Graced Read online

  “I really do need to go to training,” Elle said.

  “Bosh! You’re a half-blood, Elle; you aren’t going to suddenly learn how to do TK.”

  TK. Telekinesis.

  Not that you can do that either, Elle thought. Green meant that Gran could read people’s minds. She was strong, there was no doubt about that, she ruled over the Graceds in Pinton with an iron fist—easy to do when you knew what almost everyone was thinking. Thankfully though, Greens couldn’t read other Greens, and Elle had enough Green in her Hazel to make her safe. Just like she had some Gray, which meant that one day she might develop telekinesis. And pigs might fly.

  “No, but the mental training helps my guard work,” Elle said and smiled, a curving of the mouth that didn’t expose any teeth. Gran didn’t like openmouthed smiles—she said teeth-baring was for leeches and dogs.

  Gran narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “If you must go, then go.” She waved a hand dismissively and then focused her attention on Emmie. Emmie turned to look at Elle with an expression akin to panic, before it smoothed into a thin-lipped smile.

  “Why are you smiling, girl? Have you started reading people’s minds yet? Can you move things around without touching them? Manipulate emotions? What can you do? What good are you?” The rapid-fire questions left no time for Emmie to answer.

  Elle opened her mouth to say something—anything—but Gran snapped a look at her. “What are you standing there for? You said you had to leave, so leave!”

  Feeling sorry for her sister, Elle left. If I was stronger, she thought, I would have stayed to help Emmie. But she wasn’t. She was weak and human and scared to death of her grandmother.

  Chapter 6

  Dante laid the scalpel on the stone benchtop carefully, trying not to spread blood anywhere it didn’t need to be. Picking up a glass slide and a pipette, he turned to the naked human. She was lying strapped to a metal table that was positioned in the middle of the room. She was shivering, with fear or lust, he guessed, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Human emotions were a bit of a mystery to him—mostly because they didn’t matter and partly because he couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

  The scent of blood wreathed around his senses, but he kept the hunger in check. This wasn’t dinner time; it was study time. His father had sent a messenger to Kipling House saying he wasn’t coming home for another week, which meant that Dante had time to work.

  The cut on the human’s arm was bleeding freely, so Dante carefully took a small sample of the fluid in the pipette before placing a droplet on the glass slide. He walked back to the bench and laid the utensil next to the scalpel, before inserting the slide into the microscope’s slot. A groan reached his ears.

  Frowning, Dante looked up at the bluestone wall in front of him before turning toward the human. Strapped down to the table, leather manacles held her firm, but shivers seemed to make the human quiver. Her skin had taken on a series of bumps and she was chewing on the gag. Blood had pooled into a large puddle on the side of the bench and had begun to drip onto the floor.

  He stared at it.

  Shaking his head, Dante snapped himself out of the blood-trance, walked over to one of the cupboards and hunted on the shelves for some bandages. He kept forgetting about the delayed clotting in humans’ blood. If he didn’t put some pressure on the cut, then the human would bleed to death, and it would serve no purpose whatsoever. Returning to the prone form, he quickly tied a bandage around the wound and fastened it with a firm knot. Another groan emanated from the creature. He removed the gag. “What’s the matter?”

  The sound of chattering teeth rose. “I’m cold.”

  More forceful shivers were wracking the human’s body, and he could see now that it was goosebumps rippling on the skin. He was about to shove the gag back in the human’s mouth when he remembered something about humans dying from the cold. There were so many possible ways to cause death, he had trouble keeping track of them. He went back to the cupboard and found a blanket which he threw over her.

  “Better?”

  “Uh—”

  “Great.” Dante shoved the gag back in place.

  He turned back to his workbench and frowned into the yellow glow that was produced by the dozen lamps he’d placed around the room. He didn’t need the light, but it was polite to keep the room illuminated for his guest. Deciding that more light wouldn’t hurt either way, he turned the flame up on the oil lamp sitting on his workbench, and looked through the microscope at the spot of blood. It looked like normal human blood. But why wouldn’t it? he wondered. It had been bloody difficult to find a human with eyes a color other than brown—a human he could take and not get into trouble for—and now he had one, their blood was just the same.

