La Luxure: Discover Your Blood Lust (27 page)

Dressed in a white poet's shirt and black
leather pants, Armand cradled a mostly naked woman in his arms.
Dangling limply, the woman had two puncture marks on her white
neck, blood trailing from each wound. Armand hovered over her, his
full lips parted, blood pooled and dripping from the corners. The
image might have been the cover of any number of bad romance novels
Julia had read over the years, cheesy and full of clichés. Only the
cartoon character on the cover was Armand, and the bimbo in his
arms was Julia.

"Isn't that hot?" Clare chirped on the other
end of the phone.

Julia tossed the computer aside, her stomach
twisting and turning, her skin crawling. It felt like she'd just
discovered her husband was actually her long lost brother. "I gotta
go," she told her sister, hanging up before Clare had a chance to
respond. After a second thought, Julia turned off the phone.

She couldn't talk. She couldn't think. She
couldn't breathe. The shattering of her heart overwhelmed
everything else.

Chapter Nineteen

Staring at the cartoon image of Armand and
the tramp, Julia sat on the bed, hugging her knees tightly to her
chest. As much as she hated the photo, hated the lies it
represented, she couldn't peel her eyes off it.

His skin was a luminescent white, accented by
body makeup and what looked like glitter. The black liner on his
eyes was slightly smudged, enhancing the lust in his eyes. She'd
seen those bedroom eyes, in his bedroom, right after she'd drank.
his. blood.

Julia's stomach turned. Luckily, the computer
went into sleep mode, because if she had to look at that image any
longer, she was going to vomit. It was all one big lie. All of it.
Every kiss, every touch. Everything. Armand was just some vampire
wannabe; a gorgeous empty package wrapped up in a nice costume. His
clothes, his hair, the way he moved, his teeth...Shit, his name
probably wasn't even real.

If everything she'd experienced in the last
week was fake, had any of it been real? She touched the wounds on
her neck. It'd been real enough that he'd fucking bitten her.

The thought suddenly disgusted her. When
Armand had been an actual vampire unable to resist temptation
biting her, the act was fine, but knowing he was just some blood
drinking weirdo sinking his teeth into her flesh made her skin
crawl.

It was her own damn fault for being so
fucking gullible. She'd wanted to believe so badly that it wasn't
difficult for him to seduce her into his sick, little world.

Julia groaned out loud. God, could it all
have been a ploy? There had been so many clues, so much "evidence".
She sifted through memories from the last week. Even now, with the
truth blaring across her computer screen, she couldn't believe he
was a mere human.

Either he was an amazing actor or she was a
fucking idiot.

She needed to go to source, to hear the truth
from Armand's lips, because at this point, she couldn't separate
reality from fiction.

* * *

By the time Julia reached the narrow isle
leading to
Luxure
, she was furious. On the rushed walk
there, every scene from the past week had played in rerun fashion
over and over in her mind. And the more she dwelled on the
"evidence", the more infuriated she became. It felt like Armand had
woven this intricate web for her to fall into, and she'd eagerly
become his victim.

The bar was quiet when she flung open the
door. All the lights were on, washing out the black walls and
furniture in an artificial glow. Armand stood behind the bar,
marking off an invoice attached to a clipboard. A tall, slender,
tattooed girl, with black, Betty Page hair was wiping down
furniture. The velvet curtains to the back room were tied back, and
Julia could just make out the massive, muscled back of the angry
bartender as he stacked boxes of beer against the wall.

Armand grinned when he first saw her,
flashing his artificially white teeth and fangs broadly. The smile
promptly fell when he caught sight of her expression.

"Julia?"

"You're a fake?" The tone was shrill and
accusatory as it left her mouth, and much louder than she intended,
but at this point she was shaking so badly with anger she didn't
care. Seeing him standing casually behind the bar, dressed in a
sleek, button down black shirt, pin-stripe vest, black slacks, and
black Fedora just inflamed her further. Wasn't he the perfect
pin-up vampire. What a fucking crock!

He moved from behind the bar to stand beside
her. "Why don't we go somewhere private to talk?"

