Over the Edge
By Kallysten
One heated night brings together two men and a woman, one of them human and the other two vampires, but when morning comes there are more questions than answers.
Brett, the human owner of the new club “On The Edge”, hires Leo as a bartender, but unexpected security issues threaten their burgeoning trust. For his part, Leo is caught in the same pattern that once caused him to lose Lisa, and he struggles to adapt and allow his new sleeping arrangements to last as long as possible. And Lisa, who brought her two lovers to the same bed, now realizes that she also invited back in her life a past she thought forgotten.
Will they be able to make it work, or will this ménage collapse after a few nights of lust?
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Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2007 Kallysten
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First Published 2007
First Edition
All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Edited by Mary S.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Over The Edge
Chapter 1
Morning had come, but Lisa’s dreams clung to her, trapping her in a memory made of skin and silk, hands and caresses, mouths and kisses, moans and bites and hardness sliding inside her faster and faster until she was crying out softly in her sleep.
The past relinquished its hold on her slowly. The sounds faded first, then the scent of sex, the taste of come and blood, and finally, the feel of hands and cocks on her and in her. The faces of her lovers, however, remained with her even as she opened her eyes. She stared up at the ceiling for a few moments, wondering why, when she had spent her night with two gorgeous men, her mind had decided to bring her back so much further back in time to a night she had shared with Leo and their Sire.
It had to be the return of Leo that had triggered the memory, she decided; it meant nothing more. It couldn’t mean anything more, and it certainly didn’t mean that she missed her Sire.
It was disappointing, however, to wake up alone after having gone to bed with Brett and Leo. The former had been her lover for almost a year, but she had shared her nights with Leo for decades until they had separated fifteen years earlier. The only proofs that she had not imagined the entire thing were their lingering scents around her and the last notes of pleasure still drumming inside her like an echo. Her last thought before she had fallen asleep had been to hope her morning would be at least as interesting as her night, if not more. Instead, she was alone in a cold bed. Clearly, she would have to teach her men some manners.
She could hear their voices behind the door. Soft voices. They weren’t shouting; that had to be a good sign. Curious about what they were talking about, she stood, stretching her arms high above her head as she did. She had half a mind to walk out of the bedroom naked and tease them with what they were missing, what they could have had if they had stayed in bed with her. She changed her mind at the last second when she saw Leo’s shirt on the floor by the door and slipped it on, fastening only a couple of buttons. She was a couple inches shorter than Leo, and the shirt’s hem danced against her upper thighs and ass, keeping her decent when she stepped out of the bedroom.
They turned to her at once. Sitting on the facing sofas in the middle of the living room, they both held a mug. If she was to judge by the scent, they were sharing coffee. After the previous night, she would have expected them to share something more intimate, and to do so wearing a lot less clothes, although at least they were both bare-chested. Then again, she was the one who had led them to the same bed despite Leo’s wariness and Brett’s jealousy. With the return of morning, they might need more prompting to get closer again.
“I guess it was too much to hope that one of you would remember how much I hate waking up alone.”
At her grumble, they exchanged a look, although she couldn’t tell if it held more embarrassment, regret, or guilt. She needed to shake sleep off completely if she was going to be able to read them, and for that she would need something stronger than coffee. Thankfully, there was always a generous supply of blood in the fridge. She hunted every night in the club she had helped Brett design, choosing willing prey in the crowd of dancers, but she could just as well dine in rather than hunt when she wanted.
Turning her back on them, she entered the open floor kitchen. The marble counter felt cold and smooth beneath her fingertips when she rested a hand on it and opened the fridge. At the sight of the stacked blood packages, the hunger inside her roared. With Leo’s surprise arrival the previous night, she had barely had any blood, and she was famished. She pulled a plastic bag out and used scissors to cut a corner, emptying it into a large cup, careful not to spill a drop. While the microwave buzzed lightly and warmed the blood, she rinsed off both the scissors and bag, hanging the first back on their hook by the microwave and disposing of the second in the special container for medical waste beneath the sink. All of it was so habitual, she didn’t need to think about what she was doing, and was free instead to think of the two men in the other room.
