Club Angel's Kiss

I’m not sure what all happened when Johnny and I arrived back at the club. It was all so quick, before I could respond, and the next thing I knew, Jett was hoisting me up to my bedroom where I was confined until further notice.

I didn’t question. I headed to sort through my things anyway and take a long, much needed shower, since I hadn’t had the privacy or the time since my arrival at this strange place.

Slowly, I took my bags and hurried into the bathroom attached to the master bedroom. It was wide and grand, just like the rest of the upstairs club loft. Who knew vampires lived so well?

I started placing things out neatly on the counter top, arranging my toiletries perfectly. I brushed my teeth twice and, before I could debate on brushing them again, stripped off my clothes and jumped into the shower.

It felt so nice, the warm water cascading over my aching body. Though I struggled a lot with my cast, I washed my hair repeatedly throughout my stay in the stall and scrubbed myself down I felt that I was clean.

How long had it been since I took a shower? At least three days…I think.

It was so hard to keep up with what day it was while trapped inside this club.

I kept my cast out of the water as best I could. It wasn’t good to get it wet, I had heard. So I avoided it even though I had to contort my body to strange angles to do so.

The water eventually turned cold, so I turned it off and stepped out. I grabbed the towel on the rack and wrapped it around my wet body. After drying myself off, I ran a comb through my messy hair and stared at my revolting reflection in the mirror.

I looked like hell, like I had been through much more than I actually had.

I quickly diverted my gaze and grabbed my pajamas—oh, thank heavens I had them back—from my bag. I reveled in the beautiful feeling of my old, ancient white tank top sliding onto my body, followed by my black sweats. It gave me a slight feeling of home.

With one last fleeting glance at myself in the mirror, I hurried back into the bedroom. To my surprise, I was still alone. Usually I was never really alone; there was always one of the other vampires watching my every move.

Happily I flopped down on the comfy bed and curled myself into a ball. The rest of the club around me was silent. Or, at least to my human ears. But I learned that just because it was silent didn’t mean there was no talking going on. There were probably thirty different conversations commencing as I laid here.

I closed my eyes, burying my face in one of the pillows. I was happy to just pretend that I was back at home, under the safety of my own proof.

I sighed softly into the pillow. There was only a little sadness lurking in my deeper thoughts, but it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. Maybe I was just an emotionless monster. I apparently didn’t care about leaving my family anymore.

How disgusting of me. How heartless of me.

My lungs suddenly hurt, burnt like I had just woken up from another one of my nightmares. I was fully awake though! I did not move the rest of my body; I merely started gasping for air.

“Take your head out of the pillow.”

I lifted my head, blinking, disoriented. I laughed quietly. Had I really almost suffocated myself on accident?

“Wow, you are not the smartest person in the coven.”

I sat up all the way and swept my eyes across the room, searching for someone who could be talking. I didn’t recognize the voice at all.

“Excuse me?” I panted. I couldn’t hide the slight anger I felt by the way this asshole was talking. I had done nothing.

There was a movement in the darkness over in the farthest corner of the room, toward the balcony. I jumped up from the bed and ventured over.

The balcony doors were slung wide open. As I neared, I saw someone leaning against the railing, arms crossed over his chest. It was too dark to make out his features immediately.

I reached the doors and stopped. Steaks of faint light from the moon fell from the sky and streaked across his face as he stood there, watching me. I scrunched my face up in confusion.

“Um…Hi,” I whispered.

“Hi,” he whispered back. His body remained perfectly still.

I put my hands on the wrought iron doors and leaned forward, peering closer to see if he was really standing there.

“Erm,” I hesitated. No exact words came to my mind as my eyes landed on his beautiful, emotionless face. I found myself breathless, and it wasn’t even because of my almost suffocation just moments ago.

He held out his hand, a faint smile playing at his lips. “Would you like to join me on the balcony? It’s a beautiful view you have out here.” His other hand gestured out to the lit up city and the faint stars above.

I took his hand and he pulled me out of the bedroom, gently. I locked my hands around the railing beside him and looked down. There were a few people walking on the sidewalk below. This silent moment gave me the time I needed to put my thoughts in check.

“Did Matt send you?” I finally whispered, not looking at him.

“Yes, he did.”

“Why? He usually sends someone else. Never you.”

He leaned in beside me and looked down like I was. “He sent me because, up to now, I’ve had nothing to do with our magnificent Queen.”

I laughed, the sound echoing through the open air around us. “I’ve only been queen for three days and I’m already magnificent?”

His shoulder shrugged, and I finally looked at his face again. It was so much more beautiful up close. My head swam and I had to look away before I passed out.

“I think you’re doing a good enough job as our Queen.”

“Thank you, Zacky.”

He looked up in apparent surprise. “Why did you call me by my real name?” he questioned, his eyebrows knitting together. “My coven name is Vengeance.”

