Fangs for Nothing

Chapter Six THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

LIZETTE didn’t want to admit it to Johnny, but she was terrified of the alligator. So while she knew intellectually that it couldn’t kill her, she still couldn’t help but imagine that teeth crushing her flesh and bones would not feel particularly wonderful. So she was hiding her fear under an aristocratic veneer. It was something her mother had taught her back when she was a child in France. Her mother had frequently been afraid in the tumultuous days of the Terror but she wouldn’t let her tormentors have the satisfaction of seeing they had made her so. Lizette wasn’t going to let Johnny see that she was quite possibly on the verge of having a complete meltdown.

It was becoming more and more clear that she was attached to Johnny for at least the next hour or so, when all she really wanted to do was run away to her hotel room to take a long shower, before putting on her most demure panties and business suit, so that she could pretend none of this had ever happened. It was a little hard to pretend nothing untoward had happened, when the evidence was a living male attached to her wrist.

She supposed that she only had one option: She needed to get past the alligator so they could proceed with their lives outside of this windowless room.

Johnny pulled a riding crop down off the wall.

“What are you doing with that?” She was simultaneously horrified and just a teensy bit aroused, which then horrified her all over again. What on earth was she thinking? One night in a sex dungeon and she was willing to be spanked? Her cheeks heated as she wondered what exactly had transpired between her and Johnny. And had there been witnesses? It didn’t bear considering.

“I’m going to give the alligator a whack if I need to.”

“Oh.” Right. Of course. He was thinking about their safety, not about the sexual escapades they might have engaged in. Lizette cleared her throat and put her purse firmly over her shoulder. “Bonsoir,” she called to Josie Lynn and Drake. “It was a pleasure meeting you, and please extend my felicitations to Zelda when she awakens.”

Johnny just stared at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Drake waved and gave her a smile. Lizette kept her eyes firmly above his waist as she waved in return, then she nodded to Johnny. “I’m ready. What is our plan?”

“The plan is to run past the alligator. If he snaps, I whack. That’s it. Nothing fancy.”

“In other words, you do not really know what to do.”

“Exactly.”

Well, she supposed she could appreciate his honesty. “Understood. Shall we? On the count of three?”

“Let’s just go.” Johnny pulled open the door and they both ran.

Which was something of a challenge, given that they were attached at the wrist and they both tried to squeeze to the left, out of the path of the alligator’s jaw. They were stumbling and bouncing, Johnny’s free arm swinging with the crop even though the alligator wasn’t doing a damn thing. He just sat there looking like they were a couple of complete idiots. He was probably right.

Johnny was dragging her down the hallway and he opened the first doorway on the right. It was the bathroom. “Shit!” he said. He kept dragging her, and the next door was a bedroom. They ran in and Lizette slammed the door shut. Then locked it. She’d seen Jurassic Park. Who knew if an alligator could figure out how to push open a door?

They stood there, both moving away from the door before Johnny burst out laughing. Lizette couldn’t help but smile with him. It was more than a bit absurd.

As was Zelda’s bedroom. Lizette felt like she’d fallen into Barbie’s dream house. There was hot pink everywhere and lots of shiny surfaces and crystal, from the chandelier to the candlesticks on the dresser, to the gigantic crystal-rimmed mirror. Where there wasn’t bling, there was pink, and as Lizette turned, she could see six of herself in the many mirrors and reflective surfaces.

Johnny laughed even harder. “Wow, when you’re on the bed, you can see yourself getting plugged from every angle. That Zelda. What a fun gal.”

“Plugged . . .” Lizette suddenly realized what Johnny meant. “Why I’ve never even considered . . .” Then she cut herself off. Johnny Malone didn’t need to know the details of her sex life, or lack thereof. Even if she had slept with him the night before.

“Maybe you should,” he said mildly.

That annoyed her. “Can we just get some shoes please and get out of here?”

“Of course. Though looking at your feet, Zelda isn’t going to have much you can wear. What size are you?”

“I don’t know American sizing.” Lizette went with him to the closet, because of course, she had to go wherever he went.

“You are size teeny weeny. Zelda is American-basketball-player size. But maybe these will work.” He held up a pair of heels with pink poufs on the ends.

