Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness by authors_sort

ourselves?”
    “Nothing, Lorelei. We’re not looking for a relationship. There’s no reason for us to tell them anything.”
    “Not even our names?”
    “Oh, you can tell them your name.”
    “I can?”
    “Let’s see. Tonight your name is Diane. No last name.”
    “Diane?”
    “Right. And I’m Elsa. I haven’t used that one recently. Elsa. Okay, Diane, here we go,” she said, pulling up to the entrance.
    The valet stepped forward eagerly to take our car. Ava seized my left arm when I opened the door before the valet had a chance to get to it.
    “You’re being too anxious. Don’t step out awkwardly like some high school teenager, Lorelei. Slowly, slowly, always move as if there are a hundred pairs of eyes on you. Sex and grace go together well. The men will see immediately that you have some class, experience. Think about your posture. Concentrate on your figure. Always be aware of yourself. Do nothing by accident, no matter how small and insignificant you might think it is.”
    “Okay,” I said, but let her get out first so I could mimic how she moved, turned, paused, and started toward the entrance to the club.
    She smiled at me to indicate I was doing it right, andI felt confidence transfusing from her body into mine. Maybe the men in here wouldn’t think of us as sisters, but they would surely think there was no innocence poured into our clothes and shoes. The two men at the door practically leaped out of their own clothes to get the rejected young men to make a path for us, and they opened the doors quickly for us to a few choruses of catcalls and whistles. Ava ran her hand over the cheek of the door guard on our left and then down under his chin, holding her hand up as if she had an invisible wire tied to him and she were inviting him in with us. I thought I could hear his quickened breath and small moan of pleasure. His companion on the right smiled hopefully at me, but as Ava instructed, I touched him only with my eyes. It looked as if it had the same effect.
    “Very good,” Ava said. “Feel the power? You’re the puppet master, and they are the puppets.”
    We stepped in and then paused like two divers on a cliff about to dive into the sea.
    Now, anyone judging my reaction to Dante’s Inferno would have to take into consideration the fact that I had never even been to a house party or a school party. I had never gone on a date or been alone with a boy. The only dancing I had ever done was in our house with one of my sisters and my daddy. I was up on the music and the dancing, and I had seen movie scenes shot in such places, but until that very moment, I never fully appreciated the effect such a sight would have on me.
    My heart began to race as it never had, and I felt the blood rising through my neck and into my face. For a moment, I thought I might simply explode. My eyescouldn’t swallow what they drank in fast enough. And my ears felt as if they were opening wider and wider to take in all the music, laughter, giggles, and screams of joy and excitement before us. I felt Ava’s hand on my arm.
    “Easy,” she said. “Remember. Slowly, slowly. Let it all come to you.”
    We walked toward the bar. Wouldn’t they check to see my age? A small panic started at the base of my stomach. I could be terribly embarrassed. Why wouldn’t Ava think of this? I turned to signal my concern, but she didn’t move her gaze from the men who were standing between us and the bar. Instead, she just squeezed my hand hard, which I knew meant
relax.
I tried. The men separated, none of them taking their eyes off us.
    “Ladies,” one tall, dark-haired boy wearing a pair of wire-frame glasses said. He bowed and gestured at the seats that had been quickly vacated for us. I thought he had a gentle, sweet face and warm hazel-brown eyes.
    “Thank you,” Ava said, and took one seat, nodding at the other for me.
    “What would you Miss Americas like to drink?” a shorter, blond-haired boy on my right asked us. He