Though I knew where the harem was, I hadn’t visited it. I didn’t know who was in charge, and I figured that Belinda was on her way to Denver with the duke. Which meant that I’d been left with some asshat or other to babysit me.
I paused at the door of my room and considered activating the Eye of Blood again to see if someone warm-blooded waited for me out in the hallway. The gift was draining, as evidenced by my sudden cottonmouth, so I decided against it. Besides, Dante wasn’t an idiot. The only time he would risk assigning anything other than a vampire to me was during the day.
Pity. It would have made for a convenient snack.
I cracked the door open and leaned closer, stealing a peek out into the hall. A domed fixture hung from the ceiling, suspended by thin chains. Its light spilled down to the hardwood floor where a muddled reflection shifted, and a faint chirp sounded as if from a smoke detector with a dying battery.
“Looks like I might be on the move,” I heard someone whisper. “Put extra eyes on the south wing cameras.”
Enjoy the manor, he says. Yeah, right.
As I stepped out into the hallway to get a look at my personal escort, I had a moment of hesitation. Maybe the duke had changed his mind about giving me free rein in his little kingdom. Maybe my failed attempt to off him meant I would be confined to my room without dinner.
The guard gave me a toothy grin as his hand fell away from his ear. He looked maybe thirty—though looks could never be trusted when guessing the age of a vampire. His hair was black and cut short like most of Dante’s guards, but there was more…optimism in his expression, as if he were still green enough to enjoy his mind-numbing job.
A small, flesh-colored bud was nestled in the crook of cartilage above his right lobe. The electronic chirp came again. When he noticed me staring, he twisted a dial on the radio at his hip. I spotted a pistol and a small flashlight on his belt, too, before the fold of his jacket hid everything from sight again.
“Sorry about that,” he said, pointing at the side of his head. “The hearing in my right ear is shit—too many flashbangs in the military as a human—but if I put that sucker in my left ear, I won’t be able to hear anything else.”
“Okay…”
“So, where to?” He rolled his shoulders and straightened the cuffs of his jacket sleeves, grinning at me like an oaf. “The harem for a bite? Maybe the gym? Oh! I know…the library.” He snapped his fingers. “The big man said something about you liking books, and boy, does he have ‘em, let me tell you.”
I cocked my head to one side and frowned. Of all the guards, I had to get the Chatty Cathy of the bunch. Super.
“Yeah, the library,” I said, praying it came complete with a beady-eyed librarian whose death glare demanded silence. “Lead the way…?”
“Murphy.” He stuck out his hand, and I accepted it against my better judgement, immediately regretting it when he shook hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Lawrence Russel Murphy the Second,” he elaborated as he held tightly to my hand. “But most everyone calls me Murphy. Or just Murph. Sometimes Murphirino or the Murphster—”
“I’ll call you whatever the hell you want as long as you don’t break my fingers,” I said. He let go and took a step back, snorting out a nervous laugh.
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t sweat it.” I flexed my fingers a few times as the circulation returned.
“Library’s this way,” Murphy said, pointing down the hall. He waited for me to start walking, and then fell into step beside me, lingering a pace behind. Other than being too gabby—and grabby—he seemed professional, keeping his eyes on me without being obvious and leaving a comfortable buffer of space between us.
More domed light fixtures were spaced down the hallway above the gleaming hardwood floors that smelled of pine and lemon. White baseboards and crown molding outlined the dark-blue walls. Between the doors hung wrapped canvas prints, all displaying the sun kissing the horizon against different backdrops. I’d hardly noticed them when Belinda delivered me to my room last week, but I remembered enough to tell that they’d been changed out.
“You like that one?” Murphy asked, nodding as I paused in front of an orange and blue sunset over a small lake. “It’s new. The boss just swapped out most of his collection with fresh takes—two dozen of them, all pretty as a picture.” He snorted at his own joke.
“Does he entertain a lot of humans here?” I asked.
“Heck no.” Murphy laughed.
“Then why all the sun shots?”
“Why not?” He shrugged. “Humans overcome their disabilities and achieve the impossible all the time. Why shouldn’t we get to, too?”
“What do you mean?” I turned away from the canvas and blinked at him. “What disability is the duke overcoming with his limited taste in décor?”
“Oh! You don’t know.” Murphy shook his head as if amazed. “The boss takes all these pictures himself. Yeah. Lots of guesswork and timers and such. Pretty amazing, huh?”
I looked back at the sunset print in surprise. The images were beautiful, and it was hard not to appreciate them on another level now, though spite kept me from admitting it.
“Sure,” I answered dryly before heading on down the hall and ignoring the rest of the prints.
Murphy cleared his throat and pointed at a staircase tucked just inside the arched opening that led into the foyer. “That’ll take you to the harem quarters, and it also connects to the upstairs hallway of the north wing, but it’s faster to cut across the foyer and take the stairs on the other side.”
The foyer was familiar territory. Roman had first brought me here after one of Scarlett’s rebuffed harem donors had broken into my house and tried to kill me. If Mandy hadn’t been there, she would have succeeded. Together, we’d subdued the fiend, and I’d earned an audience with the duke for the feat, which had resulted in our acceptance into the Blood Vice training program.
The framed photos in the foyer were new, too, but I didn’t linger to enjoy them. Not with a vamp as chatty as Murphy watching over my shoulder. I had a feeling he would be reporting every last detail of our exchange to the duke. If I’d been in a better mood, I would have made up some obnoxious and ridiculously long story to tell the guard just for the satisfaction of knowing he’d bore Count Babyface to tears later.
We passed the closed French doors of the duke’s office, flanked by two security guards in suits, and entered an arched opening opposite the one we’d just exited. There were stairs tucked inside the mouth of this hallway, too. I’d been up them once before to leave my contact information with the duke’s assistant. Belinda’s office was on the upper level of the north wing. I hadn’t lingered or snooped around after our first meeting, despite not having an escort at the time.
Murphy gave me a wider berth on the stairs, letting me climb several steps ahead of him. I’d thought he was simply being polite until his radio chirped.
“Ascending north stairwell,” he said under his breath.
I paused at the landing halfway between the two floors and tossed a glare back at him. “Do you plan on following me everywhere I go tonight? Doesn’t the duke have enough camera personnel to keep tabs on his guests?”
The good humor melted from Murphy’s face as if I’d hurt his feelings. “The boss just wants to make sure you have someone to show you where everything is. That’s all. I’m not here to cramp your style.”
“Then why are you relaying my every move to whoever’s on the other end of that radio?”
He blinked down at his hip where the device rested. “I’m not relaying your every move. We’re short-staffed. Two-thirds of the security team went with the duke to Denver. Those of us who stayed behind have to run a tight ship to keep up with the workload. More communication is always better than less.”
And here I thought I’d been tempted to escape before.
“Huh. Fair enough.” I tried not to look too pleased by the revelation and continued up the stairs.
The upp
er north wing hallway featured more of the same blue-and-white color scheme and sun canvas prints. Though it didn’t run as deep as the south wing. Only two doors graced either wall, and the light fixtures lay flush against the shorter ceiling rather than dangling from chains.
Another hallway split off toward the front of the house. Murphy tilted his head in its direction.
“That way loops around to the staircase near your room.” Then he pointed at the door across from Belinda’s office. “The library is right there. Unless you have any other questions, I should get back to my post,” he said, giving me a tight smile.
Shit. I had hurt his feelings.
“I’m good. Thank you. I appreciate your help finding the library, Mr. Murphy.”
“Just Murphy, no mister,” he corrected me. “And it was my pleasure.” The next smile he offered was more genuine. I tried to return it, but I was out of practice. The strain on my face felt more like a grimace.
Murphy headed for the hall leading to the harem, and I heard him talk to whoever manned the radios one last time. “Taking an early lunch. I’ll be back in the south wing in thirty.”