“I’m not wearing those!” Those were stripper shoes. She did not wear her sexuality so blatantly on her feet. She just didn’t.

“How about these?”

They were flats, a big improvement, but they were bedazzled. “I am going to look ridiculous if I wear those. Everyone will be staring at me.”

“So?”

“So the point is to blend in, not to stand out. We’re vampires already, with odd habits. If we draw attention to ourselves, we’re at risk.”

Johnny scoffed at her and pulled out a pair of boots that had a mouth painted on the front. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t want to argue with you about this again. That is how I feel.” And she was right.

“What do you think is going to happen?”

“I could be killed! I don’t want to die!” What was difficult for him to comprehend about what she was saying? Lizette grabbed the boots out of his hands and tossed them back in the closet.

“Well, I want to live,” he told her emphatically. “What’s the point of being here if we have to be afraid of our own shadow? I’d rather die than live forever as a pale, boring, zero-fun version of myself slinking around in the dark.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” she insisted, though she had to admit, there was something about his statement that stung. She lashed out at him, unwilling to admit he could be right. “And I was never fun!”

Wait a minute. That wasn’t what she’d meant to say.

What she meant was that she had seen horrible things done to first her parents, then Jean-Baptiste, and it had changed her forever. She wasn’t carefree, and that wasn’t a crime. There was nothing wrong with exercising caution.

So why did she suddenly feel so terrible?

Lizette lifted her right hand and eyed the handcuffs. “We should try to get these off now.”

“You want me to yank? There’s going to be blood. And then we’ll still both have a handcuff ring around our wrists. Is that really what you want?” He eyed her. “Cause I’ll do it. If that’s what you want.”

Why did he sound so belligerent? She was the one being put in an impossibly awkward position of jeopardizing her job at the VA. Speaking of which, she needed to call Dieter and see if he had any idea what had happened the evening before. She was torn between wanting answers and not wanting Dieter to know anything out of the ordinary had happened.

“Yes, that’s what I want.” Blood would wash off, and unattached to Johnny she could at least go back to her hotel and shower off the remnants of the tawdry whore that seemed to be clinging to her. Every time she shifted, she smelled a man’s cologne wafting off her blouse and other areas.

Johnny lifted his hand and then dropped it again. “Shit. I can’t do it.”

“Why not?” Once again, Lizette found herself among the many women who were mystified by men.

“I can’t hurt you. I just can’t.”

“I’m asking you to.” Yes, it would hurt, but she was an aging vampire, and would heal fairly rapidly. She wasn’t looking forward to the pain, but of course, she would live. “It will be easier to move around.”

“Sorry.” Johnny bit his fingernail, a habit she found both disgusting and endearing. “I don’t want to see you bleed. It’s not right. We’ll find another way.”

Suddenly aware of how close they were standing, Lizette averted her gaze. It was far too easy to stare at him, far too easy to imagine the power he would have in his thighs as he rose over a woman. Over her. These weren’t things she thought about particularly often, but now that she was almost positive she had slept with him, she couldn’t keep her mind from straying in that direction. It was embarrassing, yes, to think that she had done whatever it was she had done, when she didn’t know him at all, and was supposed to be in New Orleans in an official capacity, but at the same time, it was even more upsetting to think that if she had done such things, she couldn’t even remember them. Shouldn’t she at least be afforded the right to have her curiosity appeased? It had been nearly fifty years since she had taken a lover, and that had been something of a letdown.

Her body seemed pleased to have been reawakened the night before, and she found herself wanting to touch his arm, his chest, wanting to slide her tongue across his bottom lip. It was disconcerting.

“That’s very gentlemanly of you,” she told him, because it was. There was something pleasing about his discomfit with causing her pain.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of that before, but I suppose you might actually be right. Maybe I’m improving.” He grinned. “Now let’s find a shoe that fits, shall we? Or at least something that isn’t going to fall off of you.”

What they settled on were little stretchy slippers that women were supposed to put on when their feet hurt from wearing high heels. Because of their stretchy nature, they weren’t as huge as other options would have been, and they were black, which was a relief to Lizette. It was not a relief that Johnny had to help her put them on, lifting her leg up with his hand, his flesh cool and smooth on her calf as he helped guide the slipper. Lizette held on to his shoulders and tried not to think about her body or his body or any bodies, just on getting her foot into the fabric. Except that she was acutely aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing panties, and that vampires had excellent powers of scent. If she could smell his cologne on her, what else could he smell? Besides, it was not her imagination that his hand was lingering.