  It made sense, but at the same time, it didn’t make sense.

  Pulling up a stool, Dante sat on it and stared at the human as her shivers slowed. Female, maybe twenty years old—he wasn’t sure, he could never tell humans’ ages (apart from if they were young or old, they all looked the same to him)—with blue eyes. He knew that humans with different colored eyes weren’t like the brown-eyed humans, he just knew it. But how could he prove it?

  Their blood looked the same and it tasted the same.

  Both his father and sister said his theory was crazy.

  But he wasn’t, and his theory wasn’t.

  Humans with non-brown eyes never acted differently to their brown-eyed counterparts when in front of him. But there were differences. He’d only ever seen brown-eyed humans as slaves, never ones with blue or green or gray eyes. And they always avoided him, as if they knew they shouldn’t spend time with a vampire. Even Misty said she’d never taken a non-brown-eyed lover. And she’d screwed more than her fair share of humans.

  And the most compelling thing he’d found—he’d only ever met brown-eyed humans who had been changed into vampires. Not that many humans were allowed to make the transition. He’d asked the few Chosen he’d met what their original eye color had been, and they’d all been brown. After the change, their eyes had become a deep violet, darker than those belonging to born vampires. More red.

  He wondered what happened to the non-browns when they were Chosen by a vampire. It reminded him of the human tied to his worktable.

  “You’re a whore, aren’t you?” he asked.

  A muffled sound reached his ears. The gag, he thought, right. He quickly stood and pulled it out.

  “You’re a whore, aren’t you?” he repeated.

  A small pink tongue emerged from her mouth and she licked dry, cracked lips. “I’m anything you want me to be, sugar.”

  He looked at her, trying to determine what would attract a vampire to her, to encourage one to pay her for her sexual services, but he just couldn’t see it. Maybe his sister was right, maybe he was…different.

  “You sell your body for money, don’t you?”

  She seemed to be searching for something in his face. She was frowning when she said, “Yes, that’s why I’m here. Although this wasn’t what I was expecting; Madam Venus is meant to tell me if the client is into bondage and playacting.”

  No, he admitted to himself, he couldn’t imagine she would have expected this particular scenario when she arrived at his father’s estate. Not unless she could see the future.

  “This isn’t playacting,” Dante said.

  She blinked and then her eyes filled with water. Tears, he discovered. “You mean you’ve tied me down to…experiment on me?”

  Dante ran a finger over the bandage. She was clever. That was good. “Yes.”

  Her breathing and heart rate accelerated. “Won’t you let me go?”

  She was looking at him again, like she was expecting something from him.

  “No.”

  “But I’m afraid.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  The tears dried up and she was frowning again. Were humans normally this mercurial?

  “You don’t feel any remorse for what you’re going to do?”<
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  Dante looked at her askance. “Why would I?”

  She didn’t say anything in reply.

  He ran a finger over the smooth skin of her neck, and he could feel tiny marks from previous bites. “You aren’t bit-ridden.” It was a statement, he didn’t need to see her shake her head. Maybe she thought that would save her from whatever it was he intended.

  “Madam Venus knows I’m here.”

  “Why aren’t you bit-ridden? You let your clients bite you, yes?”

  “Some people don’t get addicted to the saliva.”

  He could sense she wasn’t telling him the whole truth. By the blood, he’d never met a human who wasn’t addicted after half a dozen or more bites. She was a whore; she’d had to have been bitten far more than that.

  “My madam knows I’m here.”

  “You already said that.”

  “You can’t hurt me.” Her voice was trembling and she was tugging at her restraints, trying to break free.

  “I don’t intend to hurt you.”

  She raised her blue eyes to his. “I don’t understand.”

  He shoved the gag back into her mouth, tired of talking. “You don’t have to.”

