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Ruby

Opportunity does not always come knocking.

Sometimes, it comes striding in with expensive boots and hypnotic blue eyes that follow you as you try to serve drinks in a strip club filled with all kinds of shifty characters. I felt his eyes on me and tried to ignore him. When I finally decided to meet his glance, I felt a shiver of shock running down my spine.

A vampire in the club!

How had he managed to get into this place without being torn limb from limb?

The Diablos was a well-known shifter club and MC meeting place, run by the extremely dangerous Tomás and his pack of wolves. This was shifter territory and vampires knew to keep away. The vampire might have been smarter but this place was crowded and even if only half of the clients jumped him, he wouldn’t make it out alive. There had been talk of a war coming between the shifters and the vampires and tensions between them were higher than ever.

The vampire kept to the back of the room, his head turned down.

Yet, I could feel him pulling me towards him. I forced myself to do my job, fetching drinks, giving out change, wiping spills from the floor.

There was a strange energy in the club that night.

Something was off, wrong.

The customers were edgy and aggressive, Tomás and his crew kept to one end of the club, staring out at the dancing girls without even seeing them. I could see the tension in his body language, the throbbing vein in his neck, the rigid posture. When he was like this, it was better to steer clear of him. One wrong word could set him off and I had seen him backhand one of the other waitresses once. She had fallen against a table, knocked her head and hadn’t been seen at the club since.

I could see that it was going to be one of those nights where I just prayed to make it through the shift. Hopefully, the vampire would have left by then, and most of the customers would settle down.

No such luck, of course.

Half-way through the evening, some guy grabbed me around the waist, pulling me close.

“Don’t you look good?” he leered at me.

“Good enough to eat, I bet.” I tried to push him away, nicely, first. This is what we’d been told to do.

“How about I take a little nibble?” he came closer, his beer breath in my face as he grabbed my ass and tried to kiss me.

“Get off!” I said firmly, and when he did not respond, I elbowed him in the solar plexus with my elbow. I knew exactly where to direct all my energy and he went down like a ton of bricks. Unfortunately, he took my shirt with him. He had grabbed hold of it and as he fell, it tore off my body. I wasn’t wearing a bra, as per the rules, and cheers went round the club as I stood, suddenly topless.

My instinct was to immediately cover myself, but I knew how pointless this was. All around me were naked women, dancing on the stage. I couldn’t show any weakness, I had to pretend this was nothing. The bouncers came to keep the men from jumping me right there and I leaned down, grabbed my top from the drunken fool’s hands and put it back on, tying the ends together in an attempt to fix the tear. Guys were cheering all around me and I had to get out of the throng before someone else grabbed me. I ducked away to the side, checking that my breasts were firmly covered again.

“That was nicely done,” I heard someone say. “I would say you could be up on the stage among the dancers, with assets like those but they’re not for public consumption, right?”

Even before I looked up, I knew it was the vampire.

It was his voice.

So sexy and seductive, cultured in a way that set him apart from the others in the club, most of whom could not speak in complete sentences.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed at him, under my breath.

I didn’t want to risk anyone overhearing us talk. If I was caught even just talking to a vampire, it would mean certain death.

“My name is Luc D’Essay. I am a general in King Vlas’s army.”

The Vampire King. This was not just any vampire, I realized. This guy was someone important.

“I need your help,” Luc said, taking my elbow and steering me to a quiet corner of the club.

“My help?” I thought he was insane. I was a lowly server in a strip club, right at the bottom of the hierarchy here.

He nodded his head in the direction where Tomás was sitting.

“I need you to tell him to go outside, alone. I need to talk to him.”

I shook my head.

“No way.”

“A war is coming,” the vampire said, his voice low. “Someone has killed a senior advisor to King Vlas.”

He came closer.

“Have you heard anything about this?” there was more urgency in his voice now.

I shook my head. I wondered if this was why the atmosphere in the club was so off.

“Matteo Lombardi. You may have heard of him? I must find out who killed him and why.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about and could only stare at him. How on earth would I know anything about this?

“Tell your boss whatever you need to get him out there, I will make it worth your while.”

“I can’t just go up to him like that! Not when he’s… like that!” I looked past him to where Tomás was sitting.

“I will make it worth your while,” the vampire said again, emphasizing each word.

“No,” I said again. “I’m not dying tonight.”

“How much? Hundred dollars?”

“Five hundred,” I said, without thinking. It was more than I would make in weeks but I knew he’d have it. Vampires always had money. With that kind of money in my pocket, my plan to get out of the club and pay off the family debt to Tomás got a massive boost.

He looked at me, a calculating glance that I could feel in a tingle between my legs. He was so attractive, so incredibly handsome. I was trying my best not to show my attraction to him, showing only hostility and rudeness, but I could feel my facade slipping. I wanted to hate him. This man was not my friend. Vampires fed on people, this guy could kill me but I needed the money.

“Ok, then, leave it,” I said, my voice shaky as I turned to walk away.

“Five hundred it is,” the vampire said, “but do it now.”

His hand moved quickly, tucking the money inside my shirt. I felt the back of his hand against my breast, my nipple hardening as he pressed ever so slightly against it. It was the softest caress I had ever felt. I ached for more. Then his hand was gone.

My mouth was dry.

I turned away and pulled the money out to check.

It was all there.

I took a deep breath and walked back to the bar first to compose myself and think up a plan. I didn’t have much time and I had to be sure of what to do.

One wrong move and that could be it for me.

Five hundred dollars meant nothing if I was dead.

I swallowed and turned around, marching up to the dais where Tomás was sitting on a leather couch. He was drumming his fingers on the armrest, every muscle tense like a coil waiting to be sprung.

I had to be so, so careful.

I stopped at the step going up to the raised platform that belonged to the top dog. One of his bodyguards came towards me.

“I have a message for the boss from Grace.”

Tomás heard me and turned his dark eyes towards me.

“What?”

I knew he liked Grace, one of the strippers who was not on duty that night. We were friends, and she’d told me that he often asked for her, demanding private dances and anything else he felt like. All of us knew better than to say no to him.

“Grace?” His eyes narrowed. He motioned to his bodyguard to let me come closer.

“She’s outside in the car park,” I spoke quickly. “She asked me to call you. She wants to talk to you.” I took a quick breath. “Something’s happened, she’s upset.”

“Why?” he barked, his breath foul.

“I don’t know.”

It was better not to say too much so I shrugged and pulled a face. Either he’d buy it or he wouldn’t. For a moment, it could go either way. He stared into my face long enough for me to think he was probably going to headbutt me or something. His eyes were vacant, as if he was on something and he was definitely unpredictable, but he seemed to buy it as he jumped up and marched out of the club.

I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was up to the vampire now but I knew I should get out of there. If Tomás came back I didn’t want to be around until I had gotten my story straight. I told the barman that I felt sick and was going home and got out of the club as fast as I could.

I didn’t check if they were out front and if the vampire had managed to get Tomás alone as he’d wanted. My job was done. I had the money I needed.

I went out the back, checking the lay of the land and once the coast was clear, quickly made my way home.

I didn’t want to think of the vampire’s touch on my breast or the way he’d spoken to me. The thought of him made my pulse race and I knew that this was the whole point of how he’d spoken to me. He’d wanted me to feel this way; desired, wanted.

This was the feeling I had to fight.

It could get me killed.

But I couldn’t help feeling that I would see him again.

That I wanted to see him again.

That I wanted him to touch me again.