Fangs And Fame (10 page)

I grinned at him.
“Eat your cookie.”

He shook his head and leaned forward to give me a quick kiss.

“None of that if I’m going to share my cookies,” Chase insisted as he handed me a glass of milk.

Trey

SHOWTIME WAS ONLY A few hours away when Aurora and I made it to the venue. The guys and I had done radio promotion at several stations in the city for the better part of the morning. After that, Aurora and I had gone out to meet the vampire Aurora had contacted about getting us some blood. We couldn’t stock up on it, but we were both able to drink enough to satiate our thirst temporarily. Then we’d headed out to find some art supplies and check out a couple of vintage record stores before meeting back up with everyone for the show. As usual, the guys and I did a quick soundcheck with the sound engineer and then headed backstage. Aurora was in the green room sifting through her new supplies when I walked in. I followed Chase’s lead and got a plate of food to snack on while the guys and I played some Halo on the flat screen to pass the time. O’Shea and Chase were in the middle of a debate about which map was best suited for sniping, and Jonas was looking for a Lego piece he’d lost in the couch when Neon announced that the winners of a local radio station contest were waiting for us.

“
Do you want to come hang with the fans?” I asked Aurora as we turned off our game.

“
I need to get this all organized and take it out to the bus,” she said, including the vast assortment of paints and brushes scattered around with a wave of her hand. “I’ll meet you there in a bit.”

“
Sounds good,” I said, bending to give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“
Go break some hearts,” she added, smiling at me.

“
This guy?” O’Shea threw an arm around my neck, putting me in a light choke hold. “Never.” I had to refrain from flipping him over my shoulder just because I could.

The fans were anxiously awaiting our arrival in a large room down the hall. There were ten of them, six girls and four guys, standing in a group with Neon. They had cameras and CD
’s in hand, and backstage passes on their lanyards.

“
Here they come,” Neon said, stepping out of the way so we could come forward and introduce ourselves. Two local deejays we’d visited earlier in the day accompanied the fans, greeting us with handshakes. They thanked us for agreeing to meet up with their listeners for the contest. We went down the unofficial line, asking the fans their names, shaking hands or giving hugs, and signing whatever merchandise they had on them. Everything was going great until I reached the fourth fan in line. She appeared to be in her late twenties, and did a good enough job of blending in that it took until I was right in front of her until I figured it out. I could see it in her eyes that she’d been waiting for me to catch on to her when it hit me like a ton of bricks.

She was a vampire.

I only let the surprise take me over for half a second before I forced myself to smile and pretend like nothing was going on. “I’m Trey,” I said to her, putting on my best smile.

“
Crystal,” she said. “It’s great to finally meet you. I’ve been a fan for years.”

“
Thanks for coming out,” I said, surprised, but mostly relieved that the conversation was so normal. It wasn’t necessarily a big deal that she was a vampire. I mean, vampires like music, too. Just when I’d pretty much decided that I’d been worried for nothing, she opened her mouth again and proved me wrong. Just my luck.

“
At the risk of stating the obvious here, I’m sure you can see that you and I have a lot in common,” she said.

“
Oh yeah,” I said casually. “Like what?”

“
You don’t have to play hard-to-get,” she added. “Not with me. I’ve waited a long time for this, and now that we’re-” she raised an eyebrow, “...
compatible
, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t just admit that this is happening.”

“
What’s happening?” Chase asked, his voice full of curiosity. He was signing a copy of the new record for a guy next to me, and for a second I thought that he might have saved me from what was fixing to be a very awkward conversation at best.

“
Trey and I,” Crystal said matter-of-factly. “Nothing less than fate has brought us together tonight.”

“
I was under the impression the radio station did that,” the girl next to her said, buying me a few seconds to think.

“
Our meeting would have happened with or without this contest,” Crystal said, stepping forward to close the space between us. I took a step back as she raised her hand to my chest, licking her lips. “Your blood calls to me, just as I know mine calls to you.”

Clearly not wanting to take any part in the crazy that was going down, Chase frowned and patted me on the shoulder.
“Good luck with that.” He turned his attention to the next fan, accepting her cell phone to say hello to her best friend on the line.

Thanks for nothing
, I thought before I realized he wouldn’t hear me. In a lame, but desperate, attempt to remove myself from the situation, I gently detached her hand and moved on, adding my signature to the next guy’s CD. I took my time, posing for a picture with him that Neon snapped on his phone, as well. Despite her deafening silence, I could feel Crystal ‘s eyes on me like lasers burning a hole in the back of my head. I did my best to ignore her, aside from a few sidelong glances to make sure that she wasn’t trying to eat one of my friends. I took my time with the rest of the fans, all the while trying to decide what to do about her in the back of my mind. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t really do anything except finish out the meet and greet, and let her be escorted out of the backstage area with the rest of the fans. I was even starting to believe that it might work when Aurora walked in the room, and the bottom dropped out.

“
What is
she
doing here?” Crystal demanded, her voice dripping with disdain.

