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The kitchen was all in dark shades as well, with a whole built-in shelving unit full of glass jars filled with various ingredients. Strings of onion and garlic hung from the sides. Plants lined the windows. And half-eaten food and booze cluttered the counters and island.
Arick could have been anywhere on his palatial estate. In the pool with the half a dozen women I could see skinny dipping. Over in the studio in the back of the yard. Whether he used it to paint or sacrifice people was anyone's guess. There was the top floor with the bedrooms, the basement with who knew what inside.
But I knew Arick well enough to know where to find him.
In the den.
Only it resembled more of an opium den than a traditional family room.
The walls were lined in thick green velvet drapes. The floor was almost entirely made of memory foam mattresses covered in assorted bedding and more pillows than your local big box store kept in stock. Not a single one of them matched, yet they somehow all mixed together in a way that didn't give you an immediate headache.
I guess maybe it had something to do with how dark the room was kept.
I walked into a cloud of smoke, both cigarette and pot.
Good.
He would be loosened up already.
"Drex!" Arick called in that deep, smooth voice of his. I'd actually overheard the man reading a menu to a woman who was practically orgasming over the sound of his voice. "My friend," he added, waving his arms out wide in front of the faces of the two women who were at his sides, both of whom were rubbing him. One up his chest, toying with his nipple rings. The other, down his pants, stroking his cock.
Arick was the almost freakish sort of tall—somewhere around six-foot-seven with a fit, lean body, long black hair, a chiseled jaw, and almost unnaturally grass-green eyes. He had some ink snaking up his arms and the sides of his neck. If you looked at them for long enough, you would realize they weren't normal tattoos. They moved. Depending on his mood, they shimmered or undulated or swirled.
Right then, the ink seemed to slither.
"To what do I owe this pleasure?"
I imagined any pleasure he was feeling had more to do with the redhead who was lowering her face down near his crotch than me.
But whatever.
"I could use some information," I admitted.
"You?" he asked, smirking at the idea that I was seeking knowledge. Because, well, I wasn't that type of guy. I was the party hard and fuck shit up kind of guy.
"I know, right?" I asked, sighing.
"Got any incentive for me to get up right now?" he asked as the redhead wrapped her mouth around his cock.
I reached into my pocket, producing a plastic bag. "Shrooms," I offered, watching as a smirk pulled at his lips as he slid forward on the mattress.
"Lovely," he said, petting the side of the redhead's face as he moved away from her. "Why don't you lick Mya's pussy until I get back to lick yours?" he suggested. And I shit you not, the woman immediately moved to do so. "Mushrooms, you say?" Arick said as he got to his feet, tucking his cock away before clamping a hand on my shoulder. "Let's go somewhere quieter," he invited, leading me back to the kitchen, outside, across the sprawling green lawn, then inside his black studio that he seemed to unlock with a flick of his hand in the air rather than an actual key. "So, what do you need to know? Where to find some better whiskey?" he asked.
The studio was a small space, maybe all of two hundred square feet. But it was not as overdone as his home. It was empty save for a green tufted couch, and three walls of overflowing bookcases. The shelves were stacked at least three books deep.
"Were you expecting sigils on the floor and blood dripping from the walls?" he asked.
"Yeah, kinda," I admitted, handing him the bag of mushrooms.
"There's still a place for that primitive shit. But I have a bit more finesse than that these days. So, what kind of information are you after?"
Sucking in a deep breath, I looked around his space before glancing back at him.
"Enthrallment."
One of Arick's brows rose. "Since when does your kind give a fuck about the vampires?" he asked.
Arick was someone who had a pulse on all things in our world. He would hear the news sooner or later.
"Since I stole a thrall from one," I admitted.
Arick was not someone who got surprised easily. So what crossed his face was amusement when I told him. His lips twitched. His eyes brightened.
"Well," he said, shaking his head. "How's the migraine?" he asked, dropping down onto the sofa.
"What?"
"From all the fucking screaming," he said.
