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The thought terrorizes me for a moment.
He snorts. “No. You’re not a ghost. Solon has this place under, uh, well, what you might call a cloaking spell.”
I slow, pulling him to a stop. “A cloaking spell? You said he wasn’t a witch.”
“He’s not a witch. But he deals with witches and they do him favors in exchange for the vampires he brings them. I don’t know who did this one, it was so long ago,” he says, gesturing to the house around us, “but we’re able to hide in here. Humans can’t find us here, can’t see us. Neither can vampires or even witches. Unless they’re invited inside, it’s like none of us exist.”
“Well, shit.”
“And if you, specifically, try to leave, the house won’t let you. The door won’t open for you, and if it opens for someone else and you try to sneak through, you won’t be able to pass through.”
I stare dumbly at the door. It’s so close and yet I have no doubt he’s telling me the truth. There really is no escaping this place, and I don’t know much longer I have before that really sinks in. The whole turning into a vampire and discovering you’re half witch, along with all the other shit, is a lot for my brain to compute these days, almost fooling me into thinking that I’ll be okay. Distracting me from the devastating truth.
“No point getting sad about it,” he says to me, grabbing my wrist. “I’ll get you a drink.” I perk up a little at that and he gives me one of his easy grins. “Not blood. Solon is in charge of that. But I can mix a pretty good cocktail.”
I follow him down another set of stairs, then another, until it feels like we’re in a basement, although there is another stairwell off to the right, perhaps leading down to the same level where I was kept before.
Then Wolf opens a set of doors in front of us and we step into another world.
“Holy shit,” I say breathlessly.
“Welcome to Dark Eyes,” he says with a grin.
Wow.
Dark Eyes is a large opulent lounge, the kind you’d see in a vintage film noir from the 40s, in some exotic city. It’s all curved plush leather chairs around circular glass-topped tables, priceless vases full of five-foot-high pampas grass, dark wood walls interspersed with frescoes painted right onto the walls and ceilings, tons of giant Turkish rugs draped across the floor, all the dim mood lighting you could want. At one end there’s a gorgeous teak bar with rows and rows of the most high-class and expensive alcohol you couuld imagine, at the other there’s a small stage with a microphone, framed with velvet curtains.
“Great, isn’t it?” he says, letting go of me and heading behind the bar. “Now, what do you want to drink?”
I’m still stunned, running my hands over the luxurious leather of the chairs, marveling at how decadent and cool this place is, eyes drawn to every corner. There’s always something new to notice. “Anything is fine,” I tell him.
“That’s easy,” he says, and I hear him pop a cork. “I’ll make you what I’m good at.”
There are three other doors in the room, two on either side of the stage, and a glass door near me. I crane my neck and spot another smaller room inside, with books.
“Is that a library?” I ask.
“Cigar lounge,” Wolf says, pouring alcohol into a martini shaker. “Solon can’t live without his cigars.”
“And where do those other doors lead?”
He glances at them briefly. “One is to the backyard. That’s the official entrance.”
“And the other.”
He pauses, catching my eye for a moment. “For private events.”
Uh-huh. See, with these guys that could either mean something to do with sex or something to do with blood.
Or both.
Wolf finishes making me a dark-colored martini, then brings it over with a beer. We take the nearest table, my back to the doors we just walked through.
“For the lady,” Wolf says, and it’s such a gentlemanly gesture that I almost forget that he had his tongue shoved inside me for days.
I try not to blush at the thought as I take the drink from him, then busy myself by admiring it. It’s the color of caramel and smells sweet, garnished with a cherry and orange.
I take a tepid sip. It’s good. Like whisky and cinnamon and something else.
“It’s not blood, but hopefully it will do,” he says, cracking open his beer with ease.
“It’s much-needed,” I tell him, looking around. “So, tell me about this place.”
“Well, this is the infamous Dark Eyes nightclub. You may have heard that in the 1920s, Russian Czarists bought the house. This was originally the ballroom, which they then turned into Dark Eyes, and used the upper floors as meeting rooms. Everyone started calling it the Russian Embassy.”