All she had had in mind, when bringing Leo up to the apartment above the club where she lived with Brett, had been to spend a night with them. It had been a tribute to times long past where Leo was concerned, and an offering to Brett of something she knew he wanted, without daring to take it for himself. But as time had passed, as memories of her happier years with Leo had resurfaced, as she had seen Brett’s jealousy dissolve into lust and need, she had begun wondering. One night might become two, or a week. A month. More, maybe. It would all depend on what happened when she returned to the living room.
The microwave pinged and she almost jumped, startled. Those daydreams were more intriguing than she had expected.
She took a sip from her mug before stepping out of the kitchen. The taste held the comfort of familiarity, which was just what she needed with the uncertainty ahead. No noise had come from the living room while she was in the kitchen, and when she walked out she found Brett and Leo exactly where she had left them. Her first instinct was to curl down next to one of them to sip on her blood, but that would mean choosing, and she wasn’t sure that would be a good idea at this point. She also wasn’t sure which of them she would have chosen.
Taking slow steps toward them, she kept her attention on her full mug to make sure the blood wouldn’t slosh over the edges. Even so, she could feel two sets of eyes on her, the awareness like a prickling sensation at the base of her skull. Brett’s eyes were green, light, always full of life. Leo’s were darker, but deeper. They held more secrets, though Lisa had pierced them all, or so she had once thought. At that moment however, both men were looking at her with the same intensity, the same fire. It was enough to make her just a little lightheaded. Or that might have been the hunger.
“So what have you boys been talking about?” she asked once she sat down, her legs folded beneath her. The armchair she chose was perfectly centered between the two men.
It was Brett who answered, which surprised Lisa a little. Leo had always been quick to assert himself and had done so easily the previous night, yet she had the feeling that he had waited for Brett to take the lead.
“We’ve been talking shop, mostly. Did you know Leo is a bartender?”
She raised an interested eyebrow. “I did not. But I told you, it’s been a long time since Leo and I last saw each other.”
Brett nodded as he leaned forward to place his empty mug on the coffee table. There was something in his gaze, almost a question, that she wasn’t quite sure how to interpret.
“Turns out, Leo was the vamp who never showed up for that interview yesterday,” he continued, his tone very carefully neutral. “The vamp I told you I would have hired if he had just come by. So I offered him the job.”
The hesitation was there, too small, Lisa thought, for anyone but her to notice it. It was barely a breath taken too deeply, then a huff of air coming out too fast. She observed him carefully as she took a slow drink from her mug. With his forearms resting on his legs as he leaned forward and his fingers linked together, he appeared calm, as calm as the day he had signed the deed for the building that had been the first step toward creating On The Edge. He was sure of himself, sure he was making the right decision. But he wasn’t sure what she would think. A quick glance toward Leo was enough to reveal that he was wondering the exact same thing.
“I’m glad.” She gave Brett a small smile, then a matching one to Leo. “I’ve been saying for weeks that we needed a vamp behind the bar.”
Leo’s first words were full of teasing and fondness. “And you always get what you want, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Her matter-of-fact tone drew twin chuckles from the men. What she added next, with an almost lazy slide of her right hand along her leg, made them swallow hard. “Not that I’ve ever had complaints.”
She let a few seconds pass, just enough to drink a little more and to let her eyes wander over one man, then the other. Brett’s loose sleeping pants and Leo’s tighter slacks revealed the same renewed interest, but it was too soon to go back to playing. Business first.
“Do you have a place to live?” she asked Leo, turning her attention to him but remaining very aware of the way Brett’s body shifted.
“I arrived in town late yesterday, so I haven’t really found one yet. I just dropped my things off in our old lair before coming to the club, but I’m not sure I want to live there.”
Lisa inclined her head to show she understood. She herself had lived in that lair alone for years, after she and Leo had gone their separate ways, to prove to herself that the shadows of her Sire and long-time lover weren’t hanging over her. The passing years had not made the memories any softer.
“It’d make sense if you found something close to the club,” she mused aloud, very careful not to look at Brett. “You wouldn’t have to travel too much by daylight when you start early or finish late.”
The apartment wasn’t hers. She had repeated often enough to Brett that she considered herself his guest and nothing more. She wouldn’t extend an invitation to Leo to live with them. But she could hint at the possibility, and see how Brett played that tune. She didn’t want to push him into something he wasn’t ready for, and there was certainly a large step between sharing a bed with two vampires for one night and sharing his life with them.
