He gestured with his head in the direction of the waitress. “She’s new. Did you hire her?”
Nadine nodded. “Wilhelmina? Yes.”
“Wilhelmina?” Sebastian grimaced, he should have guessed she would have an odd name. “You’ve got to be kidding?”
“She’s fine. She needs this job,” Nadine said. “And not all of us can be as unnaturally perfect as you.”
Sebastian laughed. Nadine knew she was just as unnaturally perfect as he was. It went with the territory of being preternatural. He glanced back to the new waitress.
She cleared a table, fumbling with an empty glass. She did manage to catch it by the stem just before the goblet hit the floor and shattered.
Okay, that usually went with the territory. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“So what can I get you?” Nadine asked again.
“I’d like to get these ladies a round of drinks,” he said, nodding to the trio, who giggled and twittered behind him.
Nadine raised a perfect, arced, black brow, then chuckled and shook her head. “Only three?”
Sebastian smiled. She loved to give him a hard time about his women—or rather the amount of them. “Yes, three. I’ll wait for mine.”
“Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Nadine shook her head again. “Well, I guess you have been away for awhile.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He had. And the way the hunger was gnawing at him tonight, he had no doubts that he could satisfy all three of these ladies. Maybe more than once.
He turned back to them. They beamed at him, excitement and anticipation in their eyes.
“So,” he smiled slowly, “what would you ladies like to do this evening?”
Wilhelmina set the tray on the bar as she blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. Then she tugged at the snug waitress uniform, an Asian-inspired black brocade dress with a mandarin collar. The uniform covered her from neck to knee, well mid-thigh anyway, but she still felt barely covered.
“Busy night, eh?” Nadine said, sliding a drink down the bar to Ferdinand before turning back to Wilhelmina.
“Yes, I’m afraid I’m not very fast either,” Wilhelmina admitted. Being a bit of a recluse, she’d thought the crowds and the noise would be the hardest part of working in a nightclub. She’d never been able to handle crowds. She hadn’t expected the actual job of cocktail waitress to be such hard work. While focusing on her drink orders and the carrying tray helped to keep the crowd from overwhelming her, it was distracting from her real reason for being here.
She handed Nadine a slip with a dozen or so drinks listed. Nadine nodded and hurried off. Wilhelmina fiddled with the strap of her high-heeled maryjanes, another part of the uniform that she wasn’t accustomed to wearing. It was little wonder she was slow.
High heels, she shook her head. So impractical.
Taking a breath, she used the small break to survey the club. Vampires, werewolves, other shapeshifters of various breeds mingled and danced with mortals. And the mortals didn’t have any idea.
She watched one female vampire take the hand of a mortal male and lead him to the exit. Wilhelmina’s first instinct was to run after the mortal and tell him what would happen if he left with the vampiress. But she knew from past experience that approach wouldn’t do any good. She’d tried it several times before, and all she ever received for her efforts was a look that stated that the human thought she was a loon. Oh, and there was also the one time that a mortal had threatened to have her arrested. Even now, she shivered at that idea. She definitely wanted to avoid that.
No, chasing them down and telling them the truth wasn’t the way to protect mortals.
Someday she hoped vampires and mortals could live truly together, without vampires having to hide and without humans being little more than a source of food and entertainment. That was the hope of all the vampires, shapeshifters, and other creatures that were involved in the Society of Preternaturals. But the only way that dream was going to be achieved was to end all the legends and myths about supernatural beings. Thus preternatural creatures couldn’t continue to act like the monsters of folklore. They had to realize their actions were propagating these myths.
She watched the couple exit the club, feeling mildly ill and saddened. She wanted to do more to help these mortals. And thus to help the vampires too, of course. Unfortunately, real change was often a slow process. Think globally, act locally. Which brought her back to why she was here.
Scanning the huge club, she assessed the layout of the place again. She studied the large upper level with its tables and private booths. Then her gaze dropped to the dance floor mobbed with dancers. She hoped her plan would work better than her first one. And she hoped it wasn’t too dangerous. Her intent was to protect mortal lives not to find a non-preternatural way to harm them.