With just the two of us in there, I feel safe enough to talk vamp business. The walls of the bar are spelled to keep out scrying spells and block outsiders from hearing anything that goes on inside, no matter how good their supernatural senses are.
“You stay put with this gig and stop pushing boundaries before you get yourself killed,” he mutters, finishing his glass polishing and then going for his silver shaker. Damn it. I’m getting another mixed drink, aren’t I? What’s wrong with plain Scotch?
“I’d be queen, Harry. Queen. These fuckers have treated me like shit since birth. My mom never even got to have a life of her own because of them.”
“You don’t know if it was House Verenim for sure,” he mumbles as he pours...gin and tequila into the shaker and I sigh.
“I meant vampires in general,” I say as Harry purses his lips. His upper one is about twice as full as the lower giving him this pouty look that helps draw those ogre girls in in the first place. Without that, I doubt he’d be able to pick them up at all.
“If you become queen, they’ll exhaust their resources trying to murder you, and the king won’t do shit to stop them.”
“If I bargain with the Stiltz—” I start, just before the door opens and Miri waltzes in with this big huge grin on her face.
“There are already three people dead outside House Verenim,” she says, bringing along a wave of fresh gossip with her sickeningly sweet floral perfume. “Two were mages who used spells to make the straw look like gold. And the third was this high-ranking royal vamp who didn’t even try. Basically volunteered and then offered her family’s fortune to the crown.”
“Humility and common sense don’t exactly run rampant in the vampire community,” I murmur. Now, I’m not the only person in the world who knows who the Stiltz are and how to make a bargain with them, but knowledge of them is pretty rare. Anyone who makes a deal with Rumpel Stiltz’ kin—or even Rumpel himself—is bound to secrecy. My mother was an exception; she was immune to magic. We had no idea why because she was entirely human, but spells just didn’t work on her or my grandparents either. It was how they were human and yet still ran in supernatural circles.
Once, my grandfather cheated at cards and an angry mage threw a spell his way. Didn’t work. Bounced right the fuck off. So the guy hired him as a bodyguard and well, Grandpa’s inclusion into high-ranking circles is what got Mom into trouble in the first place.
So. Mom escaped with me and then told me everything she knew about this world within a world.
Fuck, I miss you so much, I whisper to her, closing my eyes and tamping down the feelings of heartache. It’d taken over twenty years, but someone in Rumpel’s employ had finally found her and ripped her to pieces.
She’d given her life for mine and I wasn’t going to waste it skulking in shadows for the rest of my life. But isn’t it better to actually have a life? You’re going to get yourself killed. Huh. My inner conscious apparently agrees with Harry, but fuck them both.
I know what my life is going to look like if I keep living it the way it is. But the mystery, the promise of something different if I take the path shrouded in shadows and beset by thorns? I can’t resist that.
Thing is, I can’t decide if I’m making a smart decision or a stupid one. The brave choice or the weak one.
“You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?” Harry growls, shoving a hot pink drink on the counter next to me. “This is called the Broken Heart, by the way. Might as well enjoy it since it could be the last drink you ever have. I’ll make sure to provide free alcohol at your funeral.”
I smirk and cross my arms over my chest.
“Why not think positively? I’ll hire you on at the Family House.”
Harry snorts; we both know the vampires would never accept an ogre in their ranks, especially not one that’s mixed with human.
“Besides,” I continue, “we never listen to each other anyway. We each give good advice and the other person ignores it. That’s why our friendship works so well.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Miri asks, blinking long thick lashes at us. Her dark hair hangs in a braid over her shoulder and she tugs loose strands out of it as she looks between me and Harry.
“Nothing,” he growls out, shaking his head at me as I sigh and uncross my arms. I reach for the blue drink, finish it off while stifling a grimace, and move onto the pink one. It, too, tastes like gin and tequila.
Oh, Harry.
“Go clean the tables off.” He chucks a rag at Miri and she frowns, spinning away with a huff and storming to the back corner to scrub rings off the polished wood.
“She has a thing for you, you know,” I tell him and I swear to God, the look he gives me is pure hell. “What? She does. Since she’s only a quarter-ogre...” I wag my eyebrows at him and he curls his lips. “She’d probably be pleasantly surprised with—”
“Don’t even go there,” he warns, pointing a finger at me as I laugh and suck down the rest of my drink in search of what warm, pleasant little buzzed feeling. It’s been about a week since I slept with Vyce and Sorrow, and I can’t help but wonder what their reaction will be when I call the number on that card. “Get on with you and go make your stupid mistake, so I can heckle your ghost about what a dumb decision it was to pursue the literal monsters from your past.”
“I still think you should sleep with Miri,” I say with a grin, sliding off the stool and lifting the pink drink in salute. Harry narrows his eyes but ignores me as I make my way out the front door of The Dragonfly and into the early morning dark.
The phone number on the card sends me straight to a pre-recorded message with an address. I wait till high noon when vampires are at their weakest before I head over there and find myself outside the nondescript door of a downtown office. It’s painted matte black, and the long stretch of windows on either side are blocked with a colorful graphic of skateboards with the name Sweet Surf Brothers in the bottom right corner.
Clearly, it’s a ruse to throw people off. Super-duper secret magic hiding behind the walls of a skateboard company? Totally stupid, right? I mean it’s so stupid that I almost question if I’m at the right place.
I press the buzzer near the door and wait to be let in, the distinct click of a lock letting me know it’s open before I step into a cool, shadowy foyer with a set of stairs directly in front of me. Sucking in a deep breath, I head up and find another door propped open at the top.
“Hello?” I ask as I head inside the most boring goddamn office known to man. It’s clean, professional, nondescript. I’ll probably forget what it looks like in about two seconds, which is most certainly the point.
The door behind the desk opens and a man steps out.
It’s Wolfe, the asshole who brushed me off at the bar.
As soon as he sees me, his gray eyes darken, and his beautiful mouth turns down in a frown.
“You,” he says as I smile sweetly.
“I’m here to see Vyce. He in?”
“He doesn’t have time for booty calls today,” Wolfe growls—literally growls—at me. His teeth flash in that absurdly handsome face of his. I can’t believe he used to be human. It’s rare that I’ve ever seen a born vamp this attractive, let alone this powerful. “Show yourself the door.”
Crossing my arms, I lift my chin haughtily and stare him down. He might be a good six inches taller than me, but fuck it. I’m used to being the underdog in both magic and physical strength. Ethel is tucked under my jacket along with Ricky. I stuffed him under a pink trench coat and used the high collar to hide the hilt of the sword. Luckily, this area is full of hipsters, cosplayers, and weirdos, so a girl with a sword isn’t really that far outside the scope of a human’s reality.