Chapter 8: This might be the most beautiful red rose I've ever seen.
Bonnie's POV
I was almost drowning in the sound of Helparos's voice.
He had a way of speaking that made the air feel thicker, warmer — and his lips were soft against the side of my neck, pressing light, unhurried kisses along my skin. My hands found his back without me really deciding to let them.
"You smell incredible," he murmured against my throat. "Would you let me take a bite? I promise you — what I'd give you in return would be worth it."
I tilted my head back. He worked his way down my neck with his mouth, leaving a trail of marks on my skin, and then I felt the sharp press of his fangs settle directly over my carotid artery. My palm was flat against his chest, sliding lower, tracing the planes of muscle beneath — a texture that was genuinely distracting.
Then I pushed him away.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Helparos." I smiled and pulled my collar up, covering the marks he'd left. "I'm not currently in the business of selling my blood. But perhaps you'd like to try something we've just added to the menu — the Dream Galaxy Cocktail? I'll mix it for you myself. That's a privilege our guests consider quite special."
He looked genuinely thrown. Even his slit pupils widened slightly. "You just — resisted the compulsion of a vampire prince?"
His tongue swept across one fang, slow and deliberate. "Interesting. Perhaps you're right, Ms. Layla. I should taste the cocktail first."
First. He'd said first. The word didn't escape me. He hadn't given up on my blood — he'd only agreed to delay. That was a warning worth noting.
At the same time, something had clearly stopped him from acting on his own. A vampire prince doesn't ask permission. He has the power to take what he wants without it. The fact that he'd asked at all meant something was constraining him.
I thought of the dwarf's visit — the dirt and dust he'd tracked in, cleaned up automatically before I'd even noticed. This nightclub, which somehow connected to other worlds, clearly operated by rules I hadn't fully mapped yet.
I'd need to test that. Later.
For now, I had a man to manage.
I mixed the Dream Galaxy Cocktail myself and set it in front of him. Helparos lifted the glass, swirled it, brought it to his nose — and then a slow smile crossed his face.
"So you dissolved Starlight Sapphire in the alcohol." He looked at me with something like appreciation. "Creative, Ms. Layla."
That was the first time I'd heard a name for that blue stone. I filed it away immediately and pressed the opening: "Do you happen to have more Starlight Sapphire, Mr. Helparos? I'd be very interested in making a trade."
The smile he gave me was equal parts beautiful and dangerous. "A trade? A vampire prince rarely has any shortage of what he wants. There's very little I'd need to bargain for — unless—"
He took my hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it. Then his mouth moved from my fingertips up to my wrist, unhurried. "Unless Ms. Layla can offer something that genuinely interests me."
I turned my hand over and pressed my fingers into his mouth, letting the pads of my fingers trace the edge of his fangs. My voice came out languid, almost intimate — and completely firm: "If what you want is my blood, I'm afraid the answer is no."
"What a shame." He withdrew, settled back into his seat, and resumed drinking with an easy, unhurried smile. Every few sips he'd look up at me with those eyes — deliberately, patiently — as though he had all the time in the world and expected that time to eventually work in his favor.
It didn't. I went about closing up the bar with complete composure, not giving him anything to work with.
He stretched that out until 3:58 a.m. I collected his empty glass and delivered the verdict: "We're closing, Mr. Helparos. We hope to see you again soon."
"The nightclub is closing." He looked up at me, his gaze full of small, precise hooks. "But what about Ms. Layla's heart? Has that closed to me as well?"
His fingers caught the hem of my skirt — a gentle, almost plaintive tug, like a man asking rather than taking. He even managed to look a little forlorn about it. But his other hand slipped beneath the fabric, fingers moving along the inside of my thigh with a deliberate, knowing touch.
"Stay with me, Layla." He rested his head against my stomach, his long dark curls spilling across the fabric between us. "I'll make you feel good."
Every alarm I had went off at once.
I enjoyed the game — the chase, the heat of it, a man's single-minded attention. I knew how to play in that space. But when it tipped past flirtation into something that actually required a decision, I found that I was, underneath everything, a little afraid.
"No, Helparos." I dropped the honorific. My voice was steady. "It's almost four o'clock. You need to leave. Now."
He lifted his head and opened his mouth to argue — then his pupils snapped tight, and he vanished.
Gone. Instantly. As if he'd never been there.
Dong. Dong. Dong. Dong.
The clock on the wall struck four. I turned and stared at it.
So the closing rules of Doomsday Nightclub applied to otherworld guests as well.
A quiet satisfaction settled over me. Whatever rules governed this place, they were apparently non-negotiable — even for a vampire prince. My safety here was better protected than I'd realized. The only disappointment was that I'd walked away without any more Starlight Sapphire.
Something on his seat caught my eye. He'd left a rose behind — deep, saturated red, every petal absolutely perfect.
"Where did this even come from?" I turned it in my hands. "This might be the most beautiful red rose I've ever seen."
I found a glass bottle under the bar, filled it with water, and set the rose on the counter. Then I left, in considerably better spirits than I'd expected.
Helparos's POV
I'd intended to stay with her a while longer, but the force that expelled me gave no warning. One moment I was there; the next I was standing in my own castle, the ornate metal door nowhere to be seen — vanished along with everything else.
I ran my tongue along the corner of my mouth.
The little cake got away.
Layla. That was her name. The blood in her veins carried a scent that would bring any vampire to his knees — I'd barely caught a trace of it and I was already certain. Since I was the first of my kind to find her, the claim was mine by right. It didn't matter that she lived in another world. I would find a way through. I would find her, bring her back, and keep her here in my castle — close to me, always.
"Ben!"
The sound of wings filled the air. A large bat swept down from the darkness and landed before me, shifting in an instant into the form of my most trusted subordinate. Ben dropped to one knee, his left hand pressed to his right side of his chest, head bowed.
"Your Highness. Whatever you require, I will see it done."
I held out my right hand. Pinched between two fingers were several small fragments — sequins, torn from the hem of Layla's skirt in the last second before the force threw me out. They still carried her scent.
"Memorize this." I studied Ben's face as I said it. "Call up every bat in our forces. Search all of Elmir if you have to. Find the person this scent belongs to. Every lead, every rumor, every trace of information — it comes to me directly."
Ben's head came up, surprise breaking through his composure. "Your Highness — within our own territory, that's easily done. But if we send forces into other races' lands to conduct a search, we risk igniting a conflict between the—"
"So what?" My voice came out cold. "Ben, you have no idea what that woman is worth."
I'd only caught the faintest thread of her blood's scent, and already I could feel it — the ancient constraint on my bloodline, the weight that had been locked around it for longer than I could clearly remember, had shifted. Loosened, just slightly. Her blood had the potential to refine a vampire's lineage itself.
A woman like that — I would not allow anyone else to have her.
"Find out who has passed through that door. Anyone who has visited Doomsday Nightclub from this side. I will open that door again." I turned toward the window, the dark expanse of Elmir spread out below. "And I will bring her back."