He glanced up at her, his black eyes intense. “Do you think something happened between us last night?” he asked her.

So to the point. Lizette would have blushed if she had been able to, and reminded herself that Johnny had lived in America for a long time. He wasn’t going to dance around a topic for ages with flowery expressions like European men. Clearing the air was definitely advisable. “Well,” she told him, lowering her newly slippered foot to the floor. “I would say that there are indications that something of a sexual nature occurred.”

“Really? Are you sure?” He stood, slowly, and his male presence overwhelmed her as he rose, occupying her space and dominating her thoughts, unnerving her.

“Yes. I’m fairly sure.”

“How do you know?”

She was regretting that he wasn’t beating around the bush with charm and obscure entendres. “I just know.”

“How?”

He was going to make her say it. Irritated with his persistence, she told him, “I seem to have lost my panties. And I seem to be experiencing a certain soreness that is not from sleeping on the floor.”

Understanding finally seemed to dawn on him. “Ooohh. I see. Sucks we don’t remember, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not sure if it does or not,” she told him truthfully.

Johnny laughed. But his thumb traced across her palm teasingly. “I think it’s a damn shame, actually.”

“THAT’S ZELDA.”

Drake glanced back, surprised to see that Cupcake—or rather, Josie Lynn—was following him. Until this moment, she’d seemed like she wanted nothing more than to be far away from him, both last night and tonight. Yet, here she was. Maybe the allure of his bare ass had finally swayed her. Of course.

“You’re right, that is.”

She stopped and wrapped her arms around herself. She worried her full, pretty lower lip. “This is awful.”

He frowned. Yeah, it was definitely awful. Not remembering what happened to you for hours was not a good feeling. But he wasn’t sure why she was particularly worried about Zelda. Personally, he was far more upset that he’d very likely gotten a little taste of Cupcake and had not a single memory about it. He glanced over at the Amazon still sprawled on the floor.

If there had been any Zelda action, he was glad he’d blacked that out.

Josie Lynn stared at the unconscious dominatrix, looking almost—forlorn. Which struck Drake as an odd reaction.

“Listen,” he said, returning to her side, “I know all of this is overwhelming, but it’s really not that bad.”

Josie Lynn spun toward him, that strangely hopeless look in her blue eyes replaced by a flash of anger.

“Not that bad! This is so far beyond bad, I—I,” she threw up her hands. “I don’t even know what to say. You are acting like this is just another wild weekend in the Big Easy. Well, this may be normal for you, but it sure as hell isn’t normal for me.”

Drake looked down at himself. “And you think this is normal for me? I woke up in a sex swing in a dominatrix’s dungeon. I might have had sex with a woman that I just met last night. And now I’m arguing with that very same woman with my schlong hanging out. Believe me, this is not normal.”

She glanced downward, and to Drake’s dismay his dick reacted instantly, bobbing outward. Damn.

“Well I think we both know the part about sleeping with a woman you just met is probably a pretty normal occurrence for you.”

Something about the disgust on her face bothered him, even though he couldn’t really deny that fact. Hell, he was a single vampire in a band on Bourbon Street. Women just happened. But somehow her expression made him feel—bad. Sleazy, even. But why the hell should it?

Okay, the current outfit really didn’t help.

“You don’t know that,” he finally said, realizing he sounded more petulant than persuasive.

She snorted, a sound that, as much as Drake hated to admit it, sounded cute. “Well I do know that you came into the kitchen while I was working to try to get me to go out with you after the wedding. And I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean just for drinks.”

“That’s exactly what I meant. To apologize.”

“You mean for the unsolicited kiss?”

“Exactly.”

She gave him a dubious look. “You wanted it to be more than drinks. Admit it.”

“No,” he said. “Because that isn’t true.”

She made another face, one that hinted at dimples at either side of her mouth and made her lips look utterly kissable. His dick hardened more and poked out in front of him like Pinocchio’s nose when telling a lie.

