"Luck has not been particularly favorable to us as yet," Azriel commented, as he caught my hand and drew me closer. There was something in the way he looked at me that had my pulse racing. "And I can think of other, more pleasurable ways to fill in our time."
A smile teased my lips. "Can you, now? And what about the snit you were in not so long ago?"
"Would you rather talk yet again about the reasons for the snit?" he said, voice soft as he slid an arm around my waist. "Or perhaps explore the possibilities of a rather quaint human expression that goes something along the lines of makeup sex being the best kind?"
"Hard choice," I murmured, pressing myself against the warm, hard planes of his body. "But I've never really had the chance to test that expression out."
"Then perhaps we should."
"What, here?" I raised an eyebrow and glanced around the Visitors Center. "I might have werewolf blood in me, but I'm not that much of an exhibitionist."
He smiled and touched my cheek gently. "I meant in your bed."
"Perfect—"
His energy swept around me even before I could finish my sentence.
And I have to say, that old saying was right. Makeup sex was the best kind.
Needless to say, we did not arrive at Hallowed Ground on time. In fact, we were a good twenty minutes late. The club was situated on the corner of Wellington Parade and Simpson Street, not far away from what most Melbournians considered hallowed ground—the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The club was situated in a rather unusual two-story, redbrick building that had an old-fashioned concrete turret on one corner and small sash windows at regularly spaced intervals. The entrance was nondescript, and it would have been easy to pass by and think it was nothing more than an apartment entrance. Certainly, the small, discreet sign above the door did little to give it away.
Azriel opened the white-painted wood and glass door and ushered me inside. Darkness greeted me, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The room was midsized, with a bar to the right and a stage at the back of the room. A thin woman with an oddly ragged red streak running through the middle of her dark hair was spotlighted on the stage. She was playing some sort of lute, and the music was strange and yet somehow evocative. There were more than a dozen people sitting at the various tables scattered throughout the room, and most of them had their eyes closed, listening with something close to rapture in their expressions.
I walked across to one of the tables sitting in the deeper shadows of the room and pulled out the chair. "Is she a dark spirit?"
Azriel hesitated, studying her as he sat down next to me. "It is difficult to tell. She has some sort of shield around her."
I frowned. "Meaning you can't break past it?"