Page 43 of Archangel’s Lineage

A minute later, when Vivek walked into the sumptuous space set up with richly upholstered armchairs, sofas, and a gleaming bar, the walls and the floor carpeted in dark ruby velvet, and the furniture antique with gilded accents, it was to find the room quiet.

Raising a hand in welcome, the barkeep turned to pour Vivek his usual. Sutrek was wearing the same type of thing he usually did: black pants and a fitted T-shirt in the same hue that showed off his body while remaining practical.

Jeans were not welcome in the Boudoir.

The thought of his upcoming drink made Vivek’s mouth water; he liked to tease Elena about her accidental blood café empire, but he was secretly addicted to the more decadent options among their offerings—and they now supplied the Boudoir.

Vivek nodded a hello at the male vampire who lounged on the chaise longue on the other side of the room, his ruffled white shirt open halfway down his ripped chest and his features languid. His skin was glossy white, inhuman in its marbled perfection.

The male didn’t respond, just watched Vivek skirt past a settee that held two stunning vampires dressed in skintight bodysuits. One was Black, the other white, both their skin tones on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Their bodysuits echoed their skin color, but their lips glistened ruby red, their hair scraped pitilessly back into identical buns at the backs of their heads.

He’d never seen them apart. Everyone called them the Twins.

The two looked at him with huge round eyes that held not avarice nor lust nor any other emotion he could name. What stared back at him from those eyes was age. He had no idea of the Twins’ age, but he had a feeling they were considerably older than Dmitri, and Raphael’s second was over a thousand years old. But not only were they old, they were... not quite human in any sense.

A whole different species.

Not every old vampire got this way, but the ones who did were damn fucking creepy.

The white twin ran her fingers over his sleeve. “Play with us, broken one.” Her voice was a sibilant whisper, her irises so pale as to almost merge into the rest of her eyes, her pupils tiny black pinpricks. “You interest us.”

“Not part of the merchandise,” Vivek said, and moved on.

He’d learned to be blunt with the Twins. Nothing else worked. And even that only worked part of the time. They seemed to have no concept of the word no, and from the way the majority of people reacted to them, he could see why. Each twin was striking on her own, but together, they were unearthly.

He was also sure they’d laugh while disemboweling him, were he ever stupid enough to accept their invitation to “play.”

He made sure the stool he took at the bar was against the plinth at the corner; it protected his back while giving him a view of the entire space. Violence wasn’t welcome at the Boudoir, and those who indulged in it got summarily thrown out and banned for a decade. Harsh, but he’d never seen what would happen should vampires as powerful as the Twins try something.

Better to be prepared.

The two continued to watch him, small smiles on their perfect faces. On any other person, he would’ve called that type of smile smug, but on the Twins, it was just disturbing. Especially when he knew why he interested them. They’d told him.

“You are unlike the others. Unique.” Unblinking black eyes as inhuman as her white twin’s pale gaze. “You were broken, remain partly broken.”

“We usually break things,” the other one had purred, “but you are broken already. We want to see if your bones hurt, if you cry at new hurts.”

Yeah, real sexy talk there.

Fighting off a shiver, he consciously switched his attention to another corner, where a man in a white shirt complete with cravat and snug brown breeches lounged on another old-fashioned settee. His skin was a shade or two paler than Vivek’s, his compact body flawless.

He looked almost normal—until he stared at you and you realized one eye was ice-blue, the other a brown cracked outward with black. It wasn’t the heterochromia that was disturbing, it was the way those eyes didn’t blink except for once every ten minutes.

Vivek had timed it one night.

A woman who Vivek had discovered had been born a long fucking time ago in what was now Cambodia lay with her head in the man’s lap, her black hair silken strands and her gown all air and lightness around her. Her feet were bare where she pushed them against the edge of the settee, her toenails painted a virginal baby pink.

She was... doing nothing, just staring vacantly at the ceiling while her companion ran his fingers through her hair. Look without knowing the context and you’d assume she was the merchandise, he the buyer.

The truth was that they were both the merchandise.

That was the thing with the Boudoir—the merchandise was all old vampires who chose this life. No one who worked the private rooms needed to work here. Every single one was ridiculously rich.

Vivek had done the research, and the numbers made his head spin. Turned out if you lived long enough and made a few smart decisions along the way, you could literally burn money every night and still be filthy rich.

That group didn’t, of course, include ordinary staff like Sutrek and the bouncer, both of whom weren’t yet two hundred years old. All patrons of the Boudoir knew that Katrina’s staff was off-limits. No touching. No flirting. Nothing but business.

“Quiet night,” he said to the barkeep after thanking him for the drink. “No other customers?” He’d never been sure about the Twins, but he was fairly certain they were buyers, not sellers.

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