Page 11 of Vampire Savage

I stumble across the white tiled floors, falling to my knees as I clutch the toilet and rip up the lid, puking and crying at last. When I’m certain nothing more is going to come up, I collapse back onto my ass, pressing my eyes with the heels of my palms. I’m going to look a mess, but I can’t find any fucks to give.

I can’t let this ruin my team’s day, though. Just because I’m a mess doesn’t mean I can leave before lunch. Niamh’s voice is in my head, telling me that I can, actually, leave after that shitshow of an announcement. Wiping my hands down my face, I take a deep breath, my tears under control once again. Standing, I flush away the evidence of my minor breakdown and move to the counter.

My reflection makes me snort. Only my eyeliner is smudged, though I’ll need to powder my face again to cover up the tear tracks. I guess this waterproof mascara really is heartbreak-proof like the advertising copy claimed. Forcibly controlling my breathing and refusing to even think about what my father announced, I find a facecloth in the small cabinet and rinse it under cold water before patting my face clean. My eyes are red and puffy but my eyeshadow looks less “3:00 a.m. drunk” smoky eye and more like “end of a long day” smoky eye. It’ll have to do.

I square my shoulders before I leave the bathroom, determined to show no sign of distress. When I get to my desk in my office, I pull my cell from the top drawer and check the time. It’s twenty minutes till noon, and in about six and a half hours, I’ll have a fiancé. Niamh’s voice chirps up again and I don’t care if my father finds out I left early. I’ll just tell him I wanted to make sure I had the perfect outfit to accept a proposal in. Decision made, I text Simon to meet me out front while pulling my designer tote bag over my shoulder and flipping the lights off in my office.

“Something came up and I’m headed out to handle it,” I inform Raul, my very capable assistant. He nods, not even questioning me since he knows I’d just met with my father.

“I’ll make sure all of your meetings are moved to later this week and send you a confirmation when your calendar is updated,” he answers, already pulling up my appointment program. “Have a good day, Ms. Foster.”

“Thank you,” I say, hoping he doesn’t notice the strain in my voice. The chances of a good day went out my father’s floor-to-ceiling window the moment he announced I was marrying his business partner.

If I want to make it through the dinner tonight, I’ll need to get ready. And by get ready, I really mean arrive at Alder an hour or more early and take advantage of the happy hour cocktails, one-drink rule be damned.

Chapter Five

LAN

Alder is a favored restaurant and bar for Topside’s elite, with its dark tables, crisp linens, and warm-colored walls. It creates a sensual and opulent backdrop for the politicians and businessmen who are seeking votes or funding for their machinations.

I’ve arrived early, much earlier than when Oberon and his partner, Miles, will arrive for dinner. Over the centuries, I’ve embraced the predator within me and I refuse to underestimate Oberon, my rival predator. No one else in Topside may truly understand how dangerous Oberon is, but he is as vicious as a wolverine.

So I’m here, surveying the field, so to speak, before our first battle in a war he isn’t aware of. There seems to be no initial security for Oberon, which tells me he sees Newgate and myself in particular as no threat.

Poisonous glee ripples in my stomach as I take another long sip of Johnny Walker.

Scanning the bar behind me through the mirrored backdrop, a sparkle of evergreen silk catches my eye.

Wren Foster is here, an hour before her father is set to dine with me. Perhaps he is more careful than I first thought. Sending his daughter as a scout is brilliant, because dressed as Wren is, no one will consider her a femme fatale.

Her strawberry blonde hair is plaited along the sides of her head before being gathered near the crown where it flows out in a tail. Her narrow, fae-like face is dusted with freckles, her makeup light with only bold dark lines making the pale green of her eyes pop and a soft pink color staining her lips. She’s wearing a dress, evergreen silk draping her willowy body. Unlike her performance dress, this dress is quietly seductive. A dress that teases and tantalizes, with its narrow straps plunging to embrace her small breasts before hugging her torso tight. The silk wrapping over her hips drapes to just below her knees, but it’s gathered on her right hip, revealing a tasteful amount of her thigh. She strides confidently towards the bar counter, ignoring the appreciative stares sent her way, in four-inch velvet nude stilettos. No doubt she’d walk over the lecherous men in this room wearing them, like a vicious queen uncaring of the rabble beneath her feet.

The only thing she wears that I’ve yet to see her without is her simple emerald earrings and the teardrop pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat. Otherwise, three silver bangles adorn each wrist.

She looks like a fae queen of old, a proper Tuatha Dé Danann, come from Tir na nOg to tempt mortal men into losing centuries of time in her realm.

She has yet to notice me, and why should she? To her, I’m another man in the background of her world filled with them.

“A double mojito, please,” she orders as she sits at the stool. The dress and her heels make her already long legs stretch on for miles. She sets a small clutch on the bar, staring down at the warm light reflecting off the bar top.

If she’s a scout, looking for potential threats for her father, her strategy is interesting. Luckily for her, the only threat is me.

When the bartender sets her drink in front of her, a man in his mid-forties or so with an expensive suit stretched across his paunch gut stands, his eyes stuck to Wren’s nape. He runs a hand over his thinning dark hair and receding hairline, his intent clear in his eyes.

I’m standing before I realize it, drink in hand, and the movement catches his eye.

With a cold sneer and a jerk of my head, the man glowers at me but drops back into his seat, angrily gesturing for another beer.

Satisfied, I move until I’m just behind Wren. She stiffens as I lean over her shoulder, her eyes finding me in the mirror. Her recognition jerks through her as I murmur, “You never called.”

I pull back, tilting my head as I study her. Her cheeks pink, and her hand wraps around the sweating cocktail as she takes me in before her gaze meets mine. Her brows dip in a display of the slightest confusion.

“Your eyes are blue.”

I slide onto the stool beside her, never breaking her gaze. To my amusement, she doesn’t shift away in spite of me sitting closer than considered polite.

“I’ve found it can be much easier to conduct business in Newgate if those around me believe me fully human,” I explain, tilting my head towards her as if imparting a secret. “Not everyone here is as fascinated with my kind as you.”

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