A Slash of Savagery (Wiccan-Were-Bear) (7 page)

Chapter 11

Wednesday night, Vex stood several feet away from Arissa, a “safe distance” he said, to keep Brone from barreling down the hallway and smashing his face in for being too close to her.  She thought it was kind of funny, even though she didn’t really want anyone to be hurt.  Since their mating, Brone had been growling at every unmated male who came anywhere near her.

Over the last week, Mishka had increased her responsibilities.  Aside from her main job of helping to keep the mates safe, she was now handling important visitors and setting up meetings for the
family
.

“Restik will be here in an hour.  He’ll come in with an entourage, and he’ll have a private party in one of the rooms on the second floor.  Mishka wants you to make arrangements for food.”

“He won’t drink SyBl?”

Vex shook his head.  “He’s a purist.  He refuses to drink it.”

She didn’t like him already.  After making a note, she looked at Vex.  “Anything else?”

“Yes.  Cella said to come up to the
family
room for a drink on your break.  She wants to discuss shoes or...something else girly.”

“Cool.”

Vex turned with a snort, muttering the word
women
under his breath.

Arissa pressed the button to forward her phone and walked to the doors, opening one and saying to the guards, “I need to see Laurie to talk about the food for the VIPs.”

“I’ll go with you,” Bellamin said.

“You don’t have to go with me.”

“Brone said you don’t leave the office without a guard, and he’s in meetings with the
family
.  It’s me or Dylan.”

Dylan wiggled his brows at her.  She laughed.  “Okay, fine.  But I swear, it’s been almost two weeks and no one has tried to eat me.”  She blushed sharply at her choice of words and both guards laughed.

“Priceless,” Dylan said, laughing.

“Okay, Bell, let’s go talk to Laurie.”

He bowed exaggeratedly and said, “My lady.”

She gave him a playful shove on the shoulder, and his laughter echoed in the hallway.  They walked down the long corridor together, passing behind a one-way mirrored wall that looked out into the club.  Arissa was still not allowed in the club unless she was accompanied by Brone or one of the
family
members.  Even though they were mated now, he still worried about her safety, and the club was a large, dark place with lots of humans, shifters, and vampires.

Laurie was the manager of the human food who were employed by the club.  After passing a rigorous background check and both physical and mental exams, humans were paid to be food. 
Food
was the term for humans who took money in exchange for allowing themselves to be fed from.  The club paid them an hourly wage, and they had to allow no less than one and no more than three vampires to feed from them during each shift.  Food dressed sexy, the men often going shirtless and wearing leather pants, and the women wearing micro-mini skirts and skin-baring tops.  Laurie had been food for several years before she was promoted to manager.

“Hi, Laurie,” Arissa said as she walked into the small office.

Laurie looked up from her computer and brushed a strand of graying-blonde hair from her eyes. “Hello, Arissa.  Bellamin.  Cella told me that you’d be stopping by.  How can I help?”

“We need food for the VIP.”  Arissa opened the notes program on her phone and said, “There are ten VIPs, all males.  Restik is the master of the coven, and the other nine visitors are members of his coven.  Apparently he likes blondes.”  Arissa made a face.

Bellamin chuckled as he said, “Who doesn’t?”

Arissa elbowed him and he grinned.

“Okay, we’ll send up a nice selection of women.  I have some new blondes that will be perfect.  When do you need them?”

“An hour in the VIP room.  I’ll meet them up there and escort them in.”

Nodding, Laurie lifted her phone and began to dial, waving at Arissa with a smile.

“That was easy,” Arissa said as she walked out of the office with Bellamin.

“It didn’t used to be so well organized.  Since Laurie took over, it’s been very smooth.”  Bellamin walked her back toward the offices, but she stopped and looked through the one-way glass at the dancing people in the club.

“How does it work, anyway?  When you want fresh blood, you just call Laurie and tell her what you like?”  She hadn’t seen Brone drink from food.  He only drank from her now, but he had used food before they mated.

Bellamin leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and looking out into the club.  “For the most part.  The food is available to the coven at all times.  When I’m hungry, I call Laurie and she sends me someone.  Or I see someone who appeals to me out in the club and I take her.”

Jealousy reared inside her.  Brone had been alive for a thousand years.  How many women had he fed from?

“Don’t be jealous.”

She rolled her eyes.  “When you find your mate, Bell, I’ll be sure to tell her not to be jealous of all the girls you bit before she came along.”

He chuckled.  “Touché.  The thing with Brone, though, is that he has never cared who he fed from.  Mishka is very careful — no brunettes.  Vex and Rage like to feed from a woman at the same time and prefer her to have long hair.  I like blondes, but what I really love is a woman who doesn’t wear any perfume or lotion, who just smells naturally sweet.  Cella likes muscular guys.  We all have our preferences, but Brone never has had a preference.”

Frowning, she shifted her attention from the club to Bellamin.  “What does that mean?”

“I think it means that it never mattered to him what the package looked like, so the jealousy isn’t necessary.  He probably doesn’t even really think of food as being people anyway.”  At her confused look, he continued, “Old vamps, I mean like really old ones, used to think of humans as cattle.  They were disposable food sources.  Some of the bigger covens even had breeding dungeons where they would keep the humans and force them to breed so that they would have a continual supply of humans as their food aged and died.”

She shuddered and he chuckled.

“That was a long time ago.  I guess my point is that Brone isn’t attracted to food.  Few vampires are.  A person who sells their blood like this,” he gestured out to the club where she could tell who the food were by the white shirts they wore, along with the red chokers and bracelets that denoted where they chose to feed from, “is akin to a prostitute.  Sure Richard Gere took Julia Roberts away from that life, but how often does that happen in real life?  There are vampires who will feed from a person and decide to take them as a mate, but it doesn’t happen as often as humans would like to believe.”

