He emitted a wicked, slow, laugh. "Oh, Zak, my sweet, innocent boy." He walked near me and looked like he was going to put his arm around me but then he grabbed a handful of my fringe.
"Owwww." Tears sprang to my eyes.
"You can go anywhere, Zak. And you will go anywhere and everywhere. I want their souls, especially the purple-haired one. I like purple and her soul shines brighter than her friend's." He took a deep exhale. "I'll tell you what. Because I'm so generous I'll just take that one, and you can leave the other. What do you think, Zakky?" He pulled me closer, once again by my hair.
"Yes, okay. Okay." I said. "I'll do it." Fuck knows what I was actually going to do, but I just needed him to get off my fringe while I still had a scalp.
"Excellent. Good chatting with you, and of course, if you don't do it, I'll find out who they both are and I'll have them both sucked dry by someone else. You get me?"
"Y- yes."
"Good boy." He petted me on the top of my head. "Right, off you go. Enjoy yourself. Free bar for my favourite band."
Nodding gently because my head still sodding well hurt, I walked back to the lift wondering what on earth I was going to do. If I didn't take some of Erica's soul, he was going to destroy her and Freya. I'd not wanted to do things this way, hadn't wanted to take advantage of Erica in her dreams, but it was the only way right now I could protect her.
But I couldn't help feeling she was going to be my addiction and having her in dreams wouldn't be enough.
Erica
"Rex isn't interested in me, Erica. It's sad, but I'm going to back off now." Freya said swaying on a bar stool.
"I'm sorry, bestie." I said to her, putting an arm around her.
"S'okay." She tapped her glass down on the bar and asked for another vodka and coke. I winked at the barman. She'd been getting coke only for the last three drinks and had yet to notice. No way was I dealing with Freya vomit tonight.
"There are other men in the sea, Erica. Let's change your fan club and like farm animals instead."
Where the fuck was she going with this conversation?
"Do you mean fish in the sea?"
"That's what I said. But we need farmers, not rock stars. Single, hot farmers."
"You want to fork up pig shit and live on government subsidies?"
"Pffffffffffttt. An heir to a stately home then?"
"Either one-hundred-and-three years old and still frisky, or lives in one room of it because the rest has woodworm and leaks."
"You're making me sad, Erica. Where are all the lovely men?"
"There are lovely men all around us, Frey. We just need to let some others in and get to know them. We'll go and hang with The Seven tomorrow, yeah? Get to know them better. Let's face it, we came on an invitation as me running The Paranormals Fan Club. They didn't swipe right for us."
"Fucking sucks."
"I know. It's not what we hoped, but there is still the rest of the week." I turned to find my friend asleep with her head on the bar.
I blew out a breath. This evening hadn't turned out how I’d hoped at all. Zak had seemed okay at first and then he'd gone all strange when I'd asked if his boss was here. Like fuck had Zak ever been a bartender. Someone from his fandom would have remembered him doing it.
When I'd danced, he'd shot off the floor like he was doing a one hundred metre sprint, and he'd ignored me for the rest of the night. I hadn't ignored him, however, so I saw when the security guy had whispered in his ear and he'd disappeared through the back of the club.
I would find out about his boss because something had to change. He couldn't go on like this. The band needed him and his boss needed to let him go. Surely, he could be bought off? Zak was stinking rich now. Although if this man ran a club and a brothel he was probably rich too.
"Can I have a vodka and coke?" I asked the bartender. "With vodka in it this time. In fact, make it a double."
Once I was suitably mellow and my best friend more awake, I helped her to her feet, and I let Stacey know that we were heading home. She called for a driver and wished us a good night and we made our way back to the hotel.
Freya was still largely out of it and one of the security detail helped to carry her up to our suite, depositing her in our room. When he'd left, I helped get her shoes off, and covered her over with the duvet and then I sat on the other bed until I was sure she was okay and sleeping. A couple of hours had passed, but I was no nearer to going to sleep myself. I left the bedroom and walked into the living area and I opened the mini bar and took out a bottle of vodka. Might as well have a pity party for one. Adding Kettle Chips to the mix, I brought them to the coffee table and laid on the sofa pulling a blanket over me and I put on the TV and selected to watch an old episode of Tattoo Fixers. I wondered if Sheila would be a good candidate for the show, now she realised she wasn't married to Zak?
Out of crisps and a few glasses into the vodka, I must have fallen asleep.
I opened an eye, convinced I'd heard someone say my name. When I couldn't see anything, I shut it again.
"Erica." A whisper-hiss.
I opened both eyes this time and sat myself up. Zak was sitting in a chair next to the sofa.
"Oh for God's sake. Not this again. Look, dreams, either screw him properly, all romantic and something to go to the papers about, or just throw him out of the room." I sat there, waiting for my body to do one of them. It didn't.
"Shooo." I told Zak.
"No." He replied.
"Great. Dream Zak is a stubborn arsehole. What are you doing just sitting there, you useless lump? Fuck me or fuck off." I ordered him.
Standing up, he walked over to me and sat right at my side.
"Erica?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm not fucking off so that means I'm going to do something else; but I agree, it needs to be a little more romantic, so could I take a moment to do a few things?"
"Okay." I squeaked, because for once it seemed my dreams were going to come true. If I woke up I was going to hit myself in the head repeatedly with the half-drunk vodka bottle.
I was already in a room with subdued lighting, but Zak turned off all the lights so that the room was lit up only with the light that came through the windows from the hotel lighting outside.
He placed a chair under the bedroom door so that if she woke up, Freya would not be able to get out which I thought was an intelligent move on Dream Zak's part, because I'd forgotten she existed.
Returning to my side, he sat next to me and took my hand. "Erica. I can't do this without being entirely honest with you, so here goes. I'm not a gigolo, I'm an incubus. That means I appear in women's dreams where I give them the most amazing time in bed and then I steal some of their soul. It usually makes them very sleepy afterwards, so if we do this, you'll probably sleep all day tomorrow."
I blinked at him about a thousand times. This dream was so fucked up. I really needed to lay off the vodka.
"You're taking this very well." Zak looked pleased.
"Gigolo. Incubus. Either way you're going to have your wicked way with me tonight, right?" I double checked that my dreams weren't going off on some weird tangent again where he would fly out of the window on a broomstick or something.