“I find it nicer to call the Guardians by their real names,” I explained. “Besides, I like not following Matt’s rules.”

Zacky laughed. “You’re the best Queen we’ve had,” he whispered, and it took me a second to understand what he meant.

Quickly, I looked up at him. “What? There’s been more than one Queen?”

He nodded and turned his gaze to meet mine. “Yes. We’ve had—“ He stopped to think, counting on his fingers. I felt nauseous when he stopped on four. “Four.”

I shook my head. “Wow,” I breathed. “Matt definitely didn’t tell me that.”

Zacky seemed unfazed, as if he figured Matt would not relay that type of information to me.

“None of them ever last, though,” he whispered. “I feel so bad for them.”

“Wha—what happened to them?” I choked.

If this certain fate was terrible and disgusting, I would run away. I would leave behind this club and go somewhere where they couldn’t find me, because they would no doubtedly come looking for me. I just had to get passed Johnny and not let him hear my secrets.

Perfect plan.

Zacky’s voice broke me from my escape.

“I don’t know if Matt wants us to talk about it, but I’m sure he won’t mind,” he smiled slightly. “Two of them ran away with other vampires.”

He laughed softly. “They hated Matt just as much as you do.”

My mouth dropped open. “Hey, I never said I hated Matt!” I cried.

“You didn’t say it,” he whispered. “But I think we’ve seen more than our share of Queens act the same way that you are right now. It just takes them a little longer to get to the point where you are at the moment, though.”

I shook my head and turned my body away from him. “I never claimed to be in love with him,” I muttered. “I was dragged into this place without any choice.”

Zacky put his hand on my shoulder and sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t.”

He twisted me around so I was looking at him again. He looked like he might say something for a second, but instead walked to the other side of balcony, his back to me.

I sighed. Wow. He was the freak of the vampire world. I leaned over the railing closest to me.

“Zacky?”

“Yes?”

“What happened to the other girls?”

“One died. And the other was taken away.”

I let go of the breath I had been holding so painfully. Of course one of them had met an untimely death. Wasn’t that always the case?

Zacky came to my side again and whispered, “But that won’t happen to you.”

“How did she die?” I murmured, closing my eyes.

“An enemy coven attacked.”

My eyes snapped open. I could feel my face pale. “There are…enemy covens?” Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of it until just now?

“Yes, why?”

I wrung my hands together. “I…I was attacked,” I whispered. “And Matt saved me. Three people attacked me. Two men and a woman.”

Zacky waved a hand around. “I doubt that was an enemy coven. They would have killed you right away.”

I made a loud sound of discomfort. “Yeah. All they did was almost kill me and break my freaking arm.”

His eyes flashed down to my cast. “Oh. That’s what happened.”

“Mhm.”

He wound his arm around my shoulders. And, surprisingly, I leaned against him. I knew I should have been scared, worried that this unfamiliar vampire could possibly suck the life from me at any second, but he made me feel great…Comfortable. So far, he was the only vampire that made me feel even remotely comfortable and happy.

He didn’t protest to me leaning on him. In fact, he pulled me closer.

“You’re worried now.” It was a statement, not a question.

I nodded. “I’m a little worried,” I whispered, having no reason to lie to this amazing person.

Zacky bent so his lips were at my ear.

“I’m your Guardian. I will not let anything happen to you.”

I fought back a cough and clutched my hand to my chest, fighting my thudding heart. He laughed.

“You sound like you’re about to have a heart attack,” he said. “Can I ask why?”

“I don’t think you should.”

A long, drawn out scream jolted us from our conversation. It was a shrill, loud cry of what sounded like agony and anger that echoed from downstairs, probably in the meeting room just one floor down from my bedroom. I clamped my hands over my ears, shrinking as far away as I could from the horrific sound.

Zacky flinched, but otherwise seemed calm. He wasn’t even bothered by the terrible sound. Slowly, he moved his arm around my waist and pulled one of my hands from my ears.

The screaming was over, but now I heard many loud, angry words being yelled, cried, and shouted from various people. It hurt my ears and I couldn’t make out a word of it. I knew this was on purpose. The others usually did not want to let me on their conversations so they spoke too quickly for me to understand.

It pissed me off, but I really didn’t care. I didn’t need to know what they thought or what they were thinking about.

At this exact moment, however, I couldn’t help but wonder exactly what was making the others react so harshly, so loudly. I hadn’t heard anything like that since I had been there.

“Amber, let me take you somewhere else,” Zacky suggested, seeing my discomfort. “Somewhere quieter.”

I nodded, and he led me through my bedroom and out the door. We walked down the hallway, the way that I never went, and up another flight of concrete steps. The steps went on for a while until a door came into view. Zacky opened it and pushed me inside, out onto…

I looked around, confused.

