He turned back to them. They beamed at him, excitement and anticipation in their eyes.
“So,” he smiled slowly, “what would you ladies like to do this evening?”
Wilhelmina set the tray on the bar as she blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. Then she tugged at the snug waitress uniform, an Asian-inspired black brocade dress with a mandarin collar. The uniform covered her from neck to knee, well mid-thigh anyway, but she still felt barely covered.
“Busy night, eh?” Nadine said, sliding a drink down the bar to Ferdinand before turning back to Wilhelmina.
“Yes, I’m afraid I’m not very fast either,” Wilhelmina admitted. Being a bit of a recluse, she’d thought the crowds and the noise would be the hardest part of working in a nightclub. She’d never been able to handle crowds. She hadn’t expected the actual job of cocktail waitress to be such hard work. While focusing on her drink orders and the carrying tray helped to keep the crowd from overwhelming her, it was distracting from her real reason for being here.
She handed Nadine a slip with a dozen or so drinks listed. Nadine nodded and hurried off. Wilhelmina fiddled with the strap of her high-heeled maryjanes, another part of the uniform that she wasn’t accustomed to wearing. It was little wonder she was slow.
High heels, she shook her head. So impractical.
Taking a breath, she used the small break to survey the club. Vampires, werewolves, other shapeshifters of various breeds mingled and danced with mortals. And the mortals didn’t have any idea.
She watched one female vampire take the hand of a mortal male and lead him to the exit. Wilhelmina’s first instinct was to run after the mortal and tell him what would happen if he left with the vampiress. But she knew from past experience that approach wouldn’t do any good. She’d tried it several times before, and all she ever received for her efforts was a look that stated that the human thought she was a loon. Oh, and there was also the one time that a mortal had threatened to have her arrested. Even now, she shivered at that idea. She definitely wanted to avoid that.
No, chasing them down and telling them the truth wasn’t the way to protect mortals.
Someday she hoped vampires and mortals could live truly together, without vampires having to hide and without humans being little more than a source of food and entertainment. That was the hope of all the vampires, shapeshifters, and other creatures that were involved in the Society of Preternaturals. But the only way that dream was going to be achieved was to end all the legends and myths about supernatural beings. Thus preternatural creatures couldn’t continue to act like the monsters of folklore. They had to realize their actions were propagating these myths.
She watched the couple exit the club, feeling mildly ill and saddened. She wanted to do more to help these mortals. And thus to help the vampires too, of course. Unfortunately, real change was often a slow process. Think globally, act locally. Which brought her back to why she was here.
Scanning the huge club, she assessed the layout of the place again. She studied the large upper level with its tables and private booths. Then her gaze dropped to the dance floor mobbed with dancers. She hoped her plan would work better than her first one. And she hoped it wasn’t too dangerous. Her intent was to protect mortal lives not to find a nonpreter-natural way to harm them.
Then she noticed him. Even in the sea of very pretty humans and stunning preternaturals, he stood out. Tall and lean in his stylish designer clothing with his intense eyes and pouty lips, Sebastian Young was the poster child for unnaturally beautiful vampires. The only thing that didn’t quite fit was his hair. Instead of black like the images of Dracula or other gothic undeads, his hair was mussed and blond like a surfer—or maybe an Abercrombie & Fitch model.
She had heard that he was a gorgeous creature, but even with that knowledge, she hadn’t been prepared for her first sighting of him earlier this evening. When he’d approached the bar with his entourage of mortal women, she’d actually been physically stunned by his beauty.
Wilhelmina considered herself very practical and hard to impress, so she hated to admit it, but he was impressive. It was little wonder mortals couldn’t resist him.
He now danced with one of the women he’d been with at the bar. He held the blond woman against him, her back pressed to his front. Wilhelmina watched as his hands caressed the mortal through the thin material of her dress, stroking upward, moving slowly over her belly, then up her rib cage to stop just under the curve of her full breasts.
Wilhelmina swallowed, telling herself to look away. Yet she couldn’t tear her gaze from him, and what he was doing. He nuzzled his cheek against the woman’s silky hair as his hands moved back down over her midriff. His pouty lips parted as he pressed them to the curve of her bare shoulder. His tongue tasted her golden skin.
Wilhelmina’s own lips parted as she breathed in a sharp breath.
“He’s something, isn’t he?”
Wilhelmina jumped, then glanced guiltily at Nadine.
“Wh—who?”
Nadine smiled, obviously not believing Wilhelmina’s attempt to sound unaware of who she referred to.
“Our employer,” Nadine clarified anyway. “The one you were eyeing as if he were good enough to eat.”
“I was not.” Wilhelmina frowned. That was ludicrous.
Again Nadine didn’t seem convinced. Her smile widened further, her teeth gleaming white against her lovely, dark skin.
“I will have to introduce you.” She glanced to where he danced with the lovely blonde. “Later, though. I’d say he’s busy for the night. You know, after being away.”
Wilhelmina glanced back, too. Another woman joined them on the dance floor, her hands slipping around him from behind so he was sandwiched between the two women.
“Very busy,” Nadine said, with a wry, yet almost fond chuckle. She began to place drinks on Wilhelmina’s tray.
Wilhelmina watched the antics of the dancing threesome for a moment longer, then determinedly picked up the tray.
So she’d finally seen the Sebastian Young. She knew she would eventually, and she wasn’t going to be shaken by his presence. The goal was to stay focused on why she was here. Why she had picked this nightclub and this vampire. Sebastian Young disgusted her. He was everything she despised in a vampire.
And she planned to destroy him.
Chapter 2
Wilhelmina delivered her tray of drinks before slipping into the backroom. Given what she intended to do, it seemed a little silly to worry about the patrons getting their cocktails. But she needed to appear like a good employee. She couldn’t afford to get fired. If this attempt didn’t work, she still needed to stay here. For her sabotage to work, she had to have access to the internal workings of Carfax Abbey.
Carfax Abbey. Even the name of the club was pompous. The lair of the world’s most legendary vampire. Did Sebastian consider himself as legendary? From all that she had heard about him, she didn’t doubt it. The Society said his hunger was insatiable. He was a real threat.
She crept farther into the storage room, pausing occasionally to listen. She couldn’t hear anyone near, but she knew she would still have to act quickly. She looked up at the ceiling. Every six feet or so, a silver sprinkler head jutted down from the drywall.
She headed to the back of the room, where a large metal barrel was used to store recycling. Carefully, she lifted the barrel and positioned it under one of the sprinklers. Then she scurried back to where she’d stashed some broken-down beer boxes and other cardboard behind cases of liquor. She placed it in the metal drum and rummaged through her pocket for a small box of matches.
Sliding it open, she paused, staring at the matches, the head of each matchstick red