  *

  Dante scrubbed the blood from his hands, watching the dark color seep from the white lines in his skin, glaring at it as it swirled down the sink in a wash of crimson-tinted water. He didn’t bother looking at the corpse that was lying cold on the stainless steel table of his workroom. Gripping the edge of the sink with both hands, he hung his head.

  It hadn’t worked.

  He’d done it right, he knew he had. Choosing someone wasn’t really all that hard—drink their blood, give them your blood. Do this three times in three days. On the third day after that, they woke up a vampire.

  But the whore had died moments after the final blood transfer.

  “Since when did you get into bondage?” Misty’s voice echoed in the quiet room.

  Dante looked over his shoulder at his sister. Her pale hair was tied back in a chignon and her gown was white. It was very plain for her normally…frilly…tastes. With a sudden swipe, he jerked off the taps and turned away from the sink. He grabbed a nearby towel and dried his hands.

  He saw Misty take a few careful steps toward the corpse. “She’s dead.”

  “I know,” Dante said. He leaned his hip against the stone bench and folded his arms across his chest, the towel dangling from one fist.

  “Who is she?”

  “Her name was Sandy.”

  “Why’d you kill her?” Misty walked around the table, inspecting the naked body. The limbs were touched with a blue tinge.

  Dante shrugged. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Misty leaned forward and considered the bite marks, before pointing to the smear of red around the human’s mouth. “You Chose her?”

  “Tried to, yes.”

  Misty flicked a frown his way. “Didn’t you do it right?”

  “I did it by the book.”

  She stared at him. “I didn’t know they had a book about this.”

  Dante rolled his eyes. “It was a metaphor.”

  “Right.”

  He was quickly growing sick of the conversation. “Why are you here?”

  Misty pursed her lips. “I was just popping by to say hello.”

  Dante shook his head. Misty never popped by to say hello. Popped by to be an annoying pain in his ass, yes. Dropped by to rub his face in her glory, yes. But hello? No, he had no familiarity with that. His eyes dropped down to the body and then he flicked them away. Such a disappointment. “Don’t you have anything better to do? A human to screw? Aristos to preen in front of?”

  Misty’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you like my visits?”

  “I’ve just never been…blessed…with so many of them.”

  She moved her arm in what appeared to be an attempt to fluff her hair, only to drop it when she remembered it was tied back. “Oh, well, things are a little boring at the moment.”

  Dante wasn’t really sure what to do. He wanted to drive her off, but with their father due back to town so soon and the fact she was trying to be nice…

  “No social intrigue?” he asked.

  She visibly brightened, although she tried to pretend hauteur. “Well, not apart from the fact that Jeanette DeRoy was caught having sex with three humans by her father—at the same time, mind you—or that Markus Brune was caught peeping in the women’s garderobe…”

  Dante figured it would be safe if he tuned out. Guiding Misty from his workroom, he shut the door behind him with a distinct click. He’d have to get rid of the body before his father returned.

  For now, he’d humor his sister.

  Chapter 7

  Elle sighed and rubbed her shoulder. Her sort-of cousin, Bjorn, had thrown her against the wall and dislocated the joint. Bjorn and his brother Kevin were her gran’s bodyguards. She’d been training with him at her gran’s house; him testing if she could block his telekinetic power. The painful and obvious answer was no. Kendra, the sawbones, had popped it back in, but it still hurt like shit. As it was, actual guard work tonight was going to be a bitch with her shoulder out. She’d probably get stuck on desk duty. Boring.

  Turning the corner, Elle began walking toward her grandmother’s “meeting room” where she spotted Emmie waiting in front of the closed door. Her sister’s dark face looked unnaturally pale and her Teal eyes glittered ominously, but no tear stains marred her cheeks.

  Elle reached her sister’s side. “Emmie?”

  “Can we go home?” Emmie’s voice was wobbly.

  “Sure, kiddo.” Elle held out her hand and Emmie took it without a murmur. Their gran must have really ripped into her, Elle thought. Together, they walked down the dark hallway and past another set of bodyguards at the front door.

  They were halfway home, winding their way through the narrow, cobblestone-paved side streets, the cold air burning in Elle’s lungs, when Emmie spoke. “I hate Gran.”

