I can tell by his scent that he’s not undead—the state of a born vampire after they die for the first time—and yet he’s clearly ancient if he’s that goddamn powerful.
My nipples pebble beneath my barely-there burgundy tube top and I suck in a sharp breath, this feeling of need taking hold low in my belly and tightening the muscles between my legs.
“It was getting stale around here anyway,” I say with raised blonde brows. “Send him a pint of my blood.”
“Pulling out the big guns for this one?” Harry asks with a sigh, using the tap on the far right, the one that’s filled with my blood. Hey, he pays good money for it and I’m eternally broke as shit, so I donate on occasion. “I still say he’s bad news,” he murmurs, but he snaps his fingers and the only waitress in the bar, some quarter-ogre chick that Harry treats like total crap, scampers over and takes the pint glass. “Take it to that vamp in the corner and tell him it’s on Cameron.”
“Oh,” she says, blinking big gray eyes at Harry before flicking her gaze over to me. “He’s a little out of her league though, isn’t he?”
I narrow my eyes and tap my fingers on the scratched wooden surface of the counter.
“Thanks, Miri,” I quip as I purse my lips and Harry gives me an I told you so sort of look. “Just take it over there and watch my blood work its magic, okay?” I’ve never once been turned down by a vamp who’s tasted my blood. As PINK tracksuit lady said, dhampir blood is the shit.
I stay facing forward for a while, but it doesn’t matter because I can feel his blood-red eyes on my back, searing into me. Just when I’m about to saunter over there, hips swaying seductively, the vampire hottie is right by my side, sliding onto the stool next to mine with fluid, predatory grace.
“What’s a shithole like this doing serving royal blood?” he purrs, and all the hair on my body stands on end. Hot, wet heat floods my cunt, and I suck in another sharp breath. Flicking my eyes to the left, I find the guy staring at me with such vigorous intent that blood rushes to my cheeks in a blush.
“That’s not royal blood,” I whisper, and he cants his head to one side, long lashes fanning as he blinks. He doesn’t have to do that, blink. A lot of the old ones forget, but not this guy. “It’s mine.”
“I can tell it’s yours,” he replies, leaning in and sniffing the side of my neck. I shiver involuntarily and curl my hands into fists. Luckily, Harry is there with three fingers of Scotch and a deep frown etched into his face. “But you smell and taste like a royal.” Hottie Vampire Dude pauses and exhales, hot breath fanning against my throat.
Jesus fuck.
“No, not like a royal,” he corrects after a moment, “like royalty.”
I laugh. Sorry, can’t help myself, not even in the face of male perfection. I knock back the Scotch and turn to face the guy, our knees bumping together as I do. I arrange my legs with his so that one of his knees is pointing at my crotch and vice versa. Oh God, we’re so close...
“I’m about as far from royalty as a dhamp can get,” I say with a loose shrug. “My dad’s some deadbeat loser vamp who tried to sell me for drug money, and my mother’s a Southern belle that got knocked up in high school and fled home.”
The guy smiles at me, a slow, easy sort of smile that slides across his face like a whispered breath.
“I see.” That’s all I get, just those two words. He sits back up and grabs his pint, giving it another sniff before he takes a slow, languorous sip, flicking his tongue against the edge of the glass and flashing two sharp, white canines. “Definitely some royal in your lineage—if not crown blood.”
I cock a brow.
In vamp speak, a ‘crown’ would be any member of a House’s ruling class. Basically, if they’d wear a crown, they are a crown: queen, king, princess, prince. And there’s no way in hell I’m related to anyone like that. According to vamp hierarchy, I’m barely fit to scrub their toilets.
“You’re delusional,” I say, drawing a chuckle from the mystery man’s throat. “But I like your delusions.” Reaching up for my bandage, I yank it off and give him a good look at the twin punctures, still bleeding and aching like my swollen lady bits. “Care to go somewhere private and lick my wounds?”
The vampire’s pupils dilate enough to cover his brilliant irises, a total solar eclipse.
“Such a tempting offer,” he growls, and I bite my lower lip, my fangs piercing my skin just enough to make me bleed. Such a tempting offer means I’d like to, but I can’t. I won’t accept that. Leaning in, I press my mouth to his. The guy’s a vamp. If he wanted to stop me, he had plenty of opportunity to do it.
Instead, he lets me swirl my blood in his mouth, tease his tongue with my own as my left hand slides up the thigh of his leather pants. Slowly, carefully, he curls his fingers around my wrist and stops me from reaching the hard bulge in his crotch.
“You’re an intriguing little dhamp,” he purrs against my mouth. I sense a but coming, and I don’t mean his beautiful butt in my bed. Harry snickers on his side of the bar and I remind myself to spit in his drink on the way out. “But I’ve got business to attend to.” The vamp whisks a card into his fingers, pulling it out of his trench faster than I can see. “Name’s Vyce. Call me sometime.”
Surprised as all fuck off, I take the card from his fingers and stare at his name: Vyce Stiltz. Just those glossy silver words with a number beneath them, situated on a matte black card that’s blank on the other side,
“Stiltz?” I ask, a small chill chasing up my spine. “What exactly do you do, Vyce?”
This is too weird of a coincidence.
The vamp just grins maniacally at me, flashing fangs.
“Yes, Stiltz,” he growls, lifting my hand to his lips and running his tongue across a cut on my palm I hadn’t even noticed until now. The fact that it hasn’t healed yet only serves to emphasize how bad my other injuries are. I mean, fuck yes, my knees and head hurt but I guess I hadn’t realized the extent of the damage. “And let’s just say...I’m in the business of tying up loose ends.”
Oh dear.
If I hadn’t already known what a Stiltz kin did, I’d have been able to guess based on that statement alone. This guy killed people. Oh, and also, he dealt in rare magics for obscene favors. Like, for example, the one my mother had made to escape the tyranny of an awful vampire king.
To Rumpel Stiltz himself, she promised her firstborn child.
And then she ran like hell.
Shit, I’ve been running my whole life, just because some psycho crown took my grandfather’s crazy rants seriously. I’d never met my grandpa, but according to Mom, he was a hardass and a braggart. After Mom got pregnant in high school, he started running his mouth, spreading all sorts of bullshit—talking about how my mom could literally spin straw into gold. The king kidnapped her, locked her up, and told her she’d better get the job done or he’d cut off her fucking head.
Enter Rumpel Stiltz.
He gave my mom the magic to do just that, to spin gold—at a hefty, hefty price.
This Vyce guy might not know it, but I was well-acquainted with Rumpel Stiltz and his kin.
“Interesting,” I say, putting the card on the bar top. “Loose ends, huh? I guess a vