RAFE'S LAIR (6 page)

                                   CHAPTER 10

      Ava and Marie sat at a nice quiet booth at their favorite little Mexican restaurant close to their condo. In Dallas Tex-Mex joints were a dime a dozen. So once you found one that actually had good food, you tended to stick with that one. Most people who had lived here long enough to know better stayed far away from the chain places. This was a small little ma and pa place that really only the locals knew about. Ava liked that a lot cause it was never too crowded. And since the staff knew them, they got way better service.

They had just finished what
they could eat of their meal and were relaxing enjoying their margaritas. That's the other thing about the hole in the wall places. Their portions were
huge,
and
this place made the best margaritas on the planet hands down. And for the price, well they were just awesome let's put it that way. Even Marie liked them so that said it all right there.

Marie was more of a beer and liquor kinda girl. Ava had never been able to get into the taste of beer; in fact she hated everything about beer. The one alcohol Ava
and Marie both loved was tequila. Not cheap tequila, hell no! Yeah they figured that out one night on Ava's birthday and their balcony door would never be the same again. Ava still felt bad that Marie had to clean that mess up. At least it had been outside so that made it easier.

    "So how was your day dear?" Marie asked Ava

    "Very unproductive thanks to last night." Ava thankfully didn't work on Mondays. There was no way she could have dealt with clients feeling like she'd been hit by a garbage truck. As it was, she barely managed to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. "Have you been able to remember anything?" She ask Marie.

    "Nope not a thing. I remember us getting ready to go somewhere, but that's about it. You?" Marie replied.

    "Same as you and that scares the shit outta me. We should at least be able to remember where we went."

Add the loss of memory to the way her body hurt and she really didn't like it. For all they knew they had been slipped something and God only knew what had been don
e to them. She couldn't explain how they got back home and she couldn't shake the feeling she had lost something important. She had gone looking for her purse earlier thinking that's what she was missing. She found it on the couch with everything inside. So she still had no explanations.

Ava thought Marie was being way too laid back about the whole thing, but that's Marie. She usually took everything in stride. Until you pissed her off that is. A pissed off Marie was a dangerous Marie. When she got mad, her
mind got evil and there really was no telling what she would do. She was just like her mom in that aspect. It wasn't so much that she got physical, although she did do that when the situation warranted it. She could come up with things to do to you to make you wish she had just gone ahead and punched you.

    "You worry too much Ava. We're fine as you can see, so it was just us getting a little too shit faced. Chalk it up to another one of our wild adventures. Hey I've been thinking. We should go to Lair t
his Sunday. I talked to momma today and got to thinkin again that we seriously gotta go check it out." Marie said with a big wicked grin on her face.

The mention of the kink club made a sharp pain lance through Ava's heart. What the hell was that? They'd n
ever been there before. They've talked about it with Sass a lot cause her and her husband used to be members there. Marie's mom used to take her clients there sometimes when she was a dominatrix too. Because of her amazing stories, Ava and Marie were a little too curious. But they'd never gotten up enough courage to venture in there yet.

    "I don't know Marie. It's one thing to talk about it, and a totally different thing to actually go. I'm not so sure it's a good idea anymore." Ava said fiddling with he
r drink. She couldn't even look at Marie while she said it. She knew Marie would start asking her too many questions that she just didn't have the answers to. Then she would tell Ava she was over reacting like she always did.

    "Come on Ava, you can't ch
icken out on me now. I mean we've been talking bout this forever. Mommas promised us nothing will happen that we don't want to. So let's stop talking about it and just go this Sunday." Marie said to her exasperated.

    "Look I'll think about it, okay?"

Marie started grinning from ear to ear at her. "Okay baby girl." Marie knew she had won. By the time Sunday rolled around, she will have psyched Ava up enough to go. Marie couldn't wait to get there and check it out. She knew Ava was just as interested as she was, she was just more cautious about everything. That's why they made such a great pair.

They had met several years ago when Marie walked into the salon Ava was working at. Marie had been sent to her by another stylist and was very surprised when Ava came strolling around the corner to get her. They were about the same age and the first thing
that popped out of her mouth was "How long have you been doing this?" and the second thing was "Do you know what you’re doing?"

