Arran and Naomi left the theatre chatting excitably about the production as they walked back to the car.

"Do you want to know something really boring?" Naomi asked when they'd ran out of things to discuss.

"Almost always."

"This is probably the latest I've been out in the city."

"Really? It's only 11:30."

She fidgeted in her seat. "I know, I just don't get a lot of reasons to come out here. I wouldn't know what to do out here and my parents wouldn't let just go for no reason." She paused. "Do you have to get back quickly?"

Arran laughed, "I'm currently under the watchful eye of my uncle Lex, so as long as I come home before my mum does and I'm relatively healthy, I can do what I like."

"You're really lucky."

Arran supposed that he was, she may not always be around, but Celyn's parenting style gave him a lot of freedom now that he was old enough to have it. "Is there anything in particular you'd like to do?"

"What about that bar?"

"The Black Dahlia? Sure!" Arran beamed, he wanted more than anything to see how Naomi would fare inside. "But you won't get in dressed like that." Their school had a business wear dress code and while Naomi's navy suit and white blouse looked very professional, it didn't make for suitable evening wear.

"You're wearing a suit," she pointed out.

"Yes, but I'm a guy. Just trust me, leave your blazer in the car and take your hair down."

"I'm wearing a camisole under my shirt, I could tuck it in and wear that?" she said. Arran nodded, she took off her shirt and freed her box-braids from their bun, shaking them over her shoulders. She looked good. "How do you get in anyway? Have got a fake ID?"

"I don't need one." Arran's mind control skills may have been lacking, but he could flirt his way in anywhere. "They know me there."

He locked the car and they walked back down the road. They reached the street and Arran joined the end of a long queue full of people.

"I thought you said that this place was a bar?" Naomi hung back from the noisy line of people waiting for the night to begin.

"It is, it's the VIP lounge for this club." He tried not to smirk, she had more surprises in store.

"Is it expensive?" she asked, joining him.

"Yeah, but I've got it covered."

"I don't know, I'm not that comfortable with you paying for me."

"Please, I want to see you keep your promise to be less judgemental."

She hesitated before agreeing and they waited in line. In another time, at a club he liked less, Arran would try his luck pushing to the front of the queue, either to skip the boredom or to start a fight, whichever happened on the night. Tonight though, he behaved himself, anticipating Naomi's reaction to The Black Dahlia. Arran paid the £30 to get them both in, despite Naomi's wide-eyed disapproval.

Once inside, Arran took her hand and pulled her up a flight of stairs to a second door, the bouncer raised her eyebrows as she saw them approaching, probably because Arran usually left with girls, rather than arrived with them. Arran smiled at her and she let them past, he pushed open the door and let Naomi go ahead.

To her credit, she hardly slowed as she walked straight to the bar. Arran stared at the back of her head as he followed her, at the bar she turned and leant against it, before speaking through gritted teeth.

"It's a strip club."

Arran was trying very hard not to laugh. "Only on Fridays and Saturdays. We can leave if you're uncomfortable, I just thought that you wanted to keep an open mind," he teased, expecting her to bail.

"Oh I'm good," she said, crossing her arms. "I'm perfectly happy here, but I want you to do something."

"If you want me to strip, I'm afraid they only let the employed dancers do that."

"Oh shut up. I mean I think you need to open up a little."

"What are you talking about? I'm completely open to anything."

"I mean about yourself, you're so secretive." There's a reason for that, he thought. "Every time I ask you about something, you change the subject as soon as you can."

Arran took a breath, she might have had a point, but to talk about himself at all was exhausting thinking through euphemistic and metaphorical ways of saying things. "Alright." He said. "You find us a seat, I'll buy you a drink and we'll talk about me. But if it gets too personal, I'm going to buy you a lap dance to even things out."

"You're on." She disappeared further into the lounge. 

Arran ordered her a cocktail and himself a lemonade. Despite the crowds outside the lounge was nearly empty and nobody was dancing. A few girls who were either dancers or very confident about their ability to pull-off leotards and fishnets on a night out were chatting to some very awkward looking stag party. All in all it wasn't quite the spectacle he had been hoping for to make Naomi squirm.

Since he had already spent more than he'd planned to tonight he decided that he may as well lean into it and added the cost of a pole dance request to his drinks bill. He helped Kit, a dancer he'd chatted to a few times over the summer pick a song and carried the drinks over to Naomi who had found a table in the corner. She had sat facing away from the stage, but was turned to watch Kit dance.

"Even if you're not into girls you have to admit it's fun to watch." He set the drinks on the table.

"Who says I'm not into girls?"

"No one," Arran realised he had no reason to make any assumptions. "Are you?"

She took a sip of her drink and nodded. "I'd rather it wasn't massively well known though, like around school."

"Well, I won't tell anyone." Arran found himself disappointed, despite the fact that he knew he shouldn't pursue a romantic relationship with a human. If Naomi wasn't interested, it was probably for the best, he valued her most as a friend at any rate. But still, he couldn't stop himself from asking, "exclusively?"

"Does it matter?" She challenged, was she flirting, or just being confrontational? Aran could never tell.

"I'm just interested." He tried to sound nonchalant.

"I like boys too." Some of the tension inside of Arran unwound, he chided himself internally and wondered if he was capable of being interested in someone who was remotely the right species. "Not that I've had much of a chance with either," she finished.