"What's wrong with right here?" What, did he
not want his little vampire cronies to know the truth?

Taking her elbow, he started for the locked
door where he'd taken Angel and Ash the first night Julia was
there, applying enough gentle pressure to encourage her to
comply.

"Private conversations should remain
private," he said.

She wanted to resist, wanted to plant her
feet and make him drag her into the room, but a quick glance at the
bartender's narrowed, red glare and tensed up tree-trunk arms
changed her mind. Facing a bunch of angry vampire wannabes did not
sound like a fun evening, no matter how furious she was.

When the door was securely shut and locked
behind them, Armand turned to her. He looked concerned and
confused. With her barging accusation, she expected him to be
angry.

He hadn't released her arm and softly stroked
it. "What's going on, Julia?"

She jerked away from his touch, betrayed by
the fact that his warm fingers felt delicious against her skin. "I
saw your pictures all over the internet, modeling
vampire
clothes. And my sister says she met you last year at some
vampire
convention." The phrase "vampire convention" tasted
like bile as she said it.

The pale skin of Armand's brow knitted
together. "Well, I do model from time to time, and I try to attend
a few conventions a year."

His perplexed confirmation only inflamed the
churning in her gut. "So you are a fake vampire?"

"I've never claimed to be one, fake or
otherwise."

She snorted. "Please. You don't claim to be a
vampire?"

"Never have."

"Then what the hell is all this?" She waved
her hand wildly around her head.

"I thought you understood what
Luxure
was about?"

"Yeah, a bar that caters to vampires."

"Of sorts." He sat on a stainless steel table
next to an autoclave and an assortment of scalpels, sealed
syringes, and small, ceramic cups. "
Luxure
is a blood bar.
Most of the clientele that come here consider themselves Human Live
Vampires, or Sanguinarians."

"Sanguianarians?"

"Humans that need to consume a little human
blood every so often, not to live, but to be well and healthy."
Armand shrugged. "Until I met Slade, my bartender, I didn't believe
it either. But if you saw him before, skinny, sickly, in the
hospital more often than not...Well, I no longer judge."

"And you? Are you one of these
Human Live
Vampires
?"

"No. I'm just a man with a bit of a blood
fetish." The words
blood fetish
washed over her in a fresh
wave of nausea. "
Luxure
is a place for those with
like-minded
tastes
to meet, regardless of the origin of that
desire," Armand was saying. "
La Luxure de Sang
is the bar's
full name."

In her lightheaded state, her limited French
was suddenly perfect. "Blood Lust."

"We just call it
Luxure
for
short."

She stared at the various medical equipment
neatly laid out in the spotless room. "And this room? Is this is
where you perform the blood letting or something?"

He cocked his head. "In a way, yes. I'm a
licensed phlebotomist with a fairly extensive medical background,
and can safely assist my clients with their
needs.
There are
also those who don't care to get blood directly from the source. I
assist with that as well."

"You have a medical background?" Julia
realized she knew nothing about him. Not a single, goddamned
thing.

"Pre-med. And I worked as a paramedic for a
few years."

Instead of becoming clearer, the situation
was getting weirder and weirder. She'd known there was a vampire
subculture out there, but she never imagined it was this involved.
She'd always figured it wasn't much more than a group of people
that shopped at Hot-Topic, hung out in cemeteries or coffee shops,
and discussed the latest popular vampire book or movie, or had
séances or something. This was too much. This was all too much.

"What's the matter Julia? I don't quite
understand your anger. I assumed you understood what
Luxure
was, what I am." He looked even more bewildered than she felt. His
eyebrows were trying desperately to become one, solid unit.

It had been such a preposterous theory, but
her logic couldn't be that flawed. He'd misled her somehow. "I
though - I mean - you just had me convinced." Why did his hazel
eyes boring down on her make her so damned flustered?

"Of what? My immortality?" His confusion
slipped away and was replaced by what appeared to be amusement.

"Yeah, I mean, I guess." The smirk on his
face only made her angrier. She was not a stupid woman. "You're
telling me you didn't try to trick me into believing you were
something other than human?"

"No, not at all. Why would you think
that?"

If it was remotely possible for her to feel
dumber, the calm, cool tone of his words pushed her over the edge
into idiocy. She suddenly felt compelled to explain her logic.
"Just the way you look, your clothes, eyes, teeth...And the way you
move, you're always so graceful and quiet."

"Well, there is a certain
image
owning
this type of establishment requires. Clothes are bought, and grace
is practiced."

"You practice being graceful?" She envisioned
him sitting around his swank apartment, practicing vampire
expressions in the mirror, and recording his baritone drawl to give
it just the perfect edge of seduction.

"At one time. I may not look the part, but I
do come from a very old, very traditional New Orleans family. I had
etiquette training in my youth, and I don't think I can count the
number of debutante balls I attended."

It couldn't be that simple. "And your teeth?"
she pressed.

He gave a small shrug. "I won't lie, those
are fake. I used to wear the ones that slide into place, but in my
line of work they're not practical. You can't eat with them,
they're uncomfortable, and they certainly aren't functional in any
sense. I had veneers put in a few years ago. There's a cosmetic
dentist in town that does them." He leveled his gaze on her. "There
has to be more than just my appearance to warrant your
accusations."

Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. There
was more, so much more, but his quiet scrutiny was jumbling the
thoughts in her brain. She stumbled over the evidence. "You move
incredibly fast," she managed finally. "The night of the parade,
you were across the street and then suddenly right next to me."

His smile was small. "As I recall, you were
drinking Absinthe that night. I don't think you were in full
control of your senses. I did jog across the street to join you,
but hardly anything spectacular."

"What about in the cemetery? You winced when
the sun came out."

"It was in my face."

"Then you deliberately sought out shade. And
this afternoon you looked like your were going to burst into
flames."

"Owning a bar has made me even more of a
night owl than I naturally am. The sun and I rarely see each other
any more. And when we do meet, I'm usually fully protected with a
hat or sunglasses, unlike this afternoon."

She was not this dumb. She was not this
dumb.

"You never eat. And when we were at that
café, you said you were hungry, but that there was nothing on the
menu you could eat."

"That's because I'm a vegetarian."

She nearly strangled on the word.
"Vegetarian?"

"A choice I made in college because I didn't
agree with industrial farming. Back then, there weren't as many
organic or free range options, especially not here in New Orleans.
At this point, I've simply lost my taste for meat."

"But you drink blood!"

"Rarely. But no one dies, nor is any
pollution dumped into the environment because of my quirks."

Could there really be a simple explanation to
everything? "What about Darus? At The Cell, you lifted him up like
it was nothing."

"I'm 6'2" and 220lbs. I work out 6 days a
week and have bounced at my own bar for over 10 years. Darus is
what, 5'11" and maybe 170? Even without the anger and adrenaline
feeding me, I'm pretty sure I could toss him around without much
effort."

"What about Eve?" she stumbled on. There had
to be something more to the evidence she'd compiled than mere
misunderstandings.

"What happened to Eve was an unfortunate,
appalling, and completely unnecessary side effect of this
lifestyle. I should have done more that night; I should have
admitted her at the hospital. But I hardly think my lack of
judgment is evidence that I tried to make you believe I am an
actual vampire."

Oh God. It was that simple. Armand was just a
guy who liked to drink blood and owned a bar that catered to other
people that liked to drink blood. And she was just a fool. She
slumped against the wall. "But you bit me," she said, defeated.

"And you liked it." Armand shook his head.
The pleasant smirk on his face had dropped. Whatever amusement he'd
initially found in Julia's exasperation was gone. "I'm not seeing
the issue here, Julia. Enlighten me."

The words were so hard to find, especially
with him staring at her. She struggled to find the right ones, but
instead ended up blurting out the drivel that danced at the front
of her brain. "It's just - Jesus, you live in this fantasy world,
behind a façade of fake teeth and fake names, running around
pretending to be a vampire in your black clothes. How the fuck is
that not an issue? I'm not one of those girls. I have a real job
and want a real life, not some pretend one."