We Own the Night (The Night Songs Collection Book 3) (24 page)

“That red headed bitch that Janelle hung out with?” Lennon rolled her eyes and I nodded.

“Oh it gets better. She showed up, and I threatened her life. Then I fired most of the production staff.”

Lennon laughed. “Way to show them who’s boss.”

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Blade’s plan is working perfectly, as a moneymaker. Amanda said all the girls were excited to know Tristan wasn’t totally off the market.” I buried my head in my hands. “How am I supposed to rule a clan if a bunch of groupies don’t even have any respect for me?”

“I really don’t think any of the major players care about that.” Lennon rubbed my shoulder.

“They care about money!” I cried. “And not only is Blade’s little plan bringing in bank, it’s totally undermining me. It doesn’t take a business mogul to see that. I have to figure out a way to get the control back.”

“I always thought Talis must have put some spell over the city to rake in money the way she did.” Lennon sighed. “But Tristan was her cash cow. And you have that.”

“Right, and Blade is using him as his cash cow.” I let Lennon’s words sink in for a second. “Cast a spell, is that what you said?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Maybe that’s what I need to do.” I squeezed her knee. “You’re a genius.”

She looked suspicious. “I’m not sure that’s the most realistic solution, doll.”

“Hello, who are you dating?”

“Oh, just the most amazing man on the face of the planet.” Lennon’s face lit up like the sun. “I thought you’d never ask.”

I hadn’t asked, but now it would be rude not to. “And how is your sex life?”

Lennon waved her hand dismissively. “Sex is something commoners do. We make
love
.”

Both of us burst out laughing. Whatever they were doing, it sounded a thousand percent better than what I had going on at the moment.

“So your amazing sex, I’m sorry,
making love
partner is a magician, who just happened to be in Talis’ clan before they were leaders. Chances are, if she did know any magic, she would have learned it from Cash.”

“Now you’re the genius.”

I shook my head. “Nope, this is all you. So if we talk to Cash, he might have a way to take that power away from Blade. I mean, he’s a clan leader. He can’t be totally powerless over Blade.” Blade couldn’t be the most powerful vampire in the city. I refused to believe it.

“I can arrange that. He has a show tonight, but the next night he’s off, I’m sure he’d be happy to teach you a trick or two.”

“You’re the best, and so isn’t Cash.” I declared as I stood up, hugging Lennon before we headed out of the room.

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Before the door even closed behind me, I stopped dead in my tracks.

“What’s the matter?” Lennon asked when she realized I wasn’t following her. Now she must really think I lost my mind.

“Look. Over there.” I pointed out at the tables, right at Amanda, who was sitting in Blade’s lap with her head thrown back in laughter.

Nothing was a coincidence tonight. I glanced over to the bar, expecting more trouble. Tristan was busy in a conversation with Ramsey from his band. They were laughing about something, and totally ignoring Blade. Thankfully, it appeared that everyone was playing nice and keeping to themselves. Although Tristan couldn’t point any fingers at Blade for this one. Why would he care that Blade and Amanda both seemed to have a penchant for sloppy seconds?

Without saying another word to anyone, I marched right over to the table. “You’re making it really easy for me to make good on my promise, Amanda.” Rachel and a couple of the guys from Soul Divider looked at each other knowingly. I had to wonder if Rachel was the only one who thought Blade was a maniac. And I thanked God Noah was nowhere near us. That was the last thing I wanted to put up tonight.

“Oh, Amanda just told me about that.” Blade smirked. “It sounded so cute. Did Melanie ever tell you what I did to Talis?”

Hopefully in the dark room, he couldn’t see how hard I swallowed. “Yeah, she did. Did I piss you off?” I asked with a smile, echoing his tone.

He scrunched up his face in confusion. “What did you have to do with that?”

Another fumble. Jesus. How was I supposed to subdue him if I couldn’t even catch him off guard? “You can both leave now. Do it quietly, I don’t want to fight with anyone else tonight.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Mistress.” Blade’s eyes flashed red. “And no one in this bar is going to come to your defense, besides Dirk Diggler over there.”

I grabbed a handful of Amanda’s hair and yanked as hard as I could. She cried out as she fell off of Blade’s lap, then looked up in horror at the clump of hair in my hand that was no longer attached to her scalp. I stared at it, a little bit of blood on the tips of the strands twinkled in the light. Now I knew Amanda didn’t wear extensions. I brought the hair up to my mouth and ran the strands between my lips, cleaning the blood from the hair before I threw it at her.

She screamed, recoiling back from her hair as it fell all around her. “You crazy bitch!” She kicked at me, but I hardly felt it. I didn’t budge.

Blade pulled me into his lap roughly, and cupped my chin in his hand, pulling my face to his. “Don’t. Do. That,” he growled. He squeezed my jaw, so there was no way I could respond. “I will make you burn.” He stared at me, not another word. He didn’t blink and neither did I.

A trickle of something that felt like sweat ran down my forehead. I shouldn’t be able to do that anymore, should I? All the sudden, I was awfully warm. Way too warm. I wiped my forehead, and my fingers came away red. I was either sweating or bleeding. Neither could be good.

I looked at my hand in disbelief, and back up at Blade. He smiled, then pulled me in tighter. My insides felt like they were melting. Hot fingers licked at my bones, making my organs liquefy. Finally, I looked away from him, desperate to get Tristan’s attention. Blade was going to burn me alive right in the middle of this room and no one was even going to notice.