"Well, I can vouch for girls, girls are great," he said, making Naomi laugh.

"We're off the topic of you again, we had a deal Redfern." Arran gulped, preparing himself to invent reasons why his family had so much money and excuses for his mysterious disappearing mother. "Tell me about what happened with your ex."

"That's it?" he blurted.

"Is there something else I should ask about?"

Arran shook his head, this was going to be difficult for different reasons, he could be euphemistic about the werewolf stuff but he still didn't want to think about it. "Where should I start?"

"What's she like, why did you guys break up?"

And so, Arran Redfern, immortal son of one of the most powerful creatures in the western hemisphere, found himself sitting with a human in a strip club in Blackpool, talking about his feelings. This night hadn't been quite what he'd expected.

"Well Cree is..." He had absolutely no idea where to start. "She's gorgeous and she's really strong and smart. But her dad is the CEO of this...umbrella corporation that manages companies throughout Europe."

Was any of this remotely believable? Arran didn't know anything about business but there was no way he could explain all of the history that led up to the ascension of the King of Wolves, the werewolf that every alpha of every clan deferred to. Naomi didn't appear to be questioning his umbrella corporation analogy so he pressed onward.

"So she's basically business royalty, she's been brought up to take over, most likely in the next decade and don't get me wrong she's totally capable, and there'd be no one better at the job than her, but it's all she's ever known. My mum does consultancy for McKinney, that's Cree's father, so I saw her a lot when we were kids. Before high school I used to travel with mum while she worked so aside from my half-sister Lucella, Cree was the only other person my age that I really knew. One thing led to another you know, suddenly I was 16, she was 17, she'd moved to Scotland and I was in Lancashire which is really as close geographically as we'd ever lived, so Easter before last we started going out."

"And you broke up this Summer?"

"About two months ago. She's faced a lot of criticism from people high up in her company-"

"Well it does sound like outright nepotism," interrupted Naomi.

"But they wouldn't mind that if she were a guy, trust me it's not the family aspect. They don't want the company run by a woman and her dad has always been harsh on her, she couldn't date me because I wasn't going to go anywhere, even if I followed in my mother's career I'd just be a consultant, not someone with any power."

"So you were the guy she dated to piss off her dad?" 

Arran didn't want to admit that that might be right. The more distance he gained from their relationship, the more he realised that Cree had used him in a lot of ways. He had been so desperate to be part of her life that he'd let her dictate almost everything about their relationship. It had always just been easier. She had always just been more important than him, both to the rest of the world and to him.

"Making McKinney angry was what we did best, she rebelled against her father, wanting to run things on her own terms with whoever she wanted. But this summer it all changed, suddenly I wasn't worth it anymore."

"That's horrible."

Arran shrugged. "Her life isn't easy and being with me was making it harder, up until then we'd always been ready to fight together so I was pretty shocked, but you can't really blame her for wanting to make things a little smoother."

Naomi nodded, fiddling with the straws in her drink before asking her next question. "Are you still in love with her?"

Arran's breath caught, this was a question he'd been avoiding asking himself. "I don't know, I think so. I think about her all the time, whenever I see something that she'd like, whenever something happens that I don't have anyone else to tell. She's kind of like the default for my brain and then I have to remind myself that we're not together."

"Are you still friends?"

"Yes, technically. Though we've hardly spoken in a month and I'm probably pretty far down the list of people to find out if she died."

"Would you-"

"Actually, Naomi, I think I'm done for now, sorry." Thinking about if he was still in love with Cree had hit Arran quite heavily. He felt tired, aside from to Cree herself Arran didn't often talk through his emotions aloud. He would talk to his mother if she asked, but she tended only to ask if it was important and at any rate that required her to be in the country.

"Sorry, thank you for telling me all this." She shifted around the table to sit next to him and squeezed his hand in hers. "It's going to be alright."

Arran looked at their hands together on the table watching as the shifting coloured lights in the lounge turned his bright blue and hers dark purple. "What is this, drinks or therapy session?" He pulled his hand from hers and smiled. "Now why don't I buy you a dance?"

"Why don't we just head back?" She laughed.

Arran finished the last of his lemonade and they left, despite the pain of talking about Cree, he was grateful to Naomi for making him do it. His heavy heart felt a little lighter as they walked out of the entrance to the club.

Taking a few steps out onto the street, however, he sensed that something was wrong. The periphery of his mind's eye had caught something supernatural, he attempted to widen his focus. He briefly touched on the edges of two thought streams nearby, he could tell that they weren't human. Something within him gave way and he lost all telepathic coverage, as quickly as it had come.

He kept close to Naomi as they walked, the street was full of the scents of many people and spilt alcohol so he had no hope of sniffing out the slightly different smell of a vampire. They were at the top of the street before he saw them, two vampires standing outside a pub with a group of loud, inebriated humans. One looked directly at him, nudged the other and smiled, Arran nodded in response and kept walking.

"Do you know those guys?" asked Naomi.

"No," Arran said, very quietly. "Sometimes it's better just to acknowledge than to question it, you never know who wants to start a fight."

If Arran weren't with Naomi he'd have gone back and started a casual conversation, tried to find out what they were doing on his mother's territory and drop some subtle hints that they shouldn't hunt here. But he didn't want to put Naomi in any danger, and though he couldn't put his finger on it something he hadn't quite caught in one of their thoughts made him sure they were bad news.