Page 14 of Feral

I pull myself away from the bar and walk the club, checking on guests and making sure the rules are abided by. As I make my way to the back rooms, I wonder what I’ll see tonight. We’ve got everything from bondage rooms to glory holes to my favorite, the blood play rooms. Not that I ever indulge, but I do enjoy watching.

When I pass through the curtains, I’m met with a decadent scene of naked, oiled bodies on a stage, clearly engaged in sex. A succubus is in the center, the mortals around her worshipping her body as she clogs the air with her heady pheromones. People, both supernatural and not, crowd around watching the spectacle. The room is so thick with lust, my eyes feel heavy from it.

I walk on, checking in on the wet rooms, the bondage rooms, and finally the coffin room, where I find a vampire in the middle of seducing his pretty mortal twink. I duck out quickly, moving back to the front of the house, where I catch a familiar scent.

Yannis.

I scan my surroundings, searching for the mortal man who has my attention in his clutches, but I don’t see him. I glide through the club, dodging bodies until I get to the front. There he is.

Rhett and Hemsley are with him, talking to him about job opportunities as I approach.

“We also have a donor program for our blood play enthusiasts,” Hemsley explains.

The words grip my chest as images of vampires sucking the neck of my mortal flash through my mind. Oh no. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

“Blood play?” Yannis asks, his eyes shifting to me as the words leave his lips. A pretty smile passes over his face. “Hale.”

“Yannis. You came back.”

He nods, his cheeks turning slightly pink. “Yeah. I was talking to the guys about job opportunities.”

“I’ll take it from here,” I say, reaching for Yannis’s hand. He takes it, allowing me to lead him away to a quieter corner. “How are you?”

I sense a ripple of tension, but he shakes it off with a slight smile. “Good. Still getting my bearings in the city, you know? But I’m good.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Actually, I was gonna ask you if you had some tips or something for me. I’ve never lived in a city like this before, and I’m not sure sometimes how to conduct myself.”

We stop walking. “What do you mean?”

His brow creases and he glances down for a second. “I live in kind of a rough area. Some dude got in my face today telling me it was his street and to mind my business. Shit like that.”

A trickle of anger rises in my chest. “What dude?”

“He said his name was…” He pauses, lifting his gaze to the ceiling for a second. “Bianchi. Ricco Bianchi. He was dressed nice and in a black car.”

“Bianchi,” I repeat. “I’ll see what I can find out. Do you feel safe?”

“Most of the time, yeah. I keep to myself and stuff, but it seems like you can accidentally get involved with shit, you know? I think I walked up on a drug deal that set him off.”

I squeeze his shoulder. “I understand. It sounds like you’re already doing the right thing, which is minding your own business. I have some friends who do protection work in the city. I’ll see what they know about this guy. If he’s a threat, they’ll deal with it.”

Yannis tilts his head. “Deal with it, how? Are they in the Mafia?”

Smiling, I shake my head. “No, not at all.”

“Okay. So, about the job. Are you the person I would work for?”

“Technically, yes. What are you interested in doing?”

“What was Hemsley saying about blood play? I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s advanced kink. Some of our patrons like to indulge.”

“In blood?”

“Yes. We have a screening process to keep everyone safe.”

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