Chapter Two

 

Ophelia’s boots clicked on the hard floor as she stomped to the front door. She mentally checked all her weapons. It felt good to be wearing them again. The last several months, she’d basically moved in with Nadair to spy on him and his friends, and he hadn’t liked her getup.

Too hard to get at the best parts of you, my love.

The way he’d purred those final two words—it got her every time. Until it hadn’t been enough to overcome all the baggage between them.

She didn’t bother drawing her sidearm before she flung open the door. If she couldn’t take a waif of a girl and an anemic male, then she deserved the ass kicking she got.

Little Ms. Gaston gasped and stepped back, but she was forced to step forward again to stop a listing Bastian from hitting the floor.

“Name’s Ophelia.” She gave Antonia a hard stare, then turned it on Bastian. Her pulse fluttered as she locked eyes with him. Hanging off a young female, dripping blood all over the pavement, he hadn’t seemed like much on camera. And he still didn’t look like much. But the eyes… A unique shade stared back at her. Ochre. Like goddamn clay.

Antonia’s nostrils flared. “You’re a prime?”

Ophelia bristled at the all-too-familiar incredulity. When others scented her rank on such a diminutive frame, they always asked themselves, how could the richest of rich not raise a healthy, robust child?

She could tell them exactly how. But she never would. Her nightmare was her own.

“Yep. My blood is as loaded as my pockets. You know the feeling.”

“Mistress Gaston,” Bastian rasped, his tone admonishing. If he weren’t a few units low, his voice might rumble the walls down. And Ophelia’s pants with it.

Where had that come from? She wasn’t ready for a good time, or even a moderately bad one, with any male. Not after the mind fuck that had been Nadair. And she didn’t know Bastian, or his intentions—not that it had always mattered to her.

And if Bastian was a servant, there was no way he’d get away with talking to Mistress Gaston like that. Ophelia narrowed her eyes at him. What was this male doing with the girl?

He stiffened as he tried to rise off Antonia. “I’m afraid we are in dire need of your help. We have information that threatens Mistress Antonia. I am unsure how far the evil has spread.”

Ophelia snorted. The evil hadn’t spread anywhere; it had always been there. Demons were just a different source.

Bastian’s brows dropped, then his gaze dropped to her chest. But his gaze didn’t stop on her breasts, it stalled on the shoulder holster she wore. He perused farther to her hips, where her weapons belt was slung, then down to her black shitkickers and their thick rubber soles. They were a dream in the icy winter of the upper Midwest, with plenty of room in the calf for her sheathed daggers.

His brow creased, like he was processing information and failing to come up with a formula for why a prime female was dressed like her.

Definitely a servant.

“Follow me. And if I sense any ill will, just know: I shoot first and forget to ask questions later.”

Antonia squeaked. Ophelia strode away, expecting them to follow.

“She’s no threat to you,” he murmured to the girl, shuffling behind her.

No threat? Ophelia had her back to them. They couldn’t see her lips twist in a disgusted sneer. No threat. Why? Because she was so much smaller than the already statuesque teenager? Or because she’d obviously turned her back on her prime family and their power along with it?

Her weapons weren’t compensation for anything. They were an extension of her personality. But she wouldn’t expect a favored butler to understand.

Bastian’s pained grunt squelched her ire. Maybe she should offer to lend a hand. She could fireman-carry Bastian to the infirmary. Though his knuckles and toes might drag on the floor, because even hunched and drawn in on himself, he was a big man.

To be fair, most males of her species were sizeable. Vampires spawned supermodels and Magic Mike extras. Bastian would probably measure up to the rest of the males on her team, despite being born of common blood.

Good genetics, and his parents had nourished him well.

The familiar simmer of resentment flared in her gut. She stuffed it down like she’d done for the last 111 years.

A faint trace of brimstone lingered in the air as they neared the bare room they called the infirmary. It contained two stretchers and its only real purpose was to strap down a vampire and force-feed blood. Beyond that, a vampire—or even a demon, since they were now part of the team—was beyond help. They’d either heal themselves or perish.

Ophelia stepped into the room. “Fyra.”

The voluptuous demon sat on the counter, her pencil skirt stretched at the seams and her cleavage about to burst loose of her buttons. If their new guests didn’t flee at the sight of her, then they were truly in dire straits.

Fyra hopped down. “Bloody guests. My favorite.”

Antonia stopped, her wide eyes growing impossibly wider. Bastian’s expression froze. His nostrils flared. He eyed her warily, angling his body in front of the girl.

