Wings and Wolves

"So, you get paid by the hour, and we will split the tips," Paris trailed Lia down the dance academy hall. It was busy as students spilled out of the classrooms, the noise of their conversations echoing off the high ceilings and glossy floors. Cecelia dodged dancers stretching against the wall between classes, or preparing their shoes, the tap-tap of the toe-boxes against the floor a percussion to life as a dancer. "What do you think?"

"Are you sure it is not a strip club?" Lia was dubious. Sometimes Paris' ideas were reckless and ill-thought-out. It would not be the first money-making scheme that she had talked Lia into joining, and the last time the audition for "entertainment dancing" had turned out to be for jobs as mobile strippers for private events, so her suspicion was well founded.

"No, it is an exclusive men's club. It is like the male version of a cocktail bar. It is smaller than a normal pub and posher. Leather couches and chandeliers sort of deal. They only open Fridays and Saturdays, and they have stage shows on both nights. Ooh," she added with approval. "Nice."

"What?" Lia was baffled.

"The blonde," Paris jerked her head towards the man leaning against the opposite wall.

Lia followed her gaze and accidentally met the man's eyes. He grinned, showing white, straight teeth. He reminded her of a movie star, with his clean-cut good looks and golden blonde hair, his posture deliberately elegant as if he wanted to attract their attention.

She blushed and looked away towards the cork board on the opposite wall. Her eyes were drawn back to him however, and she slid a look at him from under her eyelashes, trying to be discrete.

He was still looking at her, and his shoulders shook with silent laughter which left her in no doubt that he had caught her looking at him. Vain, she thought, and with good reason. He would be popular around the dance academy, with both male and female dancers, he had the sort of glow to him that attracted people and made them want to look and touch him.

"I hope he is in our classes," Paris sent him a flirtatious smile. "We need some more testosterone."

Lia peeked again and he raised his eyebrows in invitation. Paris giggled.

"The guy who dropped you off last night seemed to have plenty of testosterone," Lia commented trying to focus on the cork board, but the blonde man was like the glow of the sun in her peripheral vision, enticing her to look again.

Cork board, Cecelia, she told herself sternly. Male dancers were just trouble, and she wasn't in the market for a boyfriend. What she needed was a regular source of income. There were adverts of every description pinned to the board, from PT groups, after hours strength training, shoes, work out wear, accommodation...

"Brock," Paris swooned against Lia, almost unbalancing her. "Oh my god, Lia. He is such a man. Like, a proper grown up. When he kisses me, I can't get my underwear off fast enough."

"Paris!"

"It is so true, though. Here," Paris took the sheet of paper from Lia's hand and stuck it to the board over several other notices with complete disregard for whatever they were advertising. She tore off the first phone number tear-away. "Creating demand," she told Lia. "Makes people think – crap, must get onto that before someone else gets the room.

"Come on," she linked her arm through Lia's. "We have to get home and glamorous."

"Are you absolutely sure it is not a strip club?"

"Do not worry, your clothes will stay on," Paris laughed. She put an extra twitch into her hips as they walked past the blonde man. Lia met his eyes again, the golden pull of him irresistable. There was something, she thought, so familiar about his face. Perhaps her initial impression had been correct, and he had featured on a soap opera, or something on TV, someone not quite famous, but seen often enough to trick the eye into thinking it knew them.

They trotted down the stairs and out the main doors onto the pavement out front of the academy, dodging through pedestrian traffic, onto the sidewalk, the swell of traffic noise rolling over them, it's music as well known as the pieces that they danced to.

"The bus!" Lia could see it's yellow roof over the cars as it turned the corner onto the street. They ran, giggling and breathless to the bus stop, arriving just as it pulled up with a blast of metallic air from it's radiator.

"Close one," the driver, Larry, commented as they scanned their cards. Larry was a regular on the route, and knew all the dancers from the academy who caught his bus by first name. He bought tickets for his granddaughters whenever he could get them, and his familiarity with the dancers guaranteed them entry to backstage and the change rooms, much to his granddaughter's awe and amazement."I would have stopped for you, though."

Paris blew him a kiss.

Lia eased her way between people holding on to the straps, until there was a space near the back doors. She and Paris clung to a pole as the bus lurched into motion.

"Your boyfriend isn't in a gang or something?" Lia said, keeping her voice low.

She had been woken after midnight by the roar of motorbikes pulling up out front of the house and had watched from her window as Paris exchanged lingering kisses with her boyfriend in the soft glow of the streetlights, their breath misting in the chill of the night.

There had been two other bikes, and she could have sworn that one of the helmeted figures had watched her back, his face lost behind the glossy face shield. His leather jacket had hugged broad shoulders and lean waist, and bunched on the muscles of his arms. She had returned to bed once Paris had not-so-quietly snuck inside the house and down the hall to the staircase, and imagined the man behind the mystery of that helmet to the gentle buzz of her vibrator.

"No, they are not like that. They are graphic designers," Paris was laughing. "Or something for cars. I do not know. They have a business. They make the designs that go onto cars."

Lia had no idea, either, and her eye had been caught by the crumpled little form pressed between the guard for the seats behind and the door's opening passage, the track worn shiny in the matte floor. She wondered how she was going to retrieve it without being seen.

The city streets peeled back into the elderly trees of suburbia. Once their area might have been thriving, full of young families, but the property was stubbornly held by the aging occupants, and the young families saw more appeal in new build estates than the ramshackle houses in need of renovation and new life. As a result, the once proud fences now peeled paint and were gap toothed, and the once tidy gardens were overgrown wildernesses hiding the pretty facades of the houses from the street.

Lia had inherited her house from her grandmother. It had been in the family for generations, passed down from mother to daughter, and with the house, its secrets.

She had been raised by her grandmother after Lia had been the only survivor of the car crash that had taken her parent's lives.

