Paranormal Bromance (Kitty Norville 12.50)

The place was dark, lit by colored accent effects and recessed lighting, and sleek, lots of gray and chrome and high-backed booths and spindly tables. The music was tec

hno, kind of relentless for my taste. Inside the club, Jack was a predator on the hunt. Literally. He scanned, watched for victims. Pulling us to a ledge by the wall, he leaned up against it and looked causal. To his credit he actually seemed comfortable here, even if he was trying too hard. But me? No other guy here was wearing a T-shirt and leather jacket. Denver had clubs where I would have looked right at home. I should hang out at one of those.

A handful of other vampires were around, and not just the ones who worked here. They blended in, beautiful and sinister, giving us cautious nods across the room—plenty of snacks here for everyone, right? I gave them cheerful waves in return, until Jack elbowed me to stop it.

I would have been happy just sitting back and admiring the scenery—skirts had gotten very short since the last time I paid attention. Short and skin tight. I caught myself wondering if some of these women were even wearing panties under their very short skirts, and if I was standing in just the right place when they sat, would I find out?

Turned out I didn’t have to work all that hard to play asshole vampire.

“There,” Jack said, and nodded. Three women stood by one of the side bars. Not stereotypical clubbers—their skirts weren’t quite short enough and their eyelashes not big enough. Mid-twenties instead of early twenties, out for some kind of celebration. A challenge, in other words. They had drinks, the bartender was somewhere else, and they were isolated.

I gave him a look. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am, they’re the perfect age to have grown up reading Twilight.”

Oh, for God’s sake… “Fine. But you owe me one. No, you owe me five.”

I knew if I was going to do what Jack wanted and be the bad vampire asshole in this scenario, I couldn’t act the way I thought an asshole would act. My imagination wouldn’t go far enough. No, I had to act the way Jack thought an asshole would act.

I barged into the middle of them, shoving them apart, knocking over one of the drinks, a martini, breaking the glass. Perfect, couldn’t have worked it better if I’d planned it.

I grinned, showing fang. Because for Jack, that was the whole point. Not to hide the fact that we were vampires. “Oh, hey, sorry about that, how about I get you another one, huh?” I flashed a look at two of them, but focused my attention on the one I’d isolated. “Or maybe we could go somewhere else, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Put a little adventure in your life?”

“What the hell?” said one of the women behind me.

“Those are fake, right?” said the one in front of me, about my fangs.

I ran my tongue over them, making the gesture as skeezy as I could, disturbed that I had this behavior living inside me. “Baby, they’re totally for real. Wanna touch?” I leered and closed the distance, pressing her to the bar. Come on, Jack, any second now…

“Hey, is he bothering you?”

Jack appeared, standing so the light hit him in the most dramatic way possible, shadowing his face, making his eyes gleam. He was rakish and very striking. The bastard.

Two of them made polite we-don’t-want-to-make-trouble noises. But the third, the one I’d isolated, said, “Yes, he is.” Brave, stepping confidently into her role.

The rest was choreographed. Jack stepped in front of me, I let him get close and let the woman escape. “You want to maybe get the hell out of here?”

“You going to make me?” I leered. I was so going to get him for this later.

He bared his teeth, showing fang. One of them gasped. Jack glanced at her sidelong. “We’re not all like him. We’re not all… bad,” he said in his most suave, alluring vampire hero voice ever. Angel, eat your heart out. Geez, Jack was good at this. He had me fooled.

He grabbed the collar of my jacket, spun me around, and shoved me to the exit. “Get out.”

I hissed in outrage, fangs on display, like a dutiful asshole vampire. He puffed himself up, super strong and super heroic. All of it posturing. I fled, on cue.

My job done, I went outside to slump against the wall and reflect on how my life had turned out so far. I was too old to be doing this crap. No, scratch that—I still looked twenty-five. I was the perfect age.

But I felt forty. That didn’t feel good.

Braun spotted me and sidled over. “He’s not making you do the good vampire/bad vampire act again, is he?”

“Yes, he is,” I grumbled.

The bouncer shook his head and made a sympathetic tsk. “It would be pathetic if it didn’t actually work so often.”

That was the crux of the whole thing. I hadn’t bothered glancing over my shoulder as I left, but the fact that Jack hadn’t reappeared suggested he was still there, chatting up the women, winning them over with excruciating politeness and vampire heroism, seducing them with his hypnotic gaze. Because yes, the system worked. There was no justice in the universe, or the club scene.

“I have to admit,” Braun continued, “since the whole vampire thing went public he’s the first one I’ve seen use it to his advantage. It’s… kind of weird.”