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  Hmm, so his father hadn’t been convinced by the story of love as his reason for Choosing Sandy. Dante had wondered why Viktor had bought that line; it appeared he hadn’t. No big loss, he told himself. It just meant that his father wouldn’t swallow the lie that Dante had managed to fall in love with his servant, either.

  Time for a new plan.

  “Characteristics such as eye color?” Dante asked and let go. He took a step backward.

  The servant slumped down and rubbed her throat. She was staring at him like he was crazy, but there was something else there, some emotion he couldn’t pinpoint. Not that he was any good at that.

  “Yes, but I didn’t understand why he wanted to know that.”

  “He didn’t say anything?” Dante asked.

  The girl shook her head.

  “He didn’t mention that I Chose anyone recently?”

  Eyes wide, she shook her head again, mouth tightly closed. “No, sir.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “Why did you Choose a human, sir? I didn’t think it was very common.”

  Dante frowned at her question, but she was looking at the stones under her feet. “I loved her.” There, that had been easy. He hadn’t blinked or looked away from the girl, not that she glanced up from the floor.

  “I’m sure she was beautiful.”

  Dante raised a brow. “Yes, she was. Did you know her? Her name was Sandy.”

  He saw the girl blink. “Did I know her?”

  Didn’t all the humans know each other? Weren’t they all cousins or some such?

  “Never mind.”

  “Did you pick your Sandy because of her eyes, sir? Is that why your father’s worried?”

  He resisted the urge to laugh wildly. How close this servant was to the truth! Did she know something, then?

  “I just like interesting eye color, that’s all.” What a way to sum half a life’s obsession in one sentence. Dante didn’t know why they were different, those humans, but he knew in his gut that they were.

  “So you like mine, then?” She stepped closer now; he could feel the heat emanating from her body.

  “Sure.” He wasn’t going to tell her that he liked hers more than any other he’d found, because he thought she might be able to make the transition to vampire, and then he’d know why those humans were different. A thought struck him; was she trying to seduce him?

  This close, the scent of werewolf was stronger. Yes, she’d definitely had sex with one. That, or they’d been wrestling without clothes on.

  So why was she suddenly approaching him, when she’d rebuffed him yesterday? Uncertain, and feeling like he was missing something, he decided his first course of action was the best. Make her fearful for her life, and she might tell him what he wanted to know. Moving faster than she could follow, he picked her up and threw her down on the workbench, quickly chaining the manacles to her wrists. Her breath whooshed out and her head bounced hard off the metal benchtop. She blinked up at him, stunned. After a second or so, she jerked against her restraints.

  “I’m fast. Didn’t my father tell you that?”

  She just stared.

  Maybe Viktor didn’t know. It was entirely possible; he saw his son as delicate and weak. He wouldn’t have bothered to learn that Dante’s extra sensitivity had extended toward speed, dexterity and strength.

  “Now, I have a problem. You clearly aren’t a normal personal servant. You were hired by my father to keep an eye on me and keep me sated, but you refuse to have sex with me and yet you put out for a werewolf.” He saw her eyes widen at the last statement. “What is going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Look, I have no problem killing you. It would be a waste, but I’ll do it. I’ll pay the death tax to your family and that will be that.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m a servant, I’m not a slave.”

  Dante shrugged. “Hence the death tax. Accidents happen.”

  “What, I tripped over and fell on your fangs?” Sarcasm dripped from each word. He realized that she was beginning to show some fire. He liked that. Perhaps she was genuinely worth his interest.

  “It’s been known to happen before.” And he smiled a big, openmouthed smile that showed his fangs.

  She swallowed and shut her eyes.

  “Be careful, you don’t want to hurt yourself, thinking too hard.” He turned around and walked over to his stool. He dragged it closer to the bench and sat on it.

  She didn’t open her eyes while she spoke. “I swear I’m just a maid. Why are you convinced this is some kind of conspiracy?”

  “Let me tell you a few facts about my life. One, my father hates me, but after I tried to Choose a human recently, he discovered an affection for me. I thought at first it was because he wanted to marry me off, make me someone else’s burden, but now I think it’s because he thought he could trick me into revealing something to him.”

  “Into revealing what?” She was looking at him now, her eyes wide in a pale face.

  He thought about answering her. There was no harm, he decided. He was either going to kill her, or Choose her and see what happened with those interesting eyes of hers, so it didn’t matter. She probably wasn’t going to survive the night. Or the third night, anyway.

  “This is the second fact: I’m obsessed with humans who have eye colors other than brown.” There, he’d said it. The Great Shame of his life.

  Her eyes opened wide. “But why?”

  “I think they’re—you’re—different. I’ve never been able to work out how or why, as your blood is the same as any other human’s, but I just know there’s something odd. When I tried Choosing the blue-eyed human, she was quite calm, until she realized my full intention. She tried to fight me, manipulate me, but it didn’t work. I wanted to try and turn her, because no one else has ever managed to. Choose a human with non-brown eyes, that is.”

  “That’s illegal, Choosing someone against their will.”

  “Who are you going to tell?” Dante asked.

  “Why do you even care about eye color?” she said in a strangled voice.

