They Rise at Dusk (Book #1) ✔️

Chapter 8: Traitorous Eyes

Coming to a vampire's house at 9AM was like booty calling an ex-boyfriend in the middle of the night for humans. But unlike having casual sex with an ex-boyfriend, I thought not even the Devil himself could make me step into the elegant pre-war mansion on Riverside Drive, Upper West Side again.

From the outside, the three-story brick and limestone building looked like it only hosted balls or tea parties. On the inside, one of the most secretive clubs in all of New York City found its home.

The Club was a nameless place where anything went – a boudoir of depravity and sin and hedonism, all neatly tied in red velvet, much like the interior of the Lion's Den. If NYC never slept, The Club suffered from severe insomnia. Just like its owner, as far as I knew.

Drums thudded as I moved through the dark hallway, its floor covered with dark crimson carpets and walls dressed in velvet of the same colour. The dim lighting did not flicker – it slid from colour to colour, almost lulling in its seamless smooth change.

The entire place smelled like herbs, blood and sex.

I blamed Lucia for forcing me to come here. Admittedly, I should have handled the first meeting better, but I've sworn so many times I would never come back. Lucia didn't understand how low I stooped by breaching that oath.

Once I reached the puffy velvet door, I reconsidered this decision.

It had rained the last time I was here. A thunderstorm had formed above New York City, just like the thunderstorm that now drummed in my heart, and I had begged the rain to wash away my footsteps, I had begged the gods above to make me forget the path that led here. Not the rain, nor the gods made my wish come true, and I knew the way here in my sleep.

My heart suddenly felt too big for my chest. The scents and the velvet overwhelmed me with memories, which I tried to ignore as I pushed the door open. My hands still remembered whether to push or pull. Funny.

A circle-shaped room, with a round bar in the middle, opened up in front of me. Booths lined the walls, filled with people: drinking, dancing, and doing a whole lot more than that. Vampires and humans mingled together, caught in acts that could only exist in sketchy, underground clubs.

Some were feeding; blood sliding down the girl's necks, moans escaping their lips each time a tongue lapped on the two puncture wounds. Some have moved on from necks to loins. One handsome, muscled man half-lay on the couch, his legs spread wide. A vampire woman fed off his thigh, stroking his cock with her free hand. The man's eyes rolled back with each pump, and I could almost feel him balancing right on the edge of ecstasy.

On the other side of the club, a woman was getting fucked form behind. Her knees were on the booth. The vampire had his hand around her throat, but he entered her slowly. She caught my gaze in the middle of a moan. An exhilarating smile spread across her lips.

Wherever I looked, someone was either getting fucked, fucking or doing drugs. Lines were snorted, pills taken, and drinks chugged, and all the while music thudded in my ears, loud and seductive and obnoxious.

"Enjoying the view?"

My head snapped in the direction the voice came from.

Dorian sprawled in the large booth behind me, right next to the door. A woman was in his lap, kissing his neck. His arm was around her, his long fingers forming circles on her bare shoulder, but aside from that, he paid no attention to her. He stared straight at me, a self-satisfied grin etched on his lips.

Dressed in black, with red hues falling over his silver hair and his eyes, and his legs spread wide in an assertion of dominance, he looked like the incarnation of the Devil.