Brett’s amused look made it clear that he knew what game she was playing. “That’s actually the reason for the two lofts across the hall, if you recall. I’ll go down to the office to get the key. If you don’t mind living so close to us, that is.”
The last was directed at Leo, who shook his head with a quiet laugh. “No objections, no. It sounds like a fine arrangement, actually.”
Lisa could easily see what he meant by that. Just a few hours after coming back to Haventown, he had found a job, a place to live in, and two lovers. It would have been better, she supposed, if Brett had invited him to live with them, but the loft near them was already a big step. She wondered what Brett thought or felt, but his face, when he stood and came to brush his lips against her temple, was impenetrable. She caught his hand before he moved away and let the heat of her need warm her voice.
“Want to take a shower before you go work?”
He squeezed her hand, an acknowledgment that he, too, remembered the last shower they had shared.
“I already took one. Why don’t you ask Leo to join you?”
She blinked, a little surprised, and let go of his hand to allow him to walk away. She’d never have expected him to push her toward Leo, not like this. Maybe he was more comfortable with the idea of sharing a lover with her than she had believed. Time would tell.
Pushing the questions away for the moment, she raised an eyebrow toward Leo.
“Want to scrub my back?”
He was laughing quietly when he stood and extended his hand to help her up.
* * * *
Through the bedroom door he had only half closed, Brett heard footsteps across the living room. What he did not hear, however hard he listened, was the bathroom door close. Had they left it open for him?
He dismissed the idea with a shake of his head, and returned to pulling clothes out of his dresser and closet. He dressed up mechanically, his mind wandering out of the room and into the bathroom instead, so that when he glanced at himself in the mirror hung inside the closet door—the only mirror in the entire building—he could only frown. Dark blue pants and light green shirt weren’t a very attractive combination.
He pulled off the shirt and grabbed another one, blue this time. His thoughts, however, did not remain focused long enough for him to pick out a tie that wouldn’t clash, and he couldn’t help turning toward the door and looking out. All he could see was part of the open floor living area, but beyond that he could picture the door that hadn’t been closed, and what was happening beyond it. He could hear the water running, and, sometimes, quiet sounds that could have been moans—or his imagination.
From the very beginning of their relationship, Lisa had made it clear to him that the word ‘monogamous’ wasn’t part of her vocabulary or lifestyle, and despite his growing feelings for her, he had accepted it rather easily. Even when she took longer to return on some nights, he knew whose bed she would be in, come morning. He knew that others were only prey; he was different. She had said so herself. She said it every time she refused to feed from him. Maybe it had also been easy for him to accept her games because deep down, he had always been curious to see her with another man—or another woman, she wasn’t too particular about her prey. He had never had the occasion until now, because, at his request, she always took the others elsewhere rather than to the bed he shared with her. But now…now she was just a few steps away, with another man, and the open door couldn’t be anything other than an invitation.
The previous night, Brett probably would have been seething with jealousy and overcome with the fear that Leo might take Lisa away from him. Both jealousy and fear had melted away as quickly as his self-control did every time he was in front of Lisa. All it had taken was a few words of reassurance—as much of a promise as Lisa had ever offered him—and the feel of Leo’s skin against his, his fangs sinking in Brett’s flesh. Just the memory of it had Brett’s cock beginning to fill and tug at his perfectly tailored pants.
Unable to resist any longer, he abandoned his useless search for a tie and walked over to the bathroom. With each step, he could hear them more clearly over the sound of the cascading water. Lisa was the most vocal, moaning softly every few seconds, but Leo wasn’t silent either. His quiet grunts were harsh and regular, perfectly in time with the wet, regular, slapping sound of flesh against flesh. The rhythm faltered, just for a second, when Brett stepped onto the cold tiles of the bathroom, but it picked up in speed again after that.
The lightly frosted glass of the shower door both shielded the two vampires and revealed their tantalizing bodies. Brett now had a visual to accompany the noises they made, and he had to lean back against the wall by the door, his knees threatening to buckle in. They were breathtaking, and watching them was every bit as erotic as Brett had imagined it would be, if not more.