  “Why do people study flowers or birds or anything? Because I want to know.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask?”

  He laughed. “I’ve been asking for years. I’m over two centuries old, and no one has ever told me anything other than, ‘You’re crazy, Dante.’ You think someone will suddenly agree with me, that there’s some kind of…of human sub-race?”

  She was so white she could pass for a corpse. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  She stayed silent.

  “You want to know.” He answered for her. “I’m telling you because I’m going to try to Choose you.”

  She started fighting the bonds.

  “I have a theory. I don’t think non-browns can survive being Chosen, but I think you will, with your hazel eyes.”

  “If you Choose me, I’ll fight you! I will kill you.” The green in her eyes was glowing.

  He chuckled. “That’s the beauty of it. You can’t. Some sort of bond springs up between the Chosen and their Chooser, and it becomes almost physically impossible for one to hurt the other. That’s why it’s normally lovers who Choose, because the bond sometimes ties them emotionally as well. It’s not something that’s advertised, and it goes beyond logic, but it’s true.”

  “People will miss me if I don’t go home.”

  “Who? Your werewolf lover? He won’t come here looking for you; they don’t like our estates. And your family? Well, we’ll see.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Dante shook his head and tsked. “Such language.”

  She began fighting the bonds in earnest and he chuckled. This was going to be fun—well, as much fun as he ever had. Moving closer to her, he struck, quick as a snake, and bit into her neck. She gasped, and her struggles grew weaker and weaker as he drained the blood from her, and soon she was close to unconsciousness.

  He opene
d a gash on his wrist with a scalpel from his workbench. Holding her jaw, he dripped his blood into her open mouth. She didn’t swallow, and the blood spilled, running down her cheeks. He pinched her nose and she gasped for air before choking down mouthful after mouthful of his blood.

  “Good girl,” he crooned. “Two more times and then we’ll see if you make it.”

  Chapter 24

  Clay had a bad feeling.

  His gut was churning and he had a coppery taste in his mouth, which wasn’t blood, but something like fear. He could almost feel trouble in the air, as if a storm was about to break. Tucking his hands back behind his head, he settled onto Elle’s bed. He hadn’t bothered to unbutton his shirt or attempt to look sexy. Not that he did sexy very well, not in his mind, but women seemed to think that if you sprawled over their bed, then you were trying to be sexy. He could see why they would; he was unfairly good-looking.

  Clay grinned suddenly. No doubt Elle had adjectives other than “sexy” to describe him; “annoying” was probably at the top of the list. Although, if he was honest, the list of words that Elle would use to describe him wasn’t really of concern to Clay at the moment. What was important was the fact that Elle hadn’t locked the window. Not for two nights—well, days, but they were nights for Elle—in a row. There also happened to be the rather minor problem of her not coming home on either of those days. He could smell her absence.

  Rolling over, he breathed against the pillow. It was a cold scent, one of abandonment, despite the fact that the linens still held his and Elle’s odors. He had a feeling that Elle would’ve changed the sheets if she’d had to sleep here since their bout of passion; the smell of soap and starch should have greeted him upon his clandestine entrance.

  Clay also knew that Elle hadn’t come back in the early hours during the last two days, to just get changed or eat or do something, because he’d been here. He’d only left when he’d heard the others in the house stirring.

  It meant that Elle was probably still at the estate.

  That’s what he was hoping for, anyway. Better that than her lying dead on the street, although he had the feeling that if someone was stupid enough to corner her, they’d probably end up battered and bruised, rather than the opposite way around.

  The door opened suddenly and a burst of light hit him in the face, almost like a physical punch. Clay jolted upright. He mentally cursed at himself, because he hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps, but then, he’d been too busy lolling around sniffing the sheets. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he shoved his hair out of his face and looked at the little girl standing silhouetted in the door frame. She carefully held a candle up and squinted into the room. Her eyes widened when she spotted him.

  “You’re not Elle.”

  Give the child a sweet, Clay thought, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Where is Elle?”

  He stared at the girl—Emmie. Why wasn’t she screaming, or crying out in fear at his presence in her sister’s room? Was the child used to finding strange men in Elle’s chamber? Used to seeing great hulking werewolves propped on her sister’s bed like they belonged there?

  He bloody hoped not.

  He was going to have a talk to Elle when he next saw her. If he saw her. Scrap that, he thought, when he saw her. Clay would also have a few points to discuss with her about her just up and vanishing as well.

  Emmie walked into the room, pushing the door almost closed behind her. She set the candle down on the bedside table, making sure it was well away from the edge, and hopped up onto the bed next to him. She started swinging her legs. “Your name’s Clay? Elle said she wasn’t sure if it was.”

  He nodded.

  She looked down at her moving feet. Left first, then right. “I’m worried about Elle.”

  He didn’t know what to say. “Why?”

  “Because she was meant to come home.” Emmie turned to look at him, her eyes bright in the dim light. She would be a beauty when she was older, he thought, once she grew into those sharp features. Just like her sister.

  “Usually people stay at the estates when they work there,” Clay offered. Although, he didn’t believe that in this case; he just couldn’t see Elle sleeping under the same roof as a vampire, not willingly. The fact that she’d had sex with him was way out of the normal behavior for her character, he knew.

