Two well-dressed females—both of them looked in their early thirties or so—were perched at one of two kitchen islands with an equally well-dressed man. All three of them were humans—you could tell by their colored eyes.

Vampires always have red eyes. The exact hue and shade of red varied per vamp, but was a dead-giveaway—and one they couldn’t easily hide.

This meant all three of them were probably blood donors since they weren’t dressed in the white and black kitchen uniforms and they seemed occupied with nibbling on food.

Debra waited a moment or two, but the kitchen staff were too busy working and chatting to notice her, and the blood donors were pretty focused on the baker’s progress with the cookie dough.

Eventually she gave in and clapped twice. “Everyone, this is Hazel Medeis. She is a newly sworn servant to the Drake Family, and will be serving here in the kitchens until we find a permanent spot for her. Please help and direct her as needed.”

The baker—a plump middle-aged woman—smiled. “Welcome to Drake Hall!”

The chefs—a man and a woman who stood close enough together I was starting to assume they were an item—eyed me up and down.

“Are you any good at food prep?” the male chef asked.

Debra held a finger in the air. “I’m not handing her over just yet—she needs a tour of the hall. But I’m going to leave her here for a moment while I call housekeeping to confirm her room location. You’ll give her something to eat?”

The kitchen staff nodded.

Debra laid a hand on my arm. “Stay here, I won’t be but a few minutes.” She swept off, her heels clicking on the stone tiled floor.

One of the woman blood donors smiled at me and patted the counter. “Take a seat!”

“Thanks.” I padded across the kitchen, tiredly rubbing my eyes.

Some of the staff were staring at me, and it took me a moment to realize it was probably my fleece pajama pants and dirty, scratched up feet. (Or it could have been the hair. My blond hair was probably a rat’s nest by now.)

The realization didn’t come with the flush of embarrassment you would normally expect. I just didn’t care anymore—a product of the traumatic night I’d gone through. But I recognized that I wouldn’t gain anything by freaking these people out, and I was going to be stuck playing a long game if I ever hoped to kick out Mason, so I tried to smile.

“Long night?” the friendly blood donor asked.

“Yeah. Really long.” I plopped down two chairs from her, and my smile turned a little more genuine when the female chef slapped a plate down in front of me that held a ham sandwich almost as big as my head. “Thank you.”

She slightly pursed her lips as she studied me. “Hazel Medeis…of House Medeis?”

I cringed—I hadn’t expected humans to recognize my last name. “Yep.”

“So, you’re a wizard, then?”

I picked up the giant sandwich, trying to figure out what end was best to start with. “A weak one, but yeah.”

The chef nodded and folded her arms across her chest, seemingly satisfied. “I expect they hired you because of all the murders?”

Chapter Six

Hazel

I mentally repeated her question twice before I set my sandwich down in my confusion. “I’m sorry…what?”

“Playing dumb, hm?” the male blood donor said in a growly voice, though his toothy smile was warm. “Probably not a bad idea—if the sicko responsible doesn’t know you’re a wizard you can better protect us.”

“What’s the count up to now?” the dishwasher asked. He almost lost his black framed glasses in the suds when he peered into the depths of his sink.

“Have there been any new murders?” a kitchen assistant asked.

“Not since Nick’s death yesterday,” the female chef grimly said.

“He was a vampire from the Kotov Family,” the baker sighed. “Such a loss.”

“In Drake Hall we lost Wanda, Kevin, and a maid!” The other female blood donor, who had been staring at her plate this whole time, hotly declared. Her face was a little red and her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “They may be humans, but they still count!”

The male blood donor patted her hands. “The Drake Family will avenge them.”

“I heard Killian Drake himself is getting involved,” the male chef said. “That’s what last night’s meeting was for. And her, probably.” He nodded his head in my direction.

I had been puzzling through the conversation and steadily working away at my sandwich—I don’t know if it was because I was starving or if it was the magic of crispy bacon layered with ham and slightly melted cheese, but I swear it was the best sandwich ever. Unfortunately, when the talk finally worked back around to me, my mouth was full, and I almost choked on crumbs. “Really,” I said when I finally managed to swallow my food. “I have no idea what any of you are talking about. I pledged myself to the Drake Family because of a…situation. I’m not here to help with finding a murderer.”

