CHAPTER 16

I pull my head back. "Look, I appreciate being asked to dance and all…actually, scratch that, you didn't ask, you just kind of made me, didn't you?"

That brings out a cocky grin from him, the kind I want to wipe from his face.

"But," I continue, "if I don't get some alcohol into these vampire's systems, they're going to start wanting blood, and guess who I'm going to sacrifice to them first? Trust me, there are no rules outside the feeding room."

"I'll take my chances," he says, leaning in again and I'm seconds away from kneeing him in the crotch, you know, for fun.

Then I feel a burst of ice-cold wind at my back.

"Don't you fucking touch her," I hear Luke growl from behind me.

My eyes go wide but William's face remains obnoxiously drunk. "Oh yeah? Does she belong to you? Last I checked, she didn't."

I slowly turn my head to look at Luke, catching the venom in his eyes for just a moment, before William twists me around to face him.

"Nothing new for you to see there," William says to me, laughing.

More ice skirts along my back.

"I said don't you fucking touch her," Luke repeats, louder this time, his rage simmering in his voice enough to make other people in the club look over at us. The air becomes thick with excitement, the vampires' eyes reflecting bloodlust. "If that's a problem for you," Luke continues, "I'll gladly fix it by removing your hands."

William scoffs but finally he's starting to look a little afraid. He lets go of me and steps back. "Fine," he says, showing his palms. "Wasn't aware that Amanda was your property."

"I'm not his property," I quickly interjected.

Luke lets out another growl at that and storms past me, heading to the bar.

"Sheesh," William says, watching him go. "Might want to keep your vamp on a leash. I didn't sign up for being threatened when I agreed to come here. The minute volunteers start feeling unsafe, that might be a problem for you and your club."

He's got a point about that. Still, I have a feeling that William won't be allowed back into Dark Eyes after this. Drunk or not, he's a shit-disturber.

"I guess he saw you weren't getting the hint," I tell him, giving him a cold glare before I head over to the bar.

Luke has his back turned to me, pulling a bottle off the top shelf.

"What's wrong with you?" I hiss at him, aware that there is a row of impatient vampires sitting at the bar, waiting for a drink. Guess it doesn't matter if I lower my voice, they'll hear me anyway.

"Saving your ass, that's all," he mutters, turning around to rummage for the shaker.

"My ass didn't need saving," I told him.

"Ah," he says dryly, though the look in his eyes is still volatile. The gold in his eyes gleams like fire. "So then, you were enjoying yourself. It's hard to tell with you."

What the hell does that even mean? "I wasn't enjoying myself. But I can handle myself all the same. He was just being a dick."

His brow raises and I know what he's thinking, back to when Eric rescued me when the guy attacked me. I wasn't able to handle myself then.

"And anyway," I quickly add, "you can't go around threatening volunteers. You'll make them feel unsafe."

He shrugs and pours some vodka into the shaker. "That's part of the deal when they step in here. Safety isn't guaranteed. We're fucking vampires for crying out loud, it's not a petting zoo." He gives me another sharp look and starts to shake the shaker. "Besides, you asked me to take care of your mother. The bar was unattended. You want to let your party run dry because you wanted to dance?"

At that I start looking around the room, feeling panicked. "Where is my mother?"

"She went back upstairs," he says, pouring the drink into a martini glass and sliding it to a vampire dressed as a sad clown. "Here," he says to him. "On the house, since you had to wait."

Then before I can say anything, Luke stalks off, leaving me alone to tend bar.

"Trust me, it'll never end well," the sad clown says across from me.

I tear my eyes off Luke, my heart still thumping awkwardly in my chest, and look at the vampire. "I'm sorry, what?"

The sad vampire clown has a sip of his drink and shrugs. "A human falling for a vampire. It never ends well."

I blink at him and his drawn teardrops beneath his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He gives me a dry look. "Sure you don't. I've been coming to Dark Eyes for years, honey. Don't think I don't see anything."

I lean across the bar and he manages to keep his eyes off my boobs. "That's right. You don't see anything. Luke and I work together. That's all."

"Work together, live together," the vampire says. "Semantics, really. It's all about how you act around him. How he acts around you. The eyes tell you so much, don't you think?"

I straighten up and grab a cloth. "I wouldn't know. Luke's just a friend."

"Even then, being friends is hard too, isn't it?"

"So says the sad clown."

"Pagliacci," he explains rather indignantly. "I'm Pagliacci. Did you know I was actually at the premiere of the opera in 1892? Milan was so different then."

"Uh huh," I say, starting to wipe down the bar. Vampires will talk your ears off about the "old days," and even more so when you're their bartender. I feel like one of the reasons Eric likes to have me around is that the vampires really enjoy explaining the past to someone who hasn't been there. Otherwise it turns into a pissing contest to who did what or saw what during what monumental part in history. I once had to listen for hours to two drunken vampires argue over who Marie Antoinette loved more.

So, I let the sad clown talk about how the opera, and life in general, has changed over the years (for the worse, it's always for the worse), while my mind wanders over what he said about Luke.