Page 47 of Skin Trade

“No. I’m fine.”

Sky’s brows came together. “No. I feel it. Something is wrong.”

Payton glanced to the lift, again. Every time it opened her heart jumped and she expected either Seth or Miranda to come out. Miranda with her long legs and dark cropped hair. Miranda with her big breasts clothed only in tiny pieces of fabric. Not that she had anything to hide. The body of a dancer was something to marvel at.

“Sorry. I think I’ve finished these. Would it be okay if I go and take a walk? I’m not feeling so good.”

Sky leant next to her and checked the screen. Payton might not have been computer savvy, but she was a fast learner, and everything had been done as Sky had asked. “Of course. Is it Miranda?” Sky asked making Payton flush.

“What? No. I--”

“Every girl gets bothered and attached to him, and then when he tends to his needs, they get upset. Sir is not bad.”

“No. He just fucks everyone here.” God, she wanted to smack herself and that tone right out of her. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. He is vampire.”

“I know.” She forced her mouth into a smile. “Thanks for letting me help you. I’ll see you later.”

He is vampire. That confirmed enough of what Seth was doing in his room with Miss Miranda. She didn’t need to go up there and see for herself. To think he was sitting and chatting would only be a hopeful thought and a foolish one. She grabbed her paper and pencils and left Sky to it at the reception desk.

Maybe that was it. Go somewhere and draw, lose herself in it. It had been a good distraction when she was growing up and her parents fought. Sometimes it was just the slice of solace she needed.

Burning inside, instead of going to her room, she walked towards the main entertainment area, but instead of going right in, she took a detour and went through the back area where the dancers kept their things, where the vampires took private sittings. None of them noticed her as she meandered through.

Many of the private booths were occupied this time. Handcuffs clinked; moans echoed around the room in soft murmurs. But the smell in the room was a mixture of sex and blood all rolled into one and locked in. A blood brothel. An example of who and what Seth was. The man who owned a place where people were sold by the hour and then taken as the buyer pleased. Just like Creven, only masquerading under the radar of elegance.

She walked until she came to the cellar door she’d found on her first night, with no idea how she got there or why she had walked this way, but it had been the way her body had taken her. She’d been in a trance, her mind making everything she thought of Seth spiral to new levels. Thoughts of Miranda in his bed, of her naked, of his hands …

“God, stop it.” This wouldn’t do her any good, because soon, he could come to feed on her. He would treat her like he had done all the others and she would be summoned to his room.

Like last time, the door to the indoor garden was still unlocked. But just like before, when she opened it, the scents in the air were earthy and damp. Her stomach knotted as she stood at the threshold to the place. It would be no harm to close the door and walk away now, but no. She wanted to take another look; to see them without the shock of discovery this time.

She stepped inside. The soft earth under her feet made her pause a moment. It was such a contrast to the rest of the place. Lights activated when she moved deeper into the room. This was Seth’s place, his private place, and she was crossing boundaries just being in here, but she kept walking.

As the lights started to illuminate the room, she saw she’d been wrong before. There weren’t just three graves here, there were four. Another headstone sat opposite the first three. Eliza Thatcher, it read. Under her name was a familiar crest and Payton wasn’t sure where she had seen it, or if she had seen it at all. It was faded a little now, but still visible enough to make out.

Taking out a piece of paper from her pad, she knelt down beside the headstone, so she wasn’t being disrespectful and sitting right on the grave. Then she laid the paper across the crest and rubbed her pencil over it, bringing out a shading of the pattern onto her paper. It looked like a rose. A rose with a spear through it.

“You know, it is considered rude to invite yourself into another’s private place.”

She gasped and scrambled to get up and stuff the paper into her pad.

Seth. His dark eyes on her. “Sorry. I--” What? What could she really say? Nothing. She was intruding in a place she had no right to be and Seth had every right to be mad at her for it. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

Hurrying towards the door, she put her head down, trying not to look him in the eye, because if she did, she was sure she’d see the hurt in them. Hurt she felt. She was sorry and he was right. It was rude.

“Sorry,” she muttered again as she went to get past him, but his hand shot out and grabbed her arm, making her stop and go rigid beside him. She’d pushed too many boundaries, gone too far this time. If he chose to punish her, it would be her own doing. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I don’t know why I--”

He pulled her partly in front of his body, but his other hand came up to her face, making sure to find its way with fluid movements along her body, her side, her throat. He turned her towards him, so they were face to face.

“You’re very fascinating. One moment you are full force and trying to show me I have no control, and in the next breath, meek as a mouse.”

“I am not meek.”

“No?”

“No.” She raised her gaze to meet his and had to fight the urge to look away. So fierce, so dark it scared her a little. She swallowed.

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