My roommate and I had every CD Ray had ever recorded.
Every DVD of his videos too. But we'd boycotted his duet with Sienna. Because, even though Nathan was right that the song had gone platinum practically overnight, we'd hated the way the young slut had been all over "our" Israel Caine. Before we'd met Ray we'd been ridiculously obsessed fangirls. What can I say? The man can sing and look great doing it of course.
"Fine. I won't tell Sienna Ray's secret and I'll do something to stall her. Now you concentrate on fixing Ray. Is there anything you can do, Glory?" Nathan stared down at me. Waiting for my vampire miracle cure.
I knew of only one way to get bad blood out of a vampire's system. I stood and stared at Ray. He was really pale and still not moving. I gestured and Nate followed me to the hall again. When the three of us were outside, I shut the door and leaned against it. A quick sniff assured me Nate was the only mortal upstairs.
"This may not work. But it's the only thing I can think of. I'm going to have to feed Ray."
"Feed? But you said he can't eat. Which is a bummer. I know he really misses Italian food and Will's chili smells delicious. Ray'd really like that." Nathan scratched his chin then did a double take when he noticed my fangs were down. "Oh, I guess you mean give him your blood. Fine. Do it. What're you waiting for?"
"I already fed Ray once. Last night." Valdez growled, but hushed when I nudged him with my foot. "It was an emergency. Like this is." I told Nate about Ray cutting his foot. "Ray healed, but he still woke up sick. And without his voice. I think, though, that the more new blood he gets, the more it will dilute the alcohol in his system."
"Like I said. Get after it."
"You get after it, mortal. Go in there and throw yourself on your buddy's fangs." Valdez showed some teeth.
"That's not what Ray needs, Valdez. Aged vampire blood. That's what has healing power." I couldn't help it. I took a deep breath and almost sighed with pleasure. "So I'll feed Ray right after I take care of myself first. I have to power up before I let another vampire drink from me again." I put my hand on Nathan's muscular arm. The man obviously worked out. Hmm. "Nate, I hate to ask this of you, but, umm, you're AB negative, aren't you?"
"Here we go," Valdez muttered. "AB neg trumps Cheetos every time."
"What?" Nathan jumped back, his eyes wide. "You want to bite me? Drink my blood?" I smiled. I knew for a fact Nate wasn't a vampire virgin. He'd had a little romantic interlude with a female vamp who'd taken him down a pint or two. I usually relied on synthetics myself, but to help Ray, I figured I needed some really high-octane stuff, and my fave is AB neg. I'd known from the first inhale that Nate was just my type.
"Surely you'd be willing to donate. For your best friend? I can put you under the whammy if you're afraid it'll hurt." The whammy makes a mortal have temporary or, if you want, permanent amnesia. Works on immortals too if you're lucky enough to catch one of them off guard.
Nate glanced at Valdez then gave me a really thorough once over. I still wore Ray's T-shirt and shorts. No underwear, of course. My thong had been snipped along with my jeans. "Don't suppose this could be made part of something a little, um, more interesting."
"Watch it, Burke. Glory's not available."
"Oh, yeah? Available or not, Nathan, I'm afraid all I'm interested in right now is a little fang action. Valdez, why don't you take a chill pill, sit your butt downstairs, and do your bodyguard thing while I enjoy drinking at Nate's personal fountain?"
"Just don't enjoy it too much." Valdez bumped me with his butt on his way down the stairs.
"Remind me to tell Brittany how you've been sniffing around that dachshund in apartment 3C," I said to his backside.
"She's a min pin, a miniature pinscher. And you stay out of my love life."
"Same to ya, V." I turned to Nate. "Come on, Nathan. Whether you think this is interesting or not remains to be seen." I pulled Nathan toward one of the empty bedrooms. I wasn't about to do this in the room with Ray, even if he was practically unconscious. That seemed too much like a threesome.
"Wow. Thanks. And you don't need to whammy me, Glory. Ray's my best friend. I'll do whatever it takes to help him recover." Nate threw himself on a queen-size bed that had obviously seen some overnight action.
"You're a good friend. And this won't hurt. Not much, anyway."
Nate's eyes widened and he braced himself like he was about to be drilled at the dentist's office.
"Oh, relax, Nathan. I'll be gentle. I just need to be full strength when I feed Ray. So we can dilute the poison he put in his system." I sat beside him and picked up his wrist.
