Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) (46 page)

O
utside of The Other Side
, half a block away from the front door, where bouncers almost too wide to fit through doorways were waving clubbers in. Ali, Toni, and three of Toni’s friends stood in line, waiting to get in. Toni had tickets, but because they weren’t labeled VIP, they didn’t get in directly.

After the pictures she’d seen on the internet, Ali had opted to play it semi-safe in terms of outfits.

For tonight’s venture to The Other Side, she had chosen a halter top and a miniskirt. Not ultraconservative, but far more modest than the body-painted, nude goddesses and the bikini-clad water nymphs that abounded in line. Maybe a better name for the club would have been The Wild Side.

Ali’s halter top allowed her wings to protrude. With her shimmering skin and diaphanous wings, everyone assumed she was a fairy.

She tried not to stare at the women who only wore body paint, their breasts otherwise bare, nipples evident, some hard, some not. Beneath the bright street light, Ali couldn’t tell what they were using to keep their nether lips from showing because that would mean staring. She didn’t want to do that.

She didn’t care if they were naked, though the old Ali may have been a bit squeamish about it. On Kormia, Asazi women covered their bodies in pants or robes, unless they served in the military, in which case they wore tailored uniforms that would blend in to whatever part of the area they were assigned, be it Midland or Heartland.

“Isn’t this exciting?” Toni was a couple of drinks away from slurring her words. They’d all been drinking in the car on the way over. All but Ali. So she’d driven.

It
was
exciting, in a titillating, sexy way. Though the last thing Ali needed was to be turned-on. At least if she was turned-on tonight, it would blend well with her outfit.

A thought came to Ali. She brushed it aside, but it kept returning. She could have sex in this club, in her native form, and no one would know because she’d already have her wings out and they’d assume her skin changed colors because of body paint.

Did she really want to risk discovery?

She pushed the thought aside.

Again.

A
li roamed
around The Other Side, watching the people dance, enjoying the variety of outfits. The music was loud, with a beat that made her want to move with it. She would have been aghast at the amount of skin displayed when she’d first arrived on Earth. By now, she’d seen more than her share of X-rated videos, movies… even music videos were explicit, with dancers resembling strippers.

Who was she kidding? Certainly not herself. She’d been here two hours and she was still wide-eyed about the place, and a bit about the outfits, not because of her Asazi roots. No. Not at all. She’d thought that her time on Earth had hardened her to so much.

A girl in a body-painted corset approached a table where a man sat. He was tall, blond, tan. Ali didn’t expect the girl to lean over and unbutton the man’s pants, taking out his member and… The rest of Ali’s view was blocked as the girl lowered her head.

Another man dressed as a gladiator, wielding a shield, approached the bent-over girl. Moving the fabric of his costume aside, he pushed the girl’s legs apart and set his shield on her back. Lining up his body, with one swift stroke, he was inside the girl, pumping in and out.

Ali averted her gaze and walked away. The club had a no-rules type of policy, it seemed. She was sexually turned-on; she couldn’t help it. She was witnessing the forbidden fruit that she’d denied herself out of self-preservation. She thought of that one night with Finn and the way it had felt until he’d thrown her against the wall when he’d realized it was her. Ali’s skin flushed a delicate pink with embarrassment. She kept walking.

She garnered a lot of looks, some appreciative of her costume, some curious, and several flirty—from men and women alike.

It was cute until one guy decided he would be a smartass. As she walked past him, he tugged on her wings. Her wing made a creaking, tearing sound, like when she’d had the cartilage in her ears pierced a few weeks back. Tears sprung to Ali’s eyes from the intensity of the pain.

She whirled around and punched the guy in the face. “Don’t do that, you… you…” She was going to use an Asazi curse word, but caught herself in time. “You Dutch bag.”

His hands flew to his nose. “Damn! What the fuck? It’s douche bag, you bitch.” He kept his hands in place and tilted his head back. Blood seeped past his fingers. “It’s not Dutch. It’s douche.” His voice was muffled from the injury.

“Whatever. You know what I meant.” Ali didn’t always pronounce things quite right. She scrambled to correct herself as others began to stare. “I said douche. I have an accent. A-hole.” She stormed off, working her way through the crowd, trying to keep her injured wing from sustaining any painful jostling.

How could I have screwed up like that?
If the asshole wanted to, he could have called a bouncer in. They could have called the police in and have her arrested for assault. Here she was, trying to stay under the radar and to avoid being found by her people, and she’d risked it all by losing her temper and hitting him.

She wanted to be left alone.

Ali found a corner that wasn’t too overcrowded to hide and cool down. She leaned against the wall. The crease where her wing met her back burned. She touched it. Bloody.