Ava had looked at her and told her to sit down and shut up with a big ole grin on her face and as far as Marie was concerned tha
t was a wrap. She knew they were great for each other. Marie had then started asking her to come hang out every time she came in. Ava turned her down every time until Halloween. Marie knew Ava would get tired of telling her no eventually, and wouldn't ya know, she did. That's the way it's been ever since too.

They've had their ups and downs over the years. They've been there for each other through breakups, and supported each other through relationships. No matter what they each knew the other would always
be there. They decided to move in together about two years ago. Of course, they drove each other crazy that first year. What do expect when two people are as close as sisters? Shits not always gonna be roses and rainbows, but they've worked through everything, and they always will. Marie had a feeling this Sunday was gonna change their lives again. Damn, she couldn't wait!

                                 CHAPTER 11

      Rafe had been all over the freaking city and he still hadn't found that damn demon! At least that's what it felt like. The second he could peek his steel toed booted foot outside without getting burned to ashes; he went looking for that friggin asshole. The sun hadn't even totally been set when he rushed out of Lair. That's the joy of being older. Now it didn't feel like he was taking a stroll in Alaska or anything. Hell no. He'd felt like he was in a big freaking oven getting roasted to a crisp like a damned Thanksgiving turkey. His skin was on fire and he was gonna be hating life when he went to bed when the sun forced him back to his cell. Aka his apartment at Lair. But at least he didn't have to worry about pulling a human torch impression like the younger vamps did.

He'd had to get the darkest sunglasses he could find and still his eyes felt like they were melting out of his damn head. This was one instance where it sucked to have an allergy to the sun. That's what his driver's license said was his
problem at least. Allergy riiiiiight. If you call spontaneously combusting when you got out in sunlight an allergy, then yeah that's totally accurate. Even with the damn glasses on, he'd had to keep his head down till the sun was totally gone.

Rafe had fi
rst tried the loft Ed kept here in this realm. Demons and angels usually kept a place in this world and in whatever other world they went to. Rafe being just a lowly vampire wasn't privy to that valuable info though. Which made his little game of hide and seek with the damn hellgoat wannabe even harder since he wasn't in his loft. He'd then gone to a few of the places supernaturals were known to haunt. Ha! Haunt. Well wasn't he just a little comedian tonight, Ethan would be so proud. Too bad Rafe was in the worst mood ever. Finding and then promptly losing one's mate will do that to a vampire. But hey he wasn't complaining, well hell yeah he was. It just sucked all around to be him right about now.

He was at his last hope of finding Ed and he wasn't all that
excited about going inside. The Meat Locker. What an appropriate name. The Meat Locker was an all nude strip club the werewolves owned. It was of course a fine upstanding establishment. Yeah, he couldn't even think that with a straight face. If you wanted to lose your money just looking at pussy, and if you had enough of the green stuff to get pussy, then this was the place to be. Rafe didn't care too much to have to pay for his pussy when he had plenty for free. And now that he had a sexy little mate, the only pussy he wanted was hers, period.

So of course being owned by the fleabags meant it was crawling with fleabags. Oh goodie. Now he really didn't hate the mangy mutts, on the contrary, he actually respected a few of them. He tolerated a few more too. D
id he want to be surrounded by the ornery fuckers though? Hell. Fucking. No! Especially not in the mood he was in. Hell, he didn't ever like being surrounded by them in whatever mood he was in. But right now, it was just even more dangerous. For them of course. Now he wasn't afraid of a wolf or you know fifty mind you. Just afraid of getting fleas.

The few that he respected were of course the few League enforcers of the werewolf community. The few he tolerated were the enforcers who haven't had the chance t
o go through the trials. For the most part, they were good guys; they were just unlucky enough to have been born too late. The strike against them was that the community hadn't officially accepted them, so therefore they weren't 100% on the League's side. Ergo they couldn't totally be trusted with your fellow League enforcers' lives. Yeah he was a judgmental son of a bitch, but in his line of work, he had to be.