Well, he earned a tiny drop of respect for that, as long as there was nothing perverted going on between them.

“That smell,” he hissed. “Y-you’re—”

“Fab-u-lous,” Fyra sang. “But yes, I’m also a demon.”

He bared his fangs, his gaze incredulous as he stared at Ophelia. “You harbor them under your roof?”

Ophelia chuckled, and Bastian recoiled. She patted the stretcher for him to crawl onto. “Just like there are heinous, devious, purely evil vampires, there are heinous, devious, and purely fashionable demons. And some work with us to stop the underworld from threatening this realm.”

“But they’re not all fashionable,” Fyra whispered.

Bastian’s gaze swung from her to Fyra and back. Antonia squeaked again and cowered behind him.

Ophelia rapped her knuckles on the bed. “Get up.” When Bastian didn’t move, she gave him a hard stare. “You can either lie here and take my vein, or you can leave. Either way, we’ll investigate any claim that the Gastons have partnered with demons in order to gain their own power in this realm. So. Leave or stay?”

Bastian was a crumbling brick wall in front of the girl. Antonia made the decision for him.

“We stay.” She helped Bastian to the table. “What power would my parents have to gain? They’re already primes.”

“Primes who lost their influence when our government was overthrown. Think about what they could do with demonic powers flowing through them.” Ophelia rolled up her sleeve. Her gums throbbed, an odd sense of anticipation coiling in her belly.

She was just feeding a stranger. Doing something nice, for fuck’s sake. She’d forced her vein on her teammates several times. Not once had she gotten fucking butterflies.

Her fangs were a nanometer from piercing her skin when Bastian laid a hand on her arm. Dried blood crusted around the edges of the fresh red staining his skin.

“You cannot feed me. You are prime.”

“I’ll do it.” Antonia brandished her wrist.

“No!” Ophelia and Bastian said at the same time.

He shook his head at Antonia. “I will not feed from a child. And you’re prime, too. I cannot take your vein.”

Fyra crossed her arms. “Well, I’d burn you from the inside out, so you’re kinda outta options.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not into the old-school bullshit.” Ophelia punctured her skin.

Bastian opened his mouth, but she shoved her wrist to his lips before any sound could come out. He flinched but couldn’t pull away. The transformation was instant. He clamped his hands on her forearm and yanked her closer, almost hauling her onto his lap. For a man who was a few pints low, he was still in possession of great strength.

Between lovers, feeding was erotic. With strangers, it was an enjoyable necessity. Feeding Bastian should be nothing more than pleasing, but heat curled from his lips at her wrist and licked its way up her arm.

No.

She would not feel anything for this male. He’d come to them for help. She’d just lost someone close to her, someone whose loss should have left a gaping hole in her heart.

But her heart? Meh, it was fine.

Her mind? Totally fucked.

Bastian was messing with her carefully established equilibrium. That was the thanks she got for saving his damn life. He would’ve bled out until his immortality fled before letting Antonia spare him a drop of blood. Such an honorable action, and an uncommon occurrence in Ophelia’s life.

That didn’t mean she’d warm to him. Not because he was a common vampire and she a prime, but because he’d pointed it out. She had no need for a male to remind her of her birth status, or worse, use it against her.

Bastian’s pulls on her vein were stronger now. He shifted to his side and looked up at her. She cocked a brow.

He pried his hands off her. The soft, warm swipe of his tongue across her skin fired every nerve ending in her body. She stiffened and jerked her hand away.

He wiped off his mouth, leaving a smear of blood from his hand. There was nowhere on his strapping, fine body that wasn’t covered in it.

Not that she’d been checking him out for any other reason than professional assessment.

“I thank you for your generous offer, Mistress—”

“Not Mistress. Just Ophelia. I don’t do that mistress shit. And my vein isn’t some treasured piece of rare jewelry. It’s been shared all over town.” She gave him a leer that should tell him exactly what she meant.

He sat up, his gaze clocking Fyra, who hadn’t moved. The demon was content to watch the drama unfold. For all her casual attitude, Fyra would toast anyone that threatened her or the compound. Hopefully, that’d be all she toasted.

Ophelia didn’t sense a threat from Bastian toward the demon, despite his earlier balking. Antonia’s expression was one of pure awe and Ophelia couldn’t blame her. Fyra lived up to her name. Six feet tall without her fuck-me heels, with flaming red hair and eyes that blazed like an inferno, she was exotic and stunning. Heat rolled off her in waves—literally, sometimes.

