Sucker Bet (Vegas Vampires #4)(28)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"Why?" Alexis scanned the dark room. "You look fantastic. Just relax."

Easy for Alexis to say since she was wearing jeans. Gwenna was wearing an exercise in insanity. With a plunging neckline. Which she kept trying to tug closed, only to have Kelsey smack at her and spread it even farther apart than it was originally.

So she hovered as close to Alexis as possible without stealing her oxygen and held a little clutch purse in front of her chest. This had been a really poor lapse in judgment. And given the vast crowd of concertgoers, there was no way she was going to find Slash. All she knew was that he was male and in his twenties. That took her potential pool down to a mere thousand guys, many of whom were strolling around pierced, tattooed, and wearing chains off their clothes or body parts. She saw lots of people opening their mouths and exposing fake fangs to each other as well, which she found incredibly disturbing.

Why did they want to be vampires? What exactly was the lure? Immortality, she supposed. Power. And of course, the irony was that Gwenna had never asked for her vampirism, had been given it by Ethan to prevent her from bleeding to death after Isabel’s birth nine centuries earlier. There had been many times where Gwenna would have gladly given the gift of eternity back.

No longer, though. She had a purpose now, and it was to ferret out the slayers, and prevent an attack. And she needed to help Nate find Andrew’s killer. His hobby, his playacting, like all these men around her pretending to be vampires, had gotten him killed, and somehow she felt inadvertently responsible for that.

"Hey." A guy with a shaved head and a black T-shirt that stated "Get Impaled, You Know You Want It," smiled at her.

Yikes. He was flirting with her. He was big and scary and she was so not ready for this. Gwenna felt the urge to grab on to Alexis and pretend they were a couple, but that would be an avoidance technique. And she was resolved to be stronger, more confident, to meet problems head on and deal with them entirely on her own.

"Hi," she said. Wow, that was really handling things.

Of course—duh—maybe this was Slash. Which meant she had to talk with him long enough to determine if that was a possibility.

The guy had to yell, since the opening band was on stage making what sounded to Gwenna like a godawful amount of noise. "You been to see The Impalers before?" he asked her, leaning down to speak directly to her ear.

His breath tickled her cheek. Shifting slightly away and looking up at him, she shook her head and forced a smile. "No, this is my first."

"A virgin." He grinned. "You’ll like it, they put on a good show."

She just smiled, wracking her brain for something flirtatious to say, or at least something conversational. "I, uh…" Nothing. Zero. She couldn’t even complete the sentence because her mind was utterly empty of words. And he was starting to lose his grin, like he thought she was a half-wit. Which maybe she was.

Kelsey saved her by moving in between the two of them and putting her forearm on Gwenna’s shoulder, using her as a support. "So what’s your name, cutie?" she said to the very tall and tattooed man who was the polar opposite of the descriptive cutie in Gwenna’s book.

"Jason. What’s your name?"

"Kelsey." She nudged Gwenna. "And this is—"

Gwenna cut her off, bursting out with, "I’m Queenie. It’s nice to meet you."

Alexis gave a snort of amusement. Kelsey said, "Wow, cool, I like it," as if they didn’t know each other. But Gwenna should be grateful Kelsey didn’t just flat out give her away. And the guy was looking a bit skeptical.

"Queenie?" he said.

"Yes. My parents were British and Mum had royalty envy." It was much easier to roll with a lie when it was ludicrous. She briefly wondered why that was as Jason started to back up. "Is Jason really your name?"

"Uh, yeah. Well, um, enjoy the concert. See you." He disappeared into the crowd.

"Shit, I think you scared him, Gwenna. And he was cute, too." Kelsey frowned at his retreating back.

"I scared him? I don’t think so. I’m not the least bit scary." She rather resented that. And if he couldn’t take an unusual name, then he wasn’t worth her time anyway. Not that she was at all interested in Giant Jason, but it was a bit insulting to think that little bitty her had been so weird or uninteresting that he had felt the need to dash off. Wimp.

But the important fact she had gained from that encounter was that she was now down to nine hundred and ninety-nine potential Slashes, because Jason hadn’t reacted at all to her online name.

"What’s with the Queenie thing? If you’re going to use a fake name—which I totally support—couldn’t you come up with a better one?" Alexis asked. "Like I think maybe I’ll be Mackenzie for the night. I’ve always liked that name because it’s a power name."

"Oooh, fake names. Okay, I’ll be Winnie," Kelsey said.

Gwenna tried to imagine how Kelsey had plucked the name Winnie from the vast stores of knowledge in her sixty-year-old brain. It was more random than Queenie, which was really saying a lot. "Winnie. That’s an unusual name. What made you think of it?"

"I’ve always liked the Pooh Bear stories." Kelsey’s lip started to tremble. "Ringo used to read me the Winnie the Pooh books."

Now there was an intriguing glimpse into Kelsey’s marital life. Her heroin-addicted assassin husband had read her the silly old bear stories? "That’s so very sweet, Kelsey." And odd as hell, but who was she to judge?

"I need a drink," Alexis said. "So Mackenzie is going to the bar. Can I leave Winnie and Queenie together without the two of you getting into serious trouble?"

"Why would we get in trouble?" The very concept seemed to puzzle Kelsey. "We’ll be totally fine."

"Okay, but stay together. Got it?" Alexis shook her finger at them.

Gwenna nodded. "We’ll be fine." Her sister-in-law was spending too much time with Ethan. She was getting to be almost as overprotective as he was.

"Does anyone else want a drink?"

"No, thanks." Unlike other vamps, Gwenna had never developed a taste for any drink besides blood. But then she was supposed to be opening herself to new experiences, embracing life. "Actually, I’ll have whatever you’re having."

"I’ll take a martini. Something flavored," Kelsey said.

"Okay, I’ll be back."

Alexis headed to the bar, and Kelsey grabbed Gwenna’s hand. "I’m so totally depressed. We have to hit on guys, that always makes me feel better."