Ink Exchange

He looked amused, the corner of his scar wrinkling as he smiled ever so slightly. "Did I offend you?"

"No. But it's weird. If you have something to say, speak."

"I would if I could figure out what to say," Niall said. He put a hand on the small of her back and nudged her forward gently. "Come. The club is a safer place to relax than out here" — he gestured at the empty street—"where you are so vulnerable."

Seth cleared his throat and scowled at Niall. Then he told Leslie, "The club's right around the corner."

Leslie walked a little faster, trying to move away from Niall's hand on her back. Speeding up didn't help: he kept pace with her.

When they rounded the corner and she saw the dark building in front of them, she felt panic well up. There was no sign, no posters, no people hanging outside, nothing to indicate that the building in front of them was anything other than abandoned.I should be freaking out. She wasn't, though, and she couldn't understand why.

Niall said, "Head toward the doorman."

She looked back. Standing at the front of the building was a muscular guy with an ornate tattoo covering one half of his face. Spirals and lines disappeared under hair as black as the ink. The other side of his face was inkless. The only ornamentation was a small black tusklike piercing in his upper lip, the white match of which was in the corner of his mouth on the inked side of his face.

"Keenan cool with her being here?" The man pointed at her, and Leslie realized that she was still staring—in part because she couldn't fathom how she could've missed seeing someone like him standing outside the door.

"She is a friend of Aisli

"So are Keenan and Ash good with it or not?" the inked man asked.

Niall clasped the man's forearm. "She is my guest, and the club should be near empty, yes?"

The doorman shook his head, but he opened the door and motioned to a short, muscular guy with the most incredible dreads Leslie had ever seen. They were thick and well formed, hanging like a mane around the guy's face. For a moment, Leslie thought it was an actual mane.

"We have a new guest," said the doorman as the dreadlocked guy came outside. The door thudded shut behind him.

Dreadlocks stepped closer and sniffed.

Niall quirked his mouth in what looked like a snarl. "My guest."

"Yours?" Dreadlocks' voice was low—harsh like he lived on cigarettes and liquor.

Leslie opened her mouth to object to the proprietary tone in Niall's voice, but Seth put a hand on her wrist. She glanced at him, and he shook his head.

Dreadlocks said, "My pride is in—"

Seth cleared his throat.

"Go tell them," the doorman said as he opened the door and motioned Dreadlocks back inside. "Two minutes."

They stood there awkwardly for a moment before the tension felt too unbearable for Leslie. "If this is a bad idea—"

But the door had already reopened, and Seth was stepping into the shadowy building.

"Come on." Niall went inside.

She went only a few steps before she stopped, unable to think what to say or do. The few people inside were all wearing strange and ornate costumes. A woman passed by with vines draped all over her arms; the vines seemed as if they flowered.

Like the living art at the museum.

Another couple wore feathered wigs; still others had blue faces and misshapen teeth, not like the vampire teeth the costume places sold at Halloween—but each tooth jagged, like sharks' teeth.

Niall stood beside her, his hand resting on her back again. In the odd blue lights of the club, his eyes looked reflective; his scar was a black slash on his skin.

"Is it okay that we don't have costumes, too?" she whispered.

He laughed. "Quite. These are their everyday wear."

"Everyday? Are they like one of those reenactment groups? A role-playing group?"

"Something like that." Seth pulled out a tall chair. Like the rest of the furniture, it was a polished wood. Nothing in the low-lit club seemed to be made of anything other than wood, stone, or glass.

Unlike the rough-looking exterior, the inside of the club was far from run-down. The floor gleamed like polished marble. Ru

"Obsidian," said a raspy voice beside her ear. "Keeps the patrons calm."

A waitress in a skin-suit with shimmering silver scales all over her legs and arms stood there. She circled behind Leslie and sniffed her hair.

Leslie took a step away from her.

Although neither Niall nor Seth had ordered yet, the waitress handed them drinks—a golden-colored wine for Niall and a microbrew for Seth.

"No drinking age in here?" Leslie's gaze wandered over the room. The people in their odd costumes all had drinks, though some of them looked younger than she was. Dreadlocks was with a group of four other guys with pale brown dreads. They were sharing a pitcher that looked like it was filled with the same golden wine Niall was drinking.

A pitcher of wine?

"Now you see why I prefer to come here. Seth ca

"Welcome to the Rath, Leslie." Seth leaned back in his chair and motioned to the dance floor, where several almost normal-looking people were dancing. "Weirder than anywhere else you'll ever see … if you're lucky."

The music grew immediately louder, and Niall tipped back his glass one more time. "You could relax more fully, Seth. Some of the girls—"

"Go dance, Niall. If we don't hear from Ash within the next couple hours, we'll need to get Leslie to work."

Beside her, Niall stood. He sat his half-full glass on the table and gestured to the dance floor. "Come join the dance."

At his words, Leslie felt a whispering need to refuse and a simultaneous tug of impatience to go toward the small group of costumed people who were dancing almost manically. The music, the movement, his voice—they all beckoned her, pulled her as if she were a marionette with too many strings. Out there in the throng of swaying, shifting bodies, she'd find pleasure. A sea of lust and laughter floated in the air around the dancers, and she wanted to swim in it.

To buy a moment to steady her nerves, she grabbed for Niall's glass. When she lifted it to her lips, it was empty. She stared at it, turning it in her hand by the fragile stem.

"We don't drink this in anger or fear." Niall put his hand over hers so that they were both holding on to his glass.

It wasn't anger or fear she felt; it was longing. But she wasn't telling him that. She couldn't.

The waitress stepped from somewhere behind them. Silently, she tilted a heavy bottle over the glass Niall and Leslie both held. From this close the wine looked thick as honey. Spirals of iridescent color shimmered as it filled the cup. It was tempting, smelling sweeter and richer than anything she'd ever known.

Her hand was still under his when Niall lifted the glass to his lips. "Would you like to share my glass, Leslie? In friendship? In celebration?"

He watched her as he sipped the golden drink.

"No, she wouldn't." Seth slid his beer across the table. "If she wants a drink, it'll be from my glass or my hand."

"If she wants to share my cup, Seth, it's her choice." Niall lowered the glass, still holding her hand over the stem.

The drink, the dance, Niall—too many temptations were in front of Leslie. She wanted them all. Despite how weirdly Niall was acting, she wanted that tumble into pleasure. The fears that had been binding her since the rape were loosening lately. The decision to get tattooed did that. Freed me. Leslie licked her lips. "Why not?"