He was telling a lie, too, and they both knew it.

But instead of continuing this conversation, which just appeared to be getting him in more and more trouble, he said, “I need to find some pants.”

To his relief, Josie Lynn let him walk away with as much dignity as his assless chaps would afford him.

But after walking a few feet, he realized he didn’t know where he was going exactly. Where the hell would he find pants—or any clothing—in this room? Now, if he wanted a ginormous purple dildo or a . . .

He tilted his head to study one of the items hanging on the wall. Was that a mace?

Yeah, he could find any item of sexual torture, but he was pretty sure a pair of size 34 Levi’s was not happening.

He glanced back to Josie Lynn, who stood in the same place, her arms curled around herself again as if she was cold.

Or protecting herself.

He moved back toward her, debating what he could say to her to help. She had that worried, almost defeated expression again, and despite her obvious dislike of him, he felt the need to comfort her. Of course that was all he’d been trying to do before their conversation went badly just moments earlier.

He paused, trying to think of the right thing to say, when he heard her say to herself, “This was not how this job was supposed to go. How the hell am I going to get the money now?”

Drake frowned. This job? The money? What was she talking about? Then a memory, although somewhat hazy, came back to him. One of the last he remembered from last night. Josie Lynn taking money. Taking money for what?

Could Josie Lynn be involved in whatever had happened to cause their memory loss? And now that he thought about it, where was all their stuff? His wallet was gone. His cell phone. Hell, even his pants. Maybe they hadn’t been just misplaced during a night of debauchery. And he imagined everyone else’s stuff was gone, too. Had this been a robbery of some sort? And was Josie Lynn somehow involved?

If she was, the plan had clearly backfired, at least for her. But she was involved in something. He knew he’d seen her take money and let some people in the back door. He thought about the people he’d seen, trying to remember what they looked like.

They’d looked like . . . Cher. Multiple Chers.

He frowned. Maybe the drug had already started to take effect at that point. Chers. That couldn’t be right.

He looked at Josie Lynn, who was again chewing at her lower lip and looking very, very anxious. Whether his memory of Cher en masse was accurate or not, one thing was for certain; he wasn’t letting Cupcake out of his sight until he got the truth.

JOSIE LYNN STARED at the motionless body of the bride, Zelda.

Well, there was no denying this bride would remember her wedding night. Or if she was like the rest of them, remember that she didn’t remember her wedding night. Josie Lynn was also pretty sure she wasn’t going to be pleased to find her wedding dress, her gifts, and her groom for God’s sake, all missing. This was a nightmare.

Josie Lynn wondered if all of her catering supplies were gone, too. Her cookie tins and serving platters. Her mixing bowls and serving spoons. Everything could very well be gone, and she had no means to replace it. She didn’t see how she could recover from another major financial hit. If those items were all gone—stolen or whatever happened to them—she didn’t think she could salvage her catering career. If she could anyway. It was safe to say the bride and groom probably weren’t going to have anything positive to say about their wedding reception, period.

So much for rave reviews.

She immediately felt selfish. Everyone had lost things last night. And a person was missing. That was far more serious than her nonstick pots and pans.

She curled her arms tighter around herself. And there was another niggling thought that wouldn’t leave her mind. What if she was somehow inadvertently involved? Everything had gone crazy after she let those transvestites into the reception. But how could they be involved in the drugging? After all, they’d just entered the party moments before Josie Lynn had started to feel so funny.

It didn’t make sense.

But Josie Lynn didn’t have time to ponder other explanations, because her thoughts were interrupted by the other guy, Johnny, she thought she heard his name was, shouting to the pirate.

“Hey Drake, there’s an alligator in the hallway, so be careful.”

An alligator? In the hallway? This had to be a joke, right?

She looked over at the pirate—Drake, who was regarding her rather than reacting to what his friend had said. Looking at her? Rather than reacting to a deadly reptile on the loose? She didn’t think that could be a good sign.

He walked back over to her, and he obviously hadn’t found anything to use as pants or a diaper or even a loincloth. But she must have been growing accustomed to his state of undress, because she was definitely more concerned about the expression on his face than his wiener hanging out.

“Did they say alligator?” she said once he got closer.

He nodded.

She looked toward the other couple just as they called out they were leaving.

