Page 20 of Veil of Death and Shadow (Order of Reapers #1)

20

MAREENA

Present Day

“ Y ou’re not on the list.” The bouncer didn’t even spare me a second glance. It was the same guy who was here last week.

“I know I’m not on the list,” I said. “I’m not here to party. I just need to see if my friend is here.”

“What’s her name?” he asked, his voice a bored drawl. When I told him, he just shook his head. “She’s not on the list either.”

“I know that she’s not on the list. Please just let me check to see if she’s here?”

“No name, no entry. It’s a simple rule, girl.” He nodded towards the line of people huddling behind me. “You see them? They understand that rule. Feel free to join that line, and maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones granted entry.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, begging whatever gods existed for a shred of patience. “My friend met a woman inside, when we were here last week. I don’t know her name. But now my friend is missing, and that woman might know where I can find her—Please, I just need to take a quick look.”

“No name, no entry,” he said again, then looked me over, a flash of recognition passing over his features. It should. I was wearing the exact same thing I’d worn last week. I had no patience to put together another outfit the club might deem worthy of granting me entrance for. “Human, right?”

I nodded.

“Humans are required to wait the required three weeks before being granted entry again. You’re not above the rules.”

Kieran snorted. “How many humans do you know that can talk to dead people and share apartments with crombies? This girl doesn’t follow any rules.”

I bit the inside of my cheeks.

Kieran sighed. “This is getting us nowhere.”

“Clearly,” I muttered.

The bouncer shot me a suspicious look. “Leave now, before I make you.”

“Come on, Agony,” Kieran said, nodding towards the street we’d arrived from. When I resisted, he added, “Just trust me. I have an idea.”

“Fine,” I grumbled, then turned my back on the unhelpful bouncer and followed my stalker into a dark alley.

We were silent as we passed the line of eager people, all just as desperate as I was to get into the club.

When we reached the dumpsters, Kieran shot me a smirk, then turned into a narrow alley.

The same one he’d fucked me in last week.

The flare of recognition sent a brief wave of heat through my body, but it was quickly dampened by the anger and stress of our significantly different circumstances tonight.

Kieran’s triumphant expression dissolved into frustration when we found the door. “Fuck.” He turned back to me. “Do you remember this door not opening from the outside?”

I shook my head as I ran my fingers over the seams of the all but invisible doorway, hoping for a secret latch or something.

“Suppose we were a bit distracted,” he muttered.

“You can get through though, can’t you?” I made an exploding gesture with my hands. “Just do your ghostie transparency trick and walk through the wall.”

“I don’t blow up.” He shot me a disgruntled look as if I’d insulted him. “And like I said, I may be dead, but I’m not a ghost. Ghosts aren’t real. Phantoms are as close as it gets.”

“At this point, it really seems more like semantics than any—” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Whatever, that’s not the point. Can’t you just . . . slip inside and see if you find her?”

“Probably.” He flexed his hand again, and I noticed that the veins in his arms looked darker than usual—almost strained. “I won’t be able to go very far from you, but it’s worth a try at least.”

“Great,” I said, shoving away my questions about his arm. I rifled through my bag and handed him the picture of Sora I remembered to bring this time. It was several years old, and folded down the middle, but it would serve our purpose tonight. “Ask people if they’ve seen her.”

Kieran studied me for a moment. “How exactly am I supposed to do that? You are the only person who can see or hear me.”

Right. Fuck.

“What did the girl look like? The one you saw her with last week? Maybe I can see if I can spot her? Or I suppose we could wait at the entrance to see if she leaves? Though people often don’t leave this place until well into the morning, so no guarantee that will work.”

“We’re not waiting until morning.” I leaned back on the trick door and groaned, trying to picture the woman from that night, but I’d only gotten a brief glimpse of her. I’d been focusing more on the excitement lighting Sora’s face and then, later, on Kieran.

Closing my eyes, I tried to recall the details of that night, to think of another option that might help us get into the club.

And then, as if answering my silent plea, the trick door shifted and opened—just a crack, but enough for me to slip inside.

Well, fell inside was maybe the better descriptor.

When I caught myself against the wall, the same gentle hum I’d experienced last week bolted through my body. It felt like the building was pleased that I was back, like I wouldn’t have made it to this side of the wall unless it wanted me here.

The door was closed again, but there was no handle on this side either. Had it let us out last week as well?

“Curious,” Kieran said, his chest glued to my back as he reached to touch the wall, “this building granted you entry. I wonder why.”

I leaned into Kieran, and my entire body tingled at his nearness.

Fuck.

When we’d been planning for tonight, I hadn’t even considered this part. How difficult it would be to hide my attraction to him in this place.

“You’re warmer in here,” I said, turning around to look at him. Of course, that only left us chest to chest, his mouth suspiciously close to mine. I cleared my throat and backed up against the wall. “More like you were last week, I mean.”

His stare leveled at me, then lingered on my mouth. “Told you this place was like a power boost. The shadow magic that fuels it is the same that fuels me.”

“Right.” Tearing my gaze from him, I scanned the place, not entirely sure where to start, but deeply certain that I needed to not be standing in a secluded hallway pressed up against my very off-limits guardian angel. “I suppose we should start looking.”

“Lead the way,” he said.

After the first fifteen people glanced at the wrinkled photo without a flicker of recognition, I started to get frustrated; after the next twenty did the exact same, this entire venture seemed suddenly futile.

I scanned every face that I saw, but no flare of recognition hit me either.

That meant that the chances of me recalling the woman Sora had met last week were dwindling quickly—or that she wasn’t here tonight, which seemed far more likely.

I did my best to steer through the crowd in a way that kept me out of the bartenders’ view line. While I didn’t think they would remember me from last night, I didn’t want to risk getting tossed out of here. Something told me that they wouldn’t be gentle about it.

The dance floor was just as packed, just as lust filled as it had been last week, and I had to actively fight my body’s impulse to join into the lull of it.

Just when I was starting to think this was perhaps the most useless idea I’d ever had, the man next to me—lean, tall, Black, and dressed in a vibrant-green pantsuit with matching eyeliner and lashes, squinted at the photo I’d just shoved under his face.

“Do you know her?” I asked my chest aching with hope at the hesitant recognition in his eyes.

He shook his head, his brows scrunched.

“Know her, no.” His voice was deep and velvety, and he grabbed the photo from me, studying it closely. The lights reflected against his sharp cheekbones. They were highlighted in an iridescent glitter that was entrancing under the mood lighting. “But she does look familiar.”

“She’s my roommate,” I yelled, leaning closer to him in a desperate attempt to compete with the heavy base. “Please, she’s missing. Have you seen her?”

His focus shifted from the photo to me, his lips dipping into a small frown as he studied me. Concern or pity, I wasn’t entirely sure which. With a single nod, he tapped the shoulder of the woman next to him. She was dancing with a group of three people, her deep brown eyes glazed with the energy of the crowd, and maybe something even stronger. None of them wore a band that marked the humans from the demons. “Is this the girl that your friend Lav was with last week?”

It took a moment for the girl’s focus to shift, but when it did, I saw the same flash of recognition on her face as I’d found on her friend’s.

She nodded. When the man bent down to whisper into her ear, her eyes darted to mine.

I held my breath, and only when I felt his fingers fold over mine did I realize that I’d unconsciously reached for Kieran’s hand.

The girl leaned forward. She was white, and just as stunning as her friend, though dressed in a more muted color palette. Her breath was warm as she grabbed my shoulder with gentle fingers before pressing her mouth against my ear. “She was here last week, with a vampire named Lav.” Her voice was unexpectedly high, even as a whisper, almost girlish. “I don’t know if Lav is here tonight, but if she is, you’re more likely to find her in the basement. That’s where she spends most of her time.”

“Thank you,” I said, then turned to her friend, hoping my expression conveyed the depth of my gratitude, on the likelihood the music muted it, “both of you.”

“Good luck,” the girl said. “I hope you find her.”

