"Easy money," Frankie, one the strippers standing with Rafe, said as he changed into his street clothes. "And they're all loaded. Fuck man, how many times do you get invited to a private club like Drac's?" He rolled his eyes. "Fucking Goth with class. Better than this wannabe place we're working now. And who knows, maybe you'll hook up with someone, play the slave to their master." Frankie's smile turned sly. "Maybe that guy who's been sniffing around you for the last couple of weeks will be there."

"Brann?" another male stripper asked. "I'd fuck him in a heartbeat. You're crazy for giving him the brush-off, Rafe. He's got the only two things that matter. A big dick and money. Bend over and spread your cheeks for him and you've got it made."

Rafael shivered and his cock stirred thinking about Brann. Fuck, what was wrong with him? In the old days he'd have just gone with it. He knew Brann wanted him. And god, he couldn't even be around Brann without getting a hard-on.

His stomach tightened. Maybe it was just working at this place. At first the wildness had appealed to him, but lately-shit, he'd wake up covered with sweat and think about not showing up for work.

Rafe buttoned his shirt and threw his working clothes into a gym bag. At least he didn't remember the fucking nightmares. That was something. Then again, he'd had a lifetime to perfect forgetting. Maybe it was time to swing the other way for a while. Not that the outcome was any different. Male or female, he was just a pretty toy, a vacation fuck or an arm-piece until something better came along. But hell, it paid the rent. And it wasn't like he threw his money away on dope. A few more years of working and he could own his own club if he wanted to. There were days when the idea appealed to him-not here, though, not in LA. He was getting tired of the plastic people and the fake glitter, all of it hiding an ugly soul-stealing underbelly.

"You coming?" Frankie asked, his eyes looking a little wild, like maybe he'd gotten a bad mix of whatever he was using.

A cold finger traced Rafe's spine and he shivered, afraid for a split second. He shook it off. Fuck that. He was done with being afraid. "Sure, I'll come."

"Oh yeah, he'll be coming all right," one of the other strippers said.

"Hey, okay if I go with you guys?" another stripper asked.

Frankie shook his head. "No. Only got an invite for Rafe this time."

Rafael's heart rate spiked and he cut a look over at Frankie, suspicion and misgiving squaring off with a gut-curling sense of anticipation. Yeah, he and Frankie knew each other, but they weren't friends. So why the invite? Why not take one of the others instead? Unless maybe the invite had really come from Brann.

Fuck. He should hook up with Brann and get it over with. Play the game. Enjoy the ride. Try not to get attached. Try not to forget that despite what any of his lovers told him, nobody was going to take him home to meet their parents. Used goods. Damaged goods. Fucked-up goods. It was always the same in the end. He'd go with Frankie tonight, see what happened, and then he'd stay away from the scene for a while. Maybe work some of the clubs catering to rich women wanting a fantasy fuck while their overweight doctor husbands swallowed Viagra and fucked their golf buddies' wives.

Rafe followed Frankie out to his car and got in. Yeah, if Brann was behind the invite, he'd spend some time with him. And after they were done, he'd swing the other way for a while. He liked women and men pretty much equally, though with guys it was easier. They weren't looking for an illusion of romance to justify raw, sweaty sex.

Drac's. He'd never been in it, but from the outside it oozed class. The front parking lot was a wet dream of exotic sports cars and old classics. Anyone not driving one was relegated to the back, not that anyone was allowed to park their own car.

Fuck, the guy who'd taken Frankie's piece of shit car acted like he was going to have to go home and change his uniform after sitting in it. And Frankie, what the hell was his deal?

Rafe knew Frankie was a user, meth and ecstasy a lot of the time, but he'd also take whatever hot new party drug was making the rounds, but fuck-the closer they got to Drac's, the more amped Frankie got. Like a junkie who was just about to score big.

They got to the front door of the club and a cold breeze moved along Rafe's spine before reaching into his gut and circling it with ice-cold fingers. What was wrong with him tonight? He half-turned, thinking he'd blow this off and call a cab to come get him. But then he saw Brann's red Viper pull in. Fuck. What was it about Brann that had his cock standing at attention just seeing him?

Rafe shook his head and turned away, his lips curling into a mocking smile. As many times as he'd been fucked-literally and figuratively-you'd think he would have learned. Hope was for fools and cold cash would take you further away from your past than any illusion of love-no matter how fucking hot your partner was.

He started to follow Frankie into Drac's but the doorman stepped in front of him, blocking his way, intoning in a voice and accent that matched the butler outfit like they'd come right out of a prop shop catering to Hollywood, "Do you enter Drac's of your own free will?"

