“Thank you.” I nodded at her. Once she was gone, I arched a brow. “Do you only feed from Xinyi? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“No.” Iris’s lips twitched. “I am old enough that I do not require sustenance as often as others. Xinyi is all I could ever want or need.”
The small dark-haired woman giggled, staring adoringly up at the vampire.
Unfortunately, I’d barely gotten a few sips from my glass before Xinyi was dragging me to the dance floor.
“Wait, what about Iris?” I peered back at the vampire with a pleading look to save me. A look she promptly ignored, lifting her glass in my direction.
Resolved to my fate, I sighed, letting Xinyi bring us to the middle of the dance floor. She moved like she was one with the music, knowing exactly how to shift and twist, a big grin on her face. While I felt as if everyone was staring at me, I stepped from side to side, swaying just enough to call it dancing.
“Come on, you’ve gotta loosen up a bit.” Xinyi grabbed my hands and tried to direct me into more complicated moves that ended up with both of us giggling at how uncoordinated I was.
Hitting a target from several hundred feet away, I could do. Dance? Not so much.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” I told her after several songs, needing a reprieve from humiliating myself.
Xinyi bobbed her head, continuing to dance as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
I followed the sign that pointed toward the bathroom, down a long dimly lit hallway until I saw a line almost as long as the one outside. Groaning, I contemplated if I could hold it or maybe I could duck out into the alley in the back?
No, that was a bad idea. If they knew about the Durands here, then I definitely didn’t want to be caught with my pants down. Literally. I could just imagine what my parents would say to that. My mom would find it hilarious, but Antoine? Darren? Marcus? Not so much.
Plus I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could get the bottoms off without taking the whole jump suit off.
“Miss Durand?”
I spun around at my name, seeing the waitress from before.
“If you need to use the restroom, you can use the employee one.”
“Oh, uh.” I glanced back at the line and then smiled tightly. “Thanks.”
The waitress led me through a door in the hallway that said private. The lights here were brighter, and I had to blink to get my eyes to adjust quickly. With blurred vision, I tried to follow behind the waitress.
“Just in here,” she gestured to another door that said employees only.
“Thanks again, you’re a life saver.” I turned the handle and was already thinking of how to the best way to get the jump suit off when someone grabbed my arm. Their tight grip swung mearound until my back was to their front, the sharp cold press of steel to my neck.
“You’re going to be a good little bitch and come quietly,” a harsh masculine voice demanded, “or your friends out there will find the wrong end of a stake.”
The waitress was nowhere to be found of course. And, since we were out of the public eye, I couldn’t just cause a scene to get him to let me go. I could have easily gotten myself out of his hold, but I wasn’t sure how I would fair in the heels — no matter their low height. Plus, there was the chance he actually did have the ability to take out Iris, which in turn would kill Xinyi.
So, with no other options, I allowed him to pull me deeper into the back area. We reached a large door that opened as we approached. Once we stepped inside, the man holding me shoved me forward.
“Here she is, boss.”
The door snipped closed behind me before I could think about escaping, and suddenly, four sets of eyes were watching me. Three of them were inconsequential, playing the hired goon or pretty face meant to fluff the boss’s pride.
No, the only one that mattered was the male sitting on the black leather sofa in front of me. He had deep auburn hair, tied up into a messy bun on the top of his head. A pair of thick black-rimmed glasses sat in front of piercing green eyes. A scar sliced through his face from the top of his left eyebrow to the bottom of his right cheek. He wore a suit much like those Antoine did except he went for a silk black shirt rather than the classic cotton one.
Arms thrown over the back of the couch and one leg bent over the other, his eyes skimmed my form from head to toe. It wasn’t a lewd perusal, more like he was trying to figure me out or decide what my insides might look like.
I didn’t start spitting out questions. In my experience, guys like this only answered when they wanted to, and this guy didn’t seem the type to take demands.
Fuck if I didn’t wish I had control over my powers just now.
“Hello, I am Hamish,” the man said finally spoke, pronouncing his name so that it sounded more like Amish than Hamish. “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here.”