Josie Lynn gave Drake a startled look. “They are going into the hallway with the alligator? Do you think that’s a wise idea?”

“They’ll be fine,” he said, almost as if he were distracted. But still, there was an alligator out there. She’d grown up on the bayou and knew gators were no joke. And frankly, that French woman didn’t look like she could hold her own with a kitten, much less a vicious beast with a gazillion teeth and a jaw like a steel trap.

“I’m not sure they should go out there,” she said, and again he repeated that they would be fine.

She watched the door close behind the couple, feeling certain she would soon be hearing shrieks of terror and pain.

“Who were those people you let in the back door at the reception?”

Josie Lynn’s stomach dropped and all thoughts of impending gator death vanished. Slowly she looked back to Drake. He’d seen her take the money. Great, he thought she was involved. Hell, she thought she might be involved, too, but purely by accident.

“They were a group of transvestites who said they were friends of the bride.”

“All dressed like Cher, right?”

Josie Lynn nodded, and he looked almost relieved, but that expression quickly faded as his dark eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“You didn’t think it was weird a group of trannies wanted to come in through the back door?”

“Yes I did, but they said they wanted to surprise the bride, and given what the rest of the wedding guests looked like”—she gestured to the shirt she now wore, his shirt—“I didn’t think it was terribly weird that transvestites all dressed like Cher would be her friends.”

He didn’t argue that, but he did bring up the very thing that had troubled her for the moment it happened.

“So why did they give you money?”

She had wondered that, too. Would they have done that if they were just friends? There was something rather desperate about that action. And she’d been rather desperate to take the money.

“They just offered it to me as—a way of thanks, I guess.”

“Or as a payoff.”

“No,” she said shaking her head, even though she wasn’t sure that wasn’t what it was.

“And we’ve already figured out the one thing we have in common is the punch. And who made the punch?” He gave her a pointed look.

Josie Lynn gaped at him. Now that she knew she’d had no part in. “I did not tamper with the punch.”

“Well, you’re going to say that, aren’t you?”

“But I didn’t. That punch was right out in the open on the buffet table. Anyone could have laced it. Besides I drank some, too. Why would I drug myself?”

“It’s a pretty good alibi,” he said, eyeing her even more distrustfully. “If you are drugged-out and with us, then your band of Chers can do the dirty work and split the money with you at a later date.”

“That isn’t what’s going on. My stuff is missing, too. Including the money they gave me for letting them in.” She frantically gestured to the fact that all she wore was his shirt. She had nothing, just like everyone else. Except—

“That Frenchwoman with your friend. Who is she? And why is she the only one who has a purse? Or a cell phone? Maybe she’s somehow involved.”

He seemed to consider her suggestion, then shrugged as if he didn’t really care and he’d already made up his mind that Josie Lynn was the culprit.

“The way I see it, there is only one solid lead, and that’s to find the Chers and find out what they did with all the stuff you guys stole.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” she insisted more frantically. He had to believe her. His accusation was a whole lot worse than just losing her catering company. If he told his friends about her taking the money and his theory that she was involved, who were they going to believe? Even she could admit that she looked like a likely suspect.

“I want to help you find them,” she said, knowing she had to locate these guys—gals—to clear her own name.

“Oh, I have no intention of letting you out of my sight,” he informed her. “A woman who is willing to drug herself, even sleep with one of her victims—”

“One of my victims!” she exclaimed. He could not be serious. “You are not one of my victims. If anything, I was your victim. You forced yourself on me at the reception. You grabbed me and kissed me.”

“I seem to recall you grabbing me and kissing me, too,” he pointed out.

“One of my many stupid mistakes last night,” she muttered.

“Like getting involved with underworld Chers, who got you to do their dirty work, then left you out to dry?”

She clenched her teeth and groaned. There was no point defending herself to his man. He’d clearly already made up his mind about her, and the only way to defend herself was to find the Chers and find out the truth.

Which meant staying with this jerk. Great. And she likely did have sex with him last night. This was just great.

Behind them she heard the door open. She turned, expecting to see the handcuffed couple darting back into the room, but instead two women sauntered in looking so calm that Josie Lynn wondered if the alligator had somehow gotten out of the hallway and was now lying in wait somewhere else.

