The birds in the Aerie, I assumed.

Anywhere else, they would have been the main draw, and then some. But at Slava’s they apparently counted as decoration. The real show was taking place below, on a rotating platform surrounded by a crowd of people who all looked like they were attending the opera.

I guess PVC cat suits would have clashed with the decor, because there wasn’t one in sight. Instead, tuxes and glittery evening dresses seemed to be the norm, with a few expensive lounge suits and LBDs on the younger sort. The guests were sipping champagne against a breathtaking hundred-eighty-degree view of Manhattan, including a tiny Lady Liberty off to the far left, who also appeared to be watching the show.

Only “watching” wasn’t quite the right word, I realized a second later.

This was very definitely audience participation.

A heavy whip cracked and a powerful body flinched. But the groan that emanated from the perfectly sculpted lips wasn’t pain. I could tell because I felt it right along with him: the biting caress of the lash, the sweet sting of sweat trickling into the wound, the dark ache of arousal.

“Harder.” The low growl caused the two PVC-clad doms on either side of the platform to exchange glances. Maybe because they’d already striped their subject’s smooth bronze skin from the heavily corded back to the muscular, straining thighs.

It was pretty impressive, considering the wings that kept getting in the way.

“Bugger,” Marlowe said, under his breath.

I didn’t say anything. I was busy tamping down a visceral response that had my skin tightening, my breath shortening and sweat starting to bead my skin underneath the silky fabric of the dress. And because I couldn’t have anyway.

The majority of Slava’s family were downstairs, dealing with the disaster, but there were enough up here to make even whispered conversation out of the question. Specifically, there were two of them guarding a door on the far right of the room. And since it was the only one with accessories, I didn’t need Marlowe’s nod to know that it was our target.

There was no reason not to stare as I made my way around the room, since that was what everyone else was doing. You’d think they’d never seen an eight-foot-tall naked guy with long black and silver wings getting the crap beaten out of him before. And either he’d said something to piss off the doms, or they were just in the habit of giving value for the money.

Because they were really working him over.

One of the girls had switched from a regular whip to a cat, and a flick of her wrist sent the straps slicing through the air to land almost gently against the broad back. But the crack echoed around the room, and a spread of livid welts bloomed against the sun-kissed flesh. Her subject murmured approval and leaned into the blows that followed, until they crisscrossed his back and decorated his sides. When the platform rotated back around and she started to similarly adorn his abs, he trembled slightly, but still didn’t cry out.

But the rest of us did.

The whip cracked again, this time reaching around the side to flick over a tender nipple, and the blaze of sensation was enough to have me sucking in a startled breath. And the whole room gasped right along with me. The Irin smiled grimly, his lower lip splitting under his teeth, blood seeping out. He touched it with his tongue, reveling in the delicious wetness of it. And a nearby guy shuddered and slid down the wall.

And that was why the Fallen, aka the Watchers, aka the Irin, were high on my avoid-at-all-costs list.

I didn’t know if they really were fallen angels, as they claimed, or if they were just another demon race with better-than-average PR. But their power was as scary as it was odd, something close enough to mind control to make me really unhappy. But I couldn’t do anything about it now except stay well out of the creature’s line of sight as I worked around to my target.

I didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s.

By the time I got through the crowd, it had ceased to be a group of individuals watching a performance and had transformed into a single entity that moaned and writhed and sweated out the experience right along with the Irin. It was like he was a conductor and we were his orchestra, only what was playing wasn’t notes on a page but sensations on skin. And he was damned good at it.

I had to stop and give myself a mental shakedown before approaching the guards, sloughing off the tendrils of sensation that wanted to wrap me up, to pull me back, to sink me into the collective wave of pleasure building behind me. And force myself to face the job ahead. Because the vamps guarding the door were both masters.

Not that it mattered in this case. Even a baby vamp can sense the presence of another, especially one as powerful as Marlowe. Which was why he was hanging back, waiting for me to get the door open before moving up.

Since I had to manage it in full view of the main salon, the idea was to split one guard away from the other and deal with them separately. The dress should have helped with that, being cut up to here and down to there and fitting me like a glove. Along with the extras I’d spent half a day on—short, sleek dark hair, heavily lined black eyes and shiny red lips—I’d expected it to provide a decent enough distraction.

