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He’d been told Club Atlantis had good security. So far that assessment had held true, even without counting on the senses of the two vampires who called it home, and would immediately detect another vampire inside the club walls.

Since Adan was a magic user as well as a vampire, he had used a concealment spell to enter the lobby, coming in behind two women, accessorized with sparkly jewelry and sexy heels. Fragrant wafts of expensive perfume, intensified by the heat of their skin, were a reminder that membership to the BDSM venue wasn’t cheap.

Money alone didn’t guarantee entrance, though. Anwyn, the Mistress owner of Club Atlantis, approved all members, and she looked at more criteria than a bank account.

Good. That exclusivity would help Adan accomplish his mission.

The woman ahead of Adan wore a pencil skirt and white blouse, plus a belt with pewter studs. Adan expected it could deliver a nice pattern of marks across a lovely backside. After she checked in with the hostess, she confirmed she was the Domme in the relationship by withdrawing a slim strap from her purse, a choker with a heart pendant. She fixed it around her submissive’s throat.

Because he had a Dominant streak so wide it touched every conceivable horizon, Adan paused to enjoy the ripple effect. The energy field around the women changed, as body language, expression, and focus shifted fully to Domme and submissive mode.

The mind was capable of so many miracles, especially ones that offered pleasure.

The Mistress didn’t take the power she’d been given for granted. She lingered over it, her black painted fingernails scraping the olive-colored skin of her submissive’s throat firmly enough to cause an indrawn breath, a parting of moist lips. The Domme’s eyes glinted with approval. With a murmur of command, she bid the sub follow her behind a dark blue velvet curtain, a pathway into the main club area.

Adan didn’t follow. Not yet. A male security staff member shared the space behind the desk with the hostess. As the women moved out of the path between him and Adan, the man’s head came up and his body tensed, a predator sensing a threat.

His steely eyes searched the lobby, looking for what he could feel but not see. The silver name tag on the lapel of his black jacket said James. He was the head of Atlantis security and looked the part, a powerful man with the eyes of an experienced cop. He was also second marked by the vampire owner of the club, which boosted those already well-honed senses.

Adan strengthened his concealment field and waited to see what would happen.

It took thirty seconds, twenty more than he would have expected, but James returned his attention to the work he was doing on his tablet.

When the hostess checked in another trio of guests, Adan slid through the curtain behind them. It brought him into a wide hallway with an arched ceiling, dotted with tiny twinkling lights. While giving the impression of a starry firmament above, they illuminated the carpeted path ahead. Black light artwork on the walls showed erotic scenes, the combination of light and shadow shaping the mood that every detail of the club was designed to reinforce.

This was a place where darkness and light were welcome to play together. As long as everyone obeyed the rules.

He emerged into an open area that offered a bar, a dance floor, and a view of the ornately railed mezzanines for two upper floors. As he wound his way through the small tables clustered by the bar, he gained a better view of the dozen public play spaces marked out in a perimeter around the dance floor. Those spaces included spanking benches, crosses, web hammocks, queening chairs, discreetly placed clean-up stations and more. Most of the spaces were occupied.

Which meant a dense wave of sensual energy hit him right between the eyes, as well as a lot lower.

Shit. He’d purposefully come on a weekend night, when he anticipated bigger attendance. A smart enemy took advantage of natural concealment. But sometimes, he got so deep in his head with the spellcraft, how to shape and use it, that he overlooked his greatest annoyance.

His youth.

As a born vampire, at seventy years old, he was barely considered an adult, and certainly not a mature one. Which meant he was susceptible to the primal urges of his kind, especially if he was hammered on all sides by triggers for them. Blood, sex, need…

Fortunately, as a Dominant who had regularly enjoyed human venues for BDSM play over the past few years, he had learned how to deal with it. Blocking all those waves of urgency, the begging, sweet offers of surrender from a hungry submissive soul, an energy as powerful as blood, wasn’t an effective strategy. He took those waves inside but channeled the energy, used it to feed the concealment field, and put the overflow into an additional spell.

One that would reach out to all corners of the club, map it out, dig deeper, locate other energy signatures outside the more crowded public areas. That map would impress itself on his mind so he could avoid bumping into people where accidental contact wouldn’t be covered by a thick crowd. He was invisible, not incorporeal.

 The effort helped balance him, restore control. And gave him additional useful information. Only one of the vampires was in residence tonight. Anwyn, the owner. She was younger than him, and a made vampire, not born. If she discovered him, she wasn’t a threat, but his job here wouldn’t be accomplished as smoothly.

