“A few hundred?” A slow smile slips across her lips. “How lax you’ve been. I’m pleased that once again, I come out on top.”
Raw, cold jealousy snakes its way through my veins, a sensation that takes me back to those warm Parisian nights, watching every eye in the audience entranced by her as she moved around the pole like a panther stalking its prey, knowing that more than a few of them would pay handsomely for the privilege of a night in her bed.
I may be a modern man who believes in a woman’s right to do whatever she chooses with her body, including sex work, but I’m also a beast. I like topossess. And Arabella has always been elusive. You sense that she’s playing a game with you, toying with you like a cat with a mouse before the cat slits the mouse’s throat.
That’s what makes her so enticing.
I glance down at my tablet, where Sinead has sent me Arabella’s documentation and a map to her new home. She’s purchased one of our newest executive treehouses – these residences are right in the heart of the estate, surrounded by centuries-old woodland and overlooking the soon-to-be-opened-once-Alaric-stops-being-a-bloody-perfectionist-and-finishes-a-sculpture Midnight Garden. Her home is completely private and sheltered from the sun. Unlike the others, she didn’t pay in treasure but in cold, hard cash.
Arabella must be doing well to have amassed enough wealth to buy into Sanctus and receive the approval of at least one of our residents. Alyra Maythorn has vouched for her on her application, and Alyra is of the Blood Kincaid, a prominent Midnight Court family.
I want to know everything about Arabella’s life, every detail from the moment I left her curled up in her golden silk sheets to meeting her by the watermelons, but she’s giving me nothing.
I stand, straightening my lapels. Arabella’s house key jangles in my hand. She eyes it hungrily. She wants this. I remember that samehunger in her eyes when she stood on the VIP balcony at her theatre, watching the artists, bohemians, courtesans, and criminals beneath her, transfixed by the enchantments she created.
A wicked streak sizzles down my spine. The trickster in me wants to see her suffer, to unnerve her the way she’s unnerved me. I am going to drag this tour outsolong, Taylor Swift will be playing at nursing homes.
“Follow me, Ms Lestrange.” I gesture to the door.
Arabella rises from her chair with the grace of a ballerina and shimmies out of my office ahead of me. I try so hard to be a gentleman, but my gaze drops to her glorious, perfectly sculpted legs in her tailored suit trousers as she shoves past me.
Worse, when I raise my eyes again, she meets them with a mocking glare.
“A lot of things change in a hundred and fifty years, Gideon,” she purrs. “But not the fact that you’re a scoundrel and I’m a motherfuckinggoddess.”
I let her have that one because really, I can’t argue.
First, I show her around Sanctus House, which is our amenities building – a towering structure of Norwegian larch and Patrick Stock’s specialist glazing. Arabella does not indicate that she’s impressed by our covered tennis courts, state-of-the-art gymnasium, luxurious spa, or onsite coffin-repair shop. She pauses at the shelves in the temperature-controlled cellar, where members are welcome to imbibe from our curated blood selection as part of their membership fee. Her red-painted nails caress the bottle of a seventeenth-century Friar as a slow smile plays across her lips.
“I never imagined you as a vintage drinker,” she purrs. “I thought you’d prefer direct from the source.”
“You imagined me as a vampire?”
“Sometimes.” Her gaze flicks to me. She lets slip a little fang as she smiles. “Mostly I imagined you as my prey.”
This woman will be the death of me.
What game is Arabella playing?
Why am I so excited to be played?
I lead her across the hall into the donation room with its privatesoundproof booths arranged with luxe furnishings and well-stocked medical kits. “Members may book these rooms for use with their personal Thralls if they prefer not to drink in their own homes,” I explain. “You are also welcome to use our Thralls if you don’t have your own.”
Arabella studies the Yves Saint Laurent amenity kits. “What kind of selection is available?”
“My secretary, Sinead, has a woody, smoky flavour. Giovanni the tennis instructor has a summery peach bouquet. I prefer Floyd, the masseuse. He has a slight vanilla aftertaste.”
“Every member of staff is a Thrall?”
“Every permanent member, yes. It’s a requirement of the role. We have several un-Thralled temporary workers through our site, most of them human by necessity.”
“The Conclave would say that’s far too risky.”
“The Conclave has never tried to build something like this.” I lead her through another door. “Welcome to Brimstone.”
Arabella’s eyes flicker with interest as she takes in our largest bar and entertainment area. The decor is 1920s Hollywood glamour – mirrored surfaces, luxe fabrics, gold everywhere. It’s early in the evening, so there are very few members using the facilities – a couple share a blood cocktail beside one of the windows, and three male vamps converse at the bar. Lilac, our bartender, waves at me before returning to wiping down glasses.
“Our bartender mixes more than blood cocktails,” I say. “As well as mocktails for those of us who prefer our blood without the tang of alcohol. Lilac is ex-Dusk Court and far too good at her craft to be pulling pints at the Rose & Wimple. If a human is not interested in working for us after they discover our true nature, she’ll create a draught that can make them forget everything they’ve seen here. Of course, it sends a few of them a little doolally, but it’s better than the alternative.” I make a slicing motion across my throat.
