Page 2

Kai

The bottle flies from my fingers, spinning in a perfect arc, landing in Nikolo’s hand like it’s magnetised.

Exactly as expected, the crowd at the bar goes wild, hooting and carrying on.

Further up the bar, the other bartender, Lifo, rolls his eyes and serves the customers with extremely pointed, passive aggressive efficiency.

Whatever, fuck him. The crowd loves our bullshit. Not our fault that his particular brand of bullshit is off-putting and ours is hot as fuck.

Sliding the drink I just poured over the bar, the woman accepts it gratefully, eyeballing me like a juicy steak.

“There’s an extra tip for you if you let me put it in your shorts.”

The woman is nearly falling over the bar, hand outstretched with a note tucked between her fingers. I pretend to think about it for all of about ten seconds, putting my hands on my hips and licking my fang. She melts—though making drunk beings melt isn’t exactly hard—and I pretend to cave.

“Okay, but just this once.” I wink, sauntering closer and stepping up on one of the shelves to add a little height, bringing my crotch to eye level .

These tiny red and white athletic shorts really are outrageous, but they do amazing things for my package. They aren’t part of the uniform here at Bloody Temptations—we actually don’t have one of those.

Some, like Lifo, choose to stick to plain black jeans and tees. Which is boring as fuck. On the weekends, Nikolo and I like to keep it interesting, dressing up in whatever dumbass costumes we—or more accurately, he —can come up with.

Tonight, he’s gone for an athletics theme with tiny running shorts that barely cover our asses, white crew socks, and sneakers.

I ditched the singlet—I always make mega tips when I bring out the nips—but Nikolo chopped the super-tight white singlet into a crop top.

It’s like peekaboo whenever he reaches up high.

Encourages more top shelf beverages, he says. But whatever.

The woman surrounded by her equally drunk, tittering friends pulls the waistband of my shorts out a little further than necessary and tucks the folded note against my skin, letting the elastic snap back with a gentle sting.

Another wink and I’m off again, dancing around with Nikolo behind the bar while serving our increasingly chaotic patrons.

The club is busy tonight, which sucks sometimes because it means that Nikolo and I are meant to dial down the antics just a little—the beings get pissy if they have to wait too long—but I live for the energy on nights like this.

They just get me pumped. I think it’s all the magic that’s flowing in the air.

It adds a little something, like the hot fudge sauce Mum would put on our sundaes.

One of the many things I’ve had to give up since turning.

Just like magic and my shifter other half.

Bloody Temptations calls itself a vamp bar—hence the vamp staff behind the bar—but really it’s just a place for beings and humans to play at walking on the wild side. Real vamp bars are nothing like this—the blood doesn’t always come from a bottle there.

“Yo! Rolli-boy!” It’s after midnight and the place is cranking, which means more staff are clocking on.

Extra hands means more time to play, so I call over to one of the security guards standing watch close by.

The guy is huge—half-orc if I remember right—a giant sentinel keeping watch.

He never says much but he’s a good guy. Even if he does roll his eyes at me all the time. “Go tell the DJ to put on the song.”

Right on cue he rolls his eyes but does it anyway, shoving his gigantic frame away from his corner and lumbering through the crowd to the DJ booth. Nikolo catches my eye like our brains are synced and I nod towards Rolli, letting him know what’s up.

Nikolo throws back his head with a wild howl—which is extra stupid considering he was a mage and not a fucking wolf before he was changed—shaking his head to show off his magnificent long, blonde, curls.

That magnificent mane is actually what inspired The Song . The song—‘Believe I’m Your Lover’—is an old one-hit wonder with a mix of hair metal sounds and pop vibes. We danced to it one night, getting on the bar and going wild, and the bar went crazy for it.

Since then, it’s become a thing for us to dance around on the bar, or sometimes we get out onto the tables around the place. Really, wherever the mood takes us. The song changes too, but ‘Believe I’m Your Lover’ is our staple.

The big boss, Maddy, was ready to put an end to it because of fire codes or complaints—all from Lifo I’m assuming—until they saw there were entire social media accounts dedicated to our antics. Which was a bit weird to get used to, even if I’m not opposed in the slightest .

