After Hours (VAMPIRES PART 1)

Chapter 16

LISA

I leap out of the bath, snatch up my blade and grab the towel. My feet slip as I race to the door, but I gather my balance and charge after her. I stop. I never, ever go anywhere unarmed. And right now, I am completely butt naked save for the towel and the single blade. I back up and grab the other one so I have one in each hand. I don't trust a soul in this godsforsaken mansion.

Especially not now.

No one, and I do mean no one, save Minnie knows my real name, and even Minnie doesn't call me Lalisa. And she certainly wouldn't have told Roseanne fucking Park it. No matter how mad I am at her right now. The day I changed my name I'd gone home from the Academy. Neither of us were of age to drink, but she'd persuaded me to celebrate in style. So we snuck half empty beers from the local pub and poured them over my first red tally mark tattoo. She was so proud of my first kill tattoo, she vowed to call me Lisa from then on. And that's how it stuck. We spent the rest of the night watching the stars and stealing dregs of beer together until we fell asleep in the pub garden.

She wouldn't betray that, no matter what.

So how the fuck does Roseanne know?

I rip the bathroom door open, but Roseanne is already walking out of the bedroom. I chase after her, wrapping the towel around me tight.

"Wait, for fuck's sake."

She doesn't. Of course she fucking doesn't. She just walks, or swaggers is more accurate, out the room and down the hall. Her hips swing in this delicious curve through the air. Half of me wonders if she's doing it on purpose or whether it's just her blood in my system that makes me aware of her every moment.

But I can't take my eyes off of her hips.

Her ass.

It's curved and round in all the right places.

She veers left despite my protestations. I skip and jog to keep up. But my little legs pale compared to the length of hers. And I'm barefoot.

She's speeding up too. Totally on purpose knowing I'm struggling to keep up.

"ROSEANNE," I shriek.

This time, at least, she cocks her head over her shoulder, giving me a devious grin. Rowoon, the head of staff, pops his head out of a door on the right. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it again and shuts his door when he sees me with a blade in my hand and wearing only a towel.

Roseanne turns right, into a new wing, which is quieter. Not just quiet, but silent. There are no staff, no people anywhere. Almost like it's a private wing. I wonder if it's hers.

Finally, she reaches the end of the wing's corridor, turns left and there she vanishes through a leather-studded door.

"What the hell?" I mumble and open the door.

And there I halt.

"Ah, shit." This is very definitely a sex room.

The walls are dark, the kind of blood red that's not quite dried but isn't liquid anymore. The lights are low, a dim ember colour like a dying fire. From the ceiling, chains and handcuffs hang. On the walls there are countless toys, straps, floggers, dildos, and fuck knows what else. There's a four-poster bed in the middle of the room, rich black curtains hanging from the gilded, gothic frame.

Well, this is all rather uncomfortable. I came to find out how the fuck she knows my name, and now my pussy is throbbing with want. Just looking at the toys in here is enough to make me wet, let alone thinking about using them.