Since the distracting elements of the public areas wouldn’t stay at bay for long, he moved swiftly through this section, taking quick mental notes. Then he slipped over the threshold of an employee entrance when a staff member came through it. As he did, he inhaled a pleasing whiff of cinnamon and caramel.

She also had the smell of male vampire all over her.

Adan stopped as the woman herself did a double take. She turned around, palm flat on the open door, her brow creasing. There was half a foot between her and Adan. A calculated risk. But he could move back fast if she reached out, the spell masking any sound he made.

She was a servant. Adan ran through the details he’d collected before his visit. Club Atlantis was home to two vampires and the male servant they shared. But they also employed a male vampire as a club Dom.

Wolf.                    

He was old enough to be a threat to Adan, but he wasn’t here right now. However, the presence of his servant suggested he might make an appearance.

One thing for certain; the male was a fortunate vampire. His servant was curvy, with beautiful breasts and hips, enhanced by a blue waist cincher, black shorts and scoop-necked white gauzy blouse. She wore vivid blue colored contacts. From her long, dark hair and the lighter brown of her eyebrows, Adan guessed her real eye color might be brown. Her name tag said Ella.

She was staff, but she didn’t work the floor as a sub. Nor did her scent suggest she was regularly shared with the other vampires here. Intriguing, since the age and power of the other vampire in residence, Anwyn’s mate, far eclipsed hers or Wolf’s. Vampire servants could be shared upon the command of a higher-ranking vampire.

Since the more powerful vampire wasn’t here tonight, Adan considered that both a good and bad thing. Good because if he was powerful enough to detect Adan, it would have disrupted his intent to get the lay of the land without influence. Bad, only because Adan couldn’t satisfy his purely professional curiosity on whether his concealment would work against a vampire of that age.

Another time, maybe. 

Adan moved deeper into the hallway as Ella let the door close. He watched her through the small rectangular window in the panel. She stood there, thinking, then someone drew her attention at the bar. She headed that way, shrugging off the moment.

He’d been so close to her he could have driven cold steel through her heart, one of the few ways to end a vampire servant’s life. Based on her reaction and James’s, he rated his concealment spell about ninety percent effective. Additional energy would be needed to reach a hundred percent.

Club Atlantis was going to be a unique challenge to his spell craft. He was liking the job more and more.

Then he turned a corner and encountered a scent he wasn’t expecting. It belonged to a being no one had warned him was here. He’d only dealt with the species once before, but the encounter had left a lasting impression.

 One that had his fangs starting to extend, his body tightening for a fight.

A fucking Fae.

The initial whiff told him nothing but that, so he followed it down a hallway with a few open doorways. A roomy breakroom held several employees. They were chatting while one heated up a late dinner. Another office revealed an employee working on her computer, the plaque by the door identifying her as accounting staff. Then he passed the security office where two uniformed employees, a man and woman, monitored multiple screens.

 He paused as James’s voice came through a speaker on the desk. “Let me know if you notice anything that seems off tonight. Even if it seems trivial.”

The woman’s answer was tinged with humor, but overlaid with serious respect. “Your spidey sense tingling, boss?”

“Yeah. Big time. Tell our floor team to double their sweeps and shuffle up the times. I want constant eyes-on surveillance, all sectors.”

Okay, eighty percent. Adan nodded in approval. He was getting the information he needed, to know what it would take to overcome the status quo security already in place.

He waited and watched a few more moments, marking their procedures. He was testing himself, because holding his ground required even more effort than when he’d been out on the public floor. His predator instincts were resisting his normal channeling techniques. He needed to run that Fae scent to ground, find out the source.

Since it had come this way, it wasn’t cloaking itself as human to enjoy the Atlantis amenities. Since he doubted a Fae had a keen desire to join the human working class, if one was posing as staff, it was to serve an ulterior motive.

This Fae had committed the deadliest kind of error; a hunter not realizing they had become the hunted.

Data gathering set aside for now, except as a periphery consideration, Adan moved away from the security office and toward the staff elevator. There were five floors to Club Atlantis. Three of them were club space. The underground level held the vampire living quarters and additional storage. The top level was a penthouse suite with several bedrooms, as well as a rooftop garden and pool area.