Her parents had left her with a tidy inheritance thanks to life insurance, which had paid for her schooling up to this point, but the fees of her dance academy were starting to chip away at its capital, and the monthly interest payments did not provide enough to renovate the house which was starting to show its age.

Paris' rent helped cover utilities and rates, but Lia was a long way from being comfortable. She needed a part time job with a regular paycheck, and she needed to let out the third bedroom to supplement it, though the house was not large, and the idea of a stranger living with her and Paris was not a comfortable one.

The bus pulled up on her street, and Lia swore: "Earring fell out. There it is!"

She scooped up the broken form a moment before the door opened and the passengers pressed forward towards her, almost unbalancing her onto the street. If she had wondered if the fairy was still alive, that question was answered when the damnable thing sank its teeth into her fingers.

Sharp, bloody teeth.

Lia shoved her hand into her bag and shook it off, the pain putting her beyond caring if she damaged it further in doing so.

"Lucky," Paris commented. "It would have been a shame to lose it."

"Mhm," Lia tried to inspect the wound as she faked putting her earring back into the hole. "So, this new guy, Brook."

"Brock," Paris corrected.

"Right. Where did you meet him?"

"The club of course," she fluttered her eyelashes. "I am telling you, Cecilia, it is more than a job, it is a future husband shopping mall. Exclusive men's club means men with money," she made the money symbol with her fingers and thumbs. "What every wannabe dancer needs is a man with the moolah. Stick with me kid," she hipped the rusty gate open. "And you will be on your way to easy street."

The house had not changed much in Lia's lifetime. The same furniture, the same decorative plates and creepy china-dolls in the hallway, the same faded curtains, and threadbare carpets. The same pictures on the walls. The slightly musty smell of wallpaper and old carpet recalled many fond childhood memories.

Every time that Lia thought to change something, guilt prevented her from doing so. It was not as if her grandmother was gone, after all. Her ghost still wandered the halls, phasing between moments of coherency where she would interact with Lia, and moments where she seemed to be caught in memories of the past and not to know that Lia was there.

Perhaps if her grandmother had died and gone, as most people's grandparents did, Lia would not be so hesitant about changing things, she thought.

Paris, of course, could not see her, and was always baffled by Lia's wish to change the house, but reluctance to do so.

They made salad from ingredients that were just on the right side of overripe, and ate it in the kitchen, before drawing straws for the shower. Paris had an unerring ability to draw first shower, but, today, Lia did not mind. She had a fairy to deal with, after all.

Once she heard the hammering old old pipes straining under the pressure of the shower water, she emptied her purse, spilling out onto the kitchen table amongst the rubble of her life - chap sticks, tissues, small change, mints that had escaped their container, receipts, compacts, and old bus tickets tumbled out onto the tabletop, and amongst them, the indignant fairy with it's crumpled wings.

"That one is like a cat I once owned," Lia's grandmother's ghost paused by the table to observe. "All hiss and attitude. But once you won that cat's love, it was yours for life."

"What is wrong with it?" Lia wondered.

"Nothing that a few days in an atrium will not fix, sweetie," her grandmother was in one of her coherent moods. "Pop him in there, and let him rest a bit, and then set him out the window."

Lia used the rubber ended kitchen tongs to collect the fairy and took him to the solarium. Her grandmother's plants still thrived here, despite Lia's best efforts to care for them, the leaves shining in the bright light that spilled through the many little panes of glass, and the moisture from their pots filling the small room with the scent of soil and green life.

She deposited the fairy into one of the delicate glass houses and shoved a piece of dried apple it at it. She hoped for the best as she returned to the kitchen in order to scrape the contents of her purse away before Paris finished in the shower.

Her shower was, typically, short of hot water, and therefore brief. Under Paris' direction, she pulled her dark hair into a high ponytail and applied a full face of make-up.

"Are you absolutely sure..." Lia asked again suspiciously when Paris instructed her to put on black underwear, and a suspender belt to hold up the thigh high fishnet stockings. "Why does a waitress need suspender stockings, Paris?"

"Trust me," Paris insisted.

Lia pulled a t-shirt dress over the underwear, and a coat over top, thinking that she looked like exactly like a stripper-gram, her dress hidden by her coat, and the fishnet stockings and black high heels on full display. She was beginning to dread what the night held ahead, but Paris had been working there for three months, and said the pay was good.

She needed the money. She sighed.

They caught the bus back into the city and had to rebuff the interest of a group of young men on their way to a good night out, the male laughter and cat calls filling the chamber of the bus with sound and causing other passengers to look up from their phones or books and shift uncomfortably, recognizing the tone of those voices as young men looking to stir up trouble.

Rain streaked across the windows, making Lia glad to be inside the bus despite the overtures of the half-drunk men.

"You would think," Paris said, "that after a few weeks, they would get the hint."

"This happens every week?" Lia asked, daunted.

"Mhm. It is nothing. Baby boys, just wait, Lia," Paris said. "The men at this club," she rolled her eyes heavenwards.

"Are you sure..." Lia caught herself again.

Paris laughed as the bus stopped and they stepped off into the cold of the night.

The streets were rain-washed, and the air was heavy with the smell of wet tarmac. The darkness was cut with the bright artificial lights from neon signs, car headlights, streetlights, and shop windows.

Music pounded from the nightclubs, the late-night shops luring in shoppers, and the wound down windows of cars doing rings of the city streets so that the occupants, mostly male, could call out to the women on the street.

Girls dressed for dancing shook in the chill of the night, their breath hanging like smoke clouds in the air as they huddled together for warmth, their voices bright and excited, and their high heels clip-clopping through the puddles. The queues into the nightclubs were long and trickled off the red carpets.

The hobgoblin looked like a drunk or homeless person, huddled in his cloak, and muttering to himself as he wound his way closer to the unwary girls at the tail of one of the queues that had curled around into the alleyway between buildings. One was speaking on her phone, and was further behind the others, distracted by her conversation.

