Page 4 of Thirst
I blew out a breath, telling myself not to get my hopes up. He didn’t even know I was in France.
I clasped the choker around my neck anyway—for good luck. And because I couldn’t smother a tiny, reckless hope that he’d somehow find a way to be at the gallery tonight.
I did a final twirl in my new dress, black fishnet entwined with embroidered bats—on my shoulder above my breast, the opposite arm, my upper left thigh.
It was short, edgy, bold. The party-girl Nyx I showed the world.
I lifted my chin and looked myself straight in the eye. “This is what you wanted. What you worked for. So get your butt to the gallery.”
I stepped into sky-high heels, grabbed the micro-bag that held my invitation and a few necessities, and headed out of the suite.
My bodyguards met me in the hall, both in severe black suits. The younger of the two, Manny, was a dhampir like me with short dark hair, an ever-present sneer and a way of eyeing you like he was measuring how fast you’d bleed.
Jerome was much older—close to my father’s age—and a vampire with the pale irises of a shark. I’d never seen him in anything but a severe black suit, his longish brown hair slicked back from his face. He moved with a deliberate precision, no motion wasted, and spoke in clipped, one-word sentences: Allez. Rester. Non. Non. Non.
Either man would rat me out to my father in a heartbeat.
Outside the hotel, an SUV with tinted windows waited at the curb. Manny slid behind the wheel and Jerome settled beside me in the back. His shark eyes swept over the fishnet dress and the bare skin beneath, my only covering a bra and a thong. His upper lip curled.
I gazed back steadily. The dress was camouflage, part of my rich-girl-clubber persona. When people’s eyes are glued to your legs, they tend to forget you have a mind. In my father’s syndicate, that kind of distraction was sometimes the only edge I had.
And honestly? This outfit was tame compared to what half the women at the gallery would be wearing.
Manny eased the SUV onto the cobblestones, and I looked out the window. A fine drizzle blurred the glass, turning the city into a watercolor. A pair of women glided past beneath red umbrellas, tulips in motion. Streetlights cast a soft golden glow across the wet pavement, the light catching on puddles and windowpanes until everything seemed to shimmer, as if under an enchanted spell.
The gallery was a short drive away in a decommissioned Metro station. By the time we reached it, my jitters had turned into excitement.
My first major show…and it was in Paris. The words tasted unreal, like champagne bubbles on my tongue.
I’d dreamed of this since—forever. Had worked my butt off to get here—begging my father to hire an artist to tutor me, devouring the masters in hushed museums whenever I could slip away.
Manny opened my door and I hopped out, ignoring his outstretched hand. The air was tinged with rain and wet stone and possibilities.
I’d done it. Every sacrifice, every stolen hour had led to this.
Behind me, Manny returned to the SUV while Jerome followed me into the subway station. A guard was posted at the top of the concrete stairs. Jerome would have to wait here with the other bodyguards.
I flashed my invitation at the guard in his dark suit. He glanced from the embossed card to me and stood aside. “Welcome, Madam Nyx.”
“Merci.” I descended toward the gallery, feeling lighter with every step away from Jerome.
The place was packed.
I halted on the second-to-last step, drinking it in. The subway platform teemed with vampires and dhampirs—glossy, expensively-dressed men and women who wore power like a second skin. Thralls drifted through the crowd, laughing and flirting. At one end of the platform, a blond singer crooned in smoky French, her fingers caressing the mic like it was a lover’s throat.
And over it all were my oil paintings, large and lush against the gritty walls.
My fingers tightened on the steel rail. These jaded, seen-it-all vampires were here for me—Nyx. It was my art that had brought them out.
So what if no one knew I was the artist? I knew. That’s what mattered.
I arranged my face into its usual blasé expression and stepped onto the concrete platform.
“Nyx!” A Paris Syndicate dhampir in a short slip-dress wiggled her fingers at me from across the gallery.
“Darling!” I gave her a finger-wiggle back and air-kissed my way through the crowd, laughing, gossiping, making promises to meet up soon. Another glittering fixture on the vampire syndicate circuit, the spoiled daughter of a Quebec City enforcer, my biggest decision which nightclub to grace next.
When I’d judged I’d spent enough time making the rounds, I merged into the cluster gathered around the nearest painting. A single white rose wilted under the moonlight spilling through a tall, Gothic window, a poison-green mamba curled possessively around the base of its vase. More serpents glided down the crumbling stone sill, vanishing into pools of deep violet shadows.