One of the women was tall and svelte with red hair and pale skin, while the other was petite and almost waifish with blond hair and a wide smile. They were both stunning and utterly unfazed by the scene before them.

“Drake, how unusual to see you with your pants down,” the blonde said with a laugh.

Drake gave her a look, although Josie Lynn could see fondness in the grimace. “Isn’t that part of the fun of living with me, Katie?”

This Katie lived with him? Josie Lynn suddenly felt all the more self-conscious to be standing there in nothing but his shirt. Although the blonde didn’t look upset. Maybe they were truly roommates. Maybe they had an open relationship. But no maybe about it, Josie Lynn did not like the sharp pang of jealousy that had shot through her when he’d said they lived together.

Why the hell would she be jealous—or feel anything for that matter—for this jerk? He was accusing her of being a thief, for God’s sake.

The redhead stepped closer to him and tilted her head, inspecting his look, then said, “It’s not really ‘with your pants down.’ They don’t seem to be intact. What are you wearing?”

“They are chaps, Stella,” Drake said with the odd air of haughty dignity that he seemed to acquire every so often. “I would think being married to a cowboy, you’d be quite familiar with them.”

Stella laughed. “Well he never wears them like that, that’s for sure.”

“See what you’re missing,” Drake stated. Clearly done with the women’s teasing, he gestured to the prone bride. “Zelda is over there. She’s breathing, but I do think she should be brought to the hospital.”

Josie Lynn wondered how he knew she was breathing. As far as she’d seen, he hadn’t gotten anywhere near her.

“Hi,” the blonde said, suddenly appearing at Josie Lynn’s side with her hand extended. “I’m Katie Cortez. I live with Drake. I’m married to one of his best friends.”

Josie Lynn ignored the wave of relief that washed over her as unexpectedly as the jealousy had.

You just don’t want to have had a potential one-night stand with a man who was involved with another woman, she assured herself, not quite believing the reasoning even as she thought it.

She accepted the blonde’s hand. Her fingers were small and cool.

“And they are also in the band together. Maybe you’ve met my husband. Cort?”

Josie Lynn shook her head. It was on the tip of her tongue to say she didn’t even know Drake was in a band, but she didn’t want to reveal to this clearly nice woman that she was in a sex dungeon with a man she didn’t really know. And again, wearing nothing but his shirt.

“Okay,” Stella said, drawing everyone’s attention to her. For which Josie Lynn was very grateful. “I know where Zelda and Saxon’s room is—”

“I’m not even going to ask why you know that,” Drake said wryly.

“Because I’ve come over to feed Waldo, you perv,” Stella said.

“Waldo?” he asked.

“The alligator.”

“You knew about the alligator?” he asked, surprised.

“Yeah, it was Saxon’s one-year anniversary gift to Zelda. Although he’s normally not hanging out in the hallway,” Stella said. “Anyway, their room is two doors down on the right. Drake, go get Zelda some clothes. And something for yourself while you’re at it.”

“Like Saxon’s clothes will fit me,” he said.

“But Zelda’s probably will,” Katie pointed out.

Josie Lynn actually smiled slightly at the horrified expression on Drake’s face. God, this was all so weird.

“Okay,” Drake said, once recovered from the idea of wearing Zelda’s clothes. “Josie Lynn and I will go do that. While you figure out the best way to get Zelda to the hospital.”

“Don’t you think maybe Josie Lynn should stay here?” Stella said, giving Drake a look Josie Lynn didn’t quite understand, but she wondered if the redhead somehow knew he thought she was a part of last night’s debacle. Although Josie Lynn didn’t know how she would know. Drake couldn’t have told her. Maybe nerves were just getting to her.

“You know she’ll be fine with me,” Drake said again with that haughty air.

Stella looked like she wanted to argue, but then just shrugged. Clearly she knew that it would be a waste of breath to argue with him. Josie Lynn had already figured that out about him, too.

“Just be careful. Waldo is a little cranky.”

Not just Waldo, all gators, Josie Lynn thought reluctantly following Drake to the door, but not before grabbing a bungee cord that dangled down from the bottom of the sex swing. She didn’t know what it was for on the swing, but she knew it just might come in handy when facing Waldo.