Rafe watched as Frankie disappeared down the hallway, an invisible man the doorman couldn't see or couldn't be bothered with. Or maybe Frankie was a regular here-of the party favor persuasion-so the hired help didn't need to play their roles with him.

"Yeah," Rafe answered and the butler-outfitted doorman stepped aside.

Fuck. Club wasn't exactly the right word for Drac's. It was a theme-roomed orgy-fest.

First room on the right. Women only. Some on the floor doing it to each other while others sat on couches like they were at a tea party, watching, being eaten out by women kneeling in front of them.

First room on the left. Whips and chains and all the kind of things Rafe avoided like the plague. He would never willingly allow himself to be helpless. Never again-not that he'd ever allowed it in the first place.

Next rooms, more of the same, though with mixed sexes and a lot of biting and sucking and even some blood thrown in. Shit. It got old. Like there weren't plenty of terrifying things in the world without people pretending to believe in vampires.

He ended up in a larger room. Crowded. More like a club scene with dancing, drinks, body-rubbing and come-ons, some leading to a trip to the front rooms, some leading through doors guarded by bouncers.

The casually dressed mingled with the elegantly dressed while waiters and waitresses wandered around in skimpy costumes, sporting slave bands around their necks and wrists and ankles, batting their eyelashes and smiling in a way that said they were here to serve more than drinks. Rafe pulled a beer off a fancy serving tray and surveyed the room, looking for Frankie, but not seeing him-and not really caring. He didn't need to hold Frankie's hand. Hell, he didn't need to hold anyone's hand. One scene was pretty much the same as another and he knew his way around all of them.

His penis stirred and his buttocks tightened, anticipation washing over Rafe a second before Brann's cologne did. "What are you doing here?" Brann asked, the purr in his voice like a heated fist around Rafe's cock. Fuck, how did he do that?

Rafe shrugged. "Thought I'd check it out."

"Leave now. You don't belong here."

Rafe's smile curled in mocking self-defense. "Fuck off."

Brann's hand closed around Rafe's arm and sent a shaft of heat straight to his dick as Brann pulled Rafe around to face him. "Leave now," he repeated, something in his voice making Rafe want to listen and obey. Rafe shook it off. Shit. At Bloody Mary's, Brann had seemed laid-back-no, those words would never describe him-less threatening, that'd do it.

But not now. Not here.

Here he was all predatory grace. Domination in a way that would strip a lover to his soul.

Shit no. Rafael couldn't handle that. It'd be like bathing in acid and when the bath was done there'd be nothing left but a mass of scars. "Fuck off, Brann. You don't like the scenery, change rooms. There's enough action here for everyone."

Brann stiffened, dropping his hand and shrugging, as though he was sorry he'd bothered with Rafael. He moved away then without another word.

Rafe's gut roiled. He was tempted to leave, but no way was he going to do that now. Still, he turned, not wanting to watch Brann hitting on someone else.

The woman behind him smiled. Blonde beauty in a barely there outfit. Deadly sex wrapped up in a beautiful package and Rafe decided he was willing to open it. He smiled back. Practiced charm that promised he knew how to please a woman in the bedroom.

She moved over to Rafe, brushing against him, licking her lips like he was a feast she couldn't wait to sink her teeth into. "Fight with your boyfriend?"

"Hardly. He's just some prick who didn't like seeing me here." Rafe smiled. Yeah, fuck Brann. He could take care of himself. He knew how to work a scene. "Tried to send me home like a bad boy."

She licked her lips again, toying with the expensive pendant around her neck. "Umm, and are you a bad boy?"

"I can be, if that's what you like."

Pale fingers moved down the center of his chest and trailed over his aroused cock. "Ishana likes bad boys," she purred and he wanted to roll his eyes and say, Fuck, not another wannabe actress talking about herself in the third person, so full of herself that she hadn't bothered to notice that the erection didn't have anything to do with her. Not that she wasn't capable of giving him one, but he was standing at attention because she'd moved over before Brann had disappeared from sight. She pouted, a pucker of lips that Rafe could easily imagine sucking him off. "Come upstairs with Ishana," she said.

His cock jerked. Yeah, he'd come upstairs-in her mouth, in her cunt. There were probably rubbers next to the bed, but he had some in his back pocket anyway. He wasn't stupid enough to go anywhere unprotected.

He let her lead him to a bouncer-guarded door and once again had to answer the question about his willingness before it was opened and they climbed an elegant set of stairs. When they got to the top, surprise diverted some of the blood from his cock. Couples, singles, and groups of people mingled around antique furniture, drinking from crystal glasses as they talked and laughed, a Renaissance drawing room except for the way its inhabitants were dressed.

A few of them looked up, tittering when they saw Ishana. "Ignore them," she said. "They're just jealous."

Right. Rafe's eyes went back to the scene even as Ishana continued to lead him toward an open doorway along the side of the larger room. Like downstairs, some of the people in this room were acting out their vampire fantasies, sucking at their partner's necks, or chests, or in one case an inner thigh.

It was strangely erotic in this setting, and Rafe's cock responded, despite the fact that he had no desire to play it out himself. He shifted his attention, finally noticing that this room was ringed with doors leading into smaller, private rooms. Most were closed, but a few were open, the sounds of sex escaping like background music.

Ishana stopped in the doorway to a bedroom, giving Rafe a flirting, teasing smile. "Do you enter freely?"

Fuck. Couldn't they think of something more original? Answering the question another time was two tired times too many. It was almost enough to kill a hard-on. "Yeah."

She stepped back and let him enter first. When she didn't bother to close the door behind her, Rafe started to say something, then shrugged it off. If she wanted to scream and moan so her buddies in the other room would hear her getting fucked, it was no skin off his dick.

He stripped then reached over and pulled her clothing off. She stroked the pendant and licked her lips. "Fuck me first, then we can move to the real fun."

Rafe shrugged. Fine, he could do that, though the air moved over his skin and raised the hair on his arms. He put on a condom before tumbling them to the bed, willing to take the bottom or the top but she rolled, angling expertly so that his cock shoved into her pussy before she'd even finished wrapping her legs around him and pulling his face down to hers for a kiss.

He managed five strokes before the sting of leather whipped across his shoulders and back. "What the fuck!" He levered himself up and off the bed, cock still rigid, condom glistening with her cunt juices.

The woman wielding the crop was coldly beautiful, pale blonde like Ishana but with fire-and-ice eyes, and a pair of fangs that would have made Rafe laugh if his shoulder didn't sting and he wasn't so pissed off. His attention shifted for a second to the woman on the bed and disgust roiled through his gut at the way she was staring avidly at the other woman, masturbating as she watched the true object of her desire in action.

Fuck. Not that he cared if two women were hot for each other. Hell, he'd worked two at once on more than one occasion and helped them work each other, but he didn't go in for the whipping shit and he sure as hell didn't like being set up. They could play with someone else if this was what turned them on.

He jerked the condom off and threw it in a trash can, then bent to retrieve his clothes. The crop blistered his shoulders with heat again and he stood. "Don't do it again, bitch."

"You have violated our most sacred law and I claim the right to judge you for your crime." She slapped the crop against her own leg and within seconds two men wearing slave outfits and jewelry appeared at the doorway, moving in and grabbing Rafe's arms, dragging him out to the larger room despite his curses and his attempts to fight his way free.

Don't give in to the fear became his mantra as soon as he realized that some of the people in the room were feeding on his thinly disguised panic, enjoying it more than the fucking kangaroo court taking place in front of him. Rafe relaxed in the grip of the men holding him, settling his lips into a mocking smile, as though it was all beneath him and he was bored by the stupid game.

The doorman was called. The bouncer was called. A man who'd been standing close to the bedroom was called. And every one of them answered the same, "I heard him say that he entered of his own free will."

There was a dramatic pause in the room, a swelling of anticipation in the seconds before something powerful washed over the crowd. And then Brann was at the top of the stairs, his presence, the look on his face, sending relief through Rafe along with a flow of hot blood to his penis.

"You go too far, Lilith," Brann growled, directing his attention to the woman who'd wielded the crop. "Release him."

"He is mine to punish as I please," she said. "He was fucking my companion without permission."

Brann made a dismissive gesture. "Your companion lured him here."

Lilith's smile grew more vicious. "Perhaps. Perhaps not, Brann. Regardless, it isn't your concern. Our rules are quite clear. Any human who willingly enters this club is subject to our laws and our judgment. My companion is clearly marked with my pendant and yet this human fucked her without first gaining my permission." She turned to the members in her "audience" and said, "Do all agree, he is mine to punish, even unto death?"

There was a murmur of agreement and she smiled. "Then death it is and I invite all to join in the feast of his blood."

In that instant, Rafael knew they were playing this game with deadly seriousness. He started struggling again, receiving another blow from Lilith's crop for his efforts.

"Do not strike my companion again," Brann said.

Lilith's face twisted into a sneer. "You have not claimed this pathetic human, Brann, so do not try to keep him from his punishment."

"I have claimed him informally, and now I make my claim known to all. If you choose to kill him, then I will claim the same right and will destroy Ishana for seducing what belonged to me."

"If what you say is true, then my companion is blameless. She didn't know he belonged to you. He claimed no relationship with you."

Brann's smile was condescending. "Your companion took the word of an angry human, one who'd been told to go home and reacted by flaunting his disobedience. I have heard no one say they witnessed her formally asking if he belonged to another and was free to offer himself to her. After all these centuries, one would think Ishana would know better."

Lilith turned, hatred burning in her eyes when she looked at Rafe. "Do you belong to him?"

Rafael didn't hesitate to lie. "Yeah, bitch. I do."

She raised her hand, wanting to strike out, wanting to disfigure and then kill him, but Rafe saw her fear of the consequences as surely as he read the knowledge that this whole event had been staged to lash out at Brann.

"Then claim him, Brann," she said, turning her attention back to her audience. "Claim him in front of all of us so that we know you both speak the truth."

Rafe's eyes met Brann's and he shivered, seeing the hard purpose in them. Seeing once again the predatory grace that had spooked him earlier. The domination of will that would strip a lover to his soul.

Brann moved to stand in front of him. Rafe mocked, "Going to say 'I told you so' now?"

Something flashed in Brann's eyes, amusement perhaps, before he flicked a glance to either side and said, "Release him."

The men dropped their hold on Rafael, but there was nowhere to run and so he didn't attempt it. His gaze met Brann's and he didn't shy away when Brann pulled him close, holding him so that his erection pressed against Brann's, separated only by the other man's clothing.

Brann's eyelids lowered as he touched his lips to Rafe's in a first kiss that only hinted at what was possible between them. Despite the audience, Rafe responded, opening his mouth wider and meeting the thrusts of Brann's tongue with his own. Enjoying the power and strength and easy confidence of Brann's embrace.

Brann tightened his grip, making it impossible for Rafe to break the contact or end the kiss, and then true fear ripped through Rafe as he felt fangs elongate in Brann's mouth. His tongue scrapped against them in his hurry to break the kiss, filling both their mouths with the metallic taste of blood.

Vampire! Rafe screamed silently, his heart thundering in his chest as he tried to struggle against Brann. The fight lasted only a moment before he felt lightheaded. Before the metallic taste changed in flavor and Rafael somehow knew that Brann had also nicked his own tongue.

Brann shifted slightly, brushing their cocks together, and Rafe felt only intense need, intense desire, a longing like he'd never known. He couldn't stop himself from sucking on Brann's tongue as though he could draw nourishment from it. You will belong to me for all eternity. A companion is not a casual bed partner, Brann said and Rafael couldn't work up any fear at hearing the voice in his mind. Do you understand?

When he didn't answer immediately, Brann's tongue retreated and Rafe nearly cried out. I understand, he said unable to free his lips and answer with his voice.

Right now my will calms you, but in a moment I must release you and formally ask if you wish to be my companion. If you deny me, then I will not be able to prevent Lilith from punishing you, from draining your blood and offering you to the others like a pig brought for slaughter.

It was a fucking setup!

Yes, and had I known what Lilith intended I would have protected you from her games.

Anger rushed through Rafe and he wanted to strike out. Why didn't you just take what you wanted? You could have done me at the club and moved on to the next piece of ass that interested you and they probably wouldn't have even bothered with me.

Perhaps. But what's done is done. Do you think I want to tie myself to an unwilling companion?

Then don't do me any fucking favors. Even as he thought it, fear moved through Rafe, a fear that Brann would answer his challenge and abandon him to the others.

One of Brann's arms tightened around Rafael's waist, while the other dropped, freeing Brann's hand to move around and grasp Rafe's still-rigid penis. Accept my medallion when I offer it to you. Or die if you wish. The choice is yours. The choice will always be yours, Rafael.

Brann's hand tightened on Rafe's cock for a moment, sending shards of ice-sharp desire through the shaft and into his balls even as Rafe wanted to scream at him to go to hell.

I know you'll fight me, Rafael, even if you save yourself by becoming my companion. So I'll tell you now, deny my claim to you afterward if you must and for as long as you choose, fuck who you want in rebellion, Rafael. Brann's thumb brushed against the head of Rafe's cock, smearing the precum around before tracing a symbol that Rafe felt all the way to his soul. But you will not come again unless it's in the arms of one you are bound to by blood and magic.

Rafael almost cried out when Brann released him, stepping back far enough to unbutton his shirt and remove a short chain with an ancient-looking coin from around his neck. "Do you accept my offer and freely choose to become my companion?" Brann asked.

"Yes."

Rafe's stomach tightened as one of Brann's nails elongated, turning into a deadly claw before touching the spot over his heart and opening a gash. "Then bind your life to mine by taking my blood and wearing the medallion that shows all that you belong to me."

Rafe moved forward, pressing his lips to Brann's flesh, taking what was offered and losing himself in a sensual heat, feeling Brann's possession and will invade every cell in a hot rush, not surfacing again until semen jetted through his cock in an endless wave of ecstasy.