I didn't get the chance. I walked out, towel around my neck, hair damp and sticking to my face, and there, sitting on the railing on the second floor like a very beautiful bird on a wire was the girl I'd dreamed about.
The vampire I'd dreamed about.
I hadn't lied to Claire, not actually. I'd honestly figured that it had been a dream, because it hadn't seemed like me at all--what I'd been doing, saying, thinking. It's like that in dreams, right? You don't have to be yourself.
But there she was, just as curvy and fresh and gorgeous as she'd been last night, in the dream/not dream/maybe possibly dream.
And she was smiling down on me like we had a secret. I wanted to be angry, to feel that rush of adrenaline I almost always got in the presence of a vamp, but it seemed like whatever my brain thought, my body reacted to her like it did to a pretty girl.
A pretty girl smiling at me.
"Hey, Shane," she said. She had a lovely voice, low and sweet, and it sounded like she was the only thing in the room when she spoke. "Nice to see you here. Did you think about my offer?"
Oh, man. It took me a minute to sort out what kind of offer she was talking about; that smile made a bunch of offers that had nothing to do with the gym. "The advanced sparring group," I said. "Right?"
"Yes." Her smile took on a mischievous, knowing curl. "Whatever else could you possibly be thinking of?"
Stop this. Stop it now.Some part of me was angry, trying to shake me out of it, but it was a very small part, and the rest of me felt...calm. Right. Like all this was inevitable--fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it.
But at the very least, I wasn't going to go chasing after some vamp girl, no matter how pretty she was. I couldn't do that to Claire, and deep down, there was always going to be a part of me that a vampire couldn't touch. I hoped. So I said, staring straight into her clear blue eyes, "I'm just here for the fighting, lady."
"Glory," she said. "Gloriana. But you can call me Glory."
Of course. I'd seen her before, and it came back to me clear as day this time; I'd seen her at her welcome-to-Morganville party, but not close up. She'd been trying to drag Michael off then, and she hadn't been focused on me at all. I'd thought she was pretty, but not, you know,pretty.
Not until she'd turned that smile and those eyes on me. Then I understood how swept away Michael had felt. It was like being hit with a tsunami of hormones, and, man, did it feelgood.
"You came for the fighting," she said, and pushed off the railing. She dropped twenty feet and landed like a cat, barely flexing her knees to absorb the impact. Her gaze never left mine, and her smile never faltered. "All right, then. You should get what you came for. Follow me."
I expected her to take me to the mats in the center of the room; there were people working out there, doing throws, kicks, blocks, that kind of stuff. Your basic martial arts sort of activity.
But she took me another way, through an unmarked door at the back, down a plain hallway, and through another door marked private, into a room with an actual boxing ring on a platform. Two guys stripped down to form fitting shorts were whaling on each other, and they were doing serious damage. I stopped and watched, analyzing speed, force, agility, endurance.
"They're good," I said.
"They'd better be," Glory said. "Do you think you can hold your own?"
"Yeah." I said it without any particular sense of bragging; I just knew I could. These guys hadn't grown up with my dad. "Bring it."
"I need to match you up with a partner," she said. "Vassily? Who do you think Shane should spar with?" While she asked, Gloriana reached into a big, black refrigerator on the wall and pulled out a sports-drink bottle, which she held out to me. I frowned at it, but she raised her eyebrows and gave me a charming little smile. With dimples. "Trust me. It's good for you. Protein drink, special recipe. Free with your membership."
I took it and very cautiously sipped. I know, stupid, right? Who takes something from a frickin'
vampire? But there was something sosafeabout her. It was like I couldn't distrust her, even though I wouldn't have ever taken any damn drink from another vampire, ever.
And it tasted good. Gritty, the way protein shakes do, but with a buzzing edge. Caffeine, maybe. It raced through me with a hot shiver. Made me feel amazing--alert, strong, pumped.
"Shane?" Vassily, the vamp who'd been teaching that first class, the one I'd put down, came over. He'd shed the gi and was wearing standard gym clothes, and he'd left his long, thick hair down to spill over his shoulders. "Ah yes. This one. Let's have him spar with Jester. That should be an interesting matchup."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Jester." Vassily smiled and beckoned someone over from the shadows, where he was leaning against the wall. As the man crossed into the light, I recognized the pale skin, the slightly too-bright eyes. Vampire. Unlike Gloriana, I didn't feel warm and fuzzy about him, not at all. "Jester, meet Shane. You'll be sparring."
Jester glanced at me, dismissed me, then stared at Vassily. "Hell no," he said. "I'm not fighting some punk human. They break."
"Suit yourself," I said. "Saves you a good ass kicking."
"What did you say?" Jester looked honestly surprised and puzzled, as if he couldn't believe I'd had anything to say, much less something that wasn't exactly complimentary. I shrugged.
"I can take you," I said. "Believe it."
"Prove it, Blood Bag," Jester said.
Gloriana laughed and waved. "Boys, boys, there's enough time for that. Today, you just...spar." She turned to Vassily. "I have places to be. But I believe that my work here is done for now."
"Yes," he agreed. "For now. Come back soon, lovely girl. I'm going to need your help with the old man. He's been getting a bit...impatient."
I watched her walk away, still feeling that subtle buzz of her presence, that seductive thrill...and it didn't go away when I looked at Jester and said, "Let's go, Fang Boy."
And that was the beginning.
Pain, yeah, there was a lot of that, but it seemed like the more time I spent in the ring, facing him, facing everything that I'd ever hated on such a primal level, the pain meant less and less. What mattered was letting the monster out from inside me, the one I'd been starving for almost a year.
I'd come to Morganville to take down vampires.
And Vassily and Gloriana were giving me the chance to do just that.
And oh, God, Ilovedit.
On the way to Common Grounds, Claire texted Shane--just a quick message to say she loved him. No immediate reply, but one buzzed through by the time she'd walked the distance to Common Grounds.
Shane's message said,Be home late luv u .
She was still smiling and feeling almost completely happy when she opened the front door of the coffee shop and heard the bell tinkle to announce her arrival. This time of day, it was full of students gathered together at tables, books and computers out. Study groups, mostly.
She spotted Gloriana right off, because she was at the traditionally vampire tables, in the deepest shadows at the back of the room...and she was surrounded by other vamps. All male. There must have been five or six of them at the table, more than she'd seen gathered together anywhere but in Founder's Square--old-looking, young-looking, all with identical expressions of rapt interest on their faces. All staring at Gloriana, who sat comfortably with one leg folded under her, sipping whatever was in her plain white mug, smiling, and talking. She reallywas pretty, and unlike a lot of pretty vampires, she came across as nice. Sweet, almost. Claire had good reason to think she wasn't, because Eve had taken an instant dislike to her, but still.
It was impossible to resist her charm.
The proof was that one of the guys sitting at the table was Oliver, still wearing his long, tie-dyed Common Grounds apron. He was staring at Glory with a small, bemused smile on his lips, as if he couldn't quite believe that she was here in front of him.
He glanced over and saw Claire standing there, and the smile disappeared. He stood up and came over to her. "What?" he asked. The warmer side he'd been showing to Glory was all gone in a flash.
"Uh, sorry to bother you, but could I get a mocha?" She was buying time, because looking at the situation in front of her, Claire honestly couldn't see how she was expected to get in close enough to talk to Gloriana, let alone gain her trust, or grill her discreetly about Bishop. Wasn't that Oliver's job, anyway?