We were on the roof of the club. It was unlike any roof I had ever seen. There were poles extending from the short walls blocking off the edges; those poles were covered in twinkling lights. In the middle there sat a few chairs, all covered in cushions and looked rather comforting, especially a black and white porch swing with a canopy over it.

“This is a roof?” I awed. “Looks more like a porch or a deck.”

“I know. This is my place. No one else is allowed up here,” Zacky whispered. He continued to lead me over to the swing that I had been looking at longingly. He plopped down and pulled me beside him.

I didn’t protest. I sat beside him and leaned myself into his body, ignoring the fact that it was amazingly cold outside and his cold body wasn’t making me feel any better. He put his arm around my shoulder.

“If this is your place, then why did you bring me up here?” I murmured. My eyelids were drooping from the exhaustion of Johnny and my nighttime excursion.

“I don’t know,” Zacky said. He sounded just as confused as I felt.

Really! Why on earth was he being so nice to me? He didn’t know me. None of these vampires knew me, and yet a few of them acted like they were my brothers.

I glanced up at Zacky. He was staring straight ahead, but there was a faint smile playing at his lips.

No, this was something different. I could tell just by the way he talked to me, told me things that no one else had. How he instantly made me feel comfortable and managed to get me to feel like I was home again. I didn’t have to pretend to be okay around him, I had realized that in the short time I had known him. All thoughts of my mother and my other family left me mind.

A content sigh slipped through my lips. Zacky held me closer.

“I think the meeting is going to last a lot longer than they expected,” he said.

I nodded. “Okay,” I whispered. “That means I can stay up here longer.”

“Of course you can. You can stay up here as long as you like,” Zacky replied. “Even if the meeting ends. It’s not like Matt can tell you what to do.”

I grinned, not being able to hide how happy I was. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Images from the night that I first saw him, back down when I was at the club as Matt’s date, came flooding back. Along with those images came the strongly erotic feelings as well. I couldn’t help but shift slightly underneath his arm, not wanting to let my wants overpower me. God only knows what would happen if I did act on my…amorous emotions.

Damn Johnny.

“Can I ask you something?” I whispered, not sure how to word what I was asking correctly.

I felt him nod. “Anything.”

“Remember the night when I first came to the club?”

He nodded again.

“You were there. You were standing at the staff door, and you were watching me. Why were you watching me so intently?”

He looked down at me quickly, like he was absolutely shocked. I made a face. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

But his lips turned up into a smile.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“I was staring at you because you were gorgeous,” he whispered.

My heart thumped wildly. I had to be dreaming. Okay, Matt or Mom or wherever I actually was, come wake me up. Wakey, wakey. Amber’s going a little crazy.

He turned his face away again, to look ahead. “I didn’t know you were with Matt, so I got a little mad when I saw him kiss you...and then I was really pissed when I figured out you were our Queen.”

“Why?”

“I could not even begin to believe that he would choose someone like you to be his Queen! I mean, you are amazingly beautiful, but I didn’t think he would put another girl through that. All our Queens before have always been pretty plain…Okay, I guess. Beautiful in the eyes of others, but never in mine. It just really made me mad that he chose you to ruin…To taint.”

My eyes were wide, the size of saucers by the end of his relatively short confession.

All in the span of an hour…and I knew more than I ever dreamed of knowing. I felt a little faint.

“Are…are you serious?” I whispered.

“Vampires are always serious,” Zacky said simply. “We have to be, since we’re dead and all. It just comes with the territory. You know the expression ‘dead serious?’”

I nodded.

“Well, there you go!”

I couldn’t stop myself. I started laughing, and it was a good laugh. I enjoyed it. Zacky joined in my laughter.

Our cackles died down after a few moments.

Cold wind flew through the area where we sat. A shiver racked my body, and Zacky held me even closer. My head was leaning against his shoulder with his arm wrapped tightly around me. My legs were pulled up to my chest.

Zacky’s natural coldness didn’t help my own body heat problem, but I ignored it the best I could. It was just so comfy sitting here, with him, a strange vampire that I knew nothing about, while twenty or so other vampires argued and yelled just two floors below us.

How the hell could I find it comfortable?

“Good night, Amber,” Zacky whispered.

I almost asked him why he kept calling me by my given name, but my eyelids drifted further into my line of vision until everything was completely black.

I wasn’t fully unconscious yet, though, so I could feel Zacky hoisting me up, his arm underneath my knees and his other holding my torso steady. I felt the coldness of the outside air disappear and the door close behind him, and felt my body being dropped ever so gently on my bed.

However, I didn’t hear him leave. I felt him stroke my hair and whisper things too quickly for me to understand. He sat down on the edge of my bed for a while. He might have even laid down beside me, but by that time I was completely out.

My nightmares didn’t haunt me this time.

Instead, I was plagued by Zacky’s smiling face.