Leo was carrying Lisa, her legs wrapped around his waist. Her back rested against the tiled wall behind her, and Brett could see her use that support and the grip of her hands on Leo’s shoulders to raise herself up, then down again, accompanying his steady thrusting.
Brett’s cock was throbbing now, and without thinking about what he was doing, without caring that they had to know he was there, he freed it from the confines of his pants and underwear. He sighed at the first touch of the steamy air on his flesh, then again when he wrapped his fist around his cock and squeezed tightly, on the edge of delicious pain. He remained still for a few seconds, simply watching and letting their rhythm slide beneath his skin and into his bones. When he couldn’t bear it anymore, he allowed his grip to loosen, just enough for his hand to slide up to the tip of his cock. Running his palm over the precome that had pooled there, he spread it when he slid down, making the motion easier and the friction that much more delicious.
As though they had been waiting for him to join them, Leo and Lisa suddenly increased the pace of their dance. With a mind of its own, Brett’s hand accelerated along with them. It was too much, too fast, the sensations like fire licking along his skin, delicious and excruciating all at once. He longed for a lighter touch, softer fingers than his own—cooler, too, fingers that could tease him to the brink of madness before offering him a release as sweet as Lisa’s lips. But her fingers were gripping Leo’s shoulder now. And her lips were on Leo’s as well.
Brett wasn’t sure whom he envied most, whose place he wanted to take.
The show came to an abrupt end with twin cries of pleasure. Brett struggled not to blink so he could keep watching the silhouettes behind the glass. They had fallen silent, and their movements had almost come to a standstill. Almost, but not quite. With each of Brett’s harsh breaths, they moved, minute slides against each other that, once again, Brett’s hand mimicked on his cock. He was painfully close to bliss, and painfully far from it as well.
The shower door slid open with a whisper under Lisa’s hand, and the silhouettes disappeared, giving way instead to the beautiful bodies of the still entwined lovers surrounded by steam. They were both looking toward Brett, and both sporting the same look of completion, of hunger.
“Don’t even move a muscle.”
Lisa’s voice was soft, strong, trembling on the last word. Brett froze instantly, unable to deny her request. He bit softly on his bottom lip to stop himself from making a sound as Leo pulled away from Lisa and she lowered her legs, as graceful as a ballerina. He saw her waver, for just an instant, but her footing was steady when she climbed out of the shower. With water droplets sliding lazily over her body, she approached Brett with slow, sure steps, a dangerous cat stalking her prey. Behind her, the water stopped cascading over the tiles, but Brett couldn’t manage to take his eyes off her to see what Leo was doing.
She advanced close enough that her entire body was just an inch away from his. All Brett had to do was breathe a little more deeply, and his chest would expand to meet hers, her still distended nipples would brush against the silky material of his shirt, and…and she had asked him not to move.
Her left hand pulled Brett’s hand away from his cock. Her right replaced it.
“Did you like the show?” She leaned in just a little more, so that her words were a caress against his lips. Her hand tightened on his cock, and she smiled. “No, don’t tell me. I know you did. You could have joined in, you know.”
She didn’t give him a chance to answer, closing in to press her mouth to his. Her tongue slid over his lips before pushing past them. At the same instant, her hand started moving: long, tight pulls that had his cock throbbing again after only seconds. He stroked her tongue at the same languid pace as her caresses. A quiet groan rose in his throat as pleasure returned, still beyond his grasp. He closed his eyes to try to coax it closer, but it remained unattainable.
He felt Lisa move against him and press against his side just before her hand let go of him. He opened his eyes again and started protesting, but the protest died on his lips, swallowed by Lisa’s suddenly fiercer kiss, when another mouth covered the head of his cock. Whatever had been keeping his orgasm out of his reach suddenly broke, but now the long awaited release felt like it had arrived too soon. Leo’s mouth had barely been wrapped around his cock for a second, it seemed, and already it was retreating, suckling gently. Brett wished it had stayed a little longer.
But then that clever, sinful mouth was trailing up his body, the touch even more of a torment because Brett could only feel it through the material of his shirt. Finally, Leo reached the crook of Brett’s neck and the two puckered scars there.
“You should join us, next time,” Leo murmured. He racked his teeth against the healing bite, not hard enough to reopen it, but sensually enough that Brett trembled.
Lisa’s lips pulled away, and Brett didn’t have the power or even the presence of mind to try to catch them back. He saw her tilt her head as she looked at him, saw her smile.
“Don’t worry,” she answered Leo. “Next time, he will.”
Brett couldn’t manage to push words past his tight throat, but as he let them pull him back to bed, his clothes peeled away from him before they reached it, he could only privately agree. Watching was lovely, but playing had its merits too.
If this was what he would miss when leaving them, it would certainly make going down to the club to work a much more complicated affair.
Chapter 2
It was long past noon when Leo followed Brett down to the club. He observed him walking down the steps with a purposeful, determined stride that echoed down the narrow staircase and couldn’t help but notice that this man was much different from the one he had just watched prepare his lunch of stir fry vegetables and chicken, as comfortable in his kitchen as a cook might have been. Different also from the man who looked at Lisa with enough devotion in his eyes to fill the sky. Even his scent was shifting, an edge of confidence building with each step down, and Leo was impatient to get to know more closely the businessman he had only glimpsed in the loft.
After their impromptu time in the bathroom, they had all fallen into bed for some heavy petting that hadn’t turned into anything more when Brett had fallen asleep between Leo and Lisa. Leo had watched her card her fingers through his hair, the gesture almost tender, and listened as she explained with amused fondness that Brett was overworking himself at the club and that a few more hours of sleep would do him good.
“Why don’t you step behind the bar and mix me something?”
They had reached the ground level. Brett opened the door that would lead them to the club, and Leo chided himself for being surprised at the semi dark space that greeted them. It was of course much too early for the club to be open, and the only light came from emergency exit signs glowing softly around the spacious room.
“No alcohol,” Brett continued, “it’s a bit too early for that. Juice, soda, fruit. Can you do anything with that?”
“If my employment depends on it, I should be able to,” Leo said distractedly, a dozen combinations jumping to the front of his mind. “Any preferences?”
“Just surprise me.”
The sliver of laughter in his voice when he said that hinted at surprises more naughty than a simple drink, but he was already walking away when Leo looked at him. He threw a glance and a grin back over his shoulder. “I’ll get the loft key in my office. I’ll be right back.”
There was quite enough light for Leo to find his way to the bar in the center of the room. He easily avoided the tables spread out over the floor. The chairs weren’t around them like they had been the previous night, but rather perched upside down on the tables. It looked and smelled as though the cleaning personnel had already readied the club for the next night.
The lights flickered on as Leo reached the bar island. Designed as a square of counters on a platform just a step higher than the ground, it was lined with high stools on all four sides. Leo had to walk around two sides to find the opening and then remove a couple of stools from the counter to swing the chest-high door open and step behind the bar. It was larger than it seemed, the carefully organized space beneath the counter adding to the impression, and he took a few moments to carefully inspect what he had to work with.
One side of the bar was made of shelves upon shelves of glasses of all shapes and sizes, waiting to be filled with the most innocent of drinks—or something much stronger. At each end, large clear plastic buckets seemed ready to hold ice. In the center of the next side, a recessed sink was at perfect height for a quick wash, with trays on each side to welcome the glasses. Beneath that, three beer kegs and three soda ones were lined up and ready, a stainless hose coiled on top of each. The next side held rows of alcohol and syrup bottles, the most common ones being on a row of hanging shelves that lined the entire bar, a foot over Leo’s head and within easy reach. The last side of the square held a small fridge filled with ice and fruit juice bottles, fruits in baskets next to it, and a work area with knives and mixers. Leo had worked in a few bars in the past years, and in none had such a small space been so thoroughly furnished.
He could hear Brett’s steps behind him, echoing in the silent space, and he put himself to work. He chose a short, wide glass. Stepping to the workspace, he sliced an orange, used it to wet the rim of the glass, and set it upside down in a bowl of sugar. The sugar left a nice edge on the glass that Leo was careful not to damage when he poured in some crushed ice from the fridge. Grabbing a mixer, he poured in grenadine syrup, orange juice and pineapple juice, then closed the cap and shook the mixer with one hand so he could grab the glass and walk over to where Brett was sitting on a high stool. He placed the glass down on a coaster, then opened the mixer with a flourish and poured.