Kieran and I wound our way towards the back, though I noticed that he kept his hand pressed close to his chest and avoided bumping into anyone, even though he could simply pass through them if he wanted.

When we reached the door that he’d stopped me from going through last week, the one that Lenora and Ren had disappeared through, my heartbeat skipped.

“You sure this is a good idea?” he asked, and his breath against my neck sent chills down my spine. “We don’t know how these rooms will affect you.”

I opened the door. “Let’s go.”

As we descended, the energy of the club changed—the power amplifying so intensely that I was practically panting from it when we reached the bottom.

“Fuck.” Kieran hissed behind me, and I felt the featherlight pressure of his fingers against the bare flesh of my arm.

I gasped at the sensation, and it took every ounce of my willpower not to lean into him.

The room was segmented with dozens of closed doors and private areas scattered around the outskirts. Soft red light glowed throughout the otherwise dark room, and the center of it was framed by tables and chairs. There were . . . performances of a sort unfolding on the stage in the middle.

A woman naked and in the feral throws of unashamed passion, was straddled over two men—both seemed to be impaling her. The three of them were tangled together, a mess of sweaty limbs and moans.

I stood there, stunned as the woman sank her teeth into one of the men’s shoulders, drawing blood. She drank her fill, then let the remnants of his blood slide down her chin, her neck, her chest. Her blue eyes were alive with lust, and when the orgasm rippled through her, I clenched my thighs as if it were mine.

“Just going to stand there all on your own, sweetheart?” A man approached; his dark eyes shot through with flares of yellow gold. “Or would you prefer some company? There are very few fantasies that go unrealized down here. You only have to say the words.”

When he took a step closer, I felt a deep rumble vibrate against my back.

Kieran’s chest was pressed up against me, and when he wrapped his arm around my waist, tugging me to him, my stomach tightened.

He was hard. This place was affecting him just as much as it was me.

“I’m—no thank you,” I said, my voice lower and hoarser than I was used to. With trembling fingers, I held the picture of Sora with him. “Have you seen this girl?”

The man’s eyebrows raised in surprise as he studied the image. “So, she is your type then?”

“I—what?” Shaking my head, I hastily added, “No. I’m looking for her. Or a woman named Lav, I think. Is she here?”

“I haven’t seen the girl in your picture but,” his lips curved into a salacious grin as his stare dipped back to my face, “I did see Lav go into that room,” he pointed to the third door on the left, “perhaps an hour or two ago. It’s hard to say. I have a habit of losing time down here.”

“Thank you,” I said, grabbing the picture back from his reluctant grip. “Have a good night.”

When I started to move towards the room he’d indicated, my legs shaking with fear or need or some combination of both, he grabbed my wrist.

Kieran tried to rip the man away from me, but his fingers simply slipped straight through him unnoticed by the demon entirely.

“You can’t go in there,” the man said. “Not without being invited by all consenting guests inside.” He nodded towards an empty table. “You will need to wait until they are done.”

Wait? For how long?

He’d said Lav had gone in an hour or two ago, hadn’t he? How much longer could she take? And what . . . what exactly was she doing in there?

“Grab a drink,” the man said, setting his eyes on another man across the room who was unabashedly checking him out. “Try to enjoy yourself in the meantime.”

Kieran’s dark glare didn’t budge from the demon until he was well across the room. Only when the two men embraced, their hands greedily roving over each other, did the tension ease from his body—and even then, only slightly.

“Well,” I said, my voice as shaky as my legs, “I guess we wait.”

“You shouldn’t stay here,” he said, the lines of his jaw stiff enough to cut ice. “It’s not safe.”

“I’m not leaving until I have a lead on Sora.” I made my way toward the bar, done with the debate, and ordered a water with as much confidence as I could muster. Could the demons down here smell the human on me? I wasn’t entirely sure how that worked. And I didn’t want to get thrown out of here before speaking to this Lav lady.

Devoting most of my focus to keeping my hands still enough to keep the water in my glass, I walked towards a small table in a dark corner, one with a good view of the door the vampire was apparently on the other side of.

“I just need to try and blend in,” I said, scooting gracelessly into the deep booth, “go unnoticed.”