Jerk.

T
hane noticed
the woman the first time she made her way around the dance floor. She carried herself far differently than the other club girls. And she seemed completely sober. She was blonde, the primary thing that made noticing her odd, because he was usually attracted to brunettes.

The second thing he noticed was her outfit. She was in a halter top and a miniskirt. That in itself wasn’t so unusual—it was the rest of her costume. The skin and the wings. Her skin shimmered, reflecting the club’s lighting, seeming to change color.
Coolest body paint ever.
And her wings. They were expertly done. It was as if she’d stepped off the set of a movie shoot.

His attention elevated to a more alert status when a guy seemed to zero in on her. Thane’s eyes narrowed, much like a predator’s, but he didn’t move. The guy then made a huge mistake. He tweaked her wing, more or less like a boy would snap a girl’s bra.

A smile snuck its way to Thane’s face when the blonde whipped around, a complete one-eighty, and popped the ingrate on the nose.

Like a pansy, the fool grabbed his nose and proceeded to whine or curse at her.

That’s when Thane decided he’d had enough. He approached them. The blonde didn’t notice he was there. She whirled around and slipped past him, while Thane put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

“It’s time for you to go, friend.” Thane looked at the man’s bloody face.

“I’m not going; who the hell—”

“Sure you are.” Thane concentrated on the man, holding his gaze, compelling the man’s thought processes without saying a word.

“I think I’m ready to go home. I’m going to ask them to call me a cab.”

“Great idea.” Thane patted the man on his shoulder. “And you’ll never bother her again, got it?”

“Got it.” The man nodded but didn’t move, staring at Thane.

“Go,” Thane whispered.

The man turned and headed toward the door. Thane looked over his head, spotting the blonde leaning against a table in the corner, an expression of pain on her face.

It would be so easy to get to know her better. A quick compelling and she’d be his.

No, he didn’t want her that way. He wanted her to want him.

Why was it so different with her? Why couldn’t he take the easy way?

B
efore she saw him
, Ali felt him. More like, what she felt was his intensity. She glanced up, fought to keep the grimace of pain from her face, and looked for whatever was making a wave of sensation go through her body.

There he was. His eyes were focused on her. They burned through her. That was the intensity she felt.

The first thing she noticed was how tall he was. Or maybe that was the second, because most of all the man was striking.

Strikingly handsome. Strikingly dark. Strikingly sexy.

His eyes were the deepest of browns, possibly even black. His skin was richly tanned. Every feature was chiseled.

Ali saw many good-looking men in Los Angeles, but this man, there was something markedly magnetic about him. She didn’t acknowledge him, other than to return the stare.

His hair was black, the color of the darkness on the darkest of nights in Kormia, and long enough to touch his collar. And he was in a black suit with a crisp white shirt that draped across his wide chest, emphasizing muscles that had muscles. His shoulders were broad, and his arms strained the fabric of his suit. Curious, her gaze shifted lower, but she pushed her eyes back to his face as soon as she felt the warmth flooding to her face. She knew she was turning pink with desire and embarrassment. She looked down at her arms.

Exactly as she thought, the delicate shell pink of her shame was undulating with the dusky-rose pink of her lust.
Shadows be cursed.

She wished she could hide her desire. She looked back into his unfathomable gaze, thankful that everyone would think this was her costume, because if she were amongst her people they’d be able to read her desire instantly.

The sting in her wing turned to a gradual dull ache while she kept her eyes glued on the man. What was he doing? Most men she’d met on Earth would go talk to a woman after they’d established eye contact. But this man…

Should she talk to him? She deliberated approaching him, but something about him made her core quiver the way a piano string would hum a vibration. The sensation traveled throughout, centering on the core where she achieved her pleasure, migrating to all ends of her body, leaving behind an awareness that alarmed Ali.

She couldn’t talk to this man. She wasn’t sure she could even look at him anymore. The sensation was too intense, it made her too nervous.

She swiveled abruptly and turned her back on him, heading away from the pulsations—or was it emotions?—the man was creating in her.

T
hane was mesmerized
by the woman. He’d known a variety of females in his long life. Had been with many—he wasn’t ashamed to admit—from his own kind to the two-headed witches from his planet, to the shifter types on Earth. Females never held his interest for long, and he’d never been captivated this way before.

She’d stared at him with those green eyes, a fire behind them. She hadn’t turned away or been shy or embarrassed. Her interest was evident, but even more so was her strength. She wasn’t interested in yielding to a man. The hunter in him wanted to rise to the occasion more than ever and meet her challenge.

Then she’d whirled away, almost as if she were dismissing him, though there was nothing dismissive in her manner. Was she avoiding him? Did she feel the same attraction and was running from it?

