Steal My Soul

“So, where is this place that you’re taking me to?” I asked rather angrily as he walked us out to his car. The rest of our dinner had been quite silent after my outburst, but that was fine by me. If we had talked, it probably would have only grown more awkward anyways. Although the mischievous smiles and playful glances he sent my way made it harder for me to try and stay angry with him.

“Why ruin the surprise?” he chuckled.

“I just want to make sure I can send a text to my roommate so she knows where I’ll be DYING tonight. Not that she’ll care,” I mumbled.

He shook his head with a smile pulling out his keys and unlocking his car. There was a quiet beeping sound and the headlights of a sleek, deep red sports car lit up the night. I stopped in my tracks when I saw the car he was walking towards. At first glance, you would think it looked like any other sports car, but upon nearing it, it was definitely unique in its model. He pressed another button on the car remote and the doors opened. Only they opened UP…like wings. Inside the car the interior was colored an ink black with a red stitching. My eyes, wide in shock, met his.

“What…what is that?” I breathed. The car had to have cost a pretty penny. Actually…make that a few hundred GOLD pretty pennies.

“Oh, this?” he shrugged nonchalantly. Oh, this? OH, THIS?! He was acting like it was just some ordinary Malibu you saw out on the streets. Seriously…who IS this guy?

“This is just the Huayra,” he cryptically answered.

“Where in the hell did this thing come from? Cybertron?” I asked in a high pitched voice full of disbelief.

“Cyber-what?” He asked with a quirked brow. He waved off his question when I opened my mouth to explain Transformers to him.

“Never mind, just take a seat, hmm?” he offered motioning for me to climb into his alien piece of transportation.

“Are you sure this isn’t an Autobot? Or a Decepticon in your case?” I questioned eyeing him and the car. I half expected the car to suddenly transform or make weird noises or something.

“A Huayra is not a…a transforming vehicle. It is equipped with a 6.0 V12 engine from Mercedes-AMG, produces 700 horsepower, and a maximum speed of 370 kilometers per hour,” he intelligently explained using words that went in one ear and out the other.

“Sooo it’s a Decepticon,” I concluded.

Luc shook his head and placed a large, warm hand to the small of my back. “Just please take a seat?” he sighed in defeat.

“Fine, but only because I want to see how comfy these seats feel. Not because you are asking me to,” I huffed lowering myself to near ground level to sit down in the seats. I half expected them to be as uncomfortable as the chairs in my classes, but they were actually…soft and cushioned. I stretched out my legs in front of me surprised that I still had some leg room. This car wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be to sit in.

Luc slid behind the driver’s seat and pressed a button to close the doors as he situated himself behind the wheel. Once I had strapped on my seatbelt, I took time to notice some of the little things about the interior of this foreign car that I still believed was a Decepticon.

Of course, the car was a stick shift and the fact that he knew how to drive a stick shift didn’t really surprise me, but it did make him a tad more attractive that he knew how to drive one. Considering I was still ignorant to the ways of driving a car that WASN’T an automatic. On the console there were various buttons that controlled one thing or another, but what caught my attention was the square, LCD screen sitting in the middle of the console. I had always fantasized having a car with an LCD touch screen that had GPS, calling capabilities, and just other features in general.

I hesitantly reached a hand out toward the screen when Luc’s large hand enveloped my own. My eyes darted up to meet with a pair of piercing blue eyes.

“Please, don’t touch anything,” he gently requested. I nodded and sat back in my seat in silence as he reversed out of the parking spot and drove out of the parking lot.

I absentmindedly stared out the window as he continued to drive out of the city where the group of buildings slowly decreased into one house or factory every now and again. The trees began growing thicker the further we drove out. I glanced around wondering where we could possibly be heading that was this far out of town.

“Hey, Luc? Are you sure you’re not taking me somewhere that is going to potentially be the location of my grave?” I cautiously asked just now beginning to realize what a stupid mistake I had made when I agreed to get in this car with him.

“Well…I can’t guarantee that you won’t die…but since I will be with you there is one thing I can assure you,” he quietly answered.