Kieran’s stare speared through me. “That’s not possible.”

But he sat down next to me anyway, his posture rigid and the usual indifference he wore like a mask abandoned for something stuck somewhere between fear and something else I couldn’t quite parse.

What did he have to fear? He was already dead.

I took a sip of the water and groaned at the sensation of it. I’d forgotten how amazing water tasted here, how intoxicating it felt to drink. To be alive. And down here, where the power of the place seemed to practically pulse, the whole room breathing with it, the sensations were only amplified.

Kieran stiffened next to me, his eyes locked on my lips.

I wiped them over with the back of my hand, checking to see if I’d missed my mouth.

He dropped his gaze, but his expression only looked more strained. He hissed. “You had to wear that fucking dress, didn’t you?”

I looked down at myself. “What’s the matter with my dress?”

“Nothing,” he grunted. “That’s the problem.”

A loud moan echoed through the room, followed by another, and the two men on the small stage, who I’d somehow forgotten about entirely, spilled their cum on and inside the woman.

“Oh,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry. “Right.”

The back of Kieran’s hand brushed against mine and I gasped at the sensation, my chest heaving like I couldn’t suck down a proper breath.

He stilled, body coiled with restraint, then he bent his head down to my ear. “Tell me, Agony,” and I swear his whisper might as well have brushed directly against my clit for all the liquid it had coating my thighs right now, “did Dr. Mediocre’s touch make your heart race like mine seems to?”

“I—” I blinked. “Who?”

His mouth tipped into a wicked smirk. With a ragged breath, he trailed his finger slowly over my hand, then skirted against the outer edge of my thigh.

My breath came out strangled, and my knees, working without permission from my brain apparently, dipped apart, the invitation clear.

A couple sat a few feet away from me, their lids hooded but smiles warm as they whispered to each other.

“Eyes on me, Agony,” Keiran said, and the command pulled my focus back to him, like a leash only he controlled. With agonizing slowness, he trailed his fingers beneath my dress, and my body lit on fire when they brushed against the lace of my underwear. “Fuck,” he hissed, “you’re soaked.”

“We said one time,” I said, my voice little more than a whimper. “I don’t mess around with anyone twice.”

No one I actually liked being around anyway. And as annoying as Kieran was, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy his company for the most part.

“Right,” he said, his eyes filled with daring. “The curse. Everyone you let too close to you dies.” He leaned into me until his lips brushed the shell of my ear. “Good thing I’m already dead then, isn’t it?”

“I—” Whatever argument I’d been about to forge died on my lips when his finger slid over me again.

“You shouldn’t feel this good.” Too soon, he pulled his hand back and brought his glistening fingers to his lips for a taste. His eyes were wild and dark with desire. “Shouldn’t taste this good. Shouldn’t make me,” he shook his head, “feel like this. I’m not supposed to feel anything. I don’t get it.” When he looked at me, there was genuine curiosity in his stare, bleeding through the heat. “How do you do it?”

“It’s—” I whispered before fumbling for the rest of the sentence, my entire body pulsing with need, desperate for his touch, for him to fuck me like he had last week, before everything got so . . . complicated. “It’s not me that’s doing this to you, it’s this place.”

“Trust me when I say this, Agony,” he shook his head, his expression strained, almost sad, “it’s you.” He shook his head, a strangled breath releasing from his lips. “I can’t want you.”

The tightly wound control I’d been keeping over my libido since he’d bowled back into my life unwound. “Who would know?”

His eyes, dark and wild, latched onto mine, searching.

“Kieran.” My lungs were frozen, my gaze dipping to his lips, then the bulge in his pants, my mouth ravenous to taste him, too.

As if the plea was written in script across my face, he shook his head, then rubbed his hand over his forehead, looking pained.

“Are you oka?—”

“Fuck it.” Without another word, he slid off the booth and onto his knees, until he was kneeling in front of me. The table hovering above my thighs moved through his chest, as if it was the immaterial thing not of this world, not him. Then, careful not to lift my dress up entirely, he slid his hands up either side of my thighs and pulled me closer to the edge, until my legs were on either side of him, then he tugged my underwear down.