The elevator and stairs required access codes to use them. Fortunately, a staff member with a loaded cart to restock the bars arrived and keyed in his code. Nothing but pure human to this one, a slim male in black slacks and white shirt. It was the standard uniform of most Atlantis staff members, though the young man also wore an ID tag bracelet decorated with two tiny sapphires and the words “Georg’s Pet” engraved on it.

On his off nights, he likely used his employee discount to play here with his Master. Adan held his breath so it didn’t caress the male’s tempting nape. He closed his eyes again, listening to the heartbeat. Strong, young blood.

Maybe he should have done an extra feeding. He might have underestimated how the many temptations of Atlantis, the dense sexual energy and power exchange dynamics, could impact him. Being nearly chest to ample chest with Ella had exacerbated the feeling. But not nearly to the extent that detecting the Fae had.

A Fae presence roused every aggressive instinct he had. The blood he wanted wasn’t for nourishment.

Which meant pursuing the Fae trail to its source might not be the best idea. His father had warned him about this kind of thing when he left home. Your mind, its intelligence, far exceeds your impulse control.

His twin sister Ruth had boiled it down further. He’s saying you’re so smart you’re stupid.

His brain, his competitiveness, his impatience with his limitations, would insist he could test his control well beyond the capacity of a vampire his age. He understood that. But he was too close to his quarry to abandon running it to ground.

If a Fae was here undetected, it could do a great deal of harm.

Georg’s “pet” exited the elevator, the bottles on the cart clinking pleasantly. They caught the club lights in a multitude of colors as the doors opened fully. The bass thumping music he could hear even before the doors opened filled the compartment, making the floor beneath his feet vibrate.

He had to shut his eyes again to focus past the silhouettes of dancing bodies, block the wave of sexual energy coming from the additional BDSM play happening on this level. 

No Fae on this floor. Nor the next, when he chanced hitting the button to go to the fourth floor. As the doors opened, he saw this top public area was the most intense play area. He heard cries of pain, smelled sweat, and felt need so fierce, his hands closed into fists and his heart rate elevated. Since the elevators were close to a dedicated suspension space, he also saw half a dozen people dangling and spinning, bound in a variety of rope patterns. They ranged from simple knots and ties, to a complicated artistry that shaped the submissive’s body as the rope artist desired. When the ropes were eventually removed, their skin would be marked by the twine like a canvas.

He brought his mind back to the task at hand. Whoever this Fae was, they were in the penthouse area. Or the basement. Since he was closer to the penthouse, he’d check there first.

No one but Anwyn and her closest people had the code to get to the penthouse level. Therefore, when the double doors closed, Adan made short work of leaving the car through the ceiling access, scaling the cable as the elevator descended below him.

As he climbed to the roof, confirmation came to him in the form of a stronger scent with more specific notes. His lip curled back from his fangs.

Yes, the Fae was in the penthouse area. And it was a she.

The roof panel had a security sensor. They really didn’t overlook much at Atlantis. A small flicker of magic kept him from setting it off when he lifted it, exited the shaft and replaced it. As he straightened, he stood amid a rooftop garden. Stone tiles formed a working area around the square frame box enclosing the elevator workings. A perimeter of hedges provided aesthetic screening.

As he moved around the hedges, round steppingstones guided him through a pleasing arrangement of trees in giant pots. Several long, low boxes of blooming clusters of flowers and decorative grasses provided interesting landscape features around groupings of comfortable chairs. The lights of an Atlanta skyline formed a backdrop to the lighting embedded in the garden planters and along the edge of the building’s rooftop wall, which had been prettied up with a layer of polished stone over the functional flat concrete.

From the chlorine smell, he knew a pool was here, but now he saw it, a lotus shape framed with more chair groupings and hibiscus plants with colorful tropical blooms. The lights at the bottom of the pool changed every few seconds, blue melting into green into blue again.

On the far side of the pool was a hot tub, designed as a smaller pool, framed by stone and plants and a rock grotto overhang to shield it from the vagaries of weather.

He could care less about how inviting it all was, though. Everything in him crouched, ready.

He’d found his Fae.

A rational voice suggested she might not be within the walls of Club Atlantis as an enemy. The cold center of his predator’s heart didn’t care.

An enemy was an enemy. It didn’t matter who’d been unwise enough to invite them into their home.

She was in the shadows beneath the overhang, but the heated water rippled, a smooth continuous current, because she was moving her hands, back and forth, back and forth. And she was singing.

So softly the wind had almost taken the sound away, but he snapped down an additional protection the second he detected it. Sirens were members of the Fae world, and they were not the only member of that species who used their voices to enthrall their victims.

