The vampire boredly looked around, leaning against a countertop with the casualness of a satisfied predator as the kitchen staff and blood donors beamed at him.

I shrank back in my seat and did my best not to be noticeable—the less vampire attention I received the better.

Of course, this meant he looked right at me instead of watching the blood donor sitting a seat down from me who was clearly trying to get his attention.

I stared at my plate and didn’t dare look up—a good defense mechanism.

Vampires didn’t have mind control powers per se. But they could dazzle a person into complacency, which was close enough for me.

The vampire narrowed his eyes and delicately tilted his head back, sniffing the air. “What’s a rat-blood doing here?”

I stayed huddled on my chair and kept my eyes on the counter. “I’m a new kitchen servant. I said my vows to Killian Drake last night.”

The vampire scoffed and took a step closer, but was fortunately blocked when the over-eager assistant zipped out of the fridge and skidded between us, holding a blood pack on a silver platter.

“Would you like me to deliver it to the Eminence, sir?” the assistant asked.

“No.” The vampire grabbed the blood pack and meandered out of the kitchen without looking back.

“That was Rupert,” the chatty woman blood donor confided to me. “He’s like Killian and drinks packaged blood—which is a real shame.”

The male blood donor rolled his eyes, but added, “You don’t need to be afraid of him.”

I squinted at him. “He’s a vampire. It’s healthy to be afraid of him—you should be afraid of him.”

“Nah,” the female blood donor said. “Not here in Drake Hall! The vampires care for us.”

There was nothing in Rupert’s manners that had hinted at that, and knowing how little Killian Drake cared for anyone not a vampire, and that he had a history of eliminating anyone who got in his way, I was not inclined to believe them.

The skepticism must have showed on my face, because the blood donors spent the rest of the time trying to convince me of the vampires’ cold but real kindness until Debra came for me.

It gave me the shivers to see just how little the blood donors understood about the creatures drinking their blood.

A week passed, and I numbly settled into my new routine—which was a never-ending schedule of working, sleeping, and eating.

I liked it.

I was thankful that I didn’t have to think, and I didn’t even try to process Mason’s betrayal. But sometimes at night I’d wake up in a sweat, remembering with vivid clarity the way Felix sagged as Mason’s magic hovered over his heart.

I hadn’t wanted something that would distract me from my parents’ death, buuut it seems like I got it anyway.

I did odd jobs in the kitchen—putting away clean dishes, fetching ingredients for the chefs, arranging the baked goods on pretty trays—and I did my best to be friendly to my co-workers, so they accepted me readily enough. (Though I think they found my guarded manners toward our vampire bosses a little offensive. But that mostly just showed how little humans understood about our world.)

My biggest concern was the vampires.

I did everything I could to stay out of their way and escape notice. Thankfully, it wasn’t hard since no one could accuse a vampire of harboring excessive amounts of noblesse oblige.

I didn’t actually see them too often—I volunteered for early morning shifts and errands where I would be least likely to run into them. But after a week of living with the Drake Family, I actually got a glimpse of some of the elite vampires training.

It was evening. The sun hovered on the horizon, casting a blood red splash of color on the gunmetal gray clouds, and the vampires were holding practices outside.

I was carefully trotting along the outer wall of the massive mansion. I’d been sent to retrieve some fresh mint for one of the dishes that was going to be served with dinner. The mint was part of the herb garden tucked into the fold of the massive backyard garden. And just beyond that garden was the vampires.

It looked like they were practicing swordplay, but they were moving so fast it was hard to see.

It was pretty gutsy of them to practice in the sun—or maybe that was the point? Sunlight can’t instantly turn a vamp into dust, but it slows them down mentally and physically, and it’s an unpleasant sensation. But, watching the deadly Drake vampires, I suspected that was probably why they were outside—and why they were moving so fast even as the red sky glowed above them.

I paused at a patio door that would lead me into the mansion, and glanced back over my shoulder.

The vampires were streaks of black and white, their swords colliding in movements that I could track only with my ears. I wondered…could I learn to be competent with weapons to make up for my poor magic?

Grit scraped stone, and I jumped as I peered farther up the walkway, freezing when I saw the tell-tale black and white suit of a vampire.

I had come to find that all Drake vampires wore expensive suits, and this vampire was standing in the shadows so I couldn’t make out if it was Rupert or any of the other vampires I’d seen glimpses of. It didn’t matter though. His presence was enough to make me jerk out a stiff bow and dart into the mansion.