The hobgoblin stretched out his gnarled hands.

"Hands off," Lia snapped, startling the girls.

The hobgoblin met her eyes, startled at being seen, and recoiled, babbling as he scurried down the alleyway, disappearing behind an overflowing and stinking dumpster.

"Flasher," Lia explained to the girls.

"Oh," they said, in a rising chorus. "Thanks, eh?"

"No problem."

"I did not see that," Paris said in admiration. "You have sharp eyes, Lia."

"I guess," Lia shrugged. Paris had no idea how sharp. "Are we far? I am freezing." She huddled her jacket closer to her but it did little against the cold.

"Not far."

A woman, her hair hidden beneath a knitted hat and her face all but lost in her scarf, was trying to get passers by to accept a flyer from the stack she clutched to her chest like a last hope.

"Please," she appealed to the girls as they passed her. "My daughter is missing."

Lia paused to take one, looking at the black and white photo of a laughing young woman around her own age.

"Have you seen her?" The woman asked hopefully.

"No, I am sorry," Lia folded it and put it into her pocket. "But I will keep it with me, and ring if I do see her."

"Thank you," the woman was pathetically grateful for so little. "Bless you and stay safe."

"You did not have to do that," Paris murmured as they walked away. She linked her arm through Lia's.

Lia shrugged.

Paris turned them down a side alley and they dodged the filth and puddles on the ground, sending stray cats and rats scattering into the shelter of the shadows as they made their way to a solid door, it's chipped surface showing the layers of paint beneath it in a rainbow of hues. She entered a code into the pad and pushed the door open.

The hallway beyond was dark and narrow, and they felt their way along the walls with the music from the club pulsing around them like a heartbeat. Paris pushed open a door into artificial light and perfume.

This room was lit by a ring of lights around a long rectangular make up mirror fixed to the far wall. Freestanding racks queued to the right, holding a variety of costumes. A door to the left opened into a small bathroom, with a shower and toilet, the tiles old and dingy looking, although Lia could smell disinfectant.

"Give me your coat," Paris reached out her hand for Lia's coat.

Lia shivered as she stripped it off. The change room was warmer than outside, but only just, and her skin crawled with goosebumps. "Don't they have heaters here?" She asked.

"It's warmer in the club," Paris hung the coats onto a rack and flicked through the costumes until she found what she sought.

She handed Lia a French maid's dress. "Here you go."

"You are kidding," Lia pulled a face. It was one step above a cheap Halloween costume in quality, the material holding an acrylic sheen and the tulle netting coarse, the petticoat meant to protect it's wearer from it's edges too short to serve it's purpose.

"It is what it is," Paris pulled on an identical dress, tugging it down, and reaching inside it's neckline to lift her breasts and the lace of her bra. She used safety pins on the waistband to hold the dress to the garter belt, before tying the white apron around her waist. "If you pin it to the garter, it'll stop it riding up so much," she advised. "Don't look at me like that, Lia. Waitresses wear this. If we do our dues as waitresses, Elior will let us audition as acts. So, put on the stupid dress and come and haul some trays around with me."

Lia sighed heavily and pulled on the dress, following Paris' directions to pin the waist to her garter belt, and arranging the bodice so that her breasts and the top edge of her bra were on display. "I hope these are laundered in between," she complained.

"When you take them off, you give them a steam. Write your name on the tag, and it is yours. If Elior likes you, that is. And he had better like you, Lia, because it is the only way that we are getting onto that stage."

The dress barely covered her arse as the skirt was fluffed out by tulle despite the safety pins, and the bodice was scooped indecently low, but it was hardly worse than any other costume she wore as a dancer. Except that normally the costume was like that for dancing, not so that she could be leered at by men.

She opened her purse and touched up her lipstick.

Paris posed next to her. "We look cute," she said with a giggle and pulled out her phone. They posed for a selfie.

"I guess it is not the worst costume that I have worn," Lia decided trying to see an upside.

"Yeah, I remember when we were both trees. Ugh. Alright," Paris pouted at the mirror. "Let's go. Remember, tables are numbered left to right, starting in the back booths, and they have the numbers on the tabletops, so you can't go too far wrong, really.

"Just grab a tray, check the number on the docket, and put the drinks onto the table. We don't take orders, just deliver. They have an app for ordering"

Paris led the way back into the dark hallway and they felt their way to where a doorway was outlined in light through the doorjamb and the music pounded out louder. She pushed open the door and they stepped out into a large room filled with tables and chesterfield couches arranged around a central stage, currently occupied by a burlesque act. The walls were all wood paneled and painted in a grey so dark it was almost black, the effect both opulent and masculine.

The men around the tables fell into two categories, Lia noted, those still in business suits who had come straight from work, their ties and attitudes loosened, and those whose business did not require suits or who had changed before coming, in their jeans and steel toed boots, leather jackets and tattoos.

The bar was to the left of the doorway and the barman was just sliding a tray onto the glossy surface. "You are late," he yelled over the music to Paris. "Who is the fresh meat?"

"Lia," Paris yelled back checking the docket and handing the tray to Lia. "Table four." She took a tray that was already waiting.

Lia counted the tables as Paris had told her and moved with confidence towards a group of men in jeans and t-shirts, their arms over the back of the armchairs they sat on and their long legs sprawled out in the type of confident, relaxed abandonment men achieved when their day was done and they were amongst themselves and surrounded by alcohol.

Werewolves, she realized with a fission of surprise as she drew close enough that the Other in their eyes reflected back golden in the darkness. She checked the table number before leaning between two of them to slide the tray onto the table.

She began to offload the drinks.

"I haven't seen you here before," the man to her right did not have to raise his voice above the music.

"I haven't seen you here before," the man to her right did not have to raise his voice above the music.

Alpha, she identified immediately. Something in the magic of the wolves ensured that he was always heard and obeyed by the person he intended to hear him, whether they were wolf or human, it did not matter, as long as they were less dominant than he.