He wasn’t a victim. If she thought otherwise, she would have even less of a chance of surviving this encounter.

If she hasn’t detected you, don’t engage her. That’s not why you’re here. His mind was fighting a fierce battle against his impulses, while his inner aggressor told logic to fuck off with a menacing snarl.

She moved out of the shadows, toward the steps leading out of the hot tub pool. She hadn’t turned on the electric torchlights mounted on black painted poles to cast light upon the space. It didn’t matter. He could see in the dark.

Her long brown hair was sleek with water. She wore nothing, her body a thin slip, like a single willow leaf. Her gaze, passing over the area, revealed eyes the grey-green color of winter-touched tree bark. Those eyes were so large, it would be impossible not to doubt she was human.

Except humans had a peculiarly well-developed ability to rationalize and dismiss any possibilities that didn’t fit their human-centric view of the world. It had worked to the advantage of preserving his own kind, as well as all the other humanoid ones, but sometimes it was downright odd, the way humans walled themselves up against such possibilities. As if they had a permanent spell on their senses, and they seemed incapable of resisting it.

On that note, she was cloaked in a glamor, so others would see only a “normal” woman. But he had long ago embedded a True Sight spell in his mind. It had been refreshed and reinforced there for so long, he suspected it would be passed on in the DNA of his snowball-in-hell chance of offspring.

The True Sight showed him her wings.

Shaped and patterned like a butterfly’s, they were green, brown and gold, the colors infused with a rich muted glow. They weren’t overly large, creating a foot-wide frame around her head, shoulders and upper torso. When she turned her head, he saw the point of her ear, molded close to the delicate line of her skull. A necklace with a stone pendant picked up the colors of her wings. Power came from that stone, and when he explored it, he discovered a protection spell. It didn’t have her in it, except as the subject of the spell, so someone had made it for her.

Someone cared about this Fae. A lover? A parent?

The folds of her sex were bare, and he imagined they’d be velvet soft to the touch, until they were slippery with arousal. He frowned at the thought, but he was a vampire. Sex was as much a part of his makeup as the need for blood, and didn’t care whether it was stimulated by friend or foe.

Her skin was a dusky gold, like the hazy color of sunbeams striking the forest floor through the interlaced arms of tall trees. It matched her scent, far more detailed now that he was this close. Forest and meadow, earth and tree, green leaves fluttering over marshy waters. A mix of decay and creation together, the duality that existed in all of Nature.

All Fae were associated with one of the four primary elements. Hers was clearly Earth.

He’d made it his business to know as much as he could about his enemy, though that research was pathetically non-experiential, most coming from books loaned to him by Derek Stormwind, the Light Guardian to whom he was apprenticed.

All vampires were physically mesmerizing. So too the High Fae. In poetry, the High Fae were described as so beautiful it could make the heart explode. But Lesser Fae, the Unseelie, they could be all along the spectrum, from breathtaking to mud-fence ugly.

She was definitely in the breathtaking range, if one could overlook her being Fae. Delicate-boned, large eyes, a slim but very feminine figure. As a vampire, he enjoyed both genders, but females definitely captured his sexual interest more quickly.

He was betting she wasn’t high up in the Fae ranks. No one was better than a vampire at determining how much power someone held, because survival or success often depended upon it. His enhanced senses could detect the age and relative power of another vampire, but he could also do a similar evaluation of other species simply by interpreting body language, mannerisms.

That evaluation brought him another distracting vibe.

Submissive.

Not the generic term, referring to how a person yielded to pressure from those around them. It was the orientation, as it was meant within these walls.

As a clarion sexual call, nothing engaged a vampire’s attention more strongly. Except blood itself.

He was sure his eyes were glittering with barely contained aggression, but he dropped to a squat, tenting his fingers on the concrete apron. Only the pool separated them. And his concealment spell.

She had gone toward the pool and stood on the lip, looking up at the night sky. The way her body moved as she walked, a graceful lift and reach, buoyant and yet oddly grounded, and now how she stood, so still except for the ripple of her hair, reminded him again of a willow. This time the tree itself, the thin branches and fluttering leaves drifting with the wind over water.

Atlanta city lights didn’t allow many stars. Not like home. On the island where he’d grown up, the sky was a jeweled field on even a semi-clear night. But he’d stand on one of the overlooks much like she was now, listening, watching. Not much chance he’d hear the harsh cough call of a mountain lion or the chirp of a cheetah here. But this wasn’t a big cat sanctuary. Instead, he heard the distance rush of traffic, the faint mournful sound of an ambulance siren.

