the ones he’d staked in a variety of unexpected ways. It helped him keep his expression neutral as he inclined his head and followed Anwyn into the bowels of the Coffin.
It was the typical Goth club with a vampire fetish, almost a cliché, though a classy and expensive one. Lots of vampire paraphernalia, like the useless garlic cloves and many flashing silver and gold crosses hanging from the rafters. If someone came in with a cross, they were encouraged to loop it over the beams, a playful admission that they were throwing any protection for their souls away as they entered. Gideon saw a wide variety up there, everything from cheap pewter costume wear to crosses that might have been given to a kid as a graduation gift and lost in a moment of drunken stupidity. He didn’t doubt that among them were crosses the vampires had placed there, sly trophies of actual kills amid harmless props.
True to the modus operandi of a smart bad guy, other transgressions in the club were kept to a minimum. He didn’t see any indications of hard-drug users, dealers or professionals hustling the crowd. He didn’t suspect these vamps feared law enforcement, though. Police were just an annoying inconvenience that could ruin the sweet deal they’d built here. No kills would ever be connected to this place. They’d be found far from these hallowed doors, if at all. He’d seen enough of this kind of vampire to know right away these guys killed when they wanted to kill, not at Council discretion or in respect of the “twelve human deaths per year allowed” rule. And Stephen covered for them so they’d do his dirty work. Asshole, conniving-prick weasel.
Anwyn had stopped, staring up at the crosses. She grazed her fingers along them, so that they moved against one another like wind chimes. You’d expect the gateway to Hell to look like this. Childishly whimsical and horrible at once.
Can you hear him, Anwyn? He moved closer, concerned about the tone of her mind, but she glanced over her shoulder at him with clear eyes, even as she took her hand down, scraped those nails high on his thigh, teasing at his groin.
No. Either he’s not answering because he doesn’t want us here, or he’s unconscious.
Well, tell the bastard we’re not leaving until we find him, so if he’s awake, he might as well help us out so we’re not walking in blind. He dipped his head, kissed her shoulder beneath the cloth of the snug dress, nuzzled until she pushed him away with studied indifference, and moved onward.
As he’d noted, it was a thinning crowd because of the late hour, so it made her that much more noticeable. Anwyn sauntered without any obvious haste, taking advantage of it. As if she were at a gallery, she studied the slaves who’d been hung on meat hooks with leather straps. Most were being tormented in some way by their Doms, or whoever they allowed to touch them. She was granted the invitation to touch by almost every Master and Mistress. Occasionally she took the opportunity.
With a curve of those mysterious lips, she slid her knuckles oh-so-lightly down a male thigh, caressed or weighed quivering testicles in her palm. Once, she bent to touch her lips to the sweat-slick abdomen of a young woman, so near climax that the kiss almost set her off, earning her the whip of her pleased Mistress. No matter the vampire dynamic, the hard-core could tell what Anwyn was. It was like recognizing royalty, and treating her accordingly. When she turned her gaze to any slave, they attuned to her, almost before their Dom or Domme directed them to do so.
It was an admirable strategy. She knew she was under scrutiny, and not by the club patrons. Somewhere, someone was watching, and she was calling him to her as skillfully as any sorceress, challenging a more experienced wizard to come put her in her place.
A dangerous and mesmerizing game, because he knew what she was attracting, and what their endgame was. Gideon divided his focus between her and a constant surveillance of his surroundings, which would be expected since he was already recognized as combat trained. He noted exits, obstacles, crowd groupings. Within them, he separated staff from clients, vampires from humans.
While he did, he said little in his mind, and neither did she. It wasn’t necessary. Their minds were in perfect sync, an open radio channel waiting. Of course, thanks to her goading