He was gorgeous in a very masculine way, with his shiny, brunette curls overgrown and tumbling into his golden-brown eyes, and the stubble of several days' growth combined with the tattoos that curled up his neck gave him a dangerous edge. He filled his t-shirt exceptionally well, the fabric stretched over broad shoulders and fabulous biceps. His long, muscled legs were well displayed in the well-worn jeans he wore, and his boots were of an expensive make, but scarred with wear. Whatever he did for a living, it was physical work.

She would bet he made an impressive wolf. He made an impressive man.

The book handed down by the women in her family stated very politely that werewolves had a strong animal magnetism. Reading it and experiencing it, however, were very different things, she thought ruefully as she felt her pulse pick up, and her skin heat.

His lips were perfectly balanced, the line and swell of them sensual, and she had a sudden urge to taste them. Instinct told her he would kiss well, and the image of his mouth on hers and her fingers in his hair had her biting her lip against a flush of lust.

Werewolves could also detect a body's chemical and physical response to stimuli she remembered and felt a flush crawl up her neck. His aftershave, with notes of citrus and lavender, had her stomach curling with desire and that he would be able to smell it on her was just plain embarrassing.

Get a hold of yourself Lia.

"Yes, you're my first. Table, I mean," she babbled, and tried to withdraw hoping that the layers of aftershave, alcohol, and the sweat of the dancer on stage would disguise her reaction to him.

"What is your name?" His voice held her. She was sure that the drag of her breath was audible to his wolf-keen ears above the music of the show on stage, the sound somewhere between fear and want. She was also sure that her underwear was soaked.

"Lia." She hoped he would let her go, or she would be in trouble before she even managed to serve another table, or, even worse, she might succumb to the demands of her body and do something completely out of character for her, like crawl onto his lap.

"I am Raiden," he told her, and then selected a beer and leaned back in his chair.

"Nice to meet you." She hurried back to the bar with her tray, the flight of prey from a predator, she thought, her heart pounding. Animal magnetism was an understatement. The man was like her own personal walking fantasy made flesh and blood. She would be running the battery of her vibrator flat thinking of him when she went home, she thought trying to inject some humor into the exchange.

"He is so hot," Paris said to her as she passed with a full tray, saying out loud what Lia was thinking. "Raiden, that is. He is a regular. One of Brock's crowd."

Lia did not have the opportunity to reply. There was another tray waiting at the bar. She picked it up. Table one. Her path took her past table four, and Raiden, who nursed his beer and watched her as she walked towards him, his expression thoughtful.

Do not look at the werewolf, Lia, she told herself sternly. Despite her self-talk, she met his eyes as she passed and half expected him to stop her again from the way that he was watching her, but he let her pass without interruption. She approached the VIP booth against the back wall scolding herself mentally.

The men within the booth stopped speaking as she approached with the tray. Vampires, she thought with alarm and embarrassment, because their sense of smell was just as strong as a werewolves' and she knew she would simply reek of desire courtesy of the werewolf whose eyes she could still feel against her back.

What sort of club was this, that it had werewolves as regulars and vampires in the VIP section? She avoided looking at them, knowing that a blush was creeping up her cheeks as she placed the tray onto the table surface and offloaded the carafe of red wine and glasses, collecting up the dirty glasses on the table.

"You're new."

She looked up involuntarily. The man that had spoken was another spectacular example of masculinity.

He would not have looked out of place smouldering on a billboard advertising aftershave, his grey eyes striking against the dark hair that he had pulled back into a ponytail bound by a leather strap low on his neck, and his cheekbones high and sharp.

He wore an immaculate and expensive suit in charcoal, and a gold signet ring on his right ring finger. The ring told her that he had been born a vampire, from one of the older lines and it fit, she thought, there was something aristocratic in his bone structure and the way he held himself, the sort of refinement bred into a person over generations of privilege.

"Yes, just starting tonight," she dropped her eyes realizing she was staring for more than a normal human would do. His well-crafted and tasteful glamour presented him as a good looking, but not extraordinary man.

"What is your name?"

Was every table going to require a personal introduction? "Lia."

"I am Elior, the owner," the man told her.

"Oh," she glanced up at him again. "Hello. Paris said you needed..."

"Yes," he narrowed his eyes as he evaluated her much as if he were purchasing her, which, she supposed, he was in a way. "I am grateful you were able to step in on such short notice, Lia. Are you finding your way around?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Good."

It was a dismissal, and she stepped away with her tray, meeting Paris' eyes as they crossed paths again. Paris raised her eyebrows. Lia shrugged as she retrieved the next tray. She delivered it to the table and made her way back through the room, aware that she was watched both by Raiden and Elior as she did so.

Being the subject of such scrutiny made her nervous. Elior, she thought, watched to evaluate her potential as an employee. Raiden, on the other hand, probably watched her as a result of her betraying physical reaction. She wondered what the werewolf thought of it, or whether women frequently melted around him, and it was nothing out of the ordinary for his day.

"Hey," a man grabbed her wrist as she passed with her next tray. She checked the number on his table.

"Oh, sorry sir," she told him pulling back against his grip instinctually reacting to the expression on his face. "This is for table ten, not your table."

"I know," his grin was the disagreeable vulpine smirk of a man used to taking advantage of those weaker than himself. "Are you a dancer?"

"A dancer?" She repeated, glancing to the stage where a pole dancer currently proved her upper body strength in a seemingly impossible pose.

She looked back at the man. He was dressed in a suit. Had he recognized her from school? There were many people of his kind that sponsored her dance academy and held season tickets and she had a moment of fear that he had identified her from there.

"No." She decided that denial was the best response.

"Are you sure? You look like a dancer," he tried to tuck a twenty-dollar bill into the top of her stocking as he tugged her towards him, his hand quickly moving from stocking to higher. His friends burst into laughter when she tried to squirm away from his groping hand, protesting against his groping.