  Ah, his feisty redheaded racist.

  “Not Elle, she asked for permission to come home. To look after me.” Emmie scowled at her swinging feet.

  “You don’t seem to need too much looking after,” Clay said. He was lying through his teeth, of course. A young child in a town full of stinky vampires? A young, interesting child? Hah! She’d need an army to protect her when she got older. He’d stashed his own sister on an island in the Turquoise Sea. But that wasn’t what Emmie wanted—or needed—to hear.

  “Elle took the job for me,” Emmie blurted. Her feet stopped moving.

  Clay stared at the girl. “What?”

  He really wanted to know why Emmie wasn’t asking him about his presence; why she just accepted him being in her house, but he knew he shouldn’t interrupt her. Kids were like that; they got to the places they were going in their own time. Plus, he decided, she might just be too caught up in her concern for her sibling. It was pretty clear they loved each other; Clay would be the same over his. Blood, he had been. Still was, to the extent she let him.

  “Elle didn’t say it, but I think Gran said something mean to her about me, because I know that Elle didn’t want to go to the estate and Gran really wanted her to go, but I said don’t worry, it was okay, but Elle said she had to go, and I didn’t want her to go—” Emmie bit back a sob.

  Clay blinked and placed a hand awkwardly on the girl’s shoulder. Within seconds, she had climbed onto his lap and was crying in earnest. He looked at the child in his arms bemusedly.

  From stranger to comforter, Clay thought. His brief stay in this city had just gotten way more complicated than he’d thought it could get. You should have known better than to try and climb between a half-blood’s legs, his mind said. You did know better.

  “This isn’t your fault,” he said to the little girl and patted her on the back.

  She cried harder.

  “Sssh.” He smoothed the hair back on her forehead. “Elle will be okay.”

  Emmie looked up at him, her face splotchy, eyes still running. “You don’t know that.”

  He tried to grin then failed. “It’s Elle,” he said. Emmie kept her gaze on him. “She’s too stubborn for something really bad to happen to her.”

  Chapter 25

  Dante rolled down the arm of his white shirt, careful not to get blood on it. Seeing the still-oozing gash on his arm, he decided to leave the sleeve partway up his forearm; better to be on the safe side. He’d had one too many notes from the laundress threatening to make him wash his own shirts of late; just because she’d gotten sick of cleaning the blood from his—as if he was any worse than any of the other vampires here.

  Sighing, he walked over to the workbench and felt the pulse at the servant’s wrist.

  Nothing.

  Maybe he hadn’t pressed hard enough. He undid the manacle and then decided to undo them all. It wasn’t like she was going to jump up and run around now, was she? He picked up her other wrist and tried again.

  Nothing.

  Quickly, he ripped open her cheap shirt and pressed his ear to her chest. Her skin was cold, and he couldn’t feel her ribcage rising or falling. But… Ah, there it was. Very, very faint, but there.

  Thump…thump…

  He rocked back on his heels with a sigh of relief. She was still alive. Just, from the sounds of it, but alive anyway—that was what was important. The other two girls had been dead as soon as the third blood transfer had taken place. As long as her heart kept beating and she was breathing for the next three days, then the transformation could still take place.

  Turning away from the girl, he walked over to the sink and w
ashed his hands and face. He could feel his skin pulling at the corners of his mouth, so he figured there was dried blood there. He rubbed wet fingers against the skin, before rinsing the newer blood from his wrist. When he couldn’t smell the blood as strongly, he turned off the faucet and faced the room again.

  She looked dead. Dante wasn’t sure that she would make it. He hoped she would.

  “What in the name of—!”

  Dante looked up from the girl and into his father’s furious gaze. Ah, crap.

  “Hello, Father.”

  Viktor took two angry strides into the room and came to an abrupt halt before the table and its occupant. He was dressed in formal attire, like he’d been preparing to go to a ball. His knee-high boots were so shiny Dante could see his face in them. His cravat was a deep red color, like the fresh blood that had just wound its way down the plughole, and was adorned with a ruby pin. He looked totally out of place.

  “What in the name of blood have you done?” Viktor’s eyes were glued to the girl on the table.

  “I Chose her.” Dante shrugged. He half-turned around and picked up a towel that was next to the sink, and began to dry his hands.

  “She’s dead!”

  Dante focused on the servant. Objectively, he had to admit that she looked terrible. Even he thought she hadn’t made it. Dried blood was crusted around her mouth, rusty stains adorned her throat like a macabre necklace, and her skin had the pallor of death.

  “She’s not dead.” Dante dropped the towel back next to the sink.

  His father ran a hand through his long hair, his eyes riveted on the girl. “You idiot, of course she’s dead!”

  “Of course?” There was no of course about it, Dante thought, not unless you knew she wouldn’t survive. A sinking feeling took weight in his gut, but he ignored it.

  “Well,” his father blustered, “you can hear her heart isn’t beating.”

  “But it is.”

  Viktor looked in disbelief from Dante to the servant. He’s worried, Dante grasped, hearing his father’s accelerated heartbeat. He’s actually worried the servant is dead.