“Do I make myself clear, Mistress?” Blade brought his forehead down on mine. I nodded.

He let go of me and I fell back against the table. Looking at the people sitting around me, it was clear none of them realized anything was wrong. Or cared. Both options were equally disturbing.

Trying to keep my cool as much as possible, I crashed into Tristan when I got to the bar. “We need to go.” I interrupted him mid-sentence.

“In a minute.” Tristan waved his drink at me.

I grabbed it out of his hand and slammed it on the bar hard enough to make it splash out of the glass. I took Tristan’s arm in both of my hands. “Now.”

“Fine.” Tristan sounded totally indignant.

“I got what I needed here.” And more than I bargained for, but I wasn’t going to say that. Tristan would be compelled to try to defend my honor or something equally troublesome. “And it will benefit us all.”

“D
on’t touch me.” I shrugged Tristan’s hands off my shoulders as we headed back up to the apartment.

“You still hate me?” Tristan smirked as I looked back at him, disgusted.

I nodded. “Yeah.” I’d had enough. I sat down on the couch. Someone had put it back where it belonged sometime after we had stopped filming. The scene of the evening’s first crime. I wrapped my sweater tightly around myself, I couldn’t stop shivering after getting internally microwaved by Blade. Being affected by temperature now, for the first time since I’d crossed to the afterlife, made it even more uncomfortable.

Tristan flopped down beside me, landing with the intention of putting his head on my lap. I crossed my legs away from him, so he landed on the cushion instead. He rolled over to his stomach, and met my glare with light eyes. “Come on, Callie,” he teased, poking at my leg. “It’s just a TV show.”

“It’s way more than a TV show.” My voice was flat. If I let any emotion creep in I’d never stop screaming. “It’s what you think of me. If I can’t make you happy, then I think you should find someone who can.”

Not waiting for his reaction, I looked away from him as soon as I finished speaking.

“You don’t mean that.”

I turned back to meet his eyes. I watched his face fall as he realized that I couldn’t be more serious. I closed my eyes, rehearsing what I wanted to say in my head. “Ever since we started talking about this, the other girls, all I can think about is how I’m not good enough for you. Everything I do, I feel like I have to measure up against all these girls, and you don’t even care enough about them to know their names. But they have something I don’t. And you say you need it. I can’t live like that, Tristan. I can’t constantly think I’m not good enough.”

Sighing, he buried his head in his arms. He stayed like that for what seemed like forever. I stared at his body, so still next to me.

Finally, he looked up at me. “I don’t want to live without you.”

It took everything I had not to break. “I can’t live like this. I mean it.”

“Okay.” It was all he said.

“Okay what?”

“No more girls.” He was still serious. I waited for him to tease me, or make a joke out of it, but it didn’t happen.

“Just like that?” Sounded like lip service to me.

“Just like that.”

Exhaling loudly, I got up off the couch and started pacing. Being so close to him was always dangerous. “How can you just snap you fingers and say you’ll give up something that just last week, you insisted you needed to survive? I know you don’t really need it, but you want it. It makes you happy. That can’t just go away because I want it to.” I stopped in front of the couch. “I think we’re both setting ourselves up for failure.”

Tristan sat up on his knees and rolled his eyes, grabbing me by the arms and pulling me back on the couch. I landed stiffly. “You’re being impossible, you know that?”

“I’m being realistic. I need to protect myself.” I played with the edge of my sweater to avoid making eye contact. “This isn’t working for me. And honestly, I think you’re making a promise you can’t keep. You’ve always been up front about this. You can’t just make it stop.”

“Then what changed?” Tristan sounded annoyed. His reaction didn’t surprise me at all. He was the master of the quick, easy fix. Future be damned.

“It wasn’t real until you made me a part of it.” My voice wavered. “Before, when we didn’t talk about it, it was just something I didn’t have to face. Even if I knew it happened. And now that I’ve been a part of it, it won’t leave me alone. Every thought I have, it taunts me.
If I do this, will he go running to someone else? If I do this, will he not want to do that with random girls anymore?
I can’t compete with those girls, and I don’t want to.”

“Jesus,” he said under his breath. “There’s no competition.”

“Then why do you do it?” I cried. “I don’t want you to tell me. I know. But you tell me one thing and then you do another. I’m not expecting you to apologize.”

“You won’t even give me a chance!” He didn’t sound mad at all, in fact he smiled. I felt heat rise inside me again, this time painful. Blade must have created scar tissue with his attack. “I told you, I won’t do it anymore. You aren’t accepting it. I’m trying to do what you want me to, you won’t let me.”

“That’s it!” My eyes widened and Tristan looked startled. “You said it. You’re trying to do what I want.”

He shook his head, obviously thinking I was being irrational. He might have been right. Trying to put this feeling into words was difficult.

“I want you to be happy. So if that’s what you want--” He stopped and grinned when he knew I was going to launch into a fresh protest. “You are more important to me then some cheap high.”

“So, just like that, you’re going to stop?” I crossed my arms again and lowered my eyebrows suspiciously.

“Cold turkey.”

I looked at him for a long time, not saying anything, letting myself get inside his brain. I realized it had been a long time since I felt him inside my own head. Either he’d lost interest or I didn’t even notice anymore. I was hoping for the latter, but cynical me wouldn’t leave the former alone. Right now, I read concern, and complete adoration.

And I melted. And I hated myself for letting him affect me like that. But feeling that inside of him was better than him ever telling me that he loved me.