second thought, his
movements so fast my eyes barely registered them. I drew in a
surprised breath.

“The red liquid gets extremely hot,”
he said. “We call this Red Dragon.”

“This is what Azure gave me the first night
I came in here,” I said.

“And then Lyla gave you a version of it last
night, too, right?”

“She said it was something you made special
for the dancers.”

“Right,” he said. “Dragon’s
Breath. It’s the same as Red Dragon, but with a little
something extra added in. We’ll cover specialty drinks later,
but for now, at least you understand the basics of how Red Dragon
makes you feel. Instead of heightening the senses like Blue Frost, it
does the opposite. Red Dragon relaxes you and takes away some of your
inhibitions. It’s almost like getting drunk, but without the
hangover.”

He handed the bottle to me again and this time I
made sure to grab it from the top instead of the bottom. I poured a
shot into the second glass, relieved when it poured easily.

He pointed to the yellow bottle in the center
next. “Yellow Sunshine. This one is our happy drink,” he
said with a laugh. “Anyone who is feeling depressed or down or
just generally drained of energy can have a shot of this to lift them
up and make them feel better.”

“The ultimate anti-depressant,” I
said.

Rend smiled and for an instant, his eyes dipped to
my lips. He cleared his throat and forced his eyes away. “Pour
a shot,” he said.

I lifted the bottle and found this one to be so
heavy, it nearly slipped out of my hands from the sheer weight of it.
“So, this one lifts people’s moods, but weighs a freaking
ton. That makes sense.”

“Like I said, not everything is going to
make sense in a logical way,” he said. “Someday if we get
the chance, I’ll take you to my lab and show you how all this
works when I mix the potions, but for now, just learn the basics.”

A shiver went through me at the thought of being
alone with him in his lab. Getting to know him and really being a
part of his life. Was that too much to hope for, considering the
circumstances? I was getting way ahead of myself here.

Focus, Franki.

“Purple?”
I asked, staring down at the next one in line.

I wanted to get through
these as fast as possible so Rend would leave and go about his
business. I couldn’t hope to focus with him standing so close
to me and looking at my lips or brushing his hand against mine. It
was pure torture.

The doors to the club
had opened for the night and the lights had all been dimmed. Azure
served anyone who came up to the bar, leaving Rend and I alone at the
other end.

“Purple,”
he said. “Lady Luck. It gives people a sense of confidence, as
if luck is on their side. It doesn’t actually make them lucky,
so they couldn’t leave here and go win the lottery or anything.
It just gives them the illusion of luck. A lot of people come in and
request this one when they have a big business meeting or a
performance coming up.”

I poured the purple
shot and found that it felt relatively normal compared to the others.
No big tricks there.

I nodded to the last of
the five basic shots. Green.

“Green
Monster,” he said. “You won’t be asked for this one
nearly as often, but we keep it on the menu for certain guests who
crave it.”

“What does
it do?” I asked. I picked up the bottle and the liquid inside
began to bubble up as if it were agitated with my touch. I set it
back down, scared it was about to burn me like the red one did.

“Green
Monster gives you courage,” he said.

“How is
that different from Lady Luck?”

“Luck is
about confidence and feeling good about your decisions. It’s
about presenting yourself in a way that makes others believe you are
a confident, sure person,” Rend explained. “Courage, on
the other hand, is about believing in yourself. It’s about
gathering that inner strength you need to get the job done.”

“Why did it
act so agitated when I picked it up?” I asked.

“Because
Green Monster is all about fearlessness and daring,” he said.
“It’s a very energy-focused drink. To keep it from
bubbling up like that, just hold it closer to the top. In fact,
you’ll do better to just grab them all at the neck and pour
from there. That way people can’t read the drinks by the way
you’re holding them. Some customers don't care who knows, but
others value their privacy. And their secrets.”

I nodded, pouring the
final shot to complete the set in front of me. I was in awe of the
glamours and the other magic I’d seen so far, but alchemy was
something different. It was like bottling magic and gifting it to
other people. I wondered if I could learn how to make potions like
this someday.

“How do you feel, do you want to go over it
again?” he asked.

I stared at the line of glowing shots. I briefly
went over the basics of them in my mind. “No, I think I’ve
got it,” I said, amazed I could even concentrate when the
sleeve of his jacket was touching the bare skin on my arm.

