"I told you I was done with balls."
"Oh, come on, Pam—it'll be fun!" She'd only been Vampire for a week and she'd already developed a love/hate relationship with her Maker's smirk. "Think about it. No one will shove prospective suitors at you. Prey is abundant, and if you're not hungry you can critique their dresses and shoes all you like. It'll be over before your feet blister. And if we tire of dancing before that," he murmured, breath tickling the hair beside her ear as he slid a hand around her back to cup her breast, "we can always leave early."
Pam rolled her eyes. The Viking's display of lust was... exciting, but there was no need to encourage him. He could do that on his own. "Fine." She rested a hand on the muscular arm offered to her. At least her Maker was an adult, as opposed to the children her parents had lined up for her at these exercises in torture. The devil be praised, she had thought when he had dropped his trousers in the brothel where she had led her "other life" for seven years, the man actually has a dick. And an impressive one at that. "But if we're in there for five minutes and I'm not enjoying myself, we're leaving."
Eric chuckled as he led her through the double doors barring their entrance to the ballroom. "We'll see."
Pam had to fight to keep an expression of longing from crossing her face. That would have been embarrassing.
Scarlet, green, violet... Gowns of every hue and style imaginable floated around the room, borne by ridiculous, swooning dancers and pinched-faced gossips alike. Gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds—these and more were spread on each bosom, nestled in each ear. And the shoes... Even the straightforward black-and-white of the men was a pleasant contrast to the color. The room was a prism, and the shades of light it refracted pulsed behind Pam's eyelids like the blood of her victims. It made her stomach clench, made a heart beat in the space between her legs, made her nipples ache... The color was perfect. The only flaws in the room were the people wearing it.
Still, she wanted it all, and her Maker knew it. Again his mouth—she could not deny it was delicious—was at her ear. "Would you be willing to kill for it?"
"Yes." She answered without hesitation, her voice as low as his, her fangs throbbing on the roof of her mouth. "When?"
"Soon," Eric promised, and they turned toward the first to die with smirks on their faces.