Once his footsteps faded, I continued up the north hallway and entered the library. The room was dark, but I quickly found the light switch and flicked it on, illuminating several domed fixtures overhead.
Boredom had motivated my venture into enemy territory, but I hadn’t really given much thought to what I’d find. The duke’s collection was massive. I took it all in, twisting in a slow circle. Another door farther down from the one I’d entered made me wonder if a wall had been taken out at some point to expand the library into a second room.
Built-in bookcases lined the walls. They were painted the same deep blue as was seen throughout the rest of the manor and spanned from floor to ceiling, only breaking for the doors and windows. A few feet inside the perimeter of the room, waist-high bookshelves had been placed to create aisles, and more of them divided the room in half, leaving enough space for two large tables on either side. The solid oak slabs were centered in front of two windows, both wide enough to accommodate a cushioned bench between the gaps in the stacks.
I crossed the room and stopped in front of the nearest window, leaning my head against the glass so I could see past my reflection. The moon had dropped behind the web of treetops in the distance, but a swell of artificial light rose up from below, coming from a hedge-lined patio. This stretch of the estate wasn’t visible from the terrace off my room.
There was a swimming pool—winterized for the season—and several tables and cushion-less lounge chairs scattered about. Beyond the hedgerow, a vintage greenhouse sat between the patio and a concrete drive that coiled around the north side of the manor. I couldn’t imagine Dante hosting a pool party or playing in the dirt and watering plants, but perhaps this area was for the harem’s comfort.
I activated my blood vision and picked out a few more guards tucked in the shadows. The property was well-guarded, short-staffed or otherwise. Farther in the distance, a small lake sprawled before the tree line. It was strangely familiar. I knew I’d seen it somewhere before, and from this very angle, but that was impossible. The sense of déjà vu was unnerving.
A disgruntled huff sounded behind me and rose the hairs on my arms. I spun around to find Ursula in the doorway of the library, three books clutched in one hand. Her other was on the doorknob as if she were considering coming back another time. A white sweater dress hugged her thin frame, and matching socks slouched around her ankles. Charcoal gray tights saved the ensemble from the clutches of a winter wedding wonderland.
The Duchess of House Lilith looked every bit as despairing and resentful as she had the night Mandy and I found her, hiding out in a farmhouse outside of Springfield. She shot a withering look at my black-on-black outfit before heading for a corner bookcase.
“Did Daddy let you out for your funeral, vampling? Or didn’t anyone tell you that undead fashion has evolved since Drac’s reign?” she said before turning her back to me to peruse the shelves. Her red hair was unbound tonight, hanging in elegant waves that almost reached her waist.
I folded my arms over one of the shorter bookcases, resisting the urge to spring on her like I had Dante. The base instinct felt beneath me, but I’d come to recognize it as a side effect of my unfulfilled bloodlust. Hangry vampires were a little more…bitey than hangry humans, and I hadn’t been feeding especially well lately.
“After twenty years in hiding, what makes you think you know any more about undead fashion than I do?” I asked Ursula, ignoring the way my skin crawled in her presence. She’d sired the vampire who killed me, after all.
I guessed that made her my grandsire, but that bit of trivia wouldn’t earn any warm fuzzies if she were to learn of it. As neglectful as Ursula had been of her wayward children, she’d cared enough to risk exposure by sending her half-sired lacky, Annie Miller, to track them down. I had to assume that she’d care enough to avenge Raphael’s death, too.
Ursula found a space wide enough to reshelve her borrowed books and then ran her fingers down the adjacent spines in search of something new. “I wasn’t in hiding. I was in mourning,” she said without looking at me. “And Drac couture was out of fashion even in the nineties.”
“I couldn’t care less about fashion.”
She snorted. “Clearly. Which begs the question, what exactly did dear old Pablo see in you?” She pulled a book free from a high shelf and then turned to glare at me.
The duchess had questioned my ancestry the last time we spoke, too. Our conversation had been cut short by the duke but, evidently, she hadn’t forgotten where we left off.
