She turned with a negative shake of those curls. “That’s not necessary. I can pay.”
“I know you can pay. But, it’s on me. Really.” He wanted to do something to apologize, even though he didn’t know how he’d offended her.
After a slight hesitation, she took the drink and met his eyes. “Thank you…uh…”
His hands stilled on the towel. “Kohl. My name is Kohl. Kohl Sergones.”
“Kohl.” She tasted the name on her tongue as she eyed up the ink on the back of his hands and arms, revealed beneath the rolled up sleeves of his white dress shirt, then moved up to the black tie strangling his throat. “Aren’t you guys a little dressed up for such a grungy place?”
Unconsciously, he ran a hand over the front of his shirt, smoothing out invisible wrinkles. “It’s what’s required.” When he looked up again, she was watching him with a glint of light in her eyes. The heaviness of her emotions shifted a little, and he realized she was teasing him. He smiled and shrugged. “I guess it makes it easy to tell the clientele apart from the staff.”
“Well, it does at that.” She lifted her drink in a half-hearted salute. “Thank you, Kohl.”
“You’re welcome, Devon.”
He watched her walk back to her corner, weaving in and out of the other humans, hips swaying with a rhythm that was both seductive and totally unconscious. She had to feel his lingering attention, but she didn’t look back. Slugging down half of the contents in her glass, she joined the other dancers.
Kohl slowly exhaled and turned his attention to his waiting customers. But as he poured shots, shook Cosmos, and topped off glasses of beer, her words tumbled around in his head. Why did she assume he thought she couldn’t pay for her drinks?
Admittedly, he didn’t know what had happened to her after the trial. Perhaps she’d lost her job. Perhaps she was dependent on others.
Which led him back around to wondering how she was able to get into the club. She had to know someone here. Or, perhaps one of the other vampires had already claimed her, and he hadn’t realized because he’d only just tonight caught her scent. He squeezed his eyes shut against the red haze of an unforeseen rage. The glass he held shattered in his hand.
Andrew shot him a look and grabbed the broom.
Kohl shook his head slightly, trying to clear it of the woman. He had no right to feel this way about her, and didn’t know why he was obsessing over her, or why he’d been doing it since that day he’d seen her on the evening news.
Maybe “obsessing” wasn’t the right word. It made him sound like a stalker. But he certainly hadn’t forgotten her. Little everyday things would often bring her to mind, and he’d found himself wondering what had happened to her after the trial more times than he could count. And then, tonight, she’d shown up out of the blue, like he’d somehow conjured her himself with some sort of black magic born from his longing not to be alone.
A movement at the edge of the dance floor caught his eye, and was gone just as quickly. At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary, just humans grinding lewdly against each other, hyped up on alcohol and vampire blood, attempting to ease the loneliness of their short lives. But Kohl knew this place like the back of his hand. Something wasn’t right.
He signaled to Andrew and wandered over to the far end of the bar, less crowded now, and searched for whatever it was that had raised a flag. A second later, the flash of the strobe lights glinted off a shiny, black barrel. And then again on the other side of the club. Human eyes wouldn’t have caught it, but Kohl had a…gift…of eyesight, if one could call it that. And he knew immediately what he had seen.
Before the first shooter had a chance to squeeze the trigger, he was over the bar and across the room, his only thought being to protect Devon. Fire razed his hip, and he hissed in pain as a bullet seared through the muscle and out the other side, just missing the bone. He barely flinched. His focus centered on getting to the woman. To Devon.
He was at her side before the sounds of gunshots registered to the dancers over the music. Without pause, Kohl tackled her to the floor, yelling at her to stay down when bodies began falling around them. Then he tucked her beneath his body and crawled over to one of the sitting areas, dragging her with him. She was tall for a woman, easily five ten or so, but with his size, he covered her easily.
Flipping one of the round tables over and using it as a shield, he barricaded them in the corner. The tabletop was made of armored steel, to be used specifically for this purpose. Devon huddled behind it with her knees pulled up to her chest and her hands covering her ears as people screamed and ran over each other, trying to get to the exits to avoid the barrage of firepower exploding from the rifle barrels. Bullets ricocheted around them, and he pushed her head down, both to keep her safe and to keep her from seeing exactly what it was that was trying to protect her.
The beast inside Kohl stirred and woke. The one he tried so hard to suppress. It was bad enough his fangs were exposed and aching to tear through flesh. He didn’t need to fight the beast, too. But try as he might to resist it, his blood burned hot as blue fire, and his skin felt simultaneously loose and tight as chaos exploded around them.
The smell of human blood filled his nostrils, feeding his hunger. He wanted to help the other victims, but to try and do so would expose him for what he was, would expose all of them. It was bad enough he’d just sprinted from one side of the club to the other in a second’s time or less. The place was small, but it wasn’t that small. He could only hope the shooters were enough of a distraction that no one had caught him on their phone cameras as anything more than a blur, if it managed to pick him up at all.
More gunfire came on the scene, short pops muffled by silencers only vampires would be able to distinguish among the screams and music, and he knew the club’s owners had arrived. The shooters didn’t stand a chance. He just had to wait it out. Wrapping his arms around Devon, he hunched over her trembling form, protecting her as much as he could with his body.
Her scent filled his lungs, different now, tinged with the fear and horror that kept her frozen beneath him. Kohl shivered, his throat burning and his fangs straining with delight at the prospect of her taste. But he clamped down on his instincts, maintaining control on his hunger, concentrating on keeping the beast at bay.
When it was all over, the sudden silence was nearly as deafening to him as the chaos had been moments before. Voices came to his ears, speaking in low tones. Voices he knew well. And he moved the table out of the way so he could stand.
Four vampires surveyed the results of the shooting, guns at their sides, checking the bodies for life. The gore didn’t faze them. One or two of them had done much worse during a casual night out on the town.
Bending down, Kohl touched Devon lightly on the back, gently trying to soothe her trembling. “It’s finished, Devon. It’s all clear. Here,”—he slid his hand down her arm— “let me help you up.” He knew by staying near her she would see him as he was, but there was no avoiding it. He couldn’t just run away and leave her to the mercy of the coven. The Master wouldn’t care what was done with her. But Kohl did, and he needed to make sure she got out of there all in one piece.
Devon took his proffered hand and allowed him to haul her to her feet. Her eyes shot from one bloody body to the next, then to the holes in the walls and the overturned tables and chairs, taking in the destruction around them with wide eyes. “Oh, my God.”
Someone turned off the music and flicked on the lights behind the bar, and Kohl quickly turned his face away, hiding in the shadows.
She touched him on the forearm, her fingers digging into his skin. “Thank you.” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat. “Thank you for protecting me. Or I’d probably be lying...” He heard a sob catch in her throat.