Bastian relaxed, though disbelief still sat in his eyes. “I’d heard rumors about demons, but not that they were helping us.”

Fyra studied her sharp fingernails. “Well, helping them helps me stay alive, so bonus. And my mate is part vampire.”

“Part vampire?” Incredulity thinned Bastian’s voice.

“Dude”—Antonia breathed—“what is going on?”

She was shaking, her willowy body on the verge of collapse. Ophelia abandoned Bastian’s side, the loss of his heat something she refused to process.

She hefted Antonia onto the other stretcher, snatched the sheet of paper from her hand, and turned to read it. Bastian switched cots. He twined his arm around Antonia and spoke so low it was hard for Ophelia to hear, but it sounded soothing. She let the deep timbre of his voice wash over her.

“What’d I miss?” Calli breezed into the room. Her hair streamed behind her as bright as an indoor sunlamp. Ophelia jerked out of her trance and busied herself rinsing the blood off her arm in the infirmary’s utilitarian sink. She hadn’t been staring at him, had she?

Thank darkness Calli was nothing but vampire or Antonia might’ve fainted. And from the concerned way Bastian hovered over the girl, he might not have dealt with someone like Bishop well.

Bishop had concealed his demonic nature his entire life, mostly because he hadn’t known about it. Since he’d mated with Fyra, though, he’d done the equivalent of developing a beer gut and wearing wife-beaters. He didn’t really hide that icy part of himself anymore, often indulging in his underworld powers. He had to, with a mate like Fyra.

Fyra filled Calli in, then pointed at Antonia. “She was on the verge of a panic attack. The girl, not Ophelia.”

Calli’s mouth quirked as she struggled to retain her regal composure around Fyra. Bastian would feel more comfortable dealing with Calli, who was prime breeding at its best.

Ophelia had seen enough. She held out the slip of paper. “I think they were trying to turn her into a host.”

Calli frowned and accepted the sheet. “Will they ever run out of greedy primes to act as hosts?”

“That’d be too easy,” Ophelia replied.

Calli’s frown faded and her mouth dropped open. “They were doing to her what they did to me.”

“Bonding her with a second-tier?”

“Worse. Bonding her with a purebred Circle member.”

Fyra’s sharp inhale echoed through the room. Calli nodded, her eyes wide.

Bastian watched them closely. “What’s a second-tier and what’s a Circle member?”

Calli folded the paper and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. “Life in the underworld is broken into classes, like vampires. The purebreds are the underworld primes, but they’re big and ugly and look like demons. Second-tiers are the mutts of the underworld. The quarter horses, so to speak. They’re more intelligent, more focused, but not as powerful.”

Fyra tapped her head and winked. “I’m a second-tier. Somewhere in my heritage, there’s a vampire. That’s true with most of us second-tier demons.” She leaned forward to whisper, “And several vampires in this realm.”

Antonia covered her mouth. “My parents?”

Sympathy crossed Calli’s face. “They’re probably full-blooded vampires working with or for the underworld. They put you up to it?” Calli’s parents had done the same thing—only when Calli had been much younger, and they’d succeeded where the Gastons had failed.

Ophelia’s parents hadn’t dabbled in demons. They had no such excuse for their cruelty or their total disregard for the life of their own daughter.

Antonia’s face crumpled, and tears poured down her cheeks. She buried her head in Bastian’s shoulder and sobbed.

Ophelia and the others eyed the move. Awfully familiar for a servant and his employer’s daughter.

Calli was the first to probe. “You two are close?”

Bastian rubbed Antonia’s bony shoulder. “I raised her. No nanny could be enticed to stay for long.”

He didn’t elaborate. Ophelia filled in the blanks. Antonia’s parents were selfish privilege-whores and had ignored their daughter. Bastian had swooped in with his heart of gold to keep the girl from becoming a mini-mama.

Here’s hoping he got to her in time. And that his heart wasn’t really fool’s gold.

Ophelia exchanged a look with Calli. Yeah, she’d come to the same conclusion, too. Gotta love prime upbringing.

“You interrupted the ceremony and got out alive with Antonia,” Calli said. “Tell us about it.”

“There was this…beast.” Bastian’s eyes clouded with terror. “And the smell of sulfur.”

“Brimstone,” Fyra interjected.

He inclined his head. “Yes. The Gastons were there, and another vampire. His eyes were completely black.”

“Possessed,” Calli said.

