“We’ll be able to do it...for the right price,” Vyce continues, all three vampires studying me with entirely different facial expressions. I can’t quite interpret a single one of them. “For example, a firstborn child.”
“I’m willing to pay the price,” I say, keeping a straight face. My infertility isn’t known by anyone but me, my dead mother, and a long-ago dhampir doctor. If the Stiltz’ brothers decide to make the bargain with me, they’ll want me tested to make sure that I am fertile. They’ll send me to a vampire doctor who’ll most likely do a spell that’ll bounce right off. It won’t tell her shit. If she does examine me, she won’t know enough half-breeds to tell the difference, I’m sure of it.
“That was awfully quick,” Vyce purrs with a raised brow, tilting his head to one side to study me with is blood-red eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to think about it? Giving one’s child up is the hardest thing most people will ever go through.”
“I’ve thought about it all week,” I say, feeling tenseness in my throat. I really have. Ever since the king made that proclamation, I felt the tiny bubble surrounding me pop, the shadows fall away, the door to a new future opening. Metaphors aside, I need this. It’s the only way I’ll be worth more than the shit on a vampire’s shoe.
Fuck.
Maybe I’m not such an unemotional little eggplant after all?
“I’ve thought about it,” I repeat, looking at Vyce and trying not to imagine how good it felt to have his teeth sunk into my neck, hot blood welling, tongue lapping at the wound. I shiver and take a step back, finishing my coffee and setting the cup down on a side table next to a decorative plant. “Talk to the boss and then come find me when you’re ready to seal the deal,” I tell them, turning and heading down the steps before those three unnerving stares get to me.
5
It takes almost a whole other week for Rumpel Stiltz’ kin to get back to me.
I’m sitting at The Dragonfly, wondering if this new job is really all it’s cracked up to be because fuck, am I bored. A single dhampir gal like myself can only go to so many movies alone, wander the aisles at the bookstore until they close, and eat takeout from places that they don’t live above.
I miss being a vampire hunter.
Is that fucked up?
It’s the dead of night and The Dragonfly is packed far beyond legal human capacity—not that Harry or his business partner gives a shit about that. But holy hell, it’s crowded in here and the smell is interesting. Sweaty bodies are packed shoulder to shoulder, a whole host of different species pressing up against my back, waving cash and credit cards in an effort to get a drink.
Me, I’m just fine with my four different colored mixed drinks. And this time, only three of the four tastes like gin and tequila! The fourth just tastes like tequila.
There are so many people, so many different species, that my senses are overwhelmed. Normally, I’m fully aware of each person in the bar, their species, the rate of their pulse. But tonight, there’re too many for me to keep track of, so I relax into the anonymity of the crowd and sip my drinks until I’m buzzed and smiling.
Even with the supernatural horde filling The Dragonfly, Harry keeps the drinks comin’ for me, and I stay put, laying claim to my stool and my little section of the bar. I don’t usually come in here on such busy nights because I’m out working, but I’ll be damned if I give up my space tonight.
Besides, the people-watching—er, the ogre-vampire-faerie-dragon-whatever-watching—is prime. I’ve already seen three fights, two hookups, and an argument about fae politics. Fantastic.
The last thing I expect to see that night are the Stiltz brothers.
But as soon as the door opens that day, I can feel them like a lightning bolt to the chest, even through the thick, dense crowd. Fuck, they’d be impossible to miss. I notice the rest of the vampires—and a single other dhampir—that’re sharing the bar with me all turn to look. The crowd even parts to let them through.
“Look at that,” I purr, just drunk enough to be brazen, just sober enough not to slur my words. “The red-carpet treatment. Bravo.” I clap my hands together in a slow, melodramatic sort of way as Sorrow cocks an eyebrow and Vyce slides onto the stool next to mine, very recently vacated by a pretty young fae girl in a thick glamour. Who the hell knows what she looks like underneath?
“Are you drunk?” Vyce asks with a small, little smirk. “Because we’d like to talk business, and I don’t do business with drunk girls.”
“Hardly,” I say, whipping a knife out from my belt and pointing it at Vyce’s midsection. He doesn’t stop me. I can’t decide if that’s because I got the jump on him or because he’s just being nice. “I call this one Lucy.” With a grin, I spin the knife with the rowan handle in a full circle and tuck it away again.
“Lucy, Ricky, and Ethel, huh?” Sorrow asks, tucking his hands into this fabulous red wool military coat. “I like the theme there, babe.”
“Ooo, the name babe doesn’t sit well with me,” I tell the blue-eyed vampire with a tight smile spreading across my lips. “Stick with Cam.” Wrapping my fingers around the hideous orange drink that Harry’s named A Sunset in Cabo, I knock it back and then rise to my feet.
An ogre girl immediately slips into my place and steals my spot; my mouth drops open in shock. Harry gives me a don’t you dare look before he moves over to the girl and leans on the counter, flirting heavily with yet another chick who wouldn’t appreciate the size of his dick.
To each their own, I guess.
“Shall we get out of here?” Vyce asks, his voice so sultry and smooth that it manages to cut through the din of the bar. The way he looks at me, I can almost imagine he’s asking for an encore to our last performance.
But eh. The thing about a one-night stand is that it’s a one-night stand. Not two. No fucking way. Besides, these men are hot and powerful and dangerous as hell, the perfect addiction. If I let myself, I could get caught up in them.
“Let’s,” I say, nodding at Harry as he gives me a very stern look. I toss him a salute and he flips me off in return, watching me leave with hard, gray eyes as I head out the door with all three vampires.
Wolfe is silent and stoic, mouth pinched in a tight line, but I can’t deny that he’s a beautiful man with strong, commanding features and luscious lips. Too bad he doesn’t seem to know how to use them to smile, or even smirk like his fellow Stiltz brothers.
“How about some bubble tea and a walk through the cemetery?” I ask, leading the way down the sidewalk. First rule in doing business with vamps: stay in control of the situation. I know a place where we can grab blood-spiked boba and scraps of meat to feed the cemetery ghouls.
“Bubble tea?” Sorrow asks, catching up to me, his coat billowing out behind him. “That’s sort of…random? Aren’t you curious to know the terms of the contract?”
“Will they change if I get some lavender milk tea and a bag of meaty bones for the ghouls?”
Sorrow wrinkles his face up as Vyce moves smoothly up on my other side, walking fast enough to catch up and yet somehow managing not to look hurried either.
“Sorrow’s not a big fan of ghouls,” he whispers, reaching out to tuck a golden wave of hair behind one of my ears. In the same motion, he trails his fingertip down the side of my throat, over the healed flesh where his teeth penetrated my sensitive skin. I shiver and wrap my arms over the cherry red dress I wore to the bar, just in case I saw a man—or two or three—I was interested in.
I haven’t had sex since my threesome with the men on either side of me and to be quite frank, I’m horny as fuck.