The Verenim Family House is only about ten miles from my apartment and as a dhampir, I can run fast. Still, by the time I get out of the shower and get dressed, I’m already late. When I stumble into the servants’ side entrance, Atticus, the head of the crown’s human servants, is waiting for me with an annoyed look on his face.

For a human, he gets awfully cocky and bossy around vampires.

“Already sent the report from last night,” I say, not even winded by a ten-mile run. Shit, that’s like a walk in the park for me. “So, if you don’t need me, I’ll just be on my way...”

“Your report only had five photos attached,” the man says, sitting at a massive, curved desk in the corner, his MacBook open in front of him. “It’s three photos per target.”

“Yeah, three for Lenora,” I say, naming the dead vampire girl. “And one for each of her victims.” Atticus looks up me with this smug as hell expression on his face.

“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.

As a dhampir, I can sense the sun setting as well as any full-blooded vampire. I have about an hour until it’s officially sunset. Thank God for winter! My favorite time of the year here in Oregon.

Humming slightly under my breath, I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to catch a few Zs. But even in the Verenim Family House, I had to sleep with one eye open, so to speak. I wasn’t permitted weapons inside—go figure—so I’d just have to make do with the dirty little secret no vampire wants to admit.

A dhampir’s bite can be poisonous. Some latent gene gets activated when vamp DNA mixes with human, so we actually have venom we can inject at will. Crappy part about that is, the venom kind of affects us, too. It’ll kill the vampire we bite, and hey, maybe it’ll kill us along with them—or at least incapacitate us—but it’s a good backup plan.

Some vamps won’t let a dhampir bite them because they’re paranoid about it, but it’d be impossible to do by accident. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but most people don’t walk around shitting themselves either. It’s a bodily function we can control.

“Are you going to sit there for the entire meeting so I can dock your pay again or are you going to get your ass in the throne room?” Atticus asks, kicking my ankle.

My eyes—both of which were closed incidentally—snap open, and I’m up with my hand around his throat before I even realize what I’m doing. Atticus’s back slams into the wall and he lets out a strangled cry.

“Do not ever sneak up on a sleeping dhamp, you fucking idiot.” I shake him a little and squeeze my fingers a tad more tightly than I should. But this might be my one and only opportunity to scare the crap out of the little weasel. Not even his master will fault me for reacting after being snapped out of sleep. Vampires are cranky motherfuckers when they’re woken prematurely.

I drop Atticus and he slides to the ground, clutching his throat, his blue eyes wide with terror. Considering he spends his days waiting on both crown and royal vamps, I’m surprised. What a wuss. He’ll never survive here. And no matter how pretty he is, they’re never going to turn him.

If there’s one thing vampires and dhampirs alike despise, it’s cowardice.

I leave Atticus trembling on the ground and head for the open double doors of the throne room, glancing at the clock as I pass by. Holy hell, I must’ve been tired. An hour and a half passed in the blink of an eye and all I got out of it was a crappy dream where I explained to myself about the uses of dhampir venom? What gives?

Nobody looks at me as I move into the room, but they all know I’m there. A few lips even curl with disgust.

Racist asswads.

Weaving through the crowd, I take my place in the back-left corner with the rest of the for-hire outcasts. I’m the only dhampir there—we’re sort of a rare breed—but I’m not intimidated. I’ve lived my whole life learning how to toe the line around vampires and hide myself from humans. It sucks, but I’m used to it, and I don’t expect anything to ever change. How could it when I’m a goddamn pariah in one world and invisible in the other?

My eyes scan the dimly lit room, the crimson chandeliers washing the crowd in color, tainting faces red. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in here is pale. There are vampires in every shade of the same rainbow humans fall under. Well, okay, vampires can get a bit lighter—I’m talking white-as-fucking-virgin-snow—and a bit darker, all the way to pitch-black-no-stars-country-night-sky. And undead vampires always have an ashier complexion, but basically we use the same color palette as our food, i.e. human beings.

Reaching my hands up to my hair, I move to rake my fingers through the golden waves and then remember how perfectly sleek and styled it is right now. When I’m around these people, I need to look my best. It’s the only way to get any of them to even remotely take me seriously. Besides, my hair is only ever tamed into some semblance of order once in a blue moon. Might as well enjoy it.

