by Callie Rose
“I had no idea,” I mutter. “I’m sorry.”
She breathes deeply, clearly trying to pull herself together and put on a brave face. “It’s okay. Mom’s taken care of, and that’s what matters. I did it, and I did it without resorting to crime. Which I would have done, if I’d known how to profit off of it, but I’m just not good at breaking rules.”
No, it’s not fucking okay. None of this is goddamn okay.
I turn my head away before I go off on a tangent that will give me away if Anastasyia overhears. I need a distraction or something. My heart is beating way too fast.
As if in response to my silent prayer, the vampire matron claps her hands together, drawing my attention.
“Okay, girls! Straighten up, get smiles on those faces, and clear your minds. It’s dinner time.”
As she speaks, she pushes a wide set of doors open, revealing a massive banquet hall. Chandeliers drip from the ceiling, scattering light to reflect off the excessive amount of crystal glassware on the tables. Blood red roses cluster in centerpieces and wreaths, with petals scattered around like this is some kind of boudoir photo shoot. Pink and red satin chairs reflect their colors on the gold-vein marble floor, set close to ornate tables topped with delicate black cloth.
The tables are all arranged around a huge dance floor which spirals off to kiss the edge of a raised stage, where musicians are busily setting up classical instruments. I can’t tell if they’re human or vampire from this distance. I’m not sure it matters. To my left is a long, formal-looking table on a slightly raised platform. All the chairs at that table are set up on one side of it, so whoever sits there will get an uninterrupted view of the whole hall. The chair in the center looks like a throne. The rest of them are red velvet.
There’s gold clinging to things wherever I look.
It’s opulent. It’s extravagant. It’s a disgusting pit of animal violence dressed up to look civilized. More than civilized. Elite.
Jesus fucking Christ. It’s getting harder and harder to keep my fury in check. I hate every bit of this palace, but I think this dining hall just became my least favorite room in the whole place. Honestly, I almost would’ve rathered a bare room with filth on the floor and bloodstains on the wall. At least that would’ve been an accurate reflection of what this place is.
Anastasyia leads us to a table—it’s right in the middle, out in the open, practically an invitation for attack—and tells us to sit. Then she positions herself at the head of our table and gives us all a once-over, her expression serious.
“Okay, girls, before the vampires get here, I need to give you a few reminders. First, any vampire is permitted to drink from you, for now. The bonding ceremony is in three weeks, and the rules change after that. If nobody chooses to bond with you, you will remain general tributes until either your contract expires or you die, whichever comes first.”
I want to ask her how many people are actually allowed to finish out their contracts, but I don’t think I could phrase it the right way. I’m aching to blow my own cover and rally the tributes to storm the castle, but I know better. More than half of these girls are listening raptly, their eyes full of stars and their hearts beating fast. They’re into this. Really into it.
“The best thing I can tell you is to relax. It’s going to hurt the first time. Just like everything else, right?” She gives a wry smile, as if we’re all girlfriends dishing over cocktails. “But you’ll get used to it. I’ll be at that table by the wall if any of you need me, but… try not to need me. Honestly, you’ll do better in the long run if you navigate on your own from the start. They sometimes like to pit tributes against one another. Don’t buy into it, it’ll just cause trouble for you. I—” She breaks off, glancing toward the high table. “Oh! Time to go. Good luck, girls!”
She strides gracefully away to join two other women at a table by the wall. I wonder if they’re other matrons in charge of keeping an eye on the female “stock.”
The tables around us start to fill up with women, other blood tributes who’ve been here longer than we have. They all have their hair pulled up away from their necks. I expect to see scars and holes on the more experienced tributes’ throats, but there aren’t any—at least, none I can pick up from this distance. If the scars are there, they’re small.
The entire room is filling up fast now, with humans and vampires alike, but I have yet to see any male tributes. I’m almost relieved. I don’t know yet how I’m going to get a message to Nathan without setting off all kinds of alarms, and I could really use a night to solve that problem.