I’d expected wrong. Thanks to the show the Irin was providing, no one was paying me the slightest attention, including the two guards. I actually had to tap one on the shoulder to get noticed.

“Got a cigarette?” I asked, a little more harshly than normal. But, damn it, I could have worn jeans.

“What? Oh, yeah.” He dug a case out of his trousers and passed it over, his eyes never leaving the show.

I hiked the dress up and put a stiletto-clad foot on a nearby chair, flashing more than a little thigh. “How about a light?” I asked huskily.

“In a bowl on the bar.”

“How about you get one for me?”

“How about you get it yourself?”

“How about I knock your teeth in?”

“What?”

I sighed and gave up. I put the cigarette case back in his pocket, took out the passkey and let myself in through the door. The guy never even blinked.

My new phone rang. I dug it out of my purse and checked the readout. Marlowe.

Of course.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“You wanted in, we’re in. Now come on, or I’m going to do this myself.”

I didn’t get an answer, except for an irritated click in my ear. But a few seconds later he slipped through the door I was holding open with one aching foot. And a second after that, I was shoved against the wall, a hard body was pressed against me and a practiced mouth came down on mine.

For a second, I just froze.

The kiss was crazy enough all on its own. But then there was the knee pushing between my legs and the hand moving up my thigh, sliding the slick material of the dress out of the way so he could wrap my leg around his. His hair was cool and soft, his mouth was hot and hard, and he smelled like whiskey and smoke and electricity. And he could kiss; not as well as Louis-Cesare, but more than competently.

Which was going to do fuck all to preserve his manhood in three, two—

A wedge of sound pushed out into the quiet corridor: tinned laughter from some TV show, the buzz of a drink machine, the scrape of a heel against a doorframe. And then—

“Hey,” someone said. “You can’t be back here.”

Marlowe didn’t respond, and I couldn’t, since it looked like he was going for authenticity. Which worried me less than the fact that it was doing exactly nothing for me. And okay, it was Marlowe, but still. Considering the, uh, intensity of the situation, I’d have expected to feel something.

But I didn’t. Not a damned thing. Nothing but anger and annoyance and a weird sort of sadness, because he wasn’t the one I wanted.

Oh, God, I thought in horror. Louis-Cesare’s ruined me for other men.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!”

Marlowe didn’t react, since the voice was still too far away. And neither did I, except to freak out a little and wrap my other leg around him, climbing his body and grabbing his hair and sticking my tongue down his throat, all at the same time. He made a strangled urk sound, but manfully hung in there, bracing his legs and gripping my thighs. And yet I still felt exactly zip.

Until he suddenly pinched the hell out of me.

“Who let you back here?” another voice asked, from closer in. It was a man’s—literally. Because neither he nor his buddy was vampire.

There was no tingle coming from them, no itch, none of the telltale electricity that the vamp pressed against me was shedding like little bursts of lightning. It hurt—like being groped by an electric porcupine. But not as much as when the bastard pinched me again.

I broke off, out of breath and furious. “Son of a bitch!”

“This is a restricted area,” the first of two business suits informed us.

“So is my thigh,” I snarled, wrenching my head around so I could examine my left leg. And sure enough, under the ladder in my hose was a red mark as long as my thumb. It was definitely going to bruise. “Son of a bitch.”

“You already said that,” Marlowe said smarmily. “And I don’t see anything. Do you?” He glanced at Suit #2. Who came around to check it out.

“These hose cost forty bucks,” I said furiously. “I’m adding them to the bill!”

“And I will take them off again.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that they were already ripped downstairs.”

“You two need to go back out front,” Suit #1 said, coming up on my right.

I glared at Marlowe. “If it’s on your time, it’s on your dime.”

“And who decided that?”

“It’s called expenses!”

He looked at me consideringly as he let me down. “I’ll go halves.”

“Done.” They’d only cost me twenty, anyway.

“Did you hear me?” Suit #1 demanded, finally coming within arm’s length.

And getting coldcocked by my fist upside his jaw.

“Loud and clear,” I said, watching Marlowe extricate his knuckles from the face of Suit #2. “What was with all the pinching?” I demanded.