“Nice color,” Brett commented as he picked up the glass and took a sip. “Nice taste, too.”
Leo turned back to the workspace to clean up, putting everything back in its place. When he glanced back, Brett was licking the sugar along the rim.
“Does that mean I get the job?”
“You got the job simply by showing up and knowing your way around the bar.” The glass made a dull sound when Brett set it down on the coaster. “Lisa had been telling me for weeks to find a vamp to put behind the bar. I’ve asked for a blood bar license, and she thinks only a vampire can serve blood correctly.”
There was a hint of skepticism in his words, and Leo had to chuckle as he walked back to him and topped off his drink, emptying the mixer.
“She’s right, and I’m not just saying that to keep the job.”
Once again picking up his glass, Brett gave a small shrug. “Oh, I believe you. It’s not like I know much about blood myself.”
He punctuated those last words with a wry smile, and Leo answered it in kind. The businessman facet seemed to have retreated at the mention of Lisa, leaving Brett more open, and more approachable. Leo leaned against the counter, his arms folded in front of him, and considered his new boss—his new lover—for a little while before daring to ask:
“How did you meet Lisa?”
He had heard her side of the story the previous night, but he was curious to hear how Brett would describe the encounter.
“By chance, I suppose.” He took another sip of his drink, and his tongue sneaked out to catch a grain of sugar on his upper lip. “She came to the bar I was managing at the time, and one of the patrons freaked out when he realized she was a vamp. I had to come out and calm things down. Kicked the guy out, offered Lisa a drink.”
He stopped there, and Leo watched as a small smile came to life on Brett’s lips. It was a happy smile, the kind that only fond memories inspired. It made Leo want to share that happiness at its deepest level.
“Only one drink?” he insisted, needing to hear more.
“That first night, yes, just one. But she came back the next night, and this time she got me one. We started talking.” The smile widened a little. “We talked a lot. And then we did more than talk.”
He finished his drink in one long swallow, tilting his head back as he did and baring his throat. Leo followed that elegant curve with his eyes. He wanted to brush his fingers along it too, and uncover the small, puckered marks at the crook of Brett’s neck. If they had been upstairs, he would have, without second thought or hesitation. But down here, in this much more public scene where Brett was his new boss, he had a feeling that discretion might be better, even if they were alone.
“It was definitely my lucky day when I met her,” Brett started again, a little more softly now. His gaze stayed on the empty glass in front of him on the counter, and he picked up the sugar grains there with his finger. “I’d never have envisioned a club like this without her, and she’s the reason it’s so successful. She not only thought of everything, she also financed most of it. Sometimes I wonder why she didn’t do it herself before she met me.”
Leo laughed quietly at that, drawing Brett’s eyes back to him. “Can you imagine her here right now, giving a new bartender directions? Or in an hour, filling out whatever paperwork you need to actually hire me? Or in five hours, smoothing out a problem between two customers?”
Brett chuckled. “That’s what the security personnel is for. But you’ve got a point. She enjoys being a customer too much to play the owner’s part. So now you know how she and I got together. What about you? Did you know her before you were turned?”
Moving away from the counter, Leo straightened, stretching a little, and looked up at the bottles above him. He wouldn’t have minded helping himself, but he still didn’t know Brett enough to dare.
“No, I didn’t know her then.” He would have preferred to stop there, but Brett’s questioning gaze when Leo looked back at him asked for more. “When I woke up after being turned, she was there. Our Sire had asked her to find me food.”
Brett’s smile wavered before disappearing completely. “Food?” he repeated.
Picking up the empty glass and mixer on the counter, Leo turned to the recessed sink and ran the water. He had said too much, he realized that, but stopping now wouldn’t help him or Lisa. “A prey.”
The water warmed up both the glass and Leo’s fingers. Bubbles rose in the air, light, lighter than the silence suddenly weighing between the two men.
“You two killed humans,” Brett said at last.