My attention is everywhere as sounds and activity fill the large hall. I force myself to look around slowly, in no particular kind of pattern, rather than flick my eyes all over searching for weak spots. It’s harder than I thought it would be, but I keep taking deep, slow breaths, letting my tension gather in spots where it won’t be noticeable as I keep my face relaxed.
I can feel the vampires in the room, feel their gazes on me, their hunger and debauchery. I’m crouched behind enemy lines, and I’ve got to look like I enjoy the experience.
As I continue to subtly scan the room, my gaze drifts toward the high table—and my heart almost stops.
He’s attacking her.
The dark-haired vampire sitting on the throne is clutching a scantily-clad woman in a hungry embrace, his mouth buried in her neck.
My stomach twists. Every fiber of my being itches to take him down right here and now so I can save that poor girl. But then she moans. I snap my attention to her face. Her mouth is open, red and full, her brow creased, her arms twisting to grip the chair. She’s writhing, yes… but not to escape.
Holy fucking shit, she’s about to come.
My twisted stomach flips in a weird way, a new way, pouring lava down my insides, melting me to my core. I don’t even recognize the feeling at first. I don’t get aroused like this, not unless I’m super drunk and kneeling in front of washboard abs. Even then, it’s not intense like this. Sex is a tool. Like stilettos or whiskey or a really good blade. My job demands regular, efficient release. Sex with a stranger is the best way to get it.
But sex with a stranger has never, ever made me feel like this.
I can’t look away. I’m disgusted, horrified, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference to my fucking body.
She’s in ecstasy. How is that possible?
I’ve seen vampires feed more times than I can count. It’s always brutal. Their victims beg if they can, cry out in agony if they can’t, and are always left dead or traumatized. This girl doesn’t look traumatized at all. She looks blissful, like there’s nowhere else on earth she’d rather be.
I must stare for too long, or maybe I make a noise without realizing it. As if he’s sensed my attention, the dark haired vampire opens his eyes. His gaze snaps to mine, pinning me in place with irises that are the exact shade of dark gray as storm clouds.
Chapter Six
Fight.
Run.
Freeze.
The conflicting impulses to do all three of those things ricochet through me as my eyes lock with his.
God, I wish I had my weapons on me.
I’d be an idiot to use them in here, but just having the cold steel pressed against my thighs would make me feel better.
My heart’s racing. Dammit. I need to breathe, need to slow it down, but the darkly handsome vampire at the head table is still watching me. He slides his fangs out of the woman’s throat, and she squeaks a little moan, like he’d just pulled his dick out. He licks the blood off her neck and his tongue closes her wounds.
They can do that? Motherfucker. Those bastard street vamps never do that.
He gives her a sultry look and gently pushes her off his lap. She gazes back at him like she’s in love, her chest rising and falling with deep breaths as she turns and wobbles happily away. But he’s not watching her go. No, his gaze has settled on me again, and it feels like he’s looking right through me.
A
shiver trickles through me as he licks the last few drops of blood from his lips. He looks predatory. Possessive. Terrifying.
So why does he also look sexy?
“Oh god. Do you think she’s his bonded?” The full-figured blonde girl beside me poses the question to no one in particular.
A sparkly-eyed redhead with a perfect build, perfect skin, and perfectly symmetrical face picks up a fork and toys with it, laughing softly as she eyes the blonde girl. “Fuck, no. Don’t you keep your ears open at all? Prince Bastian doesn’t keep bonded humans. He prefers to… sample the whole buffet, so to speak.”
I frown. “That doesn’t make sense. He’s the prince, isn’t he? He could have anyone he wanted, and as many of them as he wants.”
