“So I guess you made it upstairs all right the other night,” he said.
Kia nodded.
“That was fun going uptown,” he said, moving her hair away from her neck. “It was like visiting a foreign country without the jet lag.”
“And no bags to lug around,” Kia said, feeling his fingers on her flesh and surprised that she could speak at all.
“What do you think of the party?” he asked, studying her face.
“I haven't decided yet,” she said carefully.
“Ahhh, taking a wait-and-see attitude.”
“I guess.”
“Want a drink? Wine? Bloodbath?”
Remembering that Damon didn't drink, she shook her head no. Besides, she already felt intoxicated.
“Just blood, right?” he joked. “Typical purist vampire.”
Startled, she laughed. “I guess,” she said, covering.
Damon slipped his arm across her shoulders and Kia wondered where Kali was.
“The fangs are out in full force tonight,” Damon said.
Kia looked around. He was right. In the clubs the fang wearers were in the minority, but here almost everyone had fangs. Everyone but herâand Damon. She thought of the cutting in the other room. Were people going to start using their teeth instead of scalpels?
She shivered. That was too much for her to accept.
“Lots of action tonight,” Damon said, watching a woman being nuzzled by two men on either side of her throat and a woman sucking on her wrist.
Kia's stomach knotted as she wondered what Damon might expect her to be okay withâand she wondered what she might find herself willing to do.
More applause came from the other room. Kia's head whipped toward the archway; she was curious what might be happening.
“Shall we?” Damon said, his full lips sneaking up into a smile.
“Sure.” With Damon's hands guiding her through the room, Kia felt she could handle anything. Or would at least force herself to try.
There were more people in the performance room. The man and woman were still handcuffed, and new tracks of blood trickled along their exposed skin.
Damon licked his lips.
Once again, Kia became aware of other people noticing her with Damon. It made her feel proud, like a chosen one.
“Is this your place?” Kia asked.
Damon's eyes stayed on the man and woman on the stage. He didn't seem to have heard her.
“Do you live here?” Kia tried again. She desperately wanted to know more about him.
“What?” Damon leaned his head toward her so he could hear her without taking his eyes off the stage. The music wasn't very loud, so Kia knew the reason he wasn't hearing her was because he was too fascinated by what he was watching.
He took a few steps toward the stage, moving away from Kia. She scurried to stay with him. He didn't seem to notice. It was as if he was being pulled up there. Compelled by something.
The blood.
She reached for his hand, but he moved too quickly. He pushed his way through the crowd and leapt up onto the stage.
He turned to face them and grinned.
Fangs.
He had fangs.
She blinked.
He didn't have them a minute ago. He's never had them before.
She'd never seen him around blood before.
He turned his back on the crowd againâand sank his teeth into the woman's neck.
The crowd went wild.
He's not doing that,
Kia thought. He's not.
The woman let out a shriek and went limp. If she weren't handcuffed, she would have slumped to the floor. Damon ran his hand along her bare breasts, up and down her body, smearing the blood that had risen from the earlier cutting.
Kali appearedâonce again in all whiteâand pulled Damon from the woman. With all the smeared blood, Kia couldn't tell if Damon had actually bitten the woman. Her neck was intensely red, but it could have been blood from the cuts or ...
Or he could have used his vampire fangs to feed on her.
The crowd was clapping rhythmically, pounding glasses and their feet. “Drain her!” someone shouted. “Drink it all!” another cried.
Damon faced the crowd with blood on his face, shut his eyes, and smiled. He seemed to be drinking in the chants, the cheers. Kali stared at the crowd a moment, then pulled Damon offstage.
The cutting ritual began again.
Kia stumbled backward until she could lean against a wall. She rubbed her palms against the rough concrete behind her, their solid reality welcome in the murky, unchartered surroundings. She needed to ground herself or she'd be washed away into something she didn't understand.
What did I just see?
“You were with Damon,” said a man next to her wearing a leather vest and leather pants. He looked about thirty and had long thick curls and dark blue tattoos on his bare arms.
Kia nodded.
The man stepped in front of her and placed his hands on the wall behind her, trapping her. “Has he made you already?”
“He's waiting for me,” Kia responded, not understanding the question. “I should go findâ”
The man grabbed Kia's wrists and pressed them against the wall. He leaned in close, looking up and down at her body, his gaze resting a long time at her cleavage, then finally he seemed to fixate on her neck. “If he hasn't made you, I'd be happy to be your sire.”
That word again.
“You can't,” Damon's voice cut in. “Posers and users can't sire.”
The guy glanced over his shoulder to see who had interrupted. When he realized it was Damon, he released Kia's wrists. He turned to face Damon but still blocked Kia.
“Hey, Damon, just checking out the new girl,” he said. “No offense.”
“Get out of her personal space, Void,” Damon ordered.
“I've never seen you so territorial,” Void said, a smirk on his face. “Interesting. If you don't want to share, maybeâ”
“I mean it, Void. Move. Now.”
Void looked startled by the ferocity in Damon's voice. He shook his head and walked away.
“You okay?” Damon asked.
Kia stared at him. The blood was gone. So were the fangs. Had she imagined it?
No. She knew what she saw. She didn't make that up.
“Kia?”
Kia realized she hadn't answered him “Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks.”
Now Kali came over. She nodded at Kia, clearly recognizing her. Kia stiffenedâwas Kali going to take Damon away from her?
“We need your expertise,” Kali said to Damon in her low, throaty voice. “Let's get this party into gear.”
“Right,” Damon said, breaking away from Kia to focus on Kali. “Be there in a sec.”
Kali took a step away but hovered nearby, watching.
She's jealous,
Kia thought, the realization filling her with something like glee.
