Fallen Ever After Read Online Free Page B

same with you.” She slammed the bottle on the scuffed tabletop and grabbed one of the guys by the front of his shirt, dragging him toward the dance floor. “Come on.”
    The other guy shrugged at me and grinned, exposing cigarette-stained teeth. Brandon barely noticed her departure—his heavy-lidded gaze focused on my mouth and his erection prodded my hip. I wanted to scream at him and couldn’t stand him sitting so close. With my out-of-control emotions, I had to remind myself that I could really hurt him even though the woman in me, not the vampire, wanted to rip him limb from limb.
    Guys like him were cowards. I’d never had to deal with any in my previous relationships, but I’d seen enough of it to know what it was about—control, plain and simple. It was inexcusable and ridiculous when I thought about it. One thing I knew for sure was that there was no such thing as complete control, not really. The sooner one could accept that control was just an illusion, the easier it was to accept that things could go terribly wrong, and when they did, all you could do was react to the shit you’d been dealt. That was the one thing that I could always count on.
    Woman-beating bastard.
    “Hey man, I’m going to go out for a smoke and grab a beer. Want one?” his friend asked.
    “Yeah, sure.”
    His lanky friend lumbered away through the throng, heading toward the entrance. He smelled like he’d just had sex. I was thankful that the club didn’t allow smoking. I despised the saturated smell from working at the Coffee Grind, and I didn’t think I could handle it with my new, keener senses. All our senses, I discovered, were heightened in a way I hadn’t been prepared to deal with. The stink of smoke and sex jogged my memory. Now I remembered where I’d seen the girl.
    “I’ve seen Jess before—upstairs.” At the BDSM sex club.
    Brandon nodded. “Yeah, she’s a dancer at another club. A friend of hers told her she should audition to dance upstairs at HFC because she could pull in mad tips. When I found out, I didn’t believe in vamps. I had to see for myself—turns out her friend was right. So I told Jess she has to get a job here. But they’re not looking for dancers right now.”
    That explained everything.
    Clubbers downstairs had no idea that vampires existed, but when he put the moves on me and asked me to dance he’d made it clear that he knew exactly what I was. Our clientele upstairs, at a sex club that had spanned the centuries under various names and locations, knew about our existence, but down here they didn’t have a clue. And high-ranking government officials kept it under wraps. After all, the Hellfire Clubs existed to provide feeding grounds for vampires. I still couldn’t get over the fact that our government knew everything and covered it up. Although, wasn’t that just how governments operated? Arie had told me that vampires existed within every facet of society, but that didn’t even cover half of it. And then I thought of Luna.
    “The tips are the best in the city,” I mused.
    “Nah, that’s not why I wanted her to get a job. Jess is my way in—or was my way in, until I met you. I want to be one of you.” He leaned in as he spoke.
    The smell of alcohol and cigarettes almost made me gag. It took every ounce of my willpower not to grab him by the back of his head and smash his face into the table, make his nose bleed like he had done to Jess.
    “I want to be a vampire,” he said.
    I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
    “Fuck, yeah.”
    No one could hear him above the raucous music, and even if they did, they’d never believe him. They’d just think it was all part of the game. Some of the Goths were into fake role-playing. Victoria liked to joke about it.
    I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
    “Oh, you mean like right now. Nah, baby. There’s plenty of time to get to know each other. Let’s go back to my place. You, me, and Jess. I’m sure she won’t mind.