He thought she was young. Younger than him, at least in years. It didn’t make him lower his guard, but factored in with everything else, he was less ready to eviscerate her, which meant his brain was starting to gain the upper hand again. Her deciding to take a leisurely dip in the pool reduced the chances she was here clandestinely. Which meant the unthinkable was more likely true.

She was here by invitation.

His lip curled in a snarl, but he held his ground. Derek told him his attitude toward the Fae was like hating all of the ocean for the action of one wave. Adan’s own father remained remarkably silent on the matter, though, and shadows would fill his mother’s gaze if the topic came up.

Even sixty-four years hadn’t dulled the memory of their young son being stolen by the Fae, his behavior irreparably changed by the experience.

An adult human had little remembrance of what happened to them when they were six. A vampire had no such anesthetic from the passage of time.

His heart feeling cold and hard, angry, he watched the Fae use the steps to walk into the pool. It was heated, but not like the hot tub. As she entered it, the cooler temperature tightened her nipples, ran gooseflesh over her body. Then she folded her wings behind her in a straight line and she dove beneath the surface.

She swam in circles, turning, dancing, sometimes coming up to twist around and go below again, her water-streaming wings and glistening skin briefly catching the light. She seemed to be absorbing the movement of the water over and around her. Watching her slim body curve and bend, he imagined the way that water felt along her skin, her curves, her crevices, teasing the seam of her lips, turning her hair into silk against her face. Water might not be her source element, but she was comfortable enough in it to hold his male attention.

Fireflies beamed their soft light a few feet above the water, a half dozen of them drifting. A warble of noise drew his gaze to the decorative brick wall around the rooftop deck, where a cadre of pigeons were roosting, one of them angling for more space between the plump bodies of his brethren.

He dropped his attention back to the water. She was headed in his direction, in an easy, unhurried way. So unaware of the danger she was in. Which also suggested she could be far more dangerous than she seemed. His heartbeat increased, a distant thunder in his ears. His fingers dug into the concrete. Ready.

She emerged right in front of him and folded her hands on the lip of the pool, rested her cheek on them. If he’d leaned forward, moved from his heels to his knees, he would be curved right over her. As he held his position, he watched the water roll over her cheek, across her lips, as she pressed them together.

Her eyes were closed, thick lashes fanning her cheeks. The tips of her wings curved over her rounded shoulders, diamond drops of water falling into the pool, sending out tiny ripples. The wings looked as velvety soft as the folds of her sex. Were they dusted like a real butterfly’s wings, such that if they were touched by someone’s hand, she wouldn’t be able to fly?

That thunder in his head increased, the electric feel of lightning stoking his nerves. He was an advanced magic user. A vampire. There were so many ways he could end her.

How would she feel if those wings were ripped off, any ability to defend herself or escape taken away? How would she cope, if she were subjected to the brutal whims of someone to whom she meant nothing, who spared her not an ounce of compassion, or offered any explanation for why such violence was done to her?

He needed to move back. Her proximity, her scent…he was losing control. His bloodlust was moving to full boil. He was going to curl his hand in her thick dark hair, yank her head back, savage her throat. Taste that blood the Fae held in such high esteem. So much so they practically considered it a fucking crime to give it to a vampire.

Before the rage could take over, it began to ease, a slow release of pressure. His violent response was dissipating, taken in that direction because of a gentle groundswell of peaceful feeling. As if he were standing on that hill on his home island, feeling the solidity of the warm earth beneath his feet, hearing the music of the wind in the trees, the creak of branches, the ripple of leaves, and knowing all around him was balanced. Safe.

He’d guarded himself against any mind coercion. This wasn’t that. His curiosity about the endless ways magic could be manifested took over, and he examined the shape of it. The effect was coming from her, but it was natural, not manipulated. A part of her. Like the smile a flower could bring just by gazing upon it.

Those extraordinary eyes lifted to his, locked.

“Are you here to do me harm?” she asked.

Shit. He’d gotten pissed enough it had drained strength from the concealment spell. Which meant, unless this Fae’s abilities far exceeded Anwyn’s, he’d just put himself on the radar of the vampire in residence.

It wasn’t the end of the world. More a professional fuckup. So he resigned himself to it.

“If I am,” he said, locking gazes with her, “You should have thought twice about coming this close.”