"Wait! You mean alcohol is poison to him now?" Nathan frowned as he watched my fangs descend even farther. "That would be good news. You know I was afraid Ray was about one drink shy of turning into an alcoholic before this vampire gig came up." I inhaled Nate's delicious scent. Hoo boy. I gave up drinking from mortals decades ago. Back when synthetics were invented. It was a conscious decision because, after centuries of having to hunt and use unsuspecting mortal donors to survive, I was kind of over it. Now, though, years of denying myself that fresh taste hit me hard. Didn't hurt that his blood type was like Godiva to me. Way too expensive in the synthetics to be more than an occasional treat.
"Ray won't be hitting the bottle anytime soon. He'd be a fool to put himself through this again. He said he didn't even get a buzz from what he drank last night." I lifted Nate's wrist to my lips.
"Wait!"
"What now?" I was dying here. To be so close to nirvana
Nathan smiled, suddenly all naughty bad boy. "Ray and I grew up together, you know?"
"Yes, I've heard all about your gilt-edged 'hood.' " Poor little rich kids went to all the best schools the Chicago suburbs had to offer. Then Nate had gone on to Harvard while Ray had made music his life. Did we have to go into this now? I was ready to just whammy Nathan and get on with it.
"He tells me pretty much everything."
"So?" Had Ray lied and said we'd slept together? Maybe I'd let him suffer with his hangover a while longer. I dropped Nate's wrist on the bed.
"I know you're just his mentor, Glory. And he really appreciates it. But he'd like your relationship to be something more. We both think you're hot."
"Oh?" Now this was interesting. I barely stopped myself from going all girly, throwing back my shoulders and tossing my hair.
"Would you, well, would you drink from my neck? Pretend we were lovers? Just so I can stick it to Ray?" Nate sat up and put his hands on my shoulders. "It'll be fun. We can pull his chain. I've seen him try some of his 'never fail' moves on you and seen you deflect them. Valdez says that's because it's you and Blade all the way."
"Jeremy Blade and I have a complicated relationship. Which is sometimes on, sometimes off." That dog was going to earn a muzzle if he didn't quit telling everyone I was in a committed relationship. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. Getting stuck dateless on New Year's Eve made me feel pretty uncommitted if you want to know the truth.
"Good to know." Nate popped the rubber band that had held my hair back in a ponytail and ran his hand through my curls. Then he slid one hand to the back of my neck the other to the edge of my sleeve to stroke up my arm. Seems like Ray wasn't the only one with some "never fail" moves. "The idea that you and I have been together will drive Ray wild." I shivered. Nates hands were warm, human warm, and I hadn't had that kind of touch in, hmm, decades. He had good instincts, lightly touching the vein pulsing in my neck, then tracing a path to my collar bone where Ray's too-large T-shirt gapped.
"Pulling Ray's chain. Sounds good." I took a breath and tried to think beyond the smell of warm blood and the feel of warm hands on my body. Nathan rolled me on top of him. Like he was getting me into position, then smiled up at me.
"Go for it, Glory. Do whatever you want. I'm game."
He was game, all right. I could feel the bulge of him nestled between my legs. Interesting. Nathan was a hot guy, but the only thing turning me on was being close to his warm human blood. But he did deserve a reward for this sacrifice.
"Listen, Nate. Ray and I, well, any vampire can read your mind whether you want us to or not. He'd know in a heartbeat if we lied about hooking up."
"That's crap." Nate ran his hands down my back and cupped my bottom to press me against him. "So I guess we have no choice but to make this the real deal if we want to play with Ray's head." He gently bit my wrist where it lay next to his head.
"Hate to disappoint you, but we do have a choice. I can give you a hot memory of what could have happened in this bed. It's what we do when we've fed from a mortal and we don't want him to remember the deed. We plant a false memory and send him on his way. So I can do that here. Then, if Ray checks out your story, he'll see you think we've done the deed, Super Stud." Nate grinned. "Super Stud? Have you been talking to my exes?"
We both laughed. "No, I googled you, though. There are thousands of blogs about you and your prowess." Nate slid his hands up to my waist. "Could be. You won't know until you try me for yourself. You sure you want this to be just pretend?" He had a very sexy smile and his mind was full of interesting ideas of what he could do to me. I decided this had gone on long enough. I looked into his eyes and put him under the whammy. Nathan would think it was real. I'd know otherwise. I proceeded to give him aahem, pardon the expressionblow -by-blow description of us burning up the sheets. I mean, his memories were absolute scorchers. The man never had such great sex in his life. Forever after, he'd measure all encounters with "the time I slept with the fabulous Glory St. Clair."