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“No one will lay a finger on you as long as you stay very close to my side, understood?” he asked boring those icy blue eyes straight into mine until it felt like he was glimpsing my soul.

I couldn’t find my voice to say yes, so instead I nodded. When his eyes broke contact and focused back on the road, I inhaled a deep, shaky breath. Why was his stare always so intense? Whether it was playful, angry, cautioning…those eyes of his drew you in with their power.

Just then I could feel my phone dully vibrating against my leg. I snuck a quick glance at Luc before digging my phone out of my small pocket and pressing the call button.

“Hello?” I answered a bit softly so as not to break the silence in the small enclosure of the car.

“Are you planning on returning anytime soon?” an annoyed voice questioned from the other end of the phone.

“Um…” My eyes met with a pair of blue orbs that were filled with amusement. A dark brow was cocked high in curiosity.

“I-I don’t think so,” I answered quickly looking away from that stare.

“Ooooo so the date went well then?” Natalie teased.

“It’s not like that. He’s just…taking me somewhere so we can get to know more about each other,” I explained.

“So sex,” she concluded bluntly.

I sighed in exasperation. “No! I would never…” My eyes slid over to drink in the way the moon’s light cast over his profile as he drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift. The muscles in his arms flexed slightly with each change in gear as he drove along the deserted road.

“You were saying?” I could hear the triumphant grin in Natalie’s voice.

“Ok, I WOULD,” I huffed turning my body completely away from him. “But the point is it’s NOT like that. He’s just going to inform me about himself.”

“Right, well, don’t come home, then,” she said flatly.

“Why?”

“Because I’m locking the door right now since I am heading off to bed shortly. SOME of us have work at six in the morning and can’t stay out all night with hot, British Gods,” she sneered.

“But I don’t have my key!” I hissed angrily.

“Well, that’s not my problem,” she mocked in a whiny voice that I assumed was supposed to be me.

“Nata—”

“Nope. Don’t care. I’m locking it. You’re screwed.”

The dial tone rang loudly in my ear as she hung up on me. I squeezed the phone tightly in my hand as I stared down at my phone’s menu screen. That little—

“Your friend sounds lovely. Is she the one that came with you to the speed dating session?” Luc questioned with an amused grin.

“Unfortunately,” I mumbled. I tucked my phone back into my tight front pocket and glanced over at him from the corner of my eye.

“Which brings up a question. What was a guy like YOU doing at a speed dating thing?”

Luc shrugged. “What does anybody go to those things for? To get a good laugh at some of the pathetic, weak, insecure people that are there that have lowered themselves so far as to actually entertain the thought of finding someone at a scam such as that,” he answered with a disgusted sneer.

“You realize that…you and I…are one of those pathetic, weak, insecure people, right? I mean…we were both there,” I pointed out to him.

“It seemed to me that you didn’t go there expecting to find anyone. That the only reason you and your friend were there was to amuse yourselves since you had nothing better to do that night and felt you needed a good laugh to make yourselves feel slightly better about your lives. Or am I mistaken?”

I blinked a few times realizing he was right. We HAD only gone to that to amuse ourselves with the prospect of possibly finding someone when we both had known there wasn’t going to be anyone there worth noticing or even taking home for one night. Taking my silence as his answer, he continued.

“As for me…well…I had been passing by when I noticed you. It was the blatant look of annoyance and boredom on your face that made me first smile. Neither you or your friend seemed too overly impressed with any of the guys that had sat down before you up unto that point and, well, I guess you could say I wanted to make your night a little more…memorable,” he explained further with a droll smile.

I narrowed my eyes into dark slits. “Why me?”

His hand lifted from the stick shift to softly touch his fingers to my chin and gently pull my face nearer to him. He slid his tongue slowly across his bottom lip drawing my gaze to his mouth.

“Your soul was the only one calling out to me for help, my dear. THAT is why I chose you,” he whispered tapping the tip of my nose before focusing his gaze back onto the road.

I slowly drew back wondering what he meant by that. This man was only forcing my mind to form more and more questions instead of giving me answers to the previous ones. I know I had a thing for mysterious men, but he took being mysterious to a whole new level that not even Sherlock Holmes could uncover the truth about him.