"No. I am not. Let go," she struggled not the spill the drinks on the tray, escape his grip, and avoid his roving other hand at the same time.

"Release her," Raiden's hand clamped on the man's wrist, hard, jerking his hand away from her thigh and lifting the man out his seat as if he weighed nothing. The twenty-dollar bill drifted to the floor. "You do not touch the girls." He growled the words out, the flash of the Other in his eyes as he lifted the man to eye-level, the alpha ringing in his tone so that the man could not look away.

"Hey," the suit shrunk under his gaze. He was mankind and did not know the truth of what he faced, but he knew enough to recognize an alpha and someone who was not intimidated by his suit. "You are hurting me."

His friends were suddenly not so amused.

"Do not touch," Raiden growled again and dropped the man back into his seat. He leaned over, scooping up the twenty, and placed it on Lia's tray. "Yours," he said to her.

"Thanks," she was breathless from the suit's attack, and Raiden's display of strength, the werewolf standing so close to her that she imagined that she could feel the heat of his body on her skin. She moved on to table ten, delivering the drinks, and almost bumped into Elior when she turned.

"You are unharmed?" He asked coolly, his grey eyes holding hers. The Other flashed red in the depths of his pupils.

In almost nineteen years, she had never had cause to be this close to either werewolves or vampires, and here, in one night, she had somehow drawn the attention of both. Her grandmother would have told her to leave, right away, and not to come back. But her grandmother had also hidden in her house with almost paranoid agoraphobia for the majority of her adult life.

Lia felt a flutter of fear that the vampire intended to fire her for the disruption to the club. She needed the work. She needed to supplement her trust fund with an income. Unlike her grandmother she had neither the means, nor the inclination, to stay inside her house like a prisoner.

"Yes. Fine, thank you."

"They will be escorted out," he nodded to someone over her shoulder, and she saw another Vampire lean over the table of men and say something quietly. The men rose with shame-faced meekness and filed out, leaving a generous tip on the table. "And will not be permitted entry again. We do not tolerate that sort of behavior."

He smelled wonderful, of rosewood and patchouli. For the second time that night, she felt her body betray her. What was wrong with me? She scolded herself. Nineteen years and no interest in men, and in one night, she was getting turned on by werewolves and vampires, the latter of which was her boss.

"Oh," she was flustered by her reaction to him. "Well... That is good. Thank you."

He turned back to the booth, and she clutched her tray to her chest as she made her way back to the bar. Her heart was a frantic rhythm in her chest, and she knew that the werewolves and vampires would be able to hear it, as well as smell the fear and desire on her. She also knew that the betraying body signals were appealing to both groups of others, stimulating their predator response.

She was not surprised to find the entire table of werewolves watching her, the Other flashing golden in multiple eyes. Raiden's expression was tense – he knew what Elior was, Lia thought, and was alert in response. Was the werewolf protective of her? Because Paris was dating Brock, perhaps? Or because... Lia hardly dared to finish the thought. Her grandmother would scold her for where her thoughts had turned. It would be unwise to get involved in the Other world.

"Are you alright?" Paris murmured as she joined her at the bar.

"Yes, a little..." She held her hand out and showed that she shook. "I will be alright," she sighed it out. Predators all around, Lia, she told herself, human and Other both.

"Elior likes you."

"Oh, good." She was not sure if that was a good thing. She liked Elior too, she thought wryly, at least, how he looked and smelt - a little too much. What did the book say about Vampires, again? Nothing about animal magnetism. Hypnotic appeal rang a bell and blood addiction. She would have to look it up when she got home...

"And Raiden has not taken his eyes off you all evening," she added. "He is looking at you right now."

She knew that. She could feel his eyes like the touch of a lover. "I had better keep moving." There was no clock in the room, and she had left her mobile in her bag. "How long do we have?" She asked as she collected another tray.

Being in a closed space with two groups of Other was distorting her sense of reality, she thought. And playing on her hormones.

"Feet hurting?" Paris smiled with sympathy. "Half-way through."

Only half-way, Lia dug deep for her strength of will. She began to get a rhythm as the time passed however, and her confidence improved, until she landed a tray for table four again. She met Raiden's eyes as she made her way over with their order.

"Brock is taking Paris out for a ride after your shift finishes," Raiden told her, his voice toned low, as she slid the beers onto the table. His voice made her knees want to give way and brought to mind decadent images of skin against skin. "I will give you a lift home." It was not an offer - it was an order.

"Oh," she struggled against the alpha command. "That is not necessary."

"It would be unsafe for you to go home alone," he replied. "I will take you home."

"Okay," she sighed it. He had a point – traveling home at that time of the morning by public transport wasn't the safest thing to do. But neither was accepting lifts from strangers. "Thank you," she added for the sake of politeness.

"Hey," Paris caught her at the bar. Her makeup was beginning to sink into her skin, the eyeliner around her eyes fuzzing slightly into the eyeshadow, and her lips stained in the creases with lipstick rather than wearing any. "I am catching a lift home with Brock. Raiden says he will take you."

"Paris," Lia protested. That would be very dangerous, she thought, considering her reaction to the werewolf. Cars and sex had been connected since the first teenagers decided to get inventive in the back seat. If the werewolf used his alpha command on her, she would not be able to resist. Hell, if the man so much as looked at her suggestively, she suspected she'd make like Paris and drop her panties. "I do not know them. It is not exactly safe to get into a car with strangers."

"That is fine," Paris laughed. "As it will be a motorbike."

"Paris!" Could you have sex on a motorbike, Lia wondered immediately, and then felt like burying her face into her hands. What was her obsession with sex all of a sudden?

The rest of the shift seemed to fly by, perhaps because Lia was now torn between dread and anticipation of the end of it.

The two werewolves lingered at the bar talking with Elior in lowered voices long after the club closed and the other guests were shown out, and Paris and Lia wiped down the tables and stacked the chairs on top of them aware that all three men watched them discretely.