Weirder again are the fans convinced there is something between Nikolo and I. Like, I’ll make out with him if the mood is right. And maybe we got down and dirty together in the early days of our friendship. But now? Not a chance.

Like I said, weird as fuck.

The first strains of the song hit just as I’m handing off to another bartender, Belinda, helping her clear off the space so we don’t make too big a mess. When the drums kick off and Nikolo and I jump onto the bar in perfect unison, the crowd goes wild.

I fucking love my job. My smile feels like it’s gonna rip my cheeks apart when we start moving. Bumping and grinding, we lip sync and play wicked air guitar riffs while gyrating like the hot, dumb idiots we are. For the next three-ish minutes we are gods.

And I get paid for this.

Someone holds up their beer to Nikolo and he gracefully grabs it, raising an eyebrow at me as he spins and pulls up his singlet to pour the beer over the sculpted, pale, tattooed skin of his chest. Before the beer can even pool in his belly button, I’m sliding across the bar on my knees to catch it with my tongue.

Beer—the non-vamp kind—tastes kinda rank nowadays, but I diligently lick up the muscular planes of Nikolo’s stomach and chest. The man may be short but he is a fucking beefcake.

When I reach his pec and rosy-brown nipple, the screams of the crowd around us are so shrill we can barely hear the music.

I flick my eyes up to his, and for a second I see the flicker over his stupidly beautiful face. The flex of his jaw dares me.

Smirking, I lightly sink my fangs into flesh and suck a big fat hickey around the nipple. There is just a hint of blood in the shallow bite—it’s more for show than anything else—but it’s enough to wipe the truly atrocious taste of beer from my mouth .

Through my lashes I look up at him, quirking my eyebrow.

His eyes narrow, but I can see the way his teeth are digging into the corner of his lips to contain his smile.

We’re going to rake in the tips for this.

Biting in public is strictly taboo—and the crowd always goes off the chain for it.

A strong hand roughly grips my hair—ruining the retro blowout I’ve perfected—and hauls me up to my feet.

Nikolo’s mouth smashes into mine, my hand falling to his ass, our bodies angled just right so everyone can get a good perv.

The kiss is one of the least sexy things I’ve ever experienced, but the crowd gobbles it up like candy.

Kissing Nikolo might do nothing for me, but the applause and attention never fails to get me going—a dangerous thing in these teeny tiny shorts.

My body is buzzing from the high of our audience when we finally pull apart, the DJ blending the song flawlessly into the next track—a mega bop that draws everyone away from the bar out onto the dance floor.

“Fucking ‘ay. You guys are nuts.” Belinda fans herself melodramatically as we jump off the bar.

“Naw, shucks, Belly-Boo. Love you too.” I smack a loud kiss to her cheek as I take my register key off her and slip it over my neck.

“Fuck’s sake, some of us are trying to work.

Can you move?” Lifo grunts, hitting me in the back with a rack of glasses, pushing me into Belinda.

He’s always an extra big dick when Belinda’s on shift, mostly because he’s had boner for her since the day he started and so far, she hasn’t given him the time of day.

Belinda was a scycathian in a former life—a being from Grezia.

It was said that back before the world got its shit together they were fearsome warriors, kind of like berserkers, but without the horns.

Vampirism has made the muted grey of her skin more pronounced.

That—and the fact she could crush my skull with her biceps like it was no biggie—makes her origins super obvious.

I roll my eyes at her and spend an extra second fluffing at my hair in the mirror behind the bar before I step away. Belinda gives me one of her patented ‘knock it off’ looks, and smiles at Lifo—-who is far too happy to have her attention.

“Why don’t you let me help with those?” Gods’ shit, I swear actual heart shaped beams shoot out of Lifo’s eyes at Belinda’s suggestion.

I take that super-gross moment as my cue to get the fuck out of here.

“I’m gonna go help the guys on the floor. I’ll be back.” I call out to no one in particular. I’m still riding my high; tonight’s my night. I can feel it. And I’m gonna make the most of it.