Prologue

A slightly drunken giggle escaped Alicia Daniels' lips as she tried to keep herself from stumbling over the cracked and broken sidewalk running down the steep hill of Wisconsin Avenue NW where it ran from M Street to K Street. Her car was parked just a short distance away in one of the many lots underneath the Whitehurst Freeway, but it could just as easily have been Siberia given the weather. Although they were great to look at and made her long, shapely legs even sexier, high heels were never meant to traverse the snowy, ice slicked sidewalks of Washington, DC in mid-January.

She stopped briefly to gather her breath and steady her tipsy legs by leaning against one of the red brick walls of Club Night Dreams. It had been an almost perfect night. She and her friends from work had met at the club after a week of long nights putting the finishing touches to the DEA proposal that had just barely been submitted by the noon deadline. It had meant putting in almost 80 hours during the final 5-day push, but the overtime more than made up for the lost hours of sleep. The only part that was truly frustrating was her sure knowledge that her flair for writing would be completely lost on an agency that always awarded to the lowest bidder.

She still wasn't sure working in the proposal department of the large government contractor was worth all the overtime necessary, but the almost recession-proof job was much safer than her stint as a part-time marketer for a cosmetic firm. It also allowed her to use her almost useless BA in English; her dream of becoming a prize winning journalist long gone after seven years in the post-graduation "real world."

The club, as usual for a Friday night, had been packed with people from all walks of life and almost every one of them beautiful in some way. Everyone from broom pushers to the highest muckity-mucks of government could be seen stomping and swaying to the heavy beat produced by the DJ of the most popular nightclub in DC.

She and her two girlfriends had eaten a great meal in the third floor restaurant and then had probably a few too many drinks from the bar as they danced the night away with one gorgeous guy or another. She was pretty sure that at least one of her compatriots had slipped away to one of the many back rooms in the club to partake of the unique entertainment available to those willing to "donate." She had considered it herself, briefly, before deciding that she was simply too tired. Not that she hadn't partaken in those unearthly delights in the past. Her grin expanded as she remembered one particularly mind-blowing experience with the club's owner one evening. The memory was almost enough to make her turn around and try to make her way back up the slippery slope, but the wobble in her knees was enough to make her decide that some other night, soon, might be a better idea.

Pushing herself away from her cold perch with a long regretful sigh she continued to carefully make her way to the bottom of the sharply inclined sidewalk. As she reached the corner she heard a brief, soft noise. She was turning her head to look when someone literally tripped over her foot. Even in her slightly inebriated state her reflexes were quick enough to throw an arm around the person's waist to keep them from falling to the frozen cement.

"Are you alright?" she asked as the slender woman in her arms got her feet back under her.

"Yes, yes, thank you so much," gasped the slightly taller woman before raising her eyes to look into Alicia's own muddy brown irises.

Alicia was captured by those bright, emerald orbs. She shook her head quickly to throw off the mesmerizing stupor of those deep green eyes only to be caught by the redhead's exotic beauty.

"Y-you're welcome," the brown haired technical writer stammered. "Didn't I see you in Night Dreams a bit ago?"

"Oh, yes," the woman replied with an embarrassed grin. "I stepped out of one of the side doors for a breath of fresh air but it closed behind me. I was trying to get back to the entrance before I froze to death," she admitted as she held her bare arms across her buxom chest and started rubbing them to fend off the below freezing temperatures.

Alicia, trying to stay warm herself in her heavy wool coat, noticed that the woman that had tripped over her was still dressed only in a short gown of a shimmery light-green material with spaghetti straps. Despite her earlier thoughts, she didn't relish the idea of having to make her way up to the club's entrance and then back down again to her car, but her parents had taught her to always lend a helping hand whenever she could. One of the side effects of being raised a good Christian was to always follow the Golden Rule, no matter how inconvenient it might be.

Quickly opening the buttons on her oversized coat she pulled the woman close and wrapped her within the woolen folds. The look of thanks on the redhead's face was enough to bring a smile to her lips.

"Come on. Let's get you someplace warm," she said as a cold wind whipped down the valley created by the buildings on either side of Wisconsin on its way to the river.

"Hmm, this place seems warm enough to me," the beautiful woman purred in Alicia's ear as two porcelain arms snaked around her waist underneath the long coat and pulled her into a close embrace. A very warm, very soft tongue slid from her collarbone to her ear where equally warm and soft lips began to nibble on her earlobe sending a shiver of desire through the once bi-curious Marymount graduate.

Alicia had had a couple of flings with other girls while in college, but they had never been much to write home about and she hadn't experimented like that since. Still, the scent being given off by the redhead, along with the smell of her herbal shampoo and her memory of that one fantastic evening, set her thoughts to spinning as the woman pulled back and those deep green eyes once again seemed to draw her in.

"Y-you're a vampire, right?" Alicia barely stuttered, unable to look away. "That's why you were in Night Dreams?"

"Yes," the woman purred again, licking her full red lips, "a vampire. But I hadn't been there long enough to hook up with anyone before my little detour."