The redhead purses her lips at me and flicks a handful of perfectly manicured fingernails dismissively. “You know how men are, don’t you? He’s a wild one, from what I hear. Doesn’t want to get tied down, doesn’t want to be stuck with any one tribute for too long.” She smiles sweetly at me, but I can see behind the mask well enough to know she might as well be baring her teeth. “I don’t think I got your name, sweetheart. Who are you?”
“Darcy,” I say flatly.
“Winona,” she drawls, extending a hand.
I shake it briefly. I’ve got callouses on my callouses and enough strength built up to crush her dainty little bones. A flash of disgust crosses her face, but she tucks it quickly behind her perfectly friendly mask.
“And you?” she asks the blonde beside me.
“Chelsea,” the blonde drawls, as if it doesn’t matter anyway.
“My name’s Jessica.” The girl I spoke to in the hall pipes up. She sounds a little desperate for a friend.
Winona dismisses her with a cutting glance. “Nobody cares, sweets. You obviously don’t want to be here. The vampires will sense that about you, and you’ll get stuck in general tribute limbo forever. Just accept it.”
Jessica’s face twists like she’s about to cry again. I clear my throat and lean forward, then remember I’m conversing with women and sit up straight instead. I’m used to dealing with monsters and men—there’s a whole different set of body language rules for that.
“General tribute seems like a better role in the long run,” I say. “Being bonded to a vampire sounds kind of crappy.”
Winona’s eyes widen in shock. “What? Come on, be realistic. Would you really rather be common fodder for all the vampires, for any nobody to stick his fangs in whenever he wants to, to be passed around like some prostitute?”
I shrug. “Rather be a prostitute than a puppy.”
Jessica looks at me curiously and Chelsea shifts uncomfortably in her chair. Winona’s smile has turned to ice.
“A puppy,” she repeats with a breathy, unconvincing laugh. “Is that what you call it? To be permanently bonded to a powerful vampire—someone like the prince, or even one of the lesser members of the court, would give you the power. Haven’t you heard the saying, sweetheart? Behind every powerful man is a woman pulling his strings? You would be the string puller. As a general tribute, you’re just meat.”
I can’t help but laugh at her. “You think you’d be the one pulling the strings? Jesus. Tell the truth, Winona. You’ve obviously done enough research to know the answer. What happens to a tribute once they’re bonded to a vampire?”
She flushes a pretty pink, and her eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. “I think everybody at this table knows just as much about it as I do.”
Several girls shake their heads. A couple just look away.
“Please tell me.” A slight girl with wide green eyes glances back and forth between me and Winona. “One of you. Either of you. Tell me. I… I thought bonding was just like… a promise or something, that you’d be exclusive or whatever with one vampire until your contract expires.”
A smile spreads across my face, and not a very nice one. I don’t take my eyes off Winona as I speak. “You think anyone survives to see their contract expire? Really?”
“Oh shut up, both of you.” A girl across the table tightens the wrap around her hair and drops her elbows on the table, regarding all of us with a steel-eyed gaze. “You want to know what happens when you’re bonded to a vampire, I’ll fuckin’ tell you.”
“Oh?” Winona says icily, her nose way up in the air. “And what do you know, homegirl?”
That mocking sneer she adds to the last word turns her beautiful face terribly ugly. I wonder if she knows it’ll stick that way.
Homegirl blinks at her once, slowly, then turns back toward the green-eyed girl who’s still watching this all play out with a terrified expression on her face.
“The blood bond is a ritual that ties you to a single vampire. It connects you to them. Once you’re bonded, you never want to leave. You crave their presence. You’re addicted to them. Addicted to feeding them. Y’all remember the first time you had good sex? Like really good, good sex. The kind you keep thinking about for days and days, the kind that makes you wet just remembering it? That’s the feeling you’ll get when your vampire touches you. You’ll do whatever they say, go wherever they tell you, become whoever they want you to become, just so you’ll never have to be without them.”
She turned her cold gaze to me, her jaw set in a way I recognize. I think I’ve worn that exact expression before, in fact. “Some tributes do outlive their contracts. But bonded tributes will kill themselves before they’ll leave. I’ve seen it.”