Lia met Raiden's eyes as she and Paris slipped through the door into the dark hallway. He smiled in a reassuring way, his eyes warm and friendly. Trust me, his smile seemed to say, I'll look after you.

Yes, Lia wanted to reply, but they probably had different ideas of what looking after her meant. Her mind slid into the decadent gleam of bronzed skin and muscle moving in sensual ways, and she tried to pull herself together as she followed Paris down the hall.

In the change room, Paris split their tips as Lia steamed their uniforms. Paris was excited about her date with Brock and chattered brightly as she divided the money and fixed her makeup.

"Are you sure?" Lia hesitated as they turned off the lights in the change room and made their way down the dark hallway to the alleyway door.

"Trust me, Lia. I've worked here for three months now. They're good guys. It's safer than dating a guy off an app."

"I don't date guys off apps," Lia muttered as they stepped out into the cold.

Two motorbikes blew steam out into the darkness, waiting for them. There was something savage and dangerous about these growling mechanical beasts patiently biding their time until the two women mounted them. Something primal and basic, and utterly in character for werewolves.

"That's because you just don't date. Relax, have fun for once," Paris' said under her breath, before smiling and running up to Brock. She put on the helmet he offered her and swung onto the motorbike behind him without hesitation.

Lia approached Raiden cautiously. "I've never been on a motorbike before," she admitted releasing her hair from its ponytail and sliding the tie around her wrist, feeling as if this lift home had far more significance than the werewolf helping his friend to spend some time with his girl by making sure her friend got home safely.

"Here," he grinned, flashing strong white teeth, and slid the helmet over her head before doing up the strap. He was being very careful, she thought and wondered if she looked as if she would bolt at the slightest provocation. "You look cute," he told her, holding the helmet between his palms.

"Sure, I do," she said dubiously, smiling despite herself. "How do I get on?"

He swung a long leg over the bike easily. "Footrest," he showed her, "and over just like I did."

"You're not wearing heels and a skirt," she laughed, half in protest.

"No," he agreed with a grin. "C'mon, you're a ballerina, right? This is nothing compared to one of those high kicks."

She put the toe of her shoe onto the footrest and swung herself into the seat behind him.

"Good," he said with approval. "Hands around my waist."

She had no choice, she realized, but to move closer to him and wrap her arms around his waist. God, she thought as she gingerly did so, the situation was designed to spike her pulse and drive her body to the edge of its tolerances. The leather of his jacket combined with the smoked scent of lavender and citrus was just like the man himself, an intoxicating mix of safe and dangerous.

She felt his body shake with laughter.

"Don't be so polite," he took her wrists and brought her tighter against his back until her palms were against his stomach. The jacket was open, and there was only the thin fabric of his top between her hands and the muscles she could feel tense with his chuckle. "You don't want to fall off."

He did something to the bike, and it began to roll down the alleyway at a sedate pace, the bike bumping beneath her as it rolled over the pavement and onto the road. She tightened her grip reflexively and felt him laugh again.

The bike picked up speed, weaving between the cars, and she clung on, before laughing as they burst free of the traffic.

It must be a little like flying, she thought, feeling the wind against her as she hurtled forward at speeds a human body had no way of achieving on its own. She leaned against Raiden's back and laughed as they raced through the darkness.

He made his way unerringly into the suburbs, slowing as they approached her street until he stopped in the driveway. She was almost certain that he had been the biker who had seemed to stare back at her through her window and flushed remember how he had features in her fantasies before she had even seen his face or known his name.

She slid from the bike and struggled with the release of the helmet. He took his helmet off easily, hanging it off the backrest of the bike, and swung off the bike.

"Here," he said, laughing. His brunette curls were a mess from the helmet. He untied the helmet from beneath her chin and lifted the helmet from her.

She ran her fingers through her hair. He put the helmet onto the rear seat and reached out, smoothing his hands over her hair, still laughing at her.

"There. Beautiful," he murmured as the expression in his eyes changed from laughter to desire, and the air was stolen from her lungs as he pulled her against him.

His body was big, hot, and hard, and the scent of citrus and lavender clung, as he kissed her, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, the lingering flavor of beer giving way to something that was just him and made her pulse race wildly. He tasted right, she thought, as if she had spent her life waiting for that subtle, undefinable flavor.

She felt her knees give, and he seemed to take that as invitation to draw her closer, tugging her hips against his, so that she could feel his hard on pushing through his jeans. Her pulse raced, and she moaned, her body knowing very well what it wanted and pressing back against his, so that they both groaned. His lips caressed their way to her ear.

"Invite me in," he breathed, his voice hoarse with desire. There was no alpha command in it. He was not coercing her into it. But he did not need to. She wanted to, very much. Her body craved his skin against it, and her heart pounded hard.

"I can't," she whispered reluctantly fighting against herself.

"Why not?" He was working his way down her neck and her head dropped back heavily on her neck, exposing the column of her throat to him. Oh, god, she thought, arching into him, as if lifting her breasts in invitation. "You want me," he said it with absolute certainty, as he had every right to, she admitted. His keen sense of smell would be telling him exactly how much she wanted him, and she wanted him oh so very much.

"Maybe because she has a guest," someone said from her front porch, making her jump.

"Maybe because she has a guest," someone said from her front porch, making her jump.

Raiden's head came up, and he growled low in his throat, the gold Other flashing in his eyes and catching the street lights. "Who the f-k are you?" He demanded. He did not release Lia, but she eased away, embarrassed and flustered to be caught wrapped around him so promiscuously.

"I am Cael," the man who leaned against the top rail of the balustrade that edged the porch was golden blonde, and clean-cut good looking - the polar opposite to the man who held her. She recognized him, immediately, from the dance academy, even in the dark of night and shadows of the porch, he seemed to glow. "Cecelia Alexis? I saw your advert at the dance academy, for a room to rent?" He said to her with a crooked smile full of charm.