Damon looked at Kia again. “Gotta spin some discs,” he told her.
“Okay,” Kia said.
“Don't worry about Void,” he added. “I think I was pretty clear that you're off-limits.”
Kia nodded. It was beginning to sink in that Damon had defended her honorâhad stepped in to keep some guy from ... what? From
siring
her. The thought that Damon might feel possessive about her thrilled her. She had started to reach up to kiss him when she glimpsed Kali over his shoulder. Not knowing the full story between Damon and Kali made her self-conscious. Kia dropped her hands and mumbled, “Thanks.”
“Later,” he said. He backed away, then turned and joined Kali. They went to a console in the corner. Damon knelt down and began flipping through CDs and LPs.
Kia stood and watched him, his elegant hands, his lithe, cat-like movements. Kali glanced at her and Kia shifted her eyes back up to the stage again; she didn't want Kali to catch her staring at Damon like a swoony, moonstruck kid.
The man and woman handcuffed to the pipes were being released from their restraints. The blood had dried in intricate patterns on their bodies, like tattoos. A woman carrying a whip took their place.
Kia went back into the front room. She spotted Void by the windows, talking to a woman caressing a snake. It slithered across her shoulders and flicked its tongue at Kia as she walked by. Void and the snake woman both stared at her as she passed. She knew they were talking about her.
She straightened her shoulders and jutted out her jaw. She could feel other eyes on her, and she was sure it was because of Damon. They knew she was special. Because of him.
Kia found a wall to lean against. Everywhere she looked, there were groups in weird configurations; she didn't want to observe anyone too closely.
Suddenly she wished Hecate hadn't gone home. She looked down at the ground to avoid seeing a completely naked guy tracing his veins with a scalpel. She could see why this would be too much.
“Hey.” A woman in full vampire dragâdyed black hair, powdered white skin, red contact lenses, and fangs and wearing nothing but a black lace body stocking with lace-up thigh-high bootsâstepped in front of Kia.
Kia stepped back. “Hey,” she said cautiously.
“Gorgeous corset,” the woman said.
“Thanks.”
“You work at NightTimes, don't you?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
“I thought I'd seen you there. I'm Lady Margaritte, House of Draconia.”
“Kia. »
“This is a little too much for you, isn't it?” Lady Margaritte said, as if reading her thoughts.
Kia shrugged. She didn't want it getting back to Damon that she couldn't handle the scene. His scene.
“It was like that for me too the first few times. The
public
aspect,” Lady Margaritte said. “People doing things at a party most people barely admit doing behind closed doors.”
Like me and cutting,
Kia thought with a sudden rush of fear.
“Don't worry, it's all about consent here. And there are plenty of us who just watch.”
“It's cool,” Kia said. Lady Margaritte seemed nice enough; she was certainly trying to make Kia feel comfortable. But what she didn't understand was that Damon was the only reason she was there.
“You are vampire,” Lady Margaritte said. “I can see that. Damon saw that too. We've noticed how he singles you out.”
Kia smiled. So that's why this woman was talking to her.
“Are you aligned?” Lady Margaritte asked.
Kia figured that since she didn't know what that meant, she probably wasn't. “No,” she said.
Lady Margaritte smiled too. “You should come to court. Damon is obviously your protector, but it's best to be aligned with a house.”
“Is Damon with your house?” Kia asked.
“Damon is council,” Lady Margaritte said. She seemed surprised that Kia didn't know this. “So he can't be aligned with one house.”
“Right, of course,” Kia bluffed. The vampire community was more complex than she had realized.
“House of Draconia, next week at Red,” Lady Margaritte said. “Do you know it?”
Kia nodded. Red was a bar a few blocks away from NightTimes. “Maybe I'll see you there,” Kia said.
“You would be most welcome.” Lady Margaritte gave a slight bow and moved away.
Kia heard someone shriek in the performance room, then applause. The shrieks continued, sending chills along Kia's flesh. She didn't want to know what was going on in there. She pushed away the thought that Damon was somehow involved, grabbed her cloak, and left the party.
The bouncer in the elevator ignored her and they rode down together in silence. Kia stepped out onto a deserted street. The cold, brisk wind made her shiver, but she knew the shakiness in her legs was because the scene in that loft had been a lot more disconcerting than she had let herself admit.
If Carol and Aaron had seen those people, what they were doingâ
She shook her head and forced the idea out of her mind.
And Damon. What really happened up there? Did the blood and the cutting excite him so much that he couldn't help revealing his vampire side?
She charged down the steps into the subway, her mind filled with the image of the man and the woman being cut.
She paced the platform, unable to stand still, and when the empty subway train arrived, she couldn't sit down either.
Maybe that's the pull,
she thought.
The reason cutting is so tempting, why Damon has chosen me.
Maybe she was tapping into some deep vampire quality of her own.
TWELVE
K
ia. Come in here, please. I need to talk to you.”
Kia froze in the hallway between the living room and her room. Her father sounded serious.
The past week flashed through Kia's mind. She slowly turned and walked down the hall to the living room, flipping through possible errors. Her dad had been back from D.C. so she had been more careful, despite how desperately she had wanted to see Damon since the party. She stepped into the living room warily.
“Kia, there's something we need to talk about.” He stood at his desk as if he had just hung up the phone.
She sat on the couch and prepped an “I swear I'll do better, thanks for caring” speech and braced herself for whatever was coming.
“I'm going over to the hospital,” her dad said, leaning against the desk.
Kia's heart clanged against her ribs. If her father was going to see her mom, Kia was in even bigger trouble than she had thought.
“I know you've been busy with school and work,” he continued. “So you haven't been there recently.”