Winona scoffs. “You’ve seen it, have you? You got here the same time we did. What are you, some baby psychic? Stop scaring the other girls.”
“You outlived your contract,” I murmur, meeting her steely gaze. “Your first contract.”
“And my second,” she shoots back, a note of pride in her voice. “This’ll be my third, and I’ll outlive this one too. You know why?”
“I’m more interested in how.”
She smirks at me. “Because I’m too trashy for these classical fucks. They wanna taste the forbidden fruit, but they’ll be damned if they’ll be attached to it. I’m good at what I do. I take care of myself and I taste good. But I never ask for too high of a bid price each time, so I’m never here long enough for any of them to get stupid ideas into their heads.”
I get that. “Okay,” I say. “So, why?”
She shrugs. “I like money.”
With that blunt answer, her expression closes along with her mouth.
Conversation over.
I like this chick. I wonder why she’s really doing this, but I’m not going to push the issue. It’s a distraction I don’t need anymore, not now that the unsettling burn of arousal in my belly from watching Prince Bastian make that girl come with his lips on her neck has died down.
The man with the nose ring at the back of the auction hall, the sexy blonde guy in the corridor, and the prince with the intense gray eyes—they’re all monsters. Nothing more. They’d happily suck these girls dry and spit them out, fuck with their heads until they can’t give anymore, then kill them.
It’s what they do.
It’s what they all do.
Even the strongest tributes fall victim to the cycle. The girl with the hard gaze, who hasn’t given her name and probably won’t, got out twice and came back for a third go. She likes money, she says, but I know there’s more to it than that.
She probably came once to get enough to get ahead, then was torn down again by the city. A city the vampires run, in every way that means anything. Her only chance to break the cycle is to get paid and get the fuck out of Maryland. She knows it too. I can see it all over her face. Something’s keeping her here. Something’s keeping us all here—mostly pretty lies and distractions.
Reality is brutal. But it’s all that matters.
I only half-listen to the conversation swirling around me at the table. Winona is smoothing things over, explaining how even codependent women can pull strings or some shit. Jessica looks pissed. Good. That’s better than giving up and rolling ove
r for these creeps. Chelsea looks like she just realized how badly she’s fucked herself by signing that goddamn contact, but she seems to be doing a good job of talking herself into being okay with it.
A few moments later, there’s a stir by the door. Vampires and humans alike turn to look at the group of bare-chested men who have just been herded through the doorway by a trio of men about the same age and pallor as Anastasyia. The male tributes have all been oiled from the collar bone down. They look like a bunch of rotisserie chickens ready to be skewered. In a way, I guess they are.
They start moving toward a set of tables on the opposite side of the room. As they do, my heart jumps in my chest. There he is, the second one from the end.
Nathan.
Chapter Seven
Oh god, he looks like shit.
My brother is so skinny. His eyes are sunken, haunted in rings of black and blue.
I’m not a big fan of guilt, though it seems to like following me around like a shadow I can never get rid of. I keep it at bay as much as possible. When people die on my watch, murdered by vamps before I can stop it, I pour out a drink for them and fuck or fight through the pain. I fuel myself with it, but I don’t ever, ever let it take over.
Not until now.
Just looking at my older brother hurts my heart.
How did he fall so fucking far without me noticing? Dammit, that’s not true. I did notice. I noticed, and I hoped he would pull himself out of it. I thought I’d done all I could, and that maybe my ever-present assistance was just keeping him dependent, keeping him from pulling himself up and sorting his shit out.
But maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe I really just didn’t want to help him anymore. If I wasn’t already sitting, that thought would bring me to my knees, but I can’t dismiss it just because it hurts. Helping him hurt too. But I should have taken that pain. I should have trusted in my own strength instead of betting the house on Nathan’s ability to see the light from rock bottom.