Luc turned off into a gravel parking lot where a small bar sat with half the letters on its sign burnt out. I looked at him with a dull stare.

“You took me…to a bar? After you just finished off an entire bottle of wine by yourself?”

Luc merely flashed me his annoying smirk before popping open the car doors and sliding out. He came around to my side and offered his hand. I slapped it away and clumsily stood up from the low riding seat. I pulled up the back of my jeans to make sure my underwear or my butt wasn't showing as I waited for him to close and lock the doors.

“Shall we?”

“This time…I’d rather not…” I grumbled following close behind him anyways.

Walking inside it looked like your typical bar. In the center back of the room was the bar itself with a line of stools sitting at the counter. Then on either side of the door were multiple booth and tables to sit at to eat food or watch some of the sports that were playing on some of the rather overly large televisions in the upper corners of the room.

Luc pressed a hand to the small of my back and led me forward towards the bar where the bartender stood watching us as he cleaned the inside of a beer glass with a dish cloth. Luc lifted a section of the counter allowing me to pass through first. The man watched me through wary eyes as he tipped his head at Luc.

“My Prince,” he greeted in a deep, raspy voice. Luc tipped his head in greeting before brushing passed the man and drawing me closer to his side. He opened a large, wooden door that had been built in between the shelves of alcohol behind the bar and led us into what appeared to be a rather small wine pantry. It held various liquors other than wine, but that wasn’t what had necessarily grabbed my attention. Luc had reached out and tugged on the neck of a wine bottle making the back wall of the pantry slide open to reveal a gated elevator. Once more he pressed me forward onto the platform. The gate closed after we had walked onto the platform; the hidden door slowly swinging shut as Luc pressed the only button available on the elevator. Once the pantry door had completely sealed shut, everything became pitch black. I was unable to see my own hand in front of me at this point.

Where exactly was he leading me? Was he the President of a cult or something? And what was with that guy calling him prince?

“So, uh, you’re a prince?” I nervously asked as I heard the slight creaks and groans of the elevator moving down further and further away from the bar above us.

Luc’s laughter was deep and melodic, winding itself around me to take root deep inside my mind. For some reason that laughter felt almost…hypnotic and sickeningly soothing. Like he was trying to tear down my walls of defense and make me vulnerable so he could strike.

“Not in the way you are thinking, I assure you,” he quietly answered. The further down we went the more my ears could pick up on a dull thumping sound. Almost like…music.

The elevator slowly came to a halt. The iron gate gradually lifted making a soft creaking noise the further it ascended. I could hear Luc step out of the elevator, but it was still too dark to necessarily see if he had continued walking or was waiting for me. At that moment warm, slightly calloused fingers intertwined around mine and gently tugged me forward out of the elevator. Luc wrapped his arm around my waist and hugged me tight against his side as he swung open a door. Flashes of multiple colored lights swept along the dance floor as the dull thumping sound suddenly became overwhelmingly loud against my ears.

Women were dancing in cages high above our heads while many people danced below on the large brightly colored dance floor in a massive group. Men and women were grinding up against each other; sweat making their skin sparkle under the fluorescent lighting.

Luc smiled as a slender man approached us and wrapped his arms around Luc’s neck.

“Hey, there, Lukey dear,” the man purred tracing a finger down Luc’s face and across his jawline.

“Hello, Shabriri,” Luc grinned gently pushing the man away. Shabriri stuck out his bottom lip in a pout.

“You never want to have any fun,” he sighed in disappointment.

“Not today, Riri. I have a guest,” he informed the man turning to smile down at me.

That’s when Shabriri turned to face me noticing me for the first time. One of the dance lights flashed across his face making me gasp; my hand flew up to my mouth in shock.

Red scales glistened around his right eye that was a stunning amber color that filled his entire eye. His left eye had an iris that was completely black with a bright red lining the pupil. I stumbled closer to Luc’s side as Shabriri’s lips curled back to show off the multiple rows of tiny, razor edged teeth that grinned maliciously back at me.