A man, she thought, used to winning people over with his looks, and entirely confident in the power of them.

"Oh," she was astonished that he had chosen to pursue her advertisement so late on a Friday night. How long had he been waiting on her porch? It was decidedly odd, she decided, torn between her need for the room to be rented, and her uneasiness in his sudden reappearance. "It is very late."

"Early, actually," Cael smiled brightly. "Technically. My flight got in today – I did not exactly have a lot of planning time in order to secure lodging. It was either come here and hope you would take mercy on me by providing me with shelter, or sleep in the academy's halls."

"I am sorry," Lia said awkwardly to Raiden. She wanted, very much, to ask him inside, but at the same time was frightened by her sudden recklessness after a lifetime of being sensible in her pursuit of dance. She wasn't even on contraceptives, she told herself sternly. She was hardly prepared to start bringing virtual strangers into her bed. It was good luck that Cael was there, before she did something silly.

Raiden stroked a lock of her hair behind her ear, his eyes gentle. "It doesn't matter. Next time," he said softly with easy acceptance. "Do you know this guy? Will you be safe with him?" He added very quietly, the magic of an alpha behind the tone, ensuring that he was not overheard by the blonde man on the porch.

"I am sure it will be fine," she looked over her shoulder at Cael dubiously. The blond man grinned widely as he watched from the porch. There was almost a competitive one-up-man-ship triumph to Cael's grin – that he would be going inside, whilst Raiden would be staying out.

The grin almost changed her mind, almost had her inviting the werewolf in, but she wasn't ready, she decided, for what that would mean.

"Where's your phone?" Raiden asked, drawing her eyes back to him. She pulled it out of her bag. He opened contacts and entered his name and number in. "Call me if there is any trouble," he told her meeting her eyes. "I can be here in less than five minutes if you need me. Or," he added. "Just call me because you want to."

"Thank you, I am sure it will be okay," she was touched by the offer, and her body still craved his against it. "He is from my dance school."

"Okay then," he leaned forward and kissed her, lingering, and she felt the heat rise between them again. It was very tempting, very, very, tempting to invite him in, she thought again her body rebelling against her mind, and when he drew back, she saw from his eyes that he knew it.

He smiled. "Until next time, Lia." As she stepped away, he held her hand until the last second, their fingertips grazing still as she made her way up the path. He watched from the bike as she unlocked the front door, starting it with a roar and putting on his helmet only once she was in her front hall, with Cael following behind with his bag.

"Your boyfriend?" Cael asked looking around the hallway with interest, his mind only half on the question.

She looked up at him. He had the right physique for a dancer, tall, his shoulders broad and strong. She couldn't shake the feeling that she knew his face from somewhere – maybe she had seen him dance, or on the pamphlets of the school. The not knowing was like an itch she could not quite reach in order to scratch.

She glanced over her shoulder to where the bike retreated down the road. "Yes, I think." It gave her a thrill to think of. Was she really thinking of taking a werewolf as her lover? Yes. Yes. Yes. Why not? Just, not in such a hurry, she told herself firmly. Hopping straight into bed might work for Paris, but it simply wasn't in her nature to do so.

But she'd make an appointment at her GP and start some form of contraception. Just in case the relationship went that way, and she suspected, very much, that it would. There was something between them, something very physical, and, for the first time, she thought it might be worth the complications to her life to explore that.

"Doesn't seem your type," Cael replied disdainfully, his attention still more on the decore then her romance. He stooped to peer into the display case filled with china dolls. "Creepy."

She shot him a look from under her lashes. "I seem to have a type?"

He shrugged a shoulder as he straightened. "I don't know," he said with an easy smile. "You seem like the type to have someone... more civilized."

"Civilized?" She repeated, bewildered as she led down the hall.

As Paris had chosen the upstairs room, he would be across the hall from her. She opened the door and turned on the light. It was a plain room, basically furnished with what she and Paris had not wanted. With the dated decore, it was not a pretty space. "Has its own bathroom," she pointed out as compensation for the ugliness of the room.

He looked around. "It's great." His tone was droll. He dropped the bag he held onto the bed.

"Great," she smiled tightly staying in the doorway as he poked around the room and it's tiny en-suite. "First month upfront, and we split utilities."

She suddenly, bitterly regretted letting Raiden go. It was the smart thing to do, she told herself again, but her body desperately wanted him in her bed, and she wanted to taste him again, feel the warmth of his big body against hers, feel the caress of his breath on her skin, and the touch of his hands... F-k, Cecelia, she shook her head at her own thoughts. She would have to warm up to a vibrator instead, she scolded herself, and hope that grandmother's ghost did not stroll into the room at the wrong time.

Cael was watching her as if he knew exactly where her thoughts had gone.

"So, kitchen," she said hastily, the bed behind him suddenly threatening. She took him down to the rear of the house to the kitchen and dining area and showed him the refrigerator. "Paris and I split the grocery bill, but you don't have to if you want to buy your own – just label it as yours. If you want into the group cooked meals though you will contribute. Alright?" She asked him, putting a hand onto the jar she and Paris used for groceries.

"Alright," he said softly.

She looked up and met his bluer than blue eyes. He had moved closer her, so that he leaned over her, his pupils dilated. He was, she thought, very tall and just so handsome. And so familiar, as if she had seen the way that the light caught in the gold of his hair as he leaned down over her before, as if she had seen his face cast into shadow in just this way.

"How old are you, now, Cecelia?" He murmured, his voice dark and dreamy.

Her eyelids were heavy over her eyes, and she inclined towards him. His breath against her skin was like a caress. "Mhm? Nineteen."

"That would explain it," he said, his lips only a hair from her cheek. His hands closed on her hips and drew her against him, until she could feel the rise and fall of his stomach muscles as he breathed, and the throb of his erection against her. She could smell the slightly metallic residue of magic and wondered vaguely at its origin.