With a wicked grin, his eyes met mine, waiting.

It should have been a ridiculous suggestion, an absurd scene—this dead man between my knees, with a table lodged through his body like he was made of nothing but air. But he felt solid and warm and so fucking good to me.

And no one could see him. So as long as I kept my shit together, we’d be fine.

I gave him the world’s subtlest nod, half my brain aware that people could see me, the other half not giving a fuck if they did—both halves fully in agreement that they would deflate and die if he didn’t fulfill whatever dark promise was hidden in that look.

He dipped his head down, and I watched in amazement as it sank through my dress, his tongue solid and confident when it met my opening.

I swallowed back a moan and fought the urge to full on start riding his face in the middle of this club.

My fists dug into the edge of the booth as I tried to keep my body still, my expression flat, but when he slid two fingers inside of me and brushed them against me in a come-hither motion, like he’d been given a 3-D map to every nerve-ending in my body, all pretenses of composure went out the window.

There was a new set of performers on the stage now, and they held most of the room’s attention, their moans and screams a suitable enough soundtrack to couch over my own desperate whimpers.

When he sucked on my clit, applying just enough pressure to make my vision blur, I gripped his shoulders, digging my nails into his back.

He groaned against me, and the heat of his breath and the feral need in that sound was all that it took to pull me undone.

My body clenched around his fingers as I clung to him, as he lapped me up through the waves of my release.

We stayed like that for a long moment that stretched into two, until he slid my underwear back on, somehow making it look and feel even hotter than when he’d tugged them off in the first place.

Then he dragged himself back into the seat next to me, his expression drunk and smug as he reached into his pocket, and pulled out a black ball of lace and cotton. “Suppose I can’t keep every pair, can I?”

“Are those—” I let the question die on my tongue when I realized that they were, in fact, the pair of underwear he’d nicked from me last week. But then the desire squeezing my chest reshaped itself when I got a better look at the hand holding them. His veins were dark as ink, the black lines bleeding from those odd rings of his, all the way up to his elbow. “Kieran, you’re arm. What’s?—”

“It’s nothing,” he snapped. He slid the fabric back into his pocket, then pulled his sleeves back down, concealing his hand from my sight. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You look like you’re in pain.” I reached for his arm, all subtlety gone as the couple next to me shot me confused stares. “Something’s wrong, you’re getting worse.”

“I’m dead, Agony,” he said. The corner of his mouth twitched into a sad smile. “There is no worse.”

“Kieran—”

My protest was stopped by the sound of someone clearing their throat above me.

When I turned around and glanced up, I found myself staring at a very stunning, very familiar, very angry woman.

“Villette,” I said, offering her a weak smile. “Um, good to see you again.”

If looks could kill, I would’ve been dead twenty-times over with just one second under her stare. Livid didn’t even begin to cover it.

“You are one,” she held up a single finger, with a pristinely shaped, very sharp nail, “not supposed to return for another two weeks. At least. Two,” another nail met the first, “required to be on a list to gain entry. Three, you’re required to meet with me for pre-approval, a wellness check, and band. And finally,” her nostrils flared slightly, like she was losing control of the very fragile threads of her rage, “I’m absolutely positive that I made it abundantly clear that you were never allowed beyond the main floor.”

“I know, but?—”

“You’ve not only risked my business and the wellbeing and credibility of this entire establishment,” she snapped, “but your own life. Do you know how lucky you are to be alive right now, human? What the hell were you thinking? Your lust is like a neon sign right now. Were you?—”

“My friend is in trouble.” I bottled the shame and fear vying for center stage in my stomach and met her stare. “I was told that she met with a vampire named Lav last week. That she is here tonight. And I need to speak with her. I’m?—”

“Careful, Mareena,” Kieran said, his body stiff as his eyes darted between me and the terrifying woman in front of us.

I took a deep breath. “I’m desperate. I need to find her. And right now, this girl Lav is my only lead.”