Taking his last breath of semi fresh air, he opened the door and was immediately confronted by a
big bad wolf. Oh my. And of course, wolfie started huffing and puffing as soon as he locked eyes on Rafe and realized what he was. Man he so didn't have the patience for this shit. All he needed was to find his beautiful mate and get both their asses to his bed where they would spend the next six months, no make that the next year. Shit, if he had to deal with much more than it'd be the next ten. Dammit!

    "You lost blood sucker?"

    "Well aren't you Mr. original. Did you think of that all by yourself Fido?" Rafe responded. If he had a dollar for every time he'd heard that one. Well you know the rest. "Where's Dominic?”

   
"I'll rip your fangs out for you, leach and we'll see how cocky you are then asshole." Was wolfie's even more intelligent come back.

Rafe just rolled his eyes and looked to the door girl. Hoping she could at least not make him feel like he was losing precious brain cells being in the same room with her. He talked to her instead.

    "Hi sweetheart, I'm sure I'll at least get an intelligent response from you. Is Dominic here, and if he is could you please let him know he has a visitor?" He said smiling at her. She wasn't a wolf, but she obviously knew about them. So if he had to make a guess, he'd say she was a nymph. Yeah not gonna get much better outta her. Lovely. Just lovely. That's about all she was actually, pretty little puppet to play with. Too bad, he was losing patience by the second.

    "Hey leach, I wasn't done talking to you." Wolfie said putting his big paw he thought was a
good enough impression of a hand on Rafe's chest and pushed.

Rafe looked at the mitt still attached to his shirt and sighed. He really really
really
wasn't in the fucking mood for this shit! Shaking his head, he slowly looked back up at the mutt.

    "Loo
k, you really don't want to do this with me right now lassie. So I'm going to say this one time nicely. Get your nasty fucking paw off me before I break it off of you. Oh and tell me where the fuck Dominic is before you waste any more of my time and piss me off."

Rafe was actually very proud of himself for how calmly and rationally he'd just spoken to block head; and for the fact, he actually gave the fleabag a chance to keep his hand. Thankfully Sloan, Dom's beta came out to keep his flunky alive.

    "Carl I suggest you do as he says before
he
does as he said. I'm afraid I won't be able to help you stop the bleeding cause I'll be laughing too hard. Just so you know." Sloan turned his attention to Rafe and crossing his arms across his chest, he said. "Rafe you’re a long way from home there vamp. You sure you’re feeling alright man? Cause I'm afraid you might have been hit in the head too hard and maybe lost your way."

Rafe looked at Carl. "Sloan man, I think your guard dog here may have a hearing problem. Ma
ybe you should go ahead and seek medical attention for him while I test his pain threshold."

Sloan growled and his eyes changed right before he grabbed Carl by the back of his neck. He shook the guy like a misbehaving puppy then threw him into the wall. He
stalked over to crouch down in front of him and looked him in the eye. Sloan had apparently been able to knock a little sense into the dumb ass because Carl kept his eyes lowered and wouldn't look straight at him.

    "Do we have a problem Carl? Do you an
d I need to have a little lesson on who's who in this relationship we've got here between us?" Sloan asked him.

He grabbed Carl by the throat again in a show of dominance. He leaned over pushing Carl's head back daring him to look Sloan in the eye. If the
idiot actually grew the balls to do it, he was a dead man and they both knew it. Sloan was actually hoping he'd do it too. It'd been a while since he'd been able to kick the shit head's ass for him and he'd just plain been bored lately. Somebody had to give him a break here soon before he went bonkers. Sloan slammed Carl's head into the wall for emphasis.

    "Answer me you piece of shit before I rip your fucking head off out of principle.
”

   
"No Sloan I understand completely. I'm sorry for the disrespect my beta." Carl said lowering his head in respect.

    "Well well it looks you do have a few brain cells after all. There's a good boy. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind." Sloan said releasing Carl after one last shake just for the fun of it.
He did kinda look like a bobble head doll while they were having their little getting reacquainted meeting there.

Sloan got up and turned back to Rafe. "So to what do we owe the displeasure of your presence vampire?"

    "Never a party in my book to see you too there Sloan." Rafe said back with a big grin showing lots of fang.

They both walked toward each other hand extended. Grabbing each other
’s forearm and embracing to slap each other on the back. When they separated, they laughed smiling at each other.