"Explain what?" She felt she spoke from a dream, her body heavy, weighted, and hot with desire. She wanted nothing so much as for him to lay her down upon the floor, or any surface, and strip her to the skin. She wanted to arc beneath him as he drove his flesh into her...

"You're on heat," he breathed into her ear. "Ripe for mating." She moaned, and his hands explored her curves, his breath heavy against her ear, leaving her in no doubt that as needy as she was, he shared the feeling. "The Lycan was a fool to leave."

She felt the cold tiles against her back and knew that he had lowered her to ground. His golden hair fell over them both, softening the harsh light from the light bulb. "But you're mine, aren't you, Cecelia?" He said against her lips.

The roar of motorbikes raised his head and broke into the dream-like quality that held her in thrall. She gasped in a breath, and rolled away from him, regaining her feet in the doorway. Their eyes met, and he rose to standing slowly, with a lascivious smile.

"You..." She started to accuse him of using magic to seduce her, and the words caught in her throat. She had never spoken to anyone about her magic, or her knowledge of it, and yet, with this man, she had come so close.

"Can't blame a man for trying?" He suggested.

"Oh my god," she was appalled, and withdrew, finding her way down the hallway to her room. She pressed her back against the door. On heat? "What does that mean?"

Obviously, she understood what that meant, but she was not a dog... Was she? Cael did not look Other, but the effect he had on her, and his comments... He was something, of that, she was sure. Was she on heat, like he said? What did that mean? And how long did it last for?

She locked her door and went into the walk-in-robe, striking the hidden catch that opened the wall into a secret staircase, shivering as the cooler air struck her. She went into this room as infrequently as she could, and it was musty as a result.

She wound her way up into the turret, the roughly finished stone bricks pressing in on her, and the wooden steps creaking, their treads worn treacherously smooth by generations of feet. In the turret room, the walls lined with bookcases heavy with arcane objects and ancient texts, she lit the candle over the desk pressed beneath a stain glass window and opened the grimoire.

She held her hand over it and tried to calm her heart and remember the lessons her grandmother had fought so hard to teach her. She had never been interested in this side of her heritage, preferring dance to magic.

"Heat," she commanded, and watched the pages lift and flicker. The first spell it landed on was one for warmth. "Next," she said impatiently. Perhaps she was doing it wrong?

A spell for starting fires.

"Heat," she repeated, trying to think about the search engines of the internet. "Mage heat."

There was a pause.

"It is not a spell," her grandmother's ghost observed. "It is an inherited biological response. The book cannot answer your question."

"What the f-k is it?" Lia whirled to face her. "Why have you never mentioned it to me?

"Language Lia." Her grandmother arched a transparent eyebrow. "What does it sound like? You have reached an age where it is appropriate to find a mate and create the next generation. As to why I have never mentioned, I'm quite certain I did, you just were never prepared to listen."

"Right," Lia said sourly. "And what constitutes an appropriate mate, exactly, grandmother? A human, a werewolf, a vampire, a... whatever?"

The book flickered into life, flashing pages from werewolf to vampire, to angel, to devil, to gargoyle, as if presenting her with an array of choices, a catalogue of potential sexual partners.

"That's a good question," her grandmother's ghost smiled indulgently. "Something our women have been asking for generations, as we are compatible with all and sundry. You can choose, of course, sweet Cecilia, my little blind one. You can choose who you take as mate, and accordingly, what your future holds."

What your future holds, Lia repeated as she brushed her teeth in the en suite. Five years before, she had aspired to dance full time professionally. She was in her final year in the academy and seemed to be relegated to the backdrop, whilst lesser dancers got the lead roles. Family mattered in an industry which relied on rich investors to survive, and she simply did not have the right family connections.

Background dancers did not get offers to join companies.

Paris was right, they needed to create their own work. Entertainment dancers was almost a dirty word in the academy, but if being an entertainment dancer meant that she could continue to dance and make money, then she would do it. So, if wearing a French Maid's outfit was the way onto the stage, then she would lift trays Friday and Saturday nights.

The pay wasn't bad, she added as she put the tips into the little safe hidden in her walk-in-robe.

As for taking a mate... She sighed as she folded back the bed covers.

Dancing had filled all the spaces boys might have taken. There was always a rehearsal or a class that meant she could not go out, and she had always been watching her weight, so drinking or going out for dinner simply held no appeal.

She had dated a couple of male dancers since joining the academy, kissed a couple of them, but romantic disputes caused so many issues for her friends that she had decided it was best to avoid them. She had dreams, she had told herself, and there was nothing a man could offer her that her vibrator couldn't achieve.

The was before she had encountered Raiden, however, and in one night, she had almost brought the werewolf into her house, her room, her bed. She'd never done that before. With anyone. But what there was between them was powerful... Or was it the heat and not the man? Did all witches and warlocks go on heat? Did the Others go on heat? Werewolves, she could understand, because of their nature...

Raiden would be able to smell she was on heat, she realized. Was that why he was interested? But, no, that just didn't feel right either.

And Cael... Cael was a problem. She was not entirely sure that she wanted him living in the house after he had almost taken advantage of her. Using magic to do so was just... playing dirty, she added. How many humans had he used his magic on in order to seduce what he wanted from them? And he had asked if Raiden was her boyfriend, and she had told him yes. He'd had no place seducing her knowing that.

She had not exactly resisted, though, she scolded herself.

He had to be a warlock. It made sense why he did not have the Other in his eyes, and how he had used magic to seduce her. Witches and warlocks were not Other, exactly. What they were was a little vague, but they were not the same, and they were very difficult to distinguish from humans, unless they did something specific to give themselves away, like use magic, as Cael had done.

She would speak to Cael in the morning when she got his month's rent from him. She would let him stay, she decided, but she would make clear that it was strictly hands off. He also might be able to tell her more about the heat. Before she had to go to work, at a club full of vampires and werewolves.