“Is being good at my job not a worthy reason?” I asked, struggling to maintain eye contact with her.
“Good at your job?” Ursula barked out a sharp laugh. “Do you mean to tell me your work with the human police is what caught a reclusive old vamp’s attention?” At my alarmed expression, she added, “My cousin told me all about your patchy history. You know, I don’t think he’s quite convinced you’re being truthful either.”
I shrugged, but a shiver rocked my shoulders at the same time, defeating the façade. “I’d tell you to ask Pablo yourself, but as you know, he perished in a fire.” It seemed a common way many vampires shed their mortal and immortal existences.
Ursula moved across the room in a blur of red and white, stopping a foot in front of me. I gasped and stumbled back a step. My arm lifted instinctively to shield my face, but she caught my wrist. Floral perfume tickled my nose as her pale fingers tightened until my bones protested, and I winced.
“My sire’s dead, too, vampling,” she whispered as her pupils dilated and her fangs lengthened. “Do you know what that means for a descendant of House Lilith?”
I ground my teeth to keep from panting, but my breath still betrayed me, filling and vacating my lungs at a panicked pace. Of course I knew what it meant. The Eye of Blood was a constant reminder of how I had to hide my true identity. Even within this hidden world.
Ursula’s eyelids sagged, and she inhaled deeply. “One taste of your blood, and I’ll know exactly who you belong to.”
A throat cleared, and both of our heads snapped around to take in Murphy in the open doorway. “I suppose it’s a good thing that a regal vampire—like Your Grace—would never engage in such distasteful or unlawful behavior,” he said to the duchess.
“I don’t need to be lectured by the help,” she snapped, then released my arm with an annoyed sniff before turning to the nearest bookcase. I swallowed the scream that had been climbing its way up the back of my throat and rubbed my aching wrist.
Murphy lifted an eyebrow at me. “The harem is presentable if you’d like to continue your tour, Ms. Skye?” He was offering me an escape route that didn’t involve ducking tail and running. I was too grateful to be offended.
“Finally,” I said, giving him a relieved smile as I cut across the library, eager to put as much distance between Ursula and me as possibl
e. A spot of blood didn’t sound half bad either. Maybe it would dampen my impulsive behavior enough to keep me from baiting the duchess into a blood duel.
Now that I knew how eager she was to sink her fangs into me, I was going to have to be extra careful.
Chapter Three
Murphy blew out a tense breath as we exited the north wing and made our way around the hall that led to the harem.
“Thanks,” I said, giving him a meaningful look. He accepted my gratitude with a nod.
“Sorry you didn’t get much time with the books.”
I grimaced. “Sorry I didn’t ask you to stick around longer.”
“The duchess can be a little…” He pointed at his head and twirled his finger. “Coo coo ca choo. But who wouldn’t be after what she’s suffered, you know? If my sire bit the big one, I’d be certifiable, too.”
“I heard she murdered the princess,” I said, watching him from the corner of my eye.
“Nasty rumor.” Murphy shook his head, and the skin between his eyebrows puckered. “And I wouldn’t repeat it in front of her or the boss if I were you. Offending the royal family will getcha nowhere fast.”
We passed several canvases and a trio of windows that overlooked the front lawn and driveway before the hallway turned again, revealing more of the sun prints and blue-and-white color scheme I’d come to expect. There wasn’t anything over-the-top about Dante’s style. It was well-appointed without being extravagant or wasteful.
Where finding likable things about the duke had set me at ease before, now it irritated me. I wanted to hate everything about him. He’d stolen Roman’s humanity and fractured our lifeblood bond before sending him away. Then he’d burned my childhood home to the ground with most of my belongings in it, simultaneously snuffing out my living status.
When—or if—I were ever allowed to rejoin Blood Vice, I would have to relocate. And it wouldn’t be to Denver where Roman was. No. I’d probably be sent as far away from Denver as possible. Vanessa would see to it.
Thicker Than Blood (Blood Vice Book 5) Page 2