“It’s weird to think of food as prostitution.”

“Selling your body is selling your body, regardless of which part.”  He chucked her under the chin with his finger.  “Feel better?”

“Sure,” she said and nodded, and they headed back to the offices to wait for the visiting vampire master and his people.

“You wouldn’t take food as a mate?”

“I never say never, Arissa, but it would have to be special circumstances for me to overlook that.  Let’s just say I hope that my future mate is a blood-virgin.”

He held open the office door for her, and she gave him a confused look.  “Blood-virgin?”

“Someone who has never let another vampire feed from her.  I want to be the first and the only one in my mate’s neck.”

“You vampires are a possessive lot.”

“Yeah, we’re awesome like that.”  He winked at her and she chuckled, walking into the office and letting the glass door close behind her.

* * * * *

An hour later, Arissa climbed the stairs to the second floor with Brone at her side.  Not only did she have to escort the food into the VIP room, but she also was expected to meet Restik and his entourage as part of Mishka’s
family
.  She had wanted to argue that, as a non-vampire, it didn’t make sense for her to be included in the introductions, but she knew that arguing with Mishka was not only pointless but rude since he was her boss.

Stopping in front of the VIP room’s door, she counted fourteen blonde women, all scantily clad, most with red ribbons around both their necks and their wrists, indicating that they didn’t mind being fed from either location.  She knew there were ten visitors including Restik, and Brone answered her unasked question in a low voice, “There are extras
just in case
.”

“In case what?” she whispered.

Brone shrugged and said, “In case they are needed.”

Translation: in case Restik and his crew didn’t like some of the women.  Biting her tongue, she didn’t say she thought that it was abhorrent that a vampire would treat humans as though they were little more than platters at a buffet.  But she really wanted to.

Arissa said to the women, “Restik and his people are welcomed guests of Master Mishka and the
family
.  Please be respectful in all ways, and if you have any problems, let me know immediately.”

The women all smiled and primped themselves in one fashion or another, as Brone signaled to the guard at the door to open it.  Brone escorted Arissa into the room and the women followed, all lining up against the wall nearest the door.  It reminded her of a strange beauty pageant, where the winners received a couple of fangs in their necks as prizes.

Arissa’s gaze slid over the room as she stood next to Brone near the
family
.  The ten visitors were sprawled on overstuffed couches, the entirely male group’s casual behavior and youthful looks making them seem like a fraternity.

Mishka cleared his throat.  “Now that my entire
family
is here, Restik, I welcome you officially to Fang and to my fair city.”

A man stood slowly, rising from the couch with his eyes trained at the center of the
family
.  Cella stood near Mishka, and Arissa wondered if Restik was looking at her.  Restik had pale eyes the color of faded denim and an aristocratically angular face.  Curly orange hair sat atop his head.  Coupled with the fangs peeking out from his thin lips, he looked like a warped version of Howdy Doody.  But she’d keep that to herself.  Her gaze strayed from him to his people who still sat on the couches, watching Restik and Mishka exchange pleasantries.

Something glinted on one couch.  She peered at the couch again and realized that the glinting came from a chain.  The thick rings of the chain lay over the top of the couch.  There wasn’t much space between the couch and the wall.  As she wondered what the chain was attached to, it wiggled a little, and the softest tinkling sound was heard.

A shadow fell over her and then Restik and Mishka were standing in front of her and Brone.  Brone hugged her closer, sandwiching her right arm between his body and hers, preventing her from shaking Restik’s extended hand.

“This is Brone,” Mishka drawled, “you’ve heard of him.”

Restik grunted.

Mishka said, “And his beloved mate, Arissa.”

Since she still couldn’t extract her arm from the tight confines of their bodies, she raised her left hand and Restik gripped it and then dropped a swift kiss to the top.  “Ah, a lovely Wiccan.  You smell like dirt.”

Brone snarled and Restik took a step back with a shaky laugh, still holding her hand. “I mean that she must be an earth witch.  She smells like the ground.  It’s…pleasant.”

Funny, it didn’t sound all that “pleasant” when he phrased it like that.  She extracted her hand from his fingers and fought the urge to wipe the back of her hand on her skirt.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, forcing her most sincere smile onto her lips.

“I’m certain it is,” Restik said, his eyes darkening.  His gaze lifted over her head and he made a growling sound; not sexy the way that Brone growled, but sleazy like he’d just found out the bar was topless and he was going to get to see some flesh without paying for it.  “These must be for us,” he said over his shoulder to the men with him.

They rose like a wave, and in seconds, the visitors had descended on the group of women.  Arissa didn’t look at the scene behind her.  She knew she wouldn’t want to see what a group of vampires feeding looked like.  But her eyes were drawn once more to the chain that was wiggling slightly on the back of the couch.  She wanted to know what was behind that couch, but she knew that Brone wouldn’t let her go over there.  Not with the visiting vampires beginning to pull the women back to the couches.

Closing her eyes, Arissa released a bit of her power to seek what was behind the furniture.  She felt her power swell inside her, like water filling a vessel.

At first she felt nothing.  Then she realized that it wasn’t just “nothing” that she felt, but rather a lack of anything.  If there was really nothing behind the couch, her power would tell her that there was nothing there.  But her power was telling her that whatever was back there had no presence.  Almost as if it was muted somehow and she found it frustrating.  And worrisome.

Brone’s grip on her tightened slightly, but she pushed her thoughts of him to the side and sent her power out with a little more force toward the back of the couch.  Her power hummed under her skin and her flesh prickled.  This time, she felt that nothingness behind the couch begin to give, as if she was pushing against an invisible wall.  With a soft grunt of exertion, she pushed her power forward and pierced whatever blocked her from discovering what lay behind the couch.