“It’s Sunday night, so it should be
much slower tonight than what you’ve seen in here so far,”
he said. “When it really gets going back here, it can be
intense and some of the people who come in can be less than patient
when they really need a drink.”

“I’ve worked behind a bar before,”
I said. “I know how fast-paced it can be. I’ll be fine.”

“This isn’t like any bar you’ve
worked in before.” He picked up each glass and dumped the
contents into the sink.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I
said, then regretted my sarcasm. I didn’t want him to think I
wasn’t taking this seriously, but did that really have to be
said? I may have been naive, but I wasn’t stupid.

“This isn’t a joke, Franki. This isn’t
some game I’m playing with you,” he said. His voice grew
rough and a few of the staff serving at nearby tables turned to look
at us. Rend turned away from them, leaning so close to me, a warm
rush of desire spread through my veins. “If anyone so much as
says a single word that makes you feel uncomfortable or frightened in
any way, I want you to come to me.”

“Okay,” I said, wanting to tell him
that he was making me uncomfortable.

He let out a breath and ran a hand through his
dark hair. He moved over toward the register and opened a mirrored
cabinet filled with dozens of smaller, rounded bottles. He selected
three of them and set them down beside a fresh glass on the bar.

Two of these smaller ones glowed much brighter
than any of the basic bottles. The other was pitch black like ink. He
poured an ounce of Blue Frost, then carefully poured a tiny bit from
each of the smaller bottles. The colors mixed together, then the
entire glass-full turned to black, a dark mist rising from it.

He threw it back, downing the shot in one smooth
motion, and then set the glass down hard against the bar.

He placed both hands on the edge of the bar and
leaned into it, his head dipped low.

I waited, watching to see if I could tell what
kind of effect the drink would have on him. The only physical
response I could see was that his tense shoulders relaxed and his
breathing steadied.

What it was doing to his insides, I had no idea.

“What do these do?” I reached for the
bottle of black liquid but the moment I touched it, his hand closed
over mine.

The touch of his skin against mine made me ache
for something I knew I couldn’t have. At least not in front of
all these people.

“These are special,” he said. “Not
for the average customer and definitely not for you to touch until
you’ve studied them and you understand how the different
potions mix and combine. The wrong combination could be fatal.”

He released my hand and I pulled it back, my
stomach twisting and turning.

“What do you call that shot?” I asked.
My voice came out unsteady and breathless. I cleared my throat and
forced myself to relax. He couldn’t know how much he was
getting to me.

“I don’t have a name for this mix,”
he said. “Azure, what would you call this?”

“Rend’s Addiction,” she called
out, laughing.

Rend smiled and nodded. “It’s just
something that takes the edge off for me when I need it,” he
said.

He didn’t give me any more details than
that. He just put the three smaller bottles back in their case and
closed it up again.

“Azure will take care of any orders that
require mixing,” he said. “All you have to do is serve
the basic five. Like I said, most of the people who come up will ask
for one of those.”

I had been staring down at the five bottles,
running through what he’d taught me so far, but when he paused,
I looked up to find him watching me. The look in his eyes took my
breath away. There was something unsaid there behind them, and I
suddenly couldn’t wait for my shift to be over. What was he
waiting to tell me? Would he break it off? Or would he kiss me again?

I bit my lower lip and his eyes dipped to my
mouth. His lips parted slightly and he sucked in a ragged breath.
When his eyes returned to mine, they were full of undeniable desire.

But desire for what?

“I’m going to make sure everything is
set up and ready for us to open,” he said. He left me standing
there behind the bar without another word.

Pure torture.

Once the customers started pouring in, the night
flew by.

I got used to the weight and flow of each of the
five basic drinks and before too long, I was able to choose the right
bottle without even looking down.

Most of the people who came in seemed happy to see
a new face behind the bar. I began to relax into the rhythm of the
work, having fun meeting new people and listening to the kinds of
conversations taking place.

Since the music was loud, most people practically
yelled at each other, laying their business out in front of everyone
close enough to hear.

I paid attention without making eye contact or
showing any indication that I was listening, but I was getting a kick
out of things like complaints about girlfriends who had cast spells
on them when they refused to help with the dishes.