with Sam, she hoped to be feeling at least a little better before the men rejoined her.
Two
Ildaria pushed through the red door of the Night Club the next day and then paused, blinking rapidly. The early afternoon sunlight was bright still, but in this room there was only the one small window in the door to allow the sun’s rays in. Most of the interior lights were off—only a set of five or six pot lights over the bar at the back of the room were on and they didn’t illuminate much other than the bar itself. Her eyes needed a second to adjust to the darkness before she could properly see the rich dark wood and leather interior of the establishment she’d entered.
It was impressive, Ildaria decided as she finally started toward the bar. There were no clients in the place at the moment. The Night Club wouldn’t officially be open until sunset. Without clients cluttering up the place and blocking her view, she could see everything quite clearly.
Her gaze slid with appreciation over the gleaming dark wood booths along the front and side walls, with their leather cushioned seats of a deep wine color, and then moved over the wooden tables and chairs taking up the center of the room, before shifting to the long dark wood bar along the back with high-backed bar stools lining it (again of rich dark wood and deep-wine leather seats). There was a set of swing doors in the back wall to the left of the bar, and then a huge mirror and the bar itself ran the rest of the length of that wall until it stopped at a hall leading to the back of the building. The mirror was probably forty feet long and reached to the ceiling. It was lined with shelves, but they didn’t hold bottles of alcohol as they would in a mortal establishment. Here glasses of every size and description filled the shelves: cocktail glasses, highball glasses, wineglasses (both the smaller, more rounded glasses used for red wine, as well as the taller type for white), champagne glasses, brandy snifters. There were even cordial glasses, she noted and smiled wryly as she wondered what they used them for. Who would order a tiny cordial glass of blood mixed with flavor or mood enhancers?
Immortals who came to the club, she supposed and then paused halfway across the room when a man pushed through the swinging doors. He was mortal. He was also huge, a veritable giant at what she would guess was six and a half feet, and that didn’t include the bright green Mohawk on his head that had to be a foot high. But it wasn’t just his height that made him huge. He was also wide, with the shoulders of a linebacker and bulging arm muscles that made the tattoos revealed by his short-sleeved shirt move as he raised the plate he carried.
Ildaria’s gaze shifted automatically to the plate piled high with food and she noted that it held two huge double stacked burgers and about a pound of french fries. Their delicious scent wafted to her and her stomach gurgled with interest.
“It’s not for you.”
Ildaria blinked at that growled announcement in a thick British accent and dragged her gaze from the delicious smelling food to the man’s face to see that he wasn’t looking at her. He was peering down toward . . . his groin? Confusion filled her at that realization. He couldn’t be talking to his penis. She didn’t think. Shaking her head, she said, “I didn’t presume it was for me.”
The big man stopped walking and jerked his head up at her words, his eyes widening when he saw her standing there. “Marguerite’s Ildaria?”
“Si.” She started forward again.
“Hi.” He smiled and then added, “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you, I was addressing my . . . Arsehole!” he ended with irritation and did a little shuffling dance.
“You were addressing your arsehole?” she asked, amusement curving her lips as she reached the bar and stopped between two stools.
Looking flustered now, the man shook his head and then scowled down at something she obviously couldn’t see below the bar. “No. I—” Pausing, he did another little shimmying dance and barked, “Dammit H.D.! Stop that! You aren’t getting any food.”
Curiosity rising within her, Ildaria stepped up on the brass rail that ran along the bottom of the bar and leaned over the dark stone top to peer at the floor on the other