Fire Within - By Ally Shields Page 0,81
her closer until she could feel every hard line of his body. She tugged at his shirttail, slipping her fingers between the smooth silk and the hard, cool muscles of his chest.
The jarring ring of a cell phone jerked her back to earth. His phone. Ari stiffened and broke the kiss, resting her forehead against his chest. Desire still shimmered around them.
“I will ignore it,” he murmured.
It rang again, and the mood was broken. Still, she didn’t move.
“Andreas…” she said into his shirt. What the hell was she doing? Wasn’t there enough going on? Why had she started this? Oh yeah, she knew why. But more to the point, what did they do now?
On the third ring, Andreas glanced at the readout and frowned. “Marcus.” He breathed the word against her hair. “He would not call unless it was important.”
“You need to answer it,” she said, stepping back this time, reluctant yet knowing the decision for tonight had already been made.
He punched a key, listened a moment, his gaze never leaving Ari’s face. “On my way.”
Disconnecting, he reached out a hand, and his fingers touched her cheek. “Sorry.” He gave a short, rueful laugh as he turned away, tucking in his shirt. “You do not know how sorry I am, but I have to go.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” she demanded, keeping pace with him as he headed toward the door. Whatever was going on, it was serious. “I’m coming with you.”
“Then, hurry. The club is on fire.”
Chapter Fifteen
Black smoke billowed from the front windows and doors. Andreas and Ari stood frozen, taking in the jarring contrast with the pristine whiteness of the rest of Club Dintero. The worst of the fire was out, but heavily clad firemen still clung to hoses aimed into the interior. A thick haze hovered over the sizable crowd of guests and curious bystanders drawn by the trucks and sirens. People choked and hacked from the dense smoke, and Ari wondered why they didn’t leave.
She rubbed at the prickly feeling on her neck and looked around. A brooding sense hovered over the fire scene, as if something malevolent was watching. As she scanned the area, she noticed a group of a dozen or more young vampires huddled off to one side. Most were in jeans and t-shirts or leather and didn’t look like club patrons. They weren’t staff. Ari didn’t like the angry energy they produced. It wasn’t the same malevolence she’d noticed earlier, but in light of Andreas’s comments about the mood in the vamp community, the youthful group could be real trouble.
She was about to point them out to Andreas, when he spotted Marcus. “Is everyone out?” Andreas asked.
The young maitre’d nodded. “Yes. Sure glad you got here. I think the only ones seriously hurt were two humans.” Marcus nodded toward a green and white rescue van. “Paramedics are treating them now. They were standing in the entry when a bottle or something on fire came through the front windows.”
Ari saw a seventy-something couple seated on the open back of the van. A paramedic swabbed the woman’s arm with cotton, and the man held an ice pack against the left side of his face. If that was the worst of the injuries, the club patrons had been very lucky.
Andreas surveyed the ordered chaos surrounding his building. He telegraphed uncertainty, a rare state for him, clearly torn between his duty to the victims and taking charge of employees and damage control.
Ari nudged his arm. She could help Andreas and still be in a position to keep an eye on the youthful vampire gang. “I’ll stay out here and talk to the victims. You deal with the rest of this mess.”
His instant smile made her glad she’d offered. It might just make holding the victims’ hands bearable. She started toward the rescue van.
Charlie and Henrietta Stillman barely noticed when Ari joined them. Henrietta was upset and making her feelings known.
“I can’t believe this. I finally talk him into going out for a romantic evening, and what happens? Someone throws a Molotov cocktail at us! What kind of a place is this? Is this a gangster hangout? Or was this a terrorist attack?” Mrs. Stillman shuddered; frustrated tears glistened, ready to spill over at any moment.
Ari arrived in time to hear the woman’s complaints and interrupted to introduce herself. “I’m so sorry this happened. Is there anything I can do? The club owner wants to do whatever he can to make it right.”
“Make it right?” the