I cross my arms over my chest and glance around at the myriad designer dresses, suits, shoes, and jewelry. There’s enough wealth in this room to triple the GDP of a small country. It’s a little ridiculous, but hey, maybe I’m just bitter because I grew up sleeping in cars and on park benches.

A human servant circulates with blood-spiked champagne and I snatch a glass, lifting the bubbly red liquid to my nose and inhaling. Human. Female. Definitely young and definitely excited. Lifting my head up, I take another sniff and realize that the waitress herself is the donor of this particular cocktail.

Huh.

The drink is bubbly and fizzy and metallic in my mouth, and luckily, since I haven’t had any real food in hours, the booze goes straight to my head. By the time I finish that glass and switch it out for another, I’m having a much better evening.

Almost an hour later because, you know, why the fuck should the king have to show up on time—he’s superior to everyone else in here, obviously—the room gets eerily quiet. Most people don’t even bother to breathe. Since I’m half-human, I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter and my body does it for me. Never in my life have I heard a sound so loud as a single dhampir breathing in a room brimming with vampires.

It makes me stand out...in a bad way.

The king saunters in from the direction of the crown chambers, an entire entourage surrounding him. Since most people in this room would gladly kill him and usurp the family seat if given the chance, he has to keep around either those who are bound to him, who actually like him, or who he pays ridiculously well in order to stay alive.

The man can’t be more than three years older than I am, but he has a tired, almost bored face, like he’s just done with life and can’t be bothered. If I were someone else, I might find him attractive with his thick, curly black hair, spring green eyes, and big lush mouth. But there’s just something about him that fails to get my lady parts in a tizzy.

Not like Sorrow and Vyce, I think, daydreaming about my one-night stand for far longer than I should. There are many reasons why those kinds of interactions should only last one night, and even though those guys were hot, like fucking hawt, spelled wrong and everything, I need to let them go.

I exhale sharply and draw the eyes of all the vampires in my immediately vicinity. Even though they’re about as low-ranking as they can get, shit on the bottom of the shoes of the royals and the crowns, they look at me like I’m something the cat threw up.

Good thing I’m not a sensitive person or that might bother me. In reality, I have the emotional complexity of an eggplant, so the fact that they hate my guts and want me dead doesn’t bother me in the least.

The king slouches lazily in the intricately carved wooden throne some pompous a-hole dragged over from the old country. He looks a tad ridiculous in it, dressed in thousand-dollar designer jeans, boots, and a loose black button-up.

His ice-blue eyes vaguely remind me of Sorrow’s. Actually, as the king flicks his gaze over to me, I realize they’re more like mine. Well, like my one blue eye anyway. He stares at me for a disturbingly long time, drawing the attention of the crowd. Great. Just what I needed, a bunch of nosy, entitled vampires staring at me in the velvet and diamond dress. Half of them look at me like they want to rip my throat out and drink me dry, and the other half look like they want to fuck me...and then drink me dry.

Vesnic of House Verenim—aka the vampire king, if we’re being blunt—turns his attention back to the clustered royals at his feet. Those simpering sycophants gaze up at him like he’s a god incarnate and yet, they’d kill him first chance they could get. It’s nauseating to watch.

“I have an announcement,” the king purrs, sending ripples of pleasure through the crowd. To be fair, there’s a reason this man is king and it’s not just because he was born into it. He’s as powerful as Vyce, Sorrow, and Wolfe, this overwhelming presence that seems impossible to be contained in a man as young as he is. Crown blood runs hot with magic, that’s for fucking sure. “It’s come to my attention,” he continues with a small roll of his blue eyes, “that there are those in the ranks of House Verenim that would like to see me take a queen.” He pauses to grin, and flashes his fangs. It turns his face from lazy to terrifying in an instant. “Or...another king perhaps,” he muses, taking a champagne glass from the hand of a woman in his entourage. “Alliances made, families united,” he mutters, like the idea doesn’t hold even a lick of appeal for him.

And then those blue eyes slide over to me again, and I feel my cheeks flushing red. Shit. Now everyone in the room is glaring at me, just daring the king to choose a dhampir so they can tear her throat out. Hah. Not that I wouldn’t take him up on the offer. Shit, I might not find the guy attractive, but becoming an overnight princess and future queen is a fantasy even little girls with hearts of eggplant can get on board with.

