Blood Blade

Chapter 17

Cole hadn’t intended on agreeing to a private dance. In fact, from the instant he got up from Walter’s table, he told himself he wouldn’t be convinced to pay for anything more than another drink or two. But considering the fact that he could still feel Tristan’s hands running along his chest beneath his clothes without her even touching him, he knew that saying no to her was going to be more than a little difficult.

When he’d walked up to the stage, he meant to give her a dollar and sit back down again. She had, after all, pointed him out and asked him to come over. Who was he to refuse a request from a naked woman with a body straight out of a daydream? When he got closer, he could see the smooth texture of her face accented by a set of very small diamond piercings: one in her nose and one on her cheek just north of the corner of her mouth.

“I’m ready for you,” she’d purred when he approached the stage.

Even as those words reached into him to work their magic, he nodded and planned how he would refuse the inevitable proposition.

“Want to come with me for a private?” Tristan asked.

Without hesitation, Cole replied, “Yes.”

She smiled knowingly, made her way along the side of the stage and got to the end just as the song was over. He met her there, and could feel Paige’s eyes on his back. He turned around, shrugged, then allowed himself to be led away.

Tristan smelled sweet, but not as if she’d been dipped in body spray. In her heels, she was a bit taller than Cole, and led him toward a back room as if taking a puppy for a walk. There was some small talk, but Cole was more concerned with trying to remember how much money he actually had on him. Before he had too much time to ponder the many potential hazards involved with asking Paige for a loan, he was taken to a surprisingly nice back room. He was no expert in such things, but he wasn’t expecting a plush, softly lit lounge filled with leather sofas and potted plants. Tristan was all smiles as she showed him to the biggest sofa, pushed him down, then climbed into his lap.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“Uh…Seattle.”

“You come here a lot?”

“Nope.”

Still smiling as if he was spouting off supremely interesting bits of wisdom, Tristan sat with her legs draped across his lap. “Seattle’s nice. They don’t know how to deal with snow, though.”

Amazed that she’d actually been listening, Cole replied, “They sure don’t, do they? You ever been to Oregon?”

The next song was only slightly muted within the room, and Tristan shifted so she was straddling him as soon as it started. Her smile was just sweet enough to be infectious and just crooked enough to be genuine. “I love to travel. Mostly, I like northern California.”

“Really? I never—” And then his breath was stolen from his lungs. Tristan grabbed hold of the sofa just behind his shoulders and started grinding her breasts up and down along the front of his body.

He could feel the touch of her hair against his face, which was followed by the brush of her lips against his earlobe. Her next breath was slowly let out to warm his neck as her fingernails slid perfectly through his hair. As much as he wanted to say something just to prove he was cool enough to keep talking, it didn’t happen. He didn’t even know what song was playing as Tristan writhed on him and then rubbed her nipples against his lips. As she moved higher, Cole leaned back to enjoy the view.

“No touching,” she said with a playful smile and a little waggle of her finger.

He nodded and gripped the sofa as if in danger of falling off.

Thankfully, Tristan knew just how long to go before climbing down from his lap. She stood in front of him and slid her hands along her hips. With a little twitch, she twirled around and backed up against Cole’s lap. From there she leaned back against him and reached over her shoulder to caress the side of his face. Looking down along the front of her body, he saw a stretch of heaven below her waist, accentuated by a dash of glitter. Tristan’s eyes were closed, a faraway look on her face.

The song was fading, but she kept writhing in a smooth, up and down rhythm. Not only was it fun to watch, but Cole could once again feel the phantom touch of her beneath his clothes. Instead of spectral fingers teasing his chest or legs, he could feel something else entirely. At that moment, he had to look down to make sure he was still dressed from the waist down.

“I don’t want to stop yet,” she purred. “How about we go for a half hour?”

“Sure,” he replied quickly. He didn’t hear a price, but he would have agreed to pay no matter what it was. He did, however, hear another voice originating from the back of his mind.

Taste her.

Before he knew what he was doing, Cole followed the order he’d been given.

