Did everyone want to taste her like a free sample at Baskin Robbins?

Mer looked at Rush again for some sort of sanity, but he just shrugged his shoulders as he sat at the one of the lower bar tables.

"It's up to you. You can refuse him," Remus said as he leaned his chair back so the front legs floated.

Mark remained with his eyes narrowed, his mouth curled up with amusement and desire, and she could feel Neil off to the side beaming dark magic at her. These two vampires were likely both nuts, but Neil had pawed her like a creep without so much as a hello. If giving her blood to Mark would make that jerks blood boil, she could deal with a nip on her fingers.

"A taste. I'm not an open bar," Mer tried to say calmly, but a tremor shook her voice as Mark smirked and pressed his fangs into a fingertip. His fang sliced her flesh, and it felt like the prick of a pin before he sucked on her finger in a lewd way that had heat creeping into her face. With a wink, Mark trailed his remaining fangs over her finger tips and then released her hand back to her care.

"I like you," Mark said with a smile that was truly sinister, his gaze shining with a lust for a worse fate.

"Continue to test me human, I dare you," Neil threatened with a hiss and a low growl, and she gave him space as he strode past to join Remus at the table.

"Maybe if you weren't a spiteful little cretin and asked nicely, she'd treat you better." Mark laughed as he dropped into a chair at Neil's side.

Mer went to where Rush was, and he bid her sit at a table near them as they talked amongst themselves, but it was all pretty boring to listen to. They started out about territorial boundaries and mage incursions, and she wondered why they didn't just pull out a game of risk and get going on that. When Mark started on about his father's hoard or treasures and weapons, Mer wished she had a crayon so she could doodle a little dragon Mark slithering around his cave. It was the politics that killed her. Their voices got real low and she was not struggling to hear that fiasco.

How did vampires even vote their leaders in, Russian roulette? That's how unstably crazy Rush made them out to be, so she wouldn't be surprised. It was all so droll that she was nearly dozing off until Neil ordered a drink. That shot her awake as the male waiter nodded and headed off to the back. Only a few moments later, a girl walked out to the table so frightened that her knees knocked and her hands trembled on her frilled skirt. The poor thing was as short as Neil, and skinny as stick, not something that could defend itself against a vampire. The girl's naturally blond hair was coiled and secured at the back of her head to leave her neck and shoulders completely bare down to the white poofy bar uniform.

Mer couldn't help but linger on how they were the same age, just into college and barely drinking age. The girl bowed politely to Neil, and Mer swallowed hard as he rewarded her kindness with the viciousness of a vampire. Neil grabbed the back of neck with his clawed hand, and yanked her down to the table so hard the girl nearly knocked her head on it. There, he held her down like a struggling lamb before the slaughter and buried his fangs in her throat.

The violent movement and the sound of the poor girl's gasped off breath had Mer lifting her hand to her throat involuntarily as her heart jackhammered in her chest. Neil held nothing back as he savagely clutched her delicate throat, and though Mer was directly in the vampire's line of sight, his mind was elsewhere—drowning in his blood lust. The sick animalistic way in which Neil set on her was horrid enough, but the slow duration that he drained her was worse. Wide terrified eyes scanned the room for anything and nothing as they girl prayed for help that would never come, and the whimper as Neil didn't ease his grip on her neck in the slightest took Mer's heart and crushed it.

It became readily apparent that Neil did not intend to stop draining her, but by then the girl's eyes had lazed to accept her fate and she was too weak to struggle. Neil was really going to kill her, and Rush, sitting next to him, all but ignoring them. Was this really what Rush wanted her to see? Anger flared within her, but she had to suck it in and give in to despair instead. If she started playing mind-melto on Neil, she'd be the next one on the table.

Fear grew in her that she was going to hear the girl's last gasps for life as she faded away, and she jumped as Mark grabbed the back of Neil's head and yanked him off of her. Thank god Neil let go of her throat instead of ripping it out.

"Neil, you're already on your third strike." Mark groaned with annoyance, but no real care for the girl on the table. "If you kill this one, you'll be banned from here for months. None of us like hanging out at your house because all the bars refuse to allow you in."