But I have a feeling he wants me for something else—namely, to kill somebody.

I sigh and snatch yet another glass of champagne, trading out my empty glass in the process.

Vesnic turns his attention back to the cloying beauty of the crowd.

“If you study our history,” he continues and several people shift and murmur. Vampires rarely shift or murmur, so they’re clearly confused by the king’s tangent. “You’ll remember that once upon a time...” He trails off and grins again, this awful rictus that stretches across his face like a scar. “We manipulated Mundanes into choosing gold as their currency standard.” Ah, so we’re resorting to racist slurs now. Mundane is about the most fucked-up thing a vampire can call a human or a dhampir. “Because our people, we had the magic to transmogrify useless items. We could make gold and control human economies. As you also know, that skill’s long been lost.” The king sneers and stands up, throwing his head back and finishing off his champagne. He chucks the glass against the wall nearest me and it shatters to pieces, catching the red glow from the chandeliers. It almost looks like shards of solidified blood, all that glass.

I shiver as Vesnic passes his gaze over to me again. Whatever’s coming, I’m not going to like it, am I?

“So I’ve decided,” he continues, letting his sharp gaze sweep the crowd. I can feel the power in it, rolling over us like thunder. Lightning shivers across my skin as I shudder. I’m the only one that reacts to it, damn it. Fucking vampires. “That I will marry any individual that can turn straw into gold.”

Holy. Shit.

My blood turns to ice as images of my mother flash in my head. This is too fucking eerie. No way the king just picked this at random, right? But then, nobody knows—or rather nobody should know—about what happened between my mom, Rumpel, and whatever vampire crown was involved. Mom never told me, but now I’m starting to suspect I’m standing in the same fucking house that sent my mother and me on the run for twenty frigging years.

This is too weird. The urge to escape that room, those people, it surges through me fast and hard. Fight or flight has taken over, and I know my own limits better than anyone. If the king somehow knows who I am, then there’s no way I can fight through this. I have to run and start all over again. Finding another vampire house that’ll accept a dhampir—even as a for-hire slave—is a tough prospect. Most of them will kill me on sight. Shit.

And I can’t live among humans. I just can’t. I’ve tried and I’m too...other.

The king keeps staring at me, though? Why?

He grins again and then gestures with his chin in my direction. A man in Vesnic’s entourage, dressed in ripped jeans and a band t-shirt that are honestly probably ‘designer’ and cost a fortune, moves over and leans down to whisper in my ear.

“Ass on the dais,” he growls, and I curl my lip up in a snarl. If I didn’t think punching him as hard as I can in the stomach would get me torn to pieces, I would do it. Instead, I shove past him with a dismissive knock of my shoulder and move up to stand next to the king.

This could be bad. This could be really bad.

“I’m assigning Cameron of House Verenim to actively search for a person that fits this description,” he continues, and my mouth gapes open in shock. What? This is what Atticus was talking about when he said a more permanent position. I’m literally being tasked to do the impossible? “And if no one comes forward or if Cameron can’t find the person we’re looking for, then I’m content to rule alone.” Vesnic snarls this last part out and then smirks triumphantly. He’s assigned his useless dhampir slave to the task, and he’s set a precedent that nobody alive can meet.

Well, that he thinks nobody alive can meet.

“False claims,” he starts, using his nail to slice across his own neck. Blood wells crimson against white flesh, and the crowd leans forward like a field of flowers collectively straining for the sun. “You get the picture,” Vesnic finishes, licking blood from his thumb. I sniff the air, expecting a king’s blood to smell irresistible. Instead, it’s almost cloying. I frown and take a small step back. “The next person who petitions me to choose a bride or groom who cannot spin straw to gold will have their head on a pike next to the false prophets.”

I watch in morbid fascination as the king licks his finger and drags his fingertip over the wound to close it, turning and leaving the dais the way he came.

After he goes, the reality of what just happened sinks in.

The king gave impossible requirements to his future bride.

Requirements that I know exactly how to meet.

Shit.

So...is it worth the risk to visit the Stiltz’ brothers and ask for a favor?

Because I live above a Chinese food restaurant, down the street from a cemetery, and I work for fucking scraps.

I’d rather be queen.