Everything happened very quickly after that.

Tristan was up, and with a little help from some bouncers, Cole was opening the side door of the club with his face. About a second later he hit a large trash container and was introduced to the ground. After the bouncers turned and walked back inside, the door slammed shut and Cole was alone to watch four men step from the shadows. They surrounded him and leered down with faces framed by serpentine black marks flowing up from their necks. One of them stepped forward and crouched down to Cole’s level.

“Was she sweet?” Misonyk asked in the same voice that had hissed within Cole’s thoughts.

That got a chorus of laughs from the other men surrounding Misonyk. Two of them were big enough to block Cole’s view of the parking lot simply by standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Compared to Misonyk, however, the black markings under their skin were more like scribbles from a felt tip pen. The fourth man had an average build, which was mostly covered by a dark blue overcoat. There were enough bulges under that coat to make it obvious he was either heavily armed or trying to conceal some serious glandular issues.

Even though his climb was anything but dignified, Cole got to his feet and stood up. “If getting me bounced from a strip club is the best you’ve got,” he snarled, “then that shit you spit on me must be wearing off.”

“Ahh,” Misonyk sighed. “Very observant. And since you’re here now, I can fix that problem.”

Cole tried to ignore the threat and buy himself some time. By the looks of it, he wouldn’t be able to do that without getting a few bruises. Nodding toward the two bigger guys, he asked, “Are these the other ones who ran away from that diner like frightened bitches?”

“No. Only Edward and I made it out of there,” Misonyk replied as he motioned toward his partner with the bulging overcoat. “The Nymar in this area needed to be shown what happens when I am displeased. Making you pay a similar price would be an even simpler matter.”

Confident that Paige would be along soon, Cole forced himself to stand tall and regain some of the dignity he’d lost during his impromptu exit from Shimmy’s. “Where’s that freak job pet of yours? Don’t you always need Henry along to back you up?”

Misonyk lunged forward so quickly that Cole could hear the Nymar’s hand slice through the air on the way to his throat. The moment Misonyk’s fingers clamped around his neck, Cole grabbed the Nymar’s hand and tried to keep that grip from closing his windpipe. But though his intentions were pointed in the right direction, he didn’t have the muscle to back them up. Before too much longer, his back scraped against the large metal garbage bin as he was hoisted onto his tiptoes.

“I can take my time now, Skinner,” Misonyk growled. “I can make sure I do the job right so there’s no way you can shake your mind free of me. I can command you to stay put and smile as I scoop the fat from your belly and burn it in your outstretched hands.”

The venom was already dripping from Misonyk’s fangs as he opened his mouth to show the curved set of teeth that slid out of his upper gum line. Even before Misonyk tried to bite, spit, or anything else, Cole could feel the Nymar’s thoughts pushing against his brain like two oppositely charged magnets being forced together.

And then, strangely enough, he was reminded of a video game.

Actually, he was reminded of a specific game, one of the first he’d designed. It was called Keeper of the Vault, and it was a simple puzzler where one player was inside a box and the other was trying to get in. A secret he’d built into the game was a last line of defense that was also one of the greatest weapons. When one player finally broke into the vault, but before he could start sending in bombs to win the game, the defending player had one chance to send a bomb of his own through the hole the other had made. It involved a drawn-out combination of button presses, and ruined the game once it had become common knowledge among players, but it was a good idea at the time. And now it felt more like his only hope.

As Cole’s strength started to fade, Misonyk’s thoughts imposed themselves upon him. The Nymar drew closer while gathering a pool of venom onto his tongue. The corners of Misonyk’s mouth curled into a victorious grin, and he forced an obscene taunt into Cole’s thoughts.

As soon as Cole heard that foreign voice in his mind, he focused all of his concentration into one, desperate shout from his own inner voice to push Misonyk out.

The secret weapon worked a little better than he’d expected. As Misonyk released him, Cole was thrown onto his back to drown in a sea of alien memories.

One image that caught his attention was the eye of the Lord.