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Chapter Twenty-two
The elevator doors opened and we stumbled out—onto the wrong floor. At least, that’s what I thought at first. Because whatever I’d been expecting, this wasn’t it.
The human S&M community may occasionally get tired of the Gothic stereotype, but they play into it often enough. Lots of black and red, lots of whips and chains, lots of deliberately scary props wielded by deliberately scary people. Which made sense, I supposed. If the idea was to test limits, to push boundaries, to ride the knife edge between pain and fear and pleasure, then you went with whatever worked.
Unless you were Slava, apparently.
Slava had gone with highly polished blond woods, chrome modernist furniture and art glass, with pretty white and gold fixtures hovering over a reception desk and a water feature trickling away on the opposite wall. It looked like a Norwegian day spa. And the weird thing was, his version was actually more intimidating. Like he was saying “I don’t need the props; I have the real thing.”
Only the real thing must have been inside, because the guy standing up behind the desk wasn’t scary at all.
He also wasn’t vampire. He was garden-variety human—a nice, reassuringly bland presence to welcome the more skittish types—but I was betting there was a call button conveniently located under the desk. And what would respond wouldn’t be nice, human or particularly welcoming.
But the button didn’t get pushed because Marlowe staggered through the lobby with his arm around my waist, flashing some kind of card at the guy. He did it so fast that I didn’t see what it was, and I doubt the guy did, either. But enough of a suggestion rippled through the air along with it to have him settling back against his chair, unconcerned.
And then we were pushing past some frosted-glass doors and into—
Damn.
The penthouse had either come with a full semicircle of fifteen-foot windows, or they’d been added later. Probably at the same time that it had been gutted, leaving a huge open area for maybe a couple hundred guests. And a group of performers in the place of chandeliers, executing flowing, sensual acrobatics in body sequins and some not-so-strategically-placed feathers.
The birds in the Aerie, I assumed.
Anywhere else, they would have been the main draw, and then some. But at Slava’s they apparently counted as decoration. The real show was taking place below, on a rotating platform surrounded by a crowd of people who all looked like they were attending the opera.
I guess PVC cat suits would have clashed with the decor, because there wasn’t one in sight. Instead, tuxes and glittery evening dresses seemed to be the norm, with a few expensive lounge suits and LBDs on the younger sort. The guests were sipping champagne against a breathtaking hundred-eighty-degree view of Manhattan, including a tiny Lady Liberty off to the far left, who also appeared to be watching the show.
Only “watching” wasn’t quite the right word, I realized a second later.
This was very definitely audience participation.
A heavy whip cracked and a powerful body flinched. But the groan that emanated from the perfectly sculpted lips wasn’t pain. I could tell because I felt it right along with him: the biting caress of the lash, the sweet sting of sweat trickling into the wound, the dark ache of arousal.
“Harder.” The low growl caused the two PVC-clad doms on either side of the platform to exchange glances. Maybe because they’d already striped their subject’s smooth bronze skin from the heavily corded back to the muscular, straining thighs.
It was pretty impressive, considering the wings that kept getting in the way.
“Bugger,” Marlowe said, under his breath.
I didn’t say anything. I was busy tamping down a visceral response that had my skin tightening, my breath shortening and sweat starting to bead my skin underneath the silky fabric of the dress. And because I couldn’t have anyway.
The majority of Slava’s family were downstairs, dealing with the disaster, but there were enough up here to make even whispered conversation out of the question. Specifically, there were two of them guarding a door on the far right of the room. And since it was the only one with accessories, I didn’t need Marlowe’s nod to know that it was our target.
There was no reason not to stare as I made my way around the room, since that was what everyone else was doing. You’d think they’d never seen an eight-foot-tall naked guy with long black and silver wings getting the crap beaten out of him before. And either he’d said something to piss off the doms, or they were just in the habit of giving value for the money.
Because they were really working him over.
One of the girls had switched from a regular whip to a cat, and a flick of her wrist sent the straps slicing through the air to land almost gently against the broad back. But the crack echoed around the room, and a spread of livid welts bloomed against the sun-kissed flesh. Her subject murmured approval and leaned into the blows that followed, until they crisscrossed his back and decorated his sides. When the platform rotated back around and she started to similarly adorn his abs, he trembled slightly, but still didn’t cry out.
But the rest of us did.
The whip cracked again, this time reaching around the side to flick over a tender nipple, and the blaze of sensation was enough to have me sucking in a startled breath. And the whole room gasped right along with me. The Irin smiled grimly, his lower lip splitting under his teeth, blood seeping out. He touched it with his tongue, reveling in the delicious wetness of it. And a nearby guy shuddered and slid down the wall.
And that was why the Fallen, aka the Watchers, aka the Irin, were high on my avoid-at-all-costs list.
I didn’t know if they really were fallen angels, as they claimed, or if they were just another demon race with better-than-average PR. But their power was as scary as it was odd, something close enough to mind control to make me really unhappy. But I couldn’t do anything about it now except stay well out of the creature’s line of sight as I worked around to my target.
I didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s.