Villette studied me for what felt like an eternity, her face icy and sharp while her eyes burned with a terrifying fire. Just when I’d thought she was going to rip my throat out for compromising her club, she asked, “Your friend—the girl you came with last week, you mean?”

“I . . .” I nodded, my throat dry. “Yes. Have you seen her here?”

She shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “Your information was wrong. The woman—Lav—she wasn’t even here tonight.”

“But that guy,” I searched the room for the man from earlier, but he was nowhere in sight—no doubt locked in a room with someone by now. I pointed to the door I’d been watching. “Someone told me she was in that room.”

“She was.” Villette nodded. “Two days ago.”

“She—what?” I deflated into the booth, trying to figure out what the fuck I was supposed to do now. My eyes glazed with the threat of tears, but I pressed my fingers against my eyelids, trying to keep them back. Then I glanced back up at Villette. “Do you know where I might find her? Please—” My voice cracked, and there was no hiding the desperation or fear choking me anymore. “I can’t lose her. Sora is all I have. Please?—”

Villette sighed, then turned on her heels and walked over to the bar. She returned with a business card and a pen. Leaning over the table, she scratched an address on the back in blood- red ink, her handwriting as sharp and dangerous as I might’ve imagined it. Then she slid it across the dark glass towards me. “I don’t know where Lav lives, but I think she frequents this bar. If she’s not there, the regulars might be able to help you.”

When I reached for the card, she pressed her finger into the center of it, stopping me.

“Listen to me very carefully,” she said. “You need to understand that, where this address leads, you are not promised safety. Very dangerous people spend their time in and around this bar. It is not a place where you belong, and you should consider every other option before you enter it.” Her lips pressed into a flat line. “Perhaps your friend is fine. She seemed very capable, from what I remember of her.”

“She is very capable,” I said, pulling the card from her grip when she finally relented, “but that doesn’t mean she isn’t also in trouble.” I met her eyes. “There’s nothing for me to consider. She’s my best friend. My family.”

Villette arched her brow, studying me, then, satisfied with whatever she found in my eyes, she nodded. “Very well, do as you wish. But please leave my club immediately and do not return.”

As if I was a child being escorted to detention, she followed me up and to the entrance, not letting me out of her sight for a second. When we reached the door to her office, she gestured to the stairs leading out of the club. “How, by the way, did you get past my security?”

“Honestly,” I shrugged, “no idea. The door in the back alley sort of just slipped open.”

She narrowed her eyes. “There is no door in the back alley.” Her lips pursed, then she nodded up the stairs. “Very well, take your leave.”

“Thank you.” I held up the business card. “For this and for not killing me.”

The barest flash of amusement flitted across her expression, before it returned to its otherwise stern mask.

When I took a few steps up, Kieran at my side, she called up to me, her voice soft but steady. “Good luck, Mareena. I don’t want to see you again, but I do hope you find your friend.”

The bouncer, when we emerged from the other side of his door, looked like he’d seen a ghost. Little did he know, he was staring through one.

“How the hell did you—” He shook his head, exasperated.

As we rounded the corner, I exhaled—the knots in my stomach slowly loosening enough for me to breathe properly.

“Holy shit,” I said, “that was intense.”

But when I turned to him, Kieran’s face looked decidedly less triumphant. If anything, he seemed even more tense than he had at any point in the night.

“Hey, you okay?” I asked. I glanced down at where the dark veins slid beneath his sleeve. “Is it your arm?”

Only he wasn’t looking at his hand, or at me.

Instead, I followed his gaze across the street, where a man stood looking just as intense and angry as Villette had when she caught me.

He was pale, with dark shoulder-length hair and dressed head-to-toe in black.

With a sudden lurch, I realized that I’d seen him before.

Six years ago—when Sora and I stumbled upon the vampire and werewolf. He was the third man, the one Sora couldn’t see.

Kieran stepped in front of me, like he was trying to block me from sight—and that’s when I noticed that the man was staring daggers at Kieran, his jaw clenched.

“Can he . . . can he see you?” I asked.

“Of course I can,” the man said, his eyes narrowing as they shifted to me. “The better question is, why the hell can you?