Neil glared at the vampire who was climbing pegs on Mer's respect ladder. Rush had done nothing.

"Waiter," Mark called, and the man came and collected the girl who looked like she needed a full fridge of blood transfusions. "Neil's a shitty customer. Give her some blood from the back and she'll be fine." Mark nodded to him, and Mer didn't miss the disgusted look on the waiter's face as he carried her out.

Mer felt numb as Neil wiped his mouth with a sleeve and then went back to talking to Rush and Mark like this was all normal. Not one of them skipped a beat as they resumed chatting and laughing with each other at sick jokes she didn't find at all funny. At least Rush didn't laugh. Of the three, he spoke only occasionally when he could offer pertinent information and did not take part in joking about the death and pain of others.

Mark's drinks were out of glasses, though still a thick red liquid, but she was spared watching another girl throttled on a table for their pleasure. It was about seven or so of those drinks later that two vampires approached their table. The exchange was quick and tense, with hissed and hushed words and a few growls. It was not something she had really been focused on, her mind wound up on the look in that poor girl's eyes. While Mer's situation was poor at best, being a beverage for vampires that might kill her with no greater punishment than a slap on the hand sounded horrendous. It was only when both Neil and Rush got up in aggressive stances that she homed in on the growing conflict.

"I'll be right back," Rush said to her, and she swallowed her tongue as the two other vampires glanced at her. Oh, why hadn't she been listening? With Rush gone and Neil having followed him, she was left alone with Mark who stared off after two of them.

"They might be a while, but they'll come back eventually," Mark said as he stood and approached her table. "Those idiots are just heirs to lesser houses challenging him to stroke their egos. Remus will wipe the floor with them. Come on. Its better we don't linger with those two fighting out there. It will attract attention to you."

Mark waved for her to follow as he headed to the back of the bar, and she was sure she shouldn't be going anywhere with Mark. Staying there alone with random vampires seemed worse though. Without Rush as a shield, wouldn't one of them think she was food? So far Mark had been civil though not particularly caring about humans in general, so she followed him over gambling with the rest of the strangers there. Before she could get very far, a slam on one of the counters twisted her attention around to a vampire who sat at the bar counter.

"Don't go with him," the vampire said with a voice as deep as Rush's.

His pitch eyes rolled like pools of molten tar, and hair identical in color shaded his forehead with only a few locks. It was styled around his ears in a slick weave that didn't spike quite as much as Rush's, but this guy was more like a living shadow. Pitch from head to foot, only his pale skin contrasted with his black pants and the grey suit shirt he wore over it. The garment trailed down between his legs to his ankles in the front and back in some sort of Chinese design.

"Are you coming along?" Mark called to her, but she couldn't turn away from the power of the man's dark eyes ahead of her. It wasn't that he was using magic, but more that he was firm in his warning that leaving with Mark was dangerous.

"Sit with me," the vampire insisted, and she looked back to Mark where he was leading her away. There was some hallway back there and it looked like it wound into the back of the bar.

That left he options as leaving sight with Mark, who was merely someone Rush knew, or she could stay in plain sight with a vampire whose eyes stared so pointedly that they might as well peel her skin off. Mer was really leaning toward going with Mark when the vampire turned away from the bar and toward her. She froze as she expected him to pounce on her, but he only spoke, one hand in his lap and the other safely on the counter top.

"If you go with him, he's going to do unsavory things to you. You're a human slave, and you've already seen that your master can't do much more than slap his wrist for taking anything from you. Including your chastity," Mer swallowed as he throat tightened. "The rooms in the back are lined with dark magic and thick walls, so no would would notice any cries for help. I know Mark pretty well. Sit with me." The vampire patted the chair next to him, and when Mer looked back to Mark, his eyes had darkened and his fangs protruded well past his lips in a silent snarl.

It wasn't much of a decision at that point, and she parked herself next to the stranger. Mark huffed angrily but left her with the man as he headed off to the back anyway. Hopefully there weren't any more women for him to lure. Mer let out a shaky breath as she realized how close she'd come to something truly scarring, but now she had this other guy to deal with.

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Word Count: 1878