  Sometimes Elle felt more like Emmie’s mother—their almost twenty-year age gap made Elle feel more protective than was probably healthy for a small child. But she couldn’t save her from their grandparent. Wasn’t strong enough.

  Elle tightened her fingers around her sister’s hand. “No, you don’t.”

  Emmie tried to pull her hand free, but Elle spotted a couple of vampires nearby, heading inside a whorehouse, so Elle kept her grip strong.

  “I do. I do. I hate her. She’s so mean, Elle.” Emmie looked up at her, and her eyes were awash with the tears Elle had expected outside their grandmother’s door.

  “She’s just tough.”

  “She’s mean.”

  Elle went to counter that, but she shut her mouth and sighed. The thing was, Gran was mean. Elle could remember saying the same things to their mother—and their mother replying much the same as Elle had. But at least Emmie had it easier; she didn’t have to live with Gran.

  “Come on,” Elle said, walking faster. “Let’s get home.”

  *

  Clay folded his arms and rocked back on one heel, smiling broadly. The old human woman seated in front of him looked like a grumpy old grandmother, with her deep frown lines and steel gray hair. She was flanked by two tall, muscle-bound men in black shirts and breeches, who wore their dark hair short and their faces expressionless. Flickering yellow lamplight cast shadows throughout the room, but he didn’t really need their glow to see. Provided there was some light, wolves could see just as well, if not better, than their vampire cousins.

  Filthy leeches.

  The walls behind the grumpy old bat were covered with faded olive-green wallpaper that housed darker green patterns, all of which swirled together into what looked like a drawing. Tilting his head to one side, he tried to make some sense out of the patterns, but found none. He could feel the lackeys on either side of the old woman following his movement with their gazes. The flickering light cast shadows, but he could still see that they had Gray eyes. Even
with their abilities, he thought, he could probably still take them. His smile broadened.

  “You took your time getting here,” Olive Brown said, her voice raspy and dry. He figured it was meant to give the impression of great age, but he’d met her a good forty years ago when she’d been traveling around the northern continent, and knew it was probably the result of too much tobacco.

  Clay kept his arms folded and lifted one dark eyebrow. “I didn’t realize that I was on a schedule.”

  “Don’t get uppity with me.”

  He barked a laugh. “I was born uppity. Plus, I’m here as a favor; you shouldn’t forget that.”

  The old woman frowned deeply at him. Yellow lamplight continued to cast wavering shadows over the room, exaggerating her expression. She was seated on a green overstuffed wing chair. The flunkies didn’t move.

  The raspy voice sounded again. “You’re impertinent.”

  Clay smiled again and saw her blink. “Says the young to the old.”

  She didn’t appear to like that, but Clay didn’t care. She might look decades older than he was, but he was millennia older than her. He noticed another armchair, this one upholstered in a color that looked suspiciously like puce—the only non-green hue in the room. It was pushed up against the wall that boasted an empty fireplace. Unfolding his arms, he walked over and picked the chair up, before carrying it back to where the old bat was positioned. Setting it down in front of her, he took a seat and leaned back into the chair, crossing his feet at his ankles. He was tempted to clasp his hands behind his head, but decided against it when the old woman glowered at him. Clay refolded his arms.

  “Don’t like your guests to be comfortable?” he asked.

  She smiled tightly, lips compressed. “It keeps things interesting if they’re not.”

  “Quick, you mean.”

  “It apparently makes no difference to you.”

  “I’m not most people. So, why did you send your henchmen out to find me?”

  Clay had been enjoying a rather boring existence out in the half-wild town of Gorke. It was werewolf run, so it was mostly built from wood and stone, and was surrounded by wilderness. The scent of fir trees and snow and woodsmoke, they’re the things that make you feel alive, he thought. Not coal dust, bitter vampires and human waste. Gorke was a dangerous place for the humans who lived there, but they didn’t stink up the place, and they were probably safer there than with the animals that prowled the outskirts of the town.