I carried my basket of mint sprigs to the kitchen, doing my best to stay out of the way as the rest of the kitchen staff frantically tore around, rushing to prepare the evening meal.

“I’ve got the mint,” I called.

“Good, out of the way,” someone ordered.

I jumped back to the doorway to avoid being bowled over, and caught sight of Debra marching down the hallway.

“Hazel—perfect. Do you have any chores at the moment?” Debra smiled and glanced down at her wristwatch.

“No.”

“Would you help two of the maids outside? Rupert informed me that the dragon statues lining the driveway need to be cleaned. The maids are almost finished, but they’re running behind. Their shift is about to end, and The Eminence does not like to see the cleaning staff out after sundown.”

Yeah, and I was sure it was out of concern for his staff. Right. The jerk probably just didn’t like his view being spoiled, or something equally prissy.

Knowing my thoughts could get me bitten—or worse—I forced a smile to my lips. “Sure thing! Do I need to take any supplies out there?”

“No, no. They’ll have it all. Thank you, Hazel.”

I gave Debra a thumbs up. “Sure thing! We’ll finish fast.”

The older woman seemed bemused by my enthusiasm, but she did wave to me before I turned up the hallway and slipped outside through the delivery door.

Since time seemed to be of the essence, I jogged down the stinking long driveway, and quickly realized why the maids were behind schedule. There were dragon statues every fifty feet or so of this paved monstrosity, and whoever designed it seemed to think it was necessary to snake back and forth across the immaculate lawn and around every tree that formed the front perimeter of the property.

I wasn’t exactly sure how much land the Drake Family had, but I was betting it was a lot. “And who wants to bet there are annoying dragon statues on every acre of it?” I muttered to myself as I jogged.

I was grateful for the cool night air. Spring was warming into a hot summer, and my uniform—a white dress shirt with black slacks that made me feel like a waiter day in and day out—stuck to me as I started to sweat despite the sweet chill in the air.

I found the maids attacking a dragon statue with sudsy rags and grim expressions.

I waved to them as I approached. “Hey—I’m Hazel. Debra sent me to help you.”

One of the ladies—an older woman with gray hair—smiled widely. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? The name’s Bea, that’s Ellie.” She nodded at the other maid—a doe-eyed, college-aged student.

Ellie gave me a weak smile as she polished the inside of the statue’s nostrils. “Hello.”

“We just have that statue left—could you be a dear and get started on it?” Bea pointed across the driveway, to the twin of the stone dragon they were vigorously scrubbing.

I swiped a wet brush and one of their buckets, then settled in to wash the stone monstrosity—which was bigger than me.

We were quiet—concentrating on our work—but I enjoyed listening to the birds as they fluttered in the trees above us. The rough stone of the statue felt like sandpaper whenever my grasp on my brush slipped and I banged my knuckles on it. I tried to scrape mold off a front fang, and I contemplated what I had left to do for the day.

While dinner was served, I’d need to go through the walk-in cooler that held the blood packs. We just got a delivery today, so I’d need to re-order the packs and put the older ones in the front, or they’d expire and go bad. (I’d discovered last week that the servants just served the vampires whatever was freshest and tossed the rest. It was a colossal waste of money, but my main incentive was that it made me gleeful that the vampires were getting served older blood.)

“How long have you worked in Drake Hall, Hazel?” Bea called across the driveway.

I shook myself from my slightly vindictive thoughts. “Just a week.”

“Gosh, a green one, are you?” Bea smiled as she buffed the statue’s front foot. “I’ve seen you around—I thought for sure you were Connie’s replacement.”

“Connie?”

Bea’s smile dimmed slightly. “Ah, she passed on recently.”

I recalled the kitchen gossip that a maid and two blood donors had been killed before the vampire. Connie must have been the maid. I chewed on my lip and wondered how many more questions I could ask. Given all the “fun” I’d gone through the last few weeks I understood it was a tough topic, but as a wizard I hadn’t heard about the murders.

“It’s kind of rude of me to ask,” I started. “But…how did she die?”

“She was a victim of the murders that have been plaguing the vampire community of late,” Bea said. “Of course, it’s mostly been blood donors and servants of the most honored Families, but there’ve been a few slayings as well.”