“Oh, I doubt that will be the last time,”she murmured.
He didn’t look back at her as he opened thethick metal door of the soundproof room. He didn’t need the door tohide his cries. No matter how deeply Carha cut him, or how oftenshe did it, he’d never screamed. Stepping into the hall, lit by theflame-shaped candles casting shadows over the red carpet, Aidenclosed the door behind him.
CHAPTER 2
He pulled his coat tighter around his throatas the blood oozing from his gashes slowed to a trickle. He’d haveto change before he met Saxon for their hunt tonight. Otherwise, hewould be ringing the dinner bell for the increasing number ofkiller vamps roaming the streets of Boston. A new threat hadstarted to rise from the Savages, one Ronan and his men wereworking to take down.
Striding forward, the carpet muffled hissteps as he passed the closed doors lining the corridor. Not evenhis enhanced vampire hearing could detect any sound from the rooms.This hall was a place of hedonism for those who could afford to payfor it.
He’d been in a few of the other rooms, withother women, before moving onto Carha’s area. Carha’s was thebiggest out of all the rooms, but they all had a similar setup.However, each vampire who ruled behind these closed doors didsomething different with their space.
At the end of the hall, he pulled openanother heavy, metal door and stepped into the main club area.Unlike many of the other clubs in Boston, this one didn’t pulsewith rapid dance music and flashing lights. Bodies didn’t pack thedance floor because there was no dance floor. The humans came hereto pretend they were vampires; the vamps came to feed on the foolsand to indulge their debauchery in the back rooms.
Numerous booths, mostly hidden in shadow,encompassed the club. The only light in the place hung over thebar. It illuminated the bottles lining the twenty-foot-long, glassmirror. Most of the bottles were only liquor, but at either end ofthe bar were massive jugs that held special, bloody concoctions.Those exclusive mixes sold with far more speed than the regularalcohol did.
A few of the jugs were nothing but straightblood, kept at 98.6 degrees. Usually, no one bothered with theblood; it was mostly for the ambiance, but occasionally a famishedvampire would drink some while stalking their prey.
People gulped down their fake bloody mixes,while the vampires sipped at theirs and pursued what they’d comehere for, humans. Aiden scented the air as he watched theoccupants, but he didn’t detect the scent of refuse wafting fromthe inhabitants.
The sun had just set, so he hadn’t beenexpecting to find any killer vampires here, but he had to becertain before he left. Carha made sure this club remainedexclusive, but turned vamps couldn’t scent the killers of theirkind like a purebred could so she wouldn’t know if one walkedthrough the door. He’d encountered a few killers in here before.Carha prohibited killing in her club, but they still came for someof the other decadences she offered.
On the rare occasions he’d scented thekillers in here, he’d waited outside to destroy them when theyleft.
Ronan and his men called the killer vampiresamongst them Savages, Aiden had mostly adapted to that, but he andhis family had always called them killer vamps, and occasionally heslipped back into that.
He’d better start adapting faster if he wasgoing to be one of Ronan’s group, the Defenders. Every day he wasgetting closer to making it through his training and joining Ronan.It might still be a couple of years before they fully welcomed himinto their group, but Lucien had told him he was progressing fasterthan most and was already way ahead of the curve.
He suspected he’d done so well because he’dgone at his training with a single-minded determination and a sickjoy at being able to bestow death on those vampires who deservedit. He needed that outlet to kill. Otherwise, he would go for aninnocent.
At one time, joining Ronan’s group had beena dream he’d worked tirelessly to achieve. Now, the goal felt asempty and hopeless as the rest of his existence. He’d beenconfident that training, fighting, and killing would ease thisnothingnessin him, but it was becoming as unfulfilling aseverything else that once eased him. All the fighting, bruises, andbroken bones endured while training with Ronan and his men had donenothing to curb his hunger formore.
He’d tried meditating for a while, but acouple of months ago he’d found himself fantasizing more abouttearing a person’s throat out and drinking all their blood thanfocusing on his breathing. He’d stopped afterward.
As time progressed, staying still became theworst thing he could do, so he moved constantly. He hadn’t gottenmore than a few hours of sleep a night in the past six monthsbecause he hated closing his eyes.
He slept only when exhaustion took over.
The smoke of the room stung his eyes, and heblinked against it. Some of the smoke was from cigarettes, as noone in this place obeyed any law set forth by humans. The peoplehere believed the flaunting of rules and health codes was anothersign they skirted the edge of danger; the vampires did it becausesome of them liked to smoke.
The rest of the smoke in the room came fromthe fog machines in the corner, discreetly hidden within decorativecoffins. The music speakers were also concealed in those coffins.The woeful music made him snicker, but the humans ate it up, andthey were the main menu for the vampire clientele Carha wanted toattract.
Studying the room, Aiden picked out each ofthe separate heartbeats and the blood pulsing through theoccupants’ veins. His fangs pricked, his mouth watered, and hiscock stirred as he pictured sinking his fangs into the throats ofsome of the women here.
Sometimes, after a session with Carha, hewould find a woman to take into the second hallway leading awayfrom the main barroom. More soundproof rooms lined that corridor,and each of those rooms held only a bed. The staff changed thesheets every time a couple exited one of the rooms, but he neverused the beds.
For him, sex wasn’t about touching or love.Like the whip, it was a way to find an escape from himself, if onlyfor a short time. He preferred as little contact with his partnersas possible and found standing made that goal easier toachieve.
He became semi-erect as he watched thecouples fondling each other, but he would deny himself sex today.He hadn’t been able to deny himself the gratification of Carha’swhip for a week; he would forgo sex for onefuckingday.
It would be his penance for the weaknessthat had propelled him to seek the brutal slices of Carha’s whip.He’d lost count of the lashings after twenty-five tonight, butshe’d beaten him more than usual before he’d stopped her.
Bowing his head, he ran a hand through hisshort hair and tugged at the ends of it. He recalled Ronan’s wordsfrom almost six years ago now…
“The beast, the demon, whatever it is youcall what lurks within all vampires. In purebreds, it’s strongerand more incessant. Upon reaching maturation, it becomes thisinsatiable, clawing thing inside of us that is only eased byfinding our mates or by losing ourselves to the pleasure of thekill. In each of us, this insatiable hunger shows itself indifferent ways.
“Some of us seek out pain, others of uscovet copious amounts of blood. Some cannot have enough sex, somelock themselves away from humans, and others give in and kill inorder to make it stop. In all purebred males, maturity means threethings, they stop aging, their power increases and continues to doso as they age, and they hunger for things so endlessly it nearlydrives them mad.
“What you will yearn for most aftermaturity is in you now. You already know you have a penchant forone thing over another, and it doesn’t have to be only one thing.Many experience a combination of heightened urges, but there willbe one that is more dominant than the others.”
