“We changed the official rules of operation last month: it’s three photos per individual involved. I’ll have to dock your commission by ten percent.” He gives me a look and then nods with his head in the direction of the main hall entrance while I stand there gaping and doing way too much math inside my head. Fuck it. I don’t want to know how much that ten percent cut is going to hurt or what I’m going to have to cut out to afford it. I can barely manage the rent on my place and it comes with utilities and free takeout. Between the crowns’ ridiculous tithes, and all the territory bribes I have to give out to royal vamps to even live in the city, I’m dead broke.
Also, I sort of want to rip Atticus’s head off his shoulders and chuck it out the window. That’d make me feel a hell of a lot better, I think. And the spray of blood would be quite cathartic. Instead, I clench my hands tight at my sides. The punishment for killing another vamp’s human servant is death. In fact, that’s the punishment for most crimes in our world. A professional hit.
“Can I go home now?” I ask, finding the process of checking in like this so goddamn tedious. Even vampires use the internet and all my reports are sent digitally. I feel like making me come in here and kowtow to a human every day is just another layer of fuck you frosting layered on top of the crumbly cake of my life.
“You have another assignment,” Atticus says, running his palm through his thick, brown hair. He’s a beautiful man, I’ll give him that. He’d have to be, to be chosen and bound by a vamp. A vampire can only have one human servant, and that human servant is the only person they can ever turn in their life. So if they want to be a master to a fledgling vamp, they have to choose carefully, time the change just right, and make sure that whoever it is started out gorgeous. There is no insta-beauty spell to change the human after they transition. “Go inside,” he continues, gesturing at the door to the main hall. “There’s a servant waiting. She’ll get you dressed up in something...” He scowls at my red Marilyn Manson tank top and the leather short-shorts I’m wearing with heels.
Yeaaaaah, I ran all the way over here in tennis shoes and then changed outside. Sorry, but I’m just a dhampir, not a god.
“Something less tacky,” Atticus finishes, and I come this close to punching him in one of his big, round blue eyes. If I hadn’t had three glorious orgasms earlier, I would’ve. My body feels feather light, energy surging through my limbs. I feel like I could lift up a skyscraper and throw it. All my wounds from last night are gone, and other than being tired, I’m generally in a pretty good mood.
A woman doesn’t often get to engage in a threesome with two spectacularly handsome men.
“There’s a proclamation being given by The Crown at first dark, and you’re expected to be there. I don’t know what it’s about, but the pay is good, and I hear you’re being given a long-term assignment.” Atticus smirks at me and then points to the door. “Go. It’s going to take the rest of the day to make sure you’re presentable enough for the king.”
“Fuck you, asshole,” I say, flipping him off and sashaying over to the heavy wood door. The carvings inlaid in it are gruesome depictions of sex and violence that I completely glaze over as I push my way through and find another human servant with waist-length blonde hair waiting for me.
She leads me upstairs and basically forces me into a bath filled with flower petals. I come out smelling like petunias, which is so totally not my thing.
“This really isn’t necessary,” I grumble as she sits me down on a stool in front of a giant mirror and attacks my short gold-blonde curls with her brush. But even if this woman doesn’t haven’t the power to keep me here, an order that comes through Atticus is as good as one from the king himself.
I sigh.
However they want me primped for this ridiculous meeting, I’ll have to suffer through it. Hours of work for what, a forty-five-minute get-together? A bunch of pomp and circumstance, gossip and power struggles galore.
Sounds like a nightmare to me.
The woman finishes my hair, leaving it with loose, glossy waves that shimmer like gold. No matter what I do to my hair, I can’t make it look like that. Even though she refuses to speak to me, she makes it look easy, moving from my hair to my makeup. She gives me a smoky eye and thick kohl liner, dark red lips and a dash of dark blush on my cheeks.
“Jewelry and clothes are in there,” she tells me, pointing back toward the guest bedroom we’re using. The damn thing is bigger than my apartment. Fuck, the bathroom is bigger than my apartment. No, no, the powder room that leads into the bathroom is bigger than my apartment. “Get dressed. I’ll be waiting outside.”
She leaves me to check out the ostentatious display of wealth on the bed: a ruby necklace with matching earrings and a matching bracelet as well as a black velvet dress stubbed with diamond swirls that make it look like Picasso’s “The Starry Night” painting.
I’m tempted to pop off a single tiny diamond and pocket it. It would probably pay my rent for an entire month if not more...but someone would notice, and I’d end up losing at least a finger if not a hand for it. Vampire body parts grow back, but it takes forever and it’s a very disgusting process to bear witness to.
I dress as quickly as I can, admiring the way the velvet dress clings to my curves. As I run my hands over my body, I can’t help but think of Sorrow and Vyce. They were amazing lovers; their blood and their seed are making my flesh sing. I pity the next person that pisses me off. The way I’m feeling right now, I could kick some serious ass.
The blonde servant is waiting for me in the hall when I step out, determined to spray me with this pheromone dampener shit that smells like baby wipes. Supposedly it’s to keep less...self-aware vampires from tearing my throat open if things get heated, but there have been times when I’ve suspected it’s just another slap in the face for daring to be born a dhampir.
“Right this way,” the woman says, flicking her shiny hair over one shoulder. She’s got the haughty, entitled attitude down pat. If her mistress or master ever decides to turn her, she’ll fit right in, I’m sure.
Like that dickhead, Wolfe, I think with a small scowl, following the woman’s swishing red skirts down an opulent hallway lined with...uh, unconventional?...art pieces. There are oil paintings of bloody orgies and busts of dudes’ pelvises dressed in nothing but short-shorts with hard dicks underneath that look like octopus tentacles. Actually, pretty sure that last piece is Colin Christian’s work, and I kind of...want to steal it and take it home with me. But again, not worth getting my finger cut off by a human servant while their vampire master watches with a maniacal grin.
Down the stairs we go, heading across the massive grand foyer and into the receiving room for the crown chambers. On the other side of this door is a ‘throne room’ of sorts. There’s a raised dais at the head of a massive open room just dripping in opulence. Gloriously detailed antique wood moldings on the wall—probably carved on-site when the Verenim Family House was first built—and huge crimson sconces to paint the room red as blood.
I’ve seen the room maybe twice since I started working here two years ago. Yet another heavy disappointment my mom would carry on her shoulders if she were still alive. Instead, when she needed me most, I wasn’t around and she was literally torn apart by...someone or something.
Fuck, I can’t think about that, not right now.
“Have a seat and someone will come for you when it’s time,” she tells me as I flick my gaze over to the ancient grandfather clock on the wall. Probably some heirloom a vampire royal brought over from Europe back in the day. There are an awful lot of people in this building who saw the USA be born in 1776. It’s a weird thought to have.
“Half past four,” I murmur, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the tall, cushioned back of my chair. I am so fucking tired right now. Staying up all night to kill a vampire royal, having a threesome with two hot vamps, and then getting poked and prodded by some bitchy human servant was seriously taking its toll on me.