The atmosphere in the kitchen dampened instantly.

“Oh.” The woman chef’s shoulders drooped.

“Wait a moment—you’re Hazel Medeis.” The baker paused in the middle of pressing a heart-shaped cookie cutter into the dough. “You’re the new House Medeis Adept.”

It seemed I hadn’t completely cleared my throat of all the crumbs, as it abruptly squeezed shut. “Yeah, that’s me.”

The baker eyed me. “Did they kick you out because you don’t have any power?”

“Martha!” the female chef snapped.

“It’s not a secret,” the baker argued. “I read about it when I was scanning the minutes of the latest Regional Committee of Magic to see what they said about the murders.”

The topic appeared to have safely returned to the murders given the winces around the room—though I got the feeling several of the staff were sending me thinly veiled looks of sympathy.

I wanted to take another bite of my sandwich—a crazed murderer running around was hardly noteworthy to me. Not since Mason had implied he was happy to murder my friends and family to get me to marry him, which pretty much topped the creepy meter for me. But if there was a psycho out to get the Drake Family—or vampires in general—given my recent luck it seemed like there was a good chance I’d blunder into him. So, it was probably best if I learned more.

I wiped my mouth off. “How long have these murders been a problem?”

“A month, maybe?” The dishwasher boy scratched his head, leaving a glob of soap bubbles in his hair. “That’s when we lost Wanda. She was a blood donor.”

“The Drake Family will handle it,” the male chef firmly said. “They care for their own, and though one could not accuse them of being fond of humans, they never shirk their duty toward us.”

I bet they didn’t. The more the staff were under the vampires’ thumbs, the easier it would be to subdue or get rid of a problematic servant or blood donor.

Don’t get me wrong. Not all vampire Families are power hungry and obsessed with influence—though the majority of them are.

Most newer vampires—like the delivery vamp—are way more chill and calmer once they make the complete transformation.

The problem is that these days it’s really hard for an old vamp to successfully sire a new vampire. Like, if there were more than ten new vampires in the Midwest per year, I’d be shocked.

This wasn’t a problem just for vamps, though. Werewolves were almost at the same level.

You’d think wizards and fae—being born—would escape this, but instead it just seemed like each new generation being born was less powerful than the previous.

Magic was…well…dying. We tried to keep it a secret from humans, but over the past two generations it had become unfailingly obvious that if we didn’t do something fast, supernaturals would die out altogether—or leave only the crazy psychos alive like the oldest of vampires and the most deranged fae kings and queens.

That was why we went public when we did. We were hoping by turning humans into our allies, we might be able to find a solution to magic’s weakening.

“If the murderer attacked you, Hazel, would you be able to fight it off?” the chattier of the two women blood donors asked.

I scratched my cheek. “Not if they killed a vampire.”

“Nick—rest his soul—was a mid-level member of the Kotov Family,” the baker said. “The Kotov Family is competent, which probably makes him roughly on par with the weakest vampire in the Drake Family.”

“Yeah, but the Drake Family is the most powerful in the Midwest,” I pointed out. “And wizards can’t take out vampires on our best day. If Nick Kotov was as strong as even the weakest Drake vampire, whoever killed him is super powerful, or really well prepared. And, as was mentioned, I don’t have strong magical abilities.”

“We’ll trust in the Drake Family,” the male blood donor decreed. “They’ll handle it.”

The dishwasher boy and the quiet female blood donor didn’t seem nearly so convinced, but they delicately changed the topic to the dinner menu, which was when the vampire strolled in.

His suit was so perfectly pressed and his tie was so snug I swear he couldn’t have looked down without breaking his neck. (Was the suit thing a dress code around here? Because matched with his slicked back, bright red hair it made him look like a model for men’s cologne.)

“Sir!” the male chef barked. “How can we help you?”

“I have no need of help.” Though his pale skin gave him a delicate, almost anemic look, his red eyes flashed with a cruel savagery that revealed his true nature. “I’m here to fetch a blood pack for the Eminence.”

One of the assistants scurried across the kitchen, throwing open the door of what I had assumed was a pantry, but was actually a walk-in cooler.