Silas whirled to look at her.
“And blood,” she said. “This is a fetish club. A vampire fetish club.”
She’d never seen the warmth drain from someone’s eyes so quickly. The deep green went stone cold. He stared at Meredith for a beat, all levity draining from his features, then turned back to the room.
Soleil was there now, at the center of it all. She wore a silvery white mask, but there was no disguising her glow. A dozen or so couples fanned out, taking seats on the bench that lined the periphery of the room. They’d donned masks of all shapes and sizes. Black, all black, aside from Soleil’s. When the crowd had settled in, a man entered the room and approached Soleil wearing a mask of red silk. He took her hand. The demon, Meredith presumed.
“We don’t have to stay,” Meredith whispered. “She’s a prostitute, Silas. She’s working.”
Silas seemed to hear her, but he didn’t look away from the scene below. He’d gone still as a statue. Meredith thought he looked vacant, impassive. She wondered what he must be thinking. Soleil was his ex, but he’d cared for her once.
The demon kissed Soleil on the mouth in a greedy, violent way that made Meredith’s stomach turn. His barbed tail wagged behind him like a dog that had found a bone. This was not going to be pretty.
The demon pulled the tie on Soleil’s wrap dress and slipped it from her body. The woman was stunning. Meredith had to stop herself from going down the rabbit hole of self-deprecation. Soleil’s body was perfect, long, lean, with the straight spine of a ballerina. Every inch of her golden skin was flawless. There wasn’t a wrinkle, freckle or mole anywhere on the woman. Well, that was that, she thought. She had no chance with Silas. What man would want her after having that?
Meredith shifted uneasily. Ofcourse, she had no future with Silas. He was her partner. She had no business even considering the possibility of a romantic relationship. She shook her head and forced herself to watch the trainwreck below.
Now completely nude aside from stilettos and stockings, Soleil allowed the demon to lead her to the padded bench. He spun her around violently and shoved her between the shoulder blades.
“Yes, Sir,” Soleil said, although Meredith had to read her lips; she couldn’t hear through the thick pane of glass. Soleil’s abdomen slapped the brown leather, her breasts dangling on the opposite side as her feet. Methodically, the demon bound her wrists behind her back with a red silk rope. He tapped the inside of her stilettos. Soleil smiled as she spread her feet, giving the room a clear view of everything between her legs.
The vampires in the room dropped fang. Other guests, young and old, began touching each other, shedding clothes and locking lips.
Meredith touched Silas’s arm. “Silas, what else do you hope to see? This isn’t healthy. We should go.”
Silas didn’t respond. He stared absently through the glass, a look of disgust on his face.
The demon dragged a pointed nail down Soleil’s spine, leaving a red trail behind. When he reached her tailbone, his hand drew back and connected with her backside in a slap that Meredith could hear through the glass. Soleil arched slightly from the pain, tugging against her restraints, but if it was painful, Meredith couldn’t tell from her expression. She was smiling, a sultry, heated grin. Her lips formed the wordmore.
With a wicked smirk, the demon selected a flogger from the wall to his left. This seemed to excite the crowd. A vampire at the back of the room sat on one of the benches and pulled his middle-aged human escort onto his lap. The human’s lips parted as he entered her and the vampire ran one fang along her throat. He continued to watch the show over the human’s shoulder.
As the demon whipped Soleil, her nipples extended and she arched with pleasure. Until, with his last thrash, he broke her skin. A bead of sunlight dripped from her flesh. The vampires in the room cringed. But the demon rubbed the light away and licked it off his thumb. He tossed the flogger aside.
One of the vampires sank his teeth into his human escort, spraying blood across Soleil’s back. The demon was far from disturbed. He untied the belt of his robe and allowed it to fall open. As he entered Soleil from behind, more red droplets sprayed across his chest. Blood and sex filled the room. Couples joined other couples. Vampires fed on multiple hosts. The entire room became an orgy of pleasure and pain. Only Soleil and the demon remained exclusively with each other, showered in the blood of the surrounding guests.
“Silas, please,” Meredith pleaded. Tears had formed in her eyes, spilling over and tracing a trail down her cheeks. It was all too much. She didn’t want to be here anymore. She shook him by the elbow, hard.
He turned then, blinking his eyes like he’d just woken up. He lifted his hand, touched her face, and stared at the tears on his fingertips like he didn’t know how they got there.
“I can’t take it anymore,” she said. “This is not my thing.” Although she held no judgment against the consenting adults in the room below, there was too much pain here for her tastes. Too many head games.
He nodded, then gestured toward the staircase. The air felt dense as they exited the building, the men in black at the entrance giving them a strange look. Silas tugged at his collar. Meredith took a full, deep breath, the cool night air flowing into her lungs, bolstering her. She wiped the tears from her face.
Wrapping one arm around her waist, Silas tugged her to his side. “I’m sorry,” he said. When she didn’t respond, he hooked a finger under her chin and made her look at him. “Meredith, I’m sorry.” He wiped away her tears with his thumbs.
She nodded. They climbed into the van. For several minutes, they sat beside each other, staring out the windshield without making a sound.
“Hey, you want to get a drink?” Meredith finally asked.
Silas answered immediately. “Yeah. I know a place.”
Chapter Seven
“It didn’t seem real at first,” Silas said. He sipped his vodka and tonic within the confines of a booth in the bar area at Valentine’s. “I’m not a prude, Meredith, but I’ve never seen anything like that. You hear about things, you know, doing the work we do. You interview people. You know it happens. But there’s a difference between knowing and seeing.”
“I know what you mean. I thought I could handle it… until…”
Silas waited.