Night Dreams was a club where the sun and moon met in harmony; where regular humans and the preternaturals of the nation's capital got together for fun, frivolity, and the occasional pint of blood. It was all consensual, the humans being required to sign a waiver before being allowed entry through the club's heavy double doors and another before they were allowed to "donate." The vampires, werewolves and other creatures of the night that wished to enjoy the club's many amenities were governed by an extremely strict code of behavior that was more stringent than the official laws on the books. Alicia had heard rumors that violations of that code included severe penalties, up to and including death . . . but she thought that was mostly just rumor.

Still, with the somewhat decadent atmosphere, deep, pounding music, fantastic food, and tasty drinks, even if they were a bit light on the alcohol content, it had kept Night Dreams a staple of DC nightlife for over forty years. On any night of the week simple secretaries and office workers could rub shoulders with politicians, actors, and famous musicians in addition to the creatures that up until recently were mere fantasies of an author's imagination. More than one marriage between a celebrity, human or otherwise, and a relative nobody had started on the large dance floor of the most infamous nightclub in the entire metro area.

"I really don't have to return to the club right away," the redhead crooned softly. A well-manicured nail trailed lazily from Alicia's left ear to just below her collarbone leaving a tingling sensation that set her heart to beating rapidly and found butterflies taking wing in her stomach. "My townhouse is only two blocks away. Why don't we go there instead," she whispered.

"Um, alright," the brown eyed girl replied, unable to take her eyes from the beautiful woman in her arms as her muddled thoughts continued to spin. She tried to think of something to say; anything that came to her tumbling mind to try to focus her thoughts on something other than the deep green eyes boring into her own. "Y-your dress, it's beautiful," she commented as the two women turned down K Street and headed towards Cecil Place, their arms around each other beneath her heavy coat, the taller woman leading the way. The redhead's dress was a shimmering green with large darker green spots. "What is it made of?"

"Snakeskin," the woman chuckled, "anaconda I believe."

"It's so beautiful," Alicia breathed.

"It's very soft on the inside as well. Do you want to feel?" the woman asked with a slight smirk. Stopping, she grabbed Alicia's left hand and slipped it inside the top of the dress and pressed it against her ample, braless bosom. Alicia sucked in a frigid breath as her palm came in contact with soft skin that was much warmer than it had any right to be in this weather. "I think it's lined with silk," the sexy woman giggled, pressing Alicia's hand even harder against her breast and forcing her to squeeze it gently.

Alicia quickly removed her hand from the woman's top but the sensation of soft, warm skin lingered on her palm and fingertips. She tried to control her breathing as a desire for this unknown woman flared in her loins. The more she looked into those emerald eyes, the more she smelled of the woman's musky scent, the greater her lust grew. She had no recollection how it happened, but suddenly she found her lips were pressed heavily against those of the other woman.

She was pulled into a niche occupied by the door to an antiques shop. She could clearly hear the ringing of the bell attached to the door as they bumped up hard against it. She hoped that there were no silent alarms going off. A soft nibble on her lower lip had her opening her mouth to allow entry for the redhead's moist tongue. Unlike some of her previous experiments, there was no fight for dominance between the two, just an exploration and sharing of delightful pleasure. They came up briefly for air before diving deeply into another passionate kiss. Alicia moaned as the woman's lips captured her tongue and she began to suck, seeming to want to swallow her whole.

Neither woman's hands were still as they roughly explored each other's body. Alicia felt hot hands grab hold of her rear as the woman's leg slipped between her own, eliciting another moan as the redhead's thigh pressed heavily into her core.

Their tongues continued to explore the hot recesses of their mouths, gliding across teeth and tangling with each other, dancing between vying for dominance and then accepting a more submissive roll. Back and forth they swayed, each pressing into the other, their bodies trying to meld together into a single, glorious whole.

They continued kissing and feeling each other's bodies, the redhead moaning in pleasure just as much as Alicia was as they ground against each other's thighs, their lust building to a crescendo until they nearly collapsed, panting as the release they both sought found them at the almost same time, their twin shrieks echoing off the underside of the Whitehurst Freeway and echoing down K Street.

"Th-that was . . ." Alicia tried to say, her breath steaming in the freezing weather as heat continued to rise from both their bodies in shimmering waves.

"Hmm," the redhead smiled, "you too. I love it just after sex. The excitement gets the heart beating and the blood flowing. And orgasms always release such wonderful tasting hormones," she chuckled just before leaning forward, her long canines finding the rapidly beating pulse point on Alicia's neck. The brunette shrieked again as wave after wave of multiple orgasms washed through the proposal writer as those canines pierced her skin and the redhead began her feast.

It was only when her eyesight began to waiver and darken that Alicia began to wonder that something might be wrong. She had "donated" blood to vampires within the controlled environment of the club a couple of times and it had usually taken less than two or three minutes. It seemed to have gone much longer than that now and the woman was continuing to suckle at her neck. But the continuous waves of pleasure flooding her body were still affecting her thoughts, not allowing her to vocalize her growing concerns until her vision began to fade and her legs trembled with fatigue.

"Wh-wh-what . . .?"

"Don't worry, my darling flea," the woman said without lifting her sharp fangs from their hold on the shorter woman's neck, "the pleasure has just begun. I always satisfy my partners. It only seems fair to satisfy their needs . . ."

Alicia's head lolled in an uncontrolled nod as darkness finally claimed the young woman. She seemed to barely hear the next words from her preternatural lover as a whisper on the cold January wind.

"before they satisfy mine."