Fuck. This wasn’t good on so many fronts. Good thing I wore black jeans tonight, Vincent thought. They didn’t show the blood as well.
“My lord!” the bouncer shouted when he caught sight of Vincent. He was struggling to maintain some sort of order among the fleeing humans, trying to keep them from trampling each other as they fled the club. “What can I do?”
“Stay on the door,” Vincent growled. “And get rid of them,” he added, pointing at the line of club goers still waiting their turn to get in. They were craning their necks and gawking at the screaming and frenzied humanity rushing out of the club, yet none of them appeared ready to surrender their place in the queue. If anything, they seemed more excited than ever at the prospect of getting inside.
“The club is shut down for the night,” Vincent ordered, then spun around as the humans closest to the door overheard and groaned a loud protest. Almost as one, they backed away from his cold stare, their eyes wide, their little, mortal hearts going pitty pat with fear. Except for one pretty little blonde whose wide eyes were filled with an entirely different emotion. Vincent wanted to roll his own eyes in disgust. Humans. Some of them had no sense of survival at all. It was amazing the species had flourished as well as it had.
But he didn’t have time for a lesson in survival, or even a horny blonde.
He yanked open the second of the double doors, shattering the bolt holding it closed. A few humans immediately tried to use the new wider escape route, but after getting a fang-baring snarl from him, they shied away, clearly deciding that he was a greater threat than whatever they were running from.
Vincent strode into the club and stopped. The thumping bass of the music was so deep, it made his teeth ache. His vampire-enhanced vision could see well enough despite the intentionally dim lighting. Shadows were cultivated in here to give the illusion of privacy. Sex was pretty much always the result when a vamp took blood from the vein, and in the sexual rush triggered by the vamp’s bite, no one worried overmuch about where they were or who might be watching. Unbridled sex, whether in the corners or right out on the dance floor, was pretty much the norm.
But that’s not what was happening out there right now. Five big vampires dominated the center of the dance floor, their fangs bare and gleaming, their shoulders hunched and fingers curled in a blatant display of aggression from all sides. Three human females were huddled against the bar, trapped there by the angry vamps in front of them. One of the females was bleeding profusely from a neck bite that someone hadn’t bothered to seal off properly. Or more likely, given the mood of the five vamps, the biter had been interrupted before he could finish.
There were other vampires still in the club, too. They were gathered in the shadows around the dance floor, some protecting clumps of humans, others positioned to block the door, smart enough to know that they couldn’t let the combatants spill outside. It was one thing for a crowd of panicked humans to fill the street; it was another thing entirely for a bloody vampire battle to do so.
Vincent saw all of this with a glance and took a split second to consider his options. He was powerful enough to shut down all five combatants without lifting a finger. He could be subtle and simply drop them unconscious. Or if he wanted to be showy, a blast of power would reduce them to so much meat writhing on the floor. On the other hand, it had been a very long time since he’d been allowed to indulge his less civilized side.
“This one’s mine, Mikey,” he muttered, feeling a grin of anticipation split his face. He loved a good brawl.
“Ah fuck, jefe. You get all the fun.”
Vincent stormed in, his fingers sinking into the shoulder of the first vampire he encountered. The vamp was too deep in his own rage to realize who had grabbed him and spun with an enraged snarl. But Vincent was waiting for him. With an uppercut to the jaw, the vamp flew through the air before collapsing like a broken puppet against the far wall. At the same time, the guy’s allies realized there was a new player on the field and roared their displeasure. Howling a joyous battle cry of his own, Vincent waded in, his fists pounding, blood flying. He grabbed one vampire by the throat, his fingers digging in so deeply that blood spilled out of the vamp’s mouth and ran down his neck before his eyes abruptly focused on Vincent in recognition.
“Mercy, my lord,” he choked out, and Vincent tossed him aside. He had no interest in killing anyone tonight.
A massive blow slammed into his back, hard enough that he staggered a half step. With a furious yowl, he shifted his weight to one foot and spun, kicking out with the opposing foot, recognizing his assailant as the first vamp he’d grabbed, even as he sent him sailing across the floor to crash into the bar.
The smell of spilled liquor rose up in an overwhelming cloud as the three women who’d been huddled nearby shrieked and scurried for cover, clutching each other beneath a rainfall of shattering glass. The vampire himself was so berserk with battle lust by then that he jumped to his feet almost immediately and charged back into the fray as Vincent was grabbed from behind by a third vamp. A powerful arm circled his throat, crushing his esophagus and pulling his head back hard just as the charging vamp shoulder-butted him in the gut, nearly snapping his spine in two.
“Son of a bitch,” Vincent swore. It was one thing to enjoy a good brawl, it was another to be crushed between a couple of brainless behemoths. He reached for his power and slammed it into the gut-butting berserker, sending him sliding across the floor to smash into the bar once again. But this time, the guy stayed there, slumped in a puddle of liquor and glass, his chin on his chest, hands lying limply by his sides.
Reaching behind him with both hands, Vincent grabbed the fucker who was trying to grind his neck into dust. The vamp shrieked in pain as Vincent’s fingers dug into muscle and bone. He bent his knees and flipped the vamp over his head and onto the floor where he stomped the breath out of the idiot’s chest, then kicked him across the dance floor to join his buddy in the wreckage of the bar.
“You’re paying for that fucking bar,” he roared at the two of them, then turned on the two remaining combatants with a wild howl. They took in the copper gleam of his eyes and the blood of their compatriots dripping from his curled fingers. Recognition sank in, dousing their battle rage like a bucket of ice water, and they dropped to their knees.
“My lord,” one of them muttered. “We didn’t know it was you.”
Vincent raked his gaze over the crowd of vampires still lingering in the shadows. “Get those humans out of here,” he commanded. They leapt to obey as Michael crossed the floor to hustle away the three women near the bar, who’d apparently been at the center of the dispute. Within moments, the doors were closed, with only vampires remaining in the nearly-silent club. Even the music had been turned off.
Vincent felt a warmth drip over his chin and realized that somewhere along the way, he’d gotten a split lip. “Son of a bitch,” he swore and grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt, pulling it up to wipe away the blood as he turned to glare at the offending vampires, all of whom were now on their knees and more or less conscious.
“Do I have to tell you how fucking stupid this was?” Vincent demanded. “All that pussy just waiting to be had, lining up at the fucking door, and you idiots come to blows over a piece of ass?”
“She’s mine,” one of them mumbled. “He had no right.”
Vincent stared at the talkative vamp. “Are you mated?” he asked quietly.
The vamp’s mouth tightened briefly. “No, my lord.”
“So when you say mine, you mean . . . what, exactly?”
“I was dancing with—”
“Silence,” Vincent snapped. If the vamp said another word, he was going to kill the fucker and save evolution the need to do it for him.
“The five of you will pay for all damages. I’d ban you altogether, but you’d probably end up draining people on street corners and cause me an even bigger fucking headache than you already have. So, I’ll give you this warning. One more incident like this—one, gentlemen—and it will be your last. I’ll kill you myself.”