With a sharp movement of his wrist, Leo turned off the faucet and set the glass on a tray to dry. The mixer on the other hand he carefully dried off with a clean towel hanging by the faucet and returned it to its proper place. When he couldn’t delay anymore turning back toward Brett, he did so with the knowledge that he probably didn’t look or sound as repentant as Brett would want him to be. “We didn’t have much of a choice. Our Sire prided himself on never having fed from willing prey.”
The light twitch in Brett’s cheek was not encouraging, and neither was his carefully blank tone. “That was your Sire. Couldn’t you have abstained from killing?”
Leo tried not to let his amusement pierce through. For Brett this was a serious matter, he understood that, but he knew just as well that trying to explain this to a human was like asking someone who had never hungered for blood to imagine that first burst of warmth and flavor when the fangs retracted.
“Obviously you don’t know what it’s like to be a fledgling. Your Sire is everything to you. You want to please him, and make him proud.” Hearing his own words, he realized that he was wrong and corrected himself. “No, you don’t want to. You need to, just as much as you need blood.”
“But you and Lisa are here now,” Brett jumped in, only to stop when Leo shook his head.
“After a few months or a few years, you start getting over it. Lisa did first, probably because she’s such a strong-headed woman.”
He had hoped to distract Brett with his weak joke, but it didn’t work.
“So, she only killed humans when she was forced, then?”
There was hope in Brett’s voice. It made Leo wonder what exactly Lisa had told him about her past. It also made him wonder how upset she would be that he had shared things that were hers to divulge. At this point, it was probably better to say everything.
“She started seducing her prey rather than trapping it, and more and more often they’d leave on their own two feet when she was done. It amused our Sire at first, and then it started annoying him. He tried to order her to kill. When that didn’t work, he tried to beat her into submission. Then he thralled her.”
Leo’s voice lowered lightly and he had to stop for a moment, the memories flooding back to him. For months, it had been like a game between Sire and Childe, with the lives of a few dozens humans at stake and Leo as an uncomfortable witness. The thrall had worked best of everything else their Sire had tried, but Lisa had been enraged when he had let his control slip enough that she had come out of her trance.
“She’d always go back to doing what she wanted,” he finished his tale. “She argued with him for hours at a time that it made no sense to risk our lives by killing when we could get all the blood we needed simply by following a few rules. After a while, what she was saying started making sense for me too. That’s when he left us. We had no reason to kill after that.”
There were still questions in Brett’s eyes; Leo couldn’t wait to hear whether they would still be about Lisa, about what she had done or not over the course of more years than Brett had been alive, or if now they would be about his own history with hunting. However, just as Brett was about to say something, a man approached the bar and Brett’s attention turned to him. Tall and dressed all in black, he had the name of the club embroidered over his heart, announcing him as security.
“Afternoon, boss. Just came in to go over these shifts we talked about yesterday, and I found a couple of men at the door.” He glanced at Leo with a hint of suspicion before ignoring him again. “Police.”
At once, Leo could see the tension on Brett’s face. He didn’t know much about On The Edge yet, but he could easily guess that, in a place where vampires and humans interacted closely, the police wanting to talk to the owner couldn’t be a good sign.
“Please let them in, John. I’ll be right there.”
The security guard retreated with a nod. Brett’s features were still worried when he looked back at Leo, but he managed to smile when he handed him a single key on a metal ring.
“Go have a look at the place, see what you think.”
Leo watched him go. There was a tightness to the way he walked that hadn’t been there before, and Leo wished he had known if he or the police had caused it. He had only entered On The Edge less than a day earlier, but he could see himself enjoying a longer stay with Lisa and Brett. He hoped he hadn’t ruined it all already. Clutching the key in his fist, he returned upstairs.
Chapter 3
Brett was halfway to the service door when John let the two policemen in. He stopped and watched them come closer, wondering what had brought them here. He could come up with a few possible explanations, and none of them was good, for him personally or for the club. It had all been going too well, he supposed. Something had to come down. He had a feeling that John was thinking the same thing. The chief of security and personnel had been the first employee Brett had hired for On The Edge. John had worked for him before at his first bar, and Brett had known right away he wanted him on board for this new adventure. He was now walking very rigidly a step in front of the cops, his jaw was set in a hard line that meant he was worried. When the three oft hem reached Brett, he stood to the side, arms crossed over his chest.