Aurora was a step ahead of the situation and had clearly already identified the girl as a vampire. She
’s good like that. She managed to greet the fans who were waving excitedly to her, while simultaneously sending a mental question to me.
Are we going to have a problem?
She got her answer before I could send back a silent reply.

“
He’s mine,” Crystal said forcefully, taking a step toward Aurora.

“
I don’t think we’ve met,” Aurora said, her face calm and serene. “Maybe we should go for a walk, get to know each other?”

“
I’m not going anywhere with you,” Crystal said vehemently. “Trey only thinks he loves you because you brought him into the night, but I’ve been here all along … waiting for our fates to intertwine.”

I held my hands up and slowly approached them both, not wanting to make the situation worse. Neon was about to come forward, but I shook my head at him, and he stopped in his tracks, watching me.

“Actually, I should be the one to take you for a walk,” I said to Crystal, offering her my arm. “Why don’t we go this way?”

Aurora
’s eyes met mine while Crystal considered me. For a moment, I thought she was actually going to agree to leave the room with me. I’d figure out what to do next after I got her out in the hall, away from the guys and the innocent fans. In the end, she looped her arm in mine, but planted her feet.

“
There’s no reason to drag this out,” she said to me. “You should just tell her right now that it’s over.” She glared at Aurora, but I wasn’t quite sure what she wanted from me. True, I needed to placate her to the point of getting her out of the room, but I had ten fans, a couple of radio deejays, and my band mates staring at me expectantly. “Fine,” Crystal said in an exasperated tone. “If you won’t tell her, I will.” She straightened and looked Aurora in the eye. “Now that Trey is a vampire, he belongs with me,” she said flatly.

I didn
’t have to fake the surprise in my expression as I stared at her. She was trying to out me to everyone in the room. Scratch that, she
had
just outed me. O’Shea stared at me, his mouth gaping in what was surely a combination of amusement and surprise. His hand had frozen, causing the Sharpie he was holding to bleed on the T-shirt he’d been signing before the outburst.

Aurora was the first to recover.
“Excuse me?”

“
You heard me,” Crystal said. “I’ve been waiting for this day since the first time I saw him.” She turned to look at me, and I really wished I hadn’t offered her my arm to begin with. I wasn’t convinced she was ever going to let it go. “You were breathtaking.” She reached up to touch my hair, which was more than creepy. “Even as a human,” she added, before turning back to Aurora. “I’d have turned him myself back then, but he’s surprisingly hard to get close to.”

“
Is this a joke?” Chase asked, his voice slicing through the tension in the room. “This has to be the part where Ashton Kutcher comes in from another room.” He turned to Jonas and said, “Where do you think the cameras are?”

Jonas shrugged, but started to scan the room for potentially hidden cameras. Neon took the opportunity to step back out of the room in a hurry, and I wondered what his plan was. Mine certainly wasn
’t working out. No one else in the room said a word. They were all fascinated, like they were witnessing a really horrific car crash and just couldn’t bear to look away, or risk disrupting the action.

“
That ring on your finger doesn’t mean anything in our world,” Crystal added, gesturing with a nod to Aurora’s hand. “I promised myself years ago that I’d have him, no matter what it takes.” She tugged on my arm. “Come on,” she said. “I taste even better than I look.”

I managed a confused shrug in response for all the clueless people in the room, but Crystal was adamant. This was my chance to get her away from everyone else. I had to take it.

“How about I show you around?” I offered, leading her toward the hall. She walked with me without hesitation, her arm still linked in mine. Aurora turned to watch us leave, and I could tell that it was killing her to stay behind, but neither of us could react to the situation any more than we would if Crystal were an obsessive human fan. Someone had to stay behind and make all the necessary sarcastic remarks a situation like this calls for. Once in the hallway, I made a quick decision. “You know I have a show to do tonight,” I said to her. “I can’t very well just leave right now and disappoint all the fans who are counting on me.” She chewed her bottom lip, considering me. “Where are your seats tonight?”

“
Clear up in the balcony,” she said, exasperated.

“
I’ll have your seat upgraded so you have a better view of the show, then maybe we can talk later. Okay?” It was risky. There was a good chance she was going to explode on me right there, but I could tell how much it meant to her to see the show. Apparently I’d made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. “Okay,” she said, her steps coming to a stop as she turned to face me. “That might work.” I saw Neon approaching from behind her with two members of the venue’s security team. They were big guys. Maybe not take-down-a-vampire big, but big.  I held up a hand to let Neon know that I was making progress. “Will you make sure Crystal’s seat is upgraded?” I said to him.

He looked at me in confusion at first, but then recovered in time to play along.
“Sure. Absolutely,” he said, smiling at her. “If you’ll just come this way we’ll get everything sorted out.”

Crystal reluctantly let go of my arm and went with Neon, the security detail following them back down the hall. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to see Aurora coming out into the hallway. She took one look and me and visibly relaxed.

“That was close,” she said, coming to stand by me.

“
Too close,” I agreed.