    "Sloan how have you been? Still mangy as ever I see." Rafe said

    "Says the man who makes Casper look tan." Sloan replied. Slapping Rafe on the back again, he said. "Come on, Dom knows your here and he's waiting on me to bring your punk ass in to see him."

    "Hey fleabag I'm not that white, and that was just a low blow man.
” He said looking down at himself then back up to Sloan’s laughing face. “Dude seriously what the hell? Did you run out of half intelligent candidates for butler duty? Wasn't Alfred free?" Rafe said laughing as they walked into the main part of the club. "Or is the nymph too tempting to the respectable patrons you have coming to your fine establishment that they can't keep their hands to themselves? So now you have to have a guard dog watch out for her."

Sloan didn't reply to that one, he just shook his head and walked through the ropes to the club. Rafe followed Sloan through th
e club feeling every werewolf trying to give him the stink eye. Like that would make his fangs chatter in fear. Sure in like no universe. Ever. Rafe didn't even bother to acknowledge them; he just kept walking with Sloan through the club. They could glare all they want. Hell, maybe he'd get lucky and they'd go cross eyed because they had to be idiots and try to intimidate him.

That was the thing with wolves; they had to show you they were bad asses all the time. Let's get that straight. All the freaking tim
e. That's the main reason he couldn't stand being around the damn mutts. Other than that huge character flaw, he still really didn't like most of the fucktards. Yeah he wasn't kidding anybody on that one, not even himself. Oh well he really did try. Really he didn't.

A few of the dancers and waitresses tried to get his attention, but he just ignored them too. He had no interest in dealing with them mainly because he wanted his mate, and all they wanted was his money. Although judging by the way most of the
marks looked, he didn't blame them for wanting to have to be all over something that didn't have a beer gut.

No wonder this place was the busiest strip club in DFW, the scheisty bastards had nymphs as the dancers and the waitresses. Nymphs were a part of t
he supernatural community by default only. Really, the only thing they were good at was looking pretty. Yes, they were smokin hot, and yes because of that, they were able to convince most pathetic human bastards to give them everything they wanted. But as far as real powers go, they had zip. Nada. Zilch.

Rafe guessed that The Meat Locker was your typical strip club, not that he'd ever had the need or the want to go in one. There was a main stage that caught your eye as soon as you were allowed through the r
opes. The biggest part of the stage had three poles spaced out across it. Then it had a runway that went out almost to the middle of the room. At the end of the runway, there was another pole. This one actually looked to be taller than the other three. He bet that one had to be a bitch to climb all the way up. The runway ended in a circle that had a dancer dancing at the edge of it surrounded by guys with bills in their hands.

She was blonde, go figure, and she was definitely earning her pay. She had a gart
er on each leg stuffed full of cash. And she had what Rafe guessed was supposed to be crotch less panties on. It was basically just string that she could put money in to hold. It too was stuffed full on the sides, because she wouldn't be all nude in an all nude strip club if you covered her crotch up with money. Jeez, that would just be asinine. She was on her back with her legs spread while some guy ran his bill up and down her slit a few times before he put it in her mouth.

Dumb ass looked like he was gon
na blow in his shorts just from that little bit of action. Now that's just pathetic. Any idiot could tell it had done nothing for the girl. Seriously, they all were faking everything they did in reaction to the Johns. It's a good thing Rafe didn't have to work here. He wouldn't be able to not smack the losers upside the head on principal alone. This place was just ridiculous.

The stage and runway were surrounded by tables. In the back along two of the walls were bigger booths raised up on platforms so they
could still see over the douche bags crowding the stage. There was a pretty good sized bar that faced the stage, but it was set almost in the middle of the place so it made a circle around the bartenders. On the other side of the bar were smaller stages that had dancers on them as well. Apparently that’s where the dancers went when their spotlight performance was through if they didn't find a douche to relieve of his money.

There was an elaborate staircase that flared out the closer it got to the floor faci
ng the bar. The damn thing looked like it belonged in a hotel, not a strip club. But hey, what did Rafe know about decorating. And especially a strip club at that. The stairs were where Sloan was leading them. Rafe was fairly surprised at how busy the place was for a Monday night. But hey, when you had nymphs drawing in your customers, then it did kinda make sense.