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Not how she’d expected the night to go when she’d been brushing out her wet hair, being all judgey about that self-esteem peddler Bittywas obsessed with. The only solace she had was that she’d been right. She shouldn’t have come out—
Up ahead at the archway into the VIP section, some kind of commotion was simmering up, a balding guy in jeans and a ski jacket flapping his arms at the tuxedos like he was trying to fly over them. But that wasn’t what held Nalla’s attention. Through the shades of blue lighting and the chaos of the club, a face stood out on the far side of the velvet rope.
Nate was off to the right, camo’d by the crowd as if he were deliberately hiding among humans—and his hooded eyes were locked on the out-of-place with the let-me-in’s at the VIP entrance.
As she came up to the tuxedos, some guy in a double-breasted suit cut in front of her, barked at the black-and-white border guards, and grabbed the young guy, all but throwing him toward a sitting area filled with men in suits who looked like they should have aged out of the club.
Talk about getting fed to the sharks.
And hey, at least someone else was disturbing the peace.
Stepping outside the velvet rope, the music was louder and the people more tightly packed, and instead of heading for the exit, which would have been smart, she found herself searching for Nate’s shaved head—
Through the faces and the milling bodies, she caught sight of the back of it, and before she could think straighter, she started off in his wake.
The blue lasers piercing through the crowd gave her a headache. Or maybe it was all the perfumes and clothes—wait, where was he? Standing up on her tiptoes, she hopped to get a look over the dancers and then tilted to the side—
“Excuse you,” some man snapped as he jerked a martini out of her way.
“Sorry—damn it,” she muttered as she put her forearm up over her eyes.
If one more frickin’ laser beam fired into her retinas, she was going to—well, she didn’t know what. But it was going to make her stunt with that table and the drinks look like amateur night.
By the time she got to the front of the club, she knew she’d lost the male she shouldn’t have been going after in the crowd, and the fact that this was a disappointment as always made no sense. Not that anything about Nate had ever made sense.
Again, she didn’t even like him.
As she turned in a slow circle and faced where she’d come from, she was struck by how many people were out living their lives, on a random Thursday in January. And it wasn’t just in this club. It was all over Caldwell. All over the country, the globe. Every Thursday. All weekend long.
While she was working. Or staring at pictures of places she would never go.
She reminded herself that the things she did at Luchas House were important and that was why she took so little time off. That her father was a nightmare about her safety. That this club stuff was all bullshit because pink drinks and party dresses were a waste of time.
Staring at the sea of humans, she knew all of that was true, and yet a loneliness surprised her. How could you be locked out of something you didn’t want to be a part of?
With an ache at her sternum, she turned her back on the scene. Unlike the entrance, there was no one holding up people from getting their exit on, and she stepped past two security guards with no problem.
Out on the street, she glanced at the Bathe sign with its streaking lights and flowing blues. The wait line was even longer, dispelling the old wives’ tale that the dark hours belonged only to vampires—and the people were exactly like the ones she’d been standing with earlier, beautiful, barely clothed for cold, impatient for what was inside.
Zipping her parka back up to her chin, she tucked her hands into the pockets of the Patagonia and started walking in the opposite direction. She just needed an out-of-the-way corner so she could dematerialize without anyone seeing her disappear into thin air.
Then she could spend the rest of the night back in her room.
As she pictured Bitty all dressed up in the VIP section, FOMOwound up its Ferragamo and kicked her in the ass, and as she slowed down, she knew she had to shit or get off the pot, as the saying went. And of course she had to leave. Like heading back in and sitting with those people was a better option now than it’d been before she’d gone pro-wrestler on the drink service?
As she restarted with the walking, she didn’t track the direction she went in. Not that it mattered. She just ducked her head against the wind, and avoided getting in the way of even more humans who were heading toward that wait line—
Five blocks down from the club, well away from the illumination of Bathe’s front facade, a figure stepped out of an alley into her path.
In the darkness, she could see the flash of platinum hair and very white skin, and she recognized what it was even before the stink of baby powder and roadkill reached her nostrils.
In thelesser’s hand… a knife gleamed.
CHAPTER NINE
In the wake of Nalla’s departure, Bitty, beloved daughter of the Black Dagger Brother Rhage, stared down at the table in the center of the sunken area. What a mess—and her first instinct was to ask for a bucket, a roll of paper towels, and some rubber gloves so she didn’t get any glass splinters.
If only friendships were so easy to clean up—