The urge to pursue her was primal, as was the response he felt. His pulse quickened, a fire ran through his veins, a desire to take her, control her, claim her, make her his.

Brad walked into Thane’s peripheral vision then stopped in front of him, a questioning look in his eyes. “Deep in thought?” He looked in the direction Thane was looking. “She’s interesting. I noticed her.”

That made Thane bristle, and a part of him wanted to tell Brad not to. Not to notice her. Not to watch her. Not to want her. And definitely not to approach her. He clenched his jaw and kept those thoughts to himself.

“She’s never been here before, has she?” Thane made it sound casual, though he knew she hadn’t. “She’d make a great addition to the staff.” He looked at Brad—then he did something he had promised himself long ago that he wouldn’t do. He compelled a friend.

“I wonder if she’d like to work here. I’ll be right back.” Brad took off in the direction of the blonde in his haste to do Thane’s bidding.

As Thane watched him go, one thing occurred to him. He didn’t tell him or compel him not to make a pass at her…

A
li wanted
to turn around to look at him. To see if he was watching her leave. To see if he still had the same expression. If he was watching another woman with the same look on his face.

She didn’t. She made fists of her hands, keeping them in front of her, out of his sight in case he was watching. She fought the urge to look and won. But barely.

She’d never seen a man like him before. Sure, she saw hot men daily here. It seemed all of them flocked to Los Angeles looking for acting or modeling work.

This man, though—this dark, striking, hunter of a man—was different. He wasn’t good-looking, not in the way all of the men she seemed to have met were. He was unforgettable. That summed it up.

She headed toward her friends’ table.

“Whhhatt’s wrrrong?” Toni intercepted her just as she arrived at the table. Her slurred words told Ali she was way past drunk. “You look…”

“I stubbed my toe.” What was Ali supposed to say? Some asshole hurt my wing? Ali’s mind was on that dark stranger who’d been watching her. She wanted to turn around again. Still.

“Awww.” Toni made a drunken, exaggerated pout.

A tap on Ali’s shoulder made her jump.

Was it him?

Could he have followed her?

Was he approaching her?

She found herself wishing it was. And then she found herself chastising herself because this whole thought process was so very unlike her. She didn’t respond to men like this.

No. she didn’t. She never had. Not even with Finn.

She would count to three, slowly, then turn around casually.

One.

Two.

She turned around. She couldn’t make it to three. But at least her turn was a slow one, when she really wanted to spin around.

She conquered allowing her confusion to show on her face so that the man in front of her wouldn’t notice. More than that, she battled disappointment from presenting itself.

The man in front of her was attractive, sure… in an LA kind of way. He was blond, average height, average face.

The man in front of her was not
that
man.

“Hi,” the man in front of her said. “I’m Brad.”

“Hi, Brad.” Ali forced herself to be polite and look him in the face, rather than scanning behind him to see if
that
man was still around.

“I’ll get right to the point,” Brad said.

I hope you do, and keep it brief.
Ali smiled at him, trying to think of ways to get out of this conversation.

“We’re hiring.” He laughed a self-deprecating laugh. “I mean to say, I’m one of the managers here. Your costume…” He waved toward her wings, then her skin in general. “It’s superb. We’re always looking for attractive costumes and friendly faces here at The Other Side.”

Ali cocked her head. “You’re offering me a job?”

“You interested?”

Toni popped her head between them. “She shuuuure is. You’re hired, Ali.”

Ali’s smile was sheepish. “You’ll— I’m sorry… my friend…”

“Understood.” Brad reached into his pocket, pulled out a card. “I hope you’re interested. My info’s on the card. Stop by some afternoon before five.” Brad put his hand out.

Ali shook it. “Thank you.”

With that, Brad was gone, and Toni was jumping up and down like a pesky leprechaun. Which would fit, since she’d worn a green, shiny latex-looking dominatrix outfit for the night’s outing.

“You got to take it. You know how much they pay here?” Another jump, then another, and another. “And now I can get in anytime, without having to stand in line or pay.” Toni punctuated every other word with another leap.

Ali feared if Toni kept up the jumping, she’d puke. She put her hands on Toni’s shoulders, pressing her down, keeping her feet on the ground. “Job’s that good?”

“Yes!” Another one of Toni’s friends, Amber, whom Ali had met for the first time tonight, butted in, envy clear on her face.

Ali remembered
that
man, his face crossing her mind. A second later, that sensation hit her again. The same sensation she had when
he
had looked at her. She raised her eyes, scanning the club, looking for his darkness, his sexiness.

There he was.

He was talking to Brad, but his eyes were focused on Ali with the intensity of a high-powered laser.