Bastian’s mouth worked. “How— I guess? I didn’t recognize him.”

“He wasn’t one of us,” Antonia’s muffled voice came from his shoulder.

Spoken like a prime. While the girl was being comforted by the only person in the world to give a shit about her, she still didn’t consider Bastian one of “them.” But the way events were unfolding, who would want to be one of them?

“So a vampire of regular breeding, but possessed by a second-tier,” Ophelia clarified.

“How do you know the demon wasn’t a purebred?” Good. Bastian was tracking all the information. He’d need it to keep the girl safe.

“Regular vamps aren’t strong enough to host a purebred. Primes have stronger blood, can tolerate a little sunlight. And they can host a purebred demon without going up in flames. On the flip side, second-tiers aren’t strong enough to overpower a prime. Being prime does more for us than make us assholes, I guess.”

His ochre eyes flared. Oh yes, she knew that look, too. Look at this prime female, so tiny and therefore so abused by her household, and now she’s mad at the world and compensates for it with vulgarity.

Nothing she hadn’t heard before from everyone else. So why did it bother her so much coming from him?

 

***

 

The dichotomy that was Ophelia could become an obsession.

All Bastian’s life, females had been easy to categorize: attainable or unattainable. Common or prime. Madame Gaston had been a picture of fine porcelain beauty, but nothing about her ethereal good looks had been personally alluring or captivating, though he’d heard rumors that she had many willing partners besides Master Gaston. Even if Bastian had been attracted to her, his birth status would have been a total turn-off for her. Prime females were like priceless art: to be gazed at from afar but never touched up close.

But Ophelia. Her shoulders were square, her chin up, and as short as she was, she still managed to look down on those around her. Her prime status was obvious in her stance, if not her smell. If he’d been an ignorant fool and missed the first two indicators, the power of her blood would’ve knocked him on his ass if he hadn’t already been planted on it.

Sultry, salty, with a hint of sweetness, her rich life had flowed into him. And my vein isn’t some treasured piece of rare jewelry. It’s been shared all over town.

She’d said it as if to shock him, to downplay her healing gift. Primes were very sexual beings. Vampires as a species were hypersexual. But she spoke as if he should be disgusted by her.

His fangs throbbed as anger beat a low rhythm in his skull. Someone had hurt this compact powerhouse. They’d taken the bright life that should be in her expression and stamped it out with their words and actions.

Even now, she glared at him. Her hard, brown stare would skewer a weaker male. He’d never thought of himself in terms of weak or strong. His life had been dedicated to service, a decision that had saved him from the ravages of the streets. He’d taken a job with a notoriously difficult family and held it for over thirty years.

But the male of this one’s choosing would have to be strong. Not physically, but mentally. He would have to be sure of himself—and her—when she raged against what life had dealt her.

And what had life dealt her?

Muscles rounded out her long-sleeved black shirt and the legs of her cargo pants. Her black hair was bound in a French braid. Her dark skin shimmered under the fluorescent lights. His fingers itched to find out if she was as silky as she looked. An obviously bad idea—no one should touch this female without her permission.

Why was he even thinking about the softness of her skin or any other part of her body? It wasn’t his place. She wasn’t someone he was allowed to woo.

Antonia shivered; shock had set in. He tightened his hold around her. Her mother had likely perished, and her father would make her a literal puppet for a demon. It’d been a mentally challenging hour for her on so many levels.

He licked his lips to speak. His mouth was dry from his body’s rampant healing. And the effort to keep his gaze off the vein his lips had kissed was draining him.

“We think her mother died during our escape. The smell of blood was—”

A sob ripped from Antonia. He hated relaying the story in front of her, but with all she’d been through, the end of her troubles wasn’t here yet.

“We’re both certain she didn’t make it. Her father and the second vampire pursued us, but we busted through a window and flashed.”

Ophelia and Calli exchanged looks.

“Describe the beast,” Calli said. She spoke with the easy authority of her class, yet she had a down-to-earth quality that he never saw in other primes.

The beast. That was an image he’d never scrub from his mind. “Huge. Sharp horns, fangs just as long. He was lanky, but strong enough to rip the manor apart with his bare hands if he wished to. They had a white substance poured around him.”

“Spelled salt.” This from the exotic demon they called Fyra. It couldn’t have been a more appropriate name. She scoffed. “It creates a barrier more like a chain-link fence than a concrete wall.”

Calli nodded. “You’ve said that before, but it’s in the demon tome we found.”

Fyra winked. “I know, right? Demons love a good disinformation campaign. They weave their own work-arounds in a spell so they can slip the leash when it suits them. A salt burn is a minor inconvenience to pay for the freedom to ravage a realm.”

Calli paled. “Then the tome isn’t to be trusted.”

Fyra lifted a shoulder. “It’s more like guidelines, really.”

The weight of the realm was in Calli’s expression. Perhaps literally, since Bastian had heard rumors about Demetrius and his demon-fighting team. Was this Demetrius’s mate?

“Can you pinpoint the demon?” Ophelia’s boot tapped the sterile floor. Was she getting impatient? “I want to hunt down the possessed vampire that helped with this scheme and gut him slowly, make him heal himself, and put it on repeat until he spills the story—and his intestines.”

“I like how you think.” An approving gleam lit Fyra’s already vibrant eyes. “You said he glowed. That would be Willistien. I thought he was a dunce myself, but even I forget how cunning purebreds can be.”

Calli nodded. “And the second-tier that possessed the vampire was probably Willistien’s personal guard. We need to find that vampire.”

“I know what he looks like.” Bastian never would’ve thought he’d be the male offering to hunt another vampire. He wasn’t a fighter, and that was okay with him. But this vampire had targeted Antonia, hunted a child, for his own morbid bidding. “But why Antonia?”

Ophelia’s lips pursed together a moment before she answered. “Because she’s young. They think they can manipulate her, and that she wouldn’t know any better. Prime parents are especially good at using their kids’ inappropriately placed adoration for their own gains.”

So. That was who had crushed Ophelia’s spirit.

Antonia straightened beside him, wiping her eyes. She must be in bad shape if she was willing to look so disheveled in front of strangers, especially other primes. “But my parents wouldn’t do that to me. It was that other vampire. He must’ve tricked them.”

He exchanged a look with Ophelia. Antonia had been through so much tonight; he wasn’t going to shatter the rest of the world she was clinging to.

Ophelia had no such hesitation. “Who gave you the script to read?”

“M-mother.”

“Who told you to go to the library with the demon suitor?” Ophelia asked, her tone firm.

“Father.” Antonia tensed. “But that male, he tricked them into it.”

Ophelia didn’t let up. “Who were the primes in the room?”

The girl’s lips formed a petulant line.

“Exactly. Your parents are primes. Rich, powerful, top-shelf primes. Do you think they would allow themselves to be tricked by a vampire of lesser breeding?”

Her gaze dropped to the floor. “But…”

Ophelia sighed and crossed her arms. She turned to Calli. “Tell D I’m going to hunt for Gaston.”

“Ooh, I’ll go with.” Fyra had her phone out, thumbs dancing across its surface.

Ophelia shook her head. “You need to stay on duty here. We have Calli and now Antonia and Bastian to protect.”

Bastian straightened. “I’m going as well.”

He’d never made demands of a prime before. But then he’d never chucked a phone at a demon’s head and squirreled away the daughter of a prime family before either.

“Oh, you’re a trained fighter?” Ophelia’s brow arched.

Bastian met her stare but refused to answer. His lack of fighting skills must be obvious.

“And how many guns do you have on you? Wooden stakes? Knives. A fucking can of pepper spray? Let me guess, not even a rape whistle?”

No, he’d never needed any one of those before. Except for knives, and that was to prepare food.

“Ophelia,” Calli chided. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea. He not only knows what the other male looks like, but he’s been with the Gastons for…”

“Thirty-two years,” he answered.

“He knows them. Where they go, who they do business with, who else is in their social circle.”

He inclined his head and hoped they didn’t detect his dismay. The Gastons were intensely private and rarely included Bastian in their personal dealings. He managed the manor’s bills, prepared food, did the laundry, and repaired as much as he could without hiring a stranger to visit the manor. But he wasn’t going to reject the help Calli was giving him.

“Fine.” Nothing about Ophelia’s body language said it was fine. “It’s too close to daylight to leave now. We’ll go at sunset. In the meantime, I’ll find him some weapons. You find him some clean clothes, and we can get moving as soon as the sun sets. Fyra, ask Betty to get Antonia a room and watch her. If she has a phone, confiscate it. We’ll get them each a burner.”

Antonia opened her mouth to argue, but at Ophelia’s fierce look, she shut it.

Bastian stood. Calli beckoned him to go with her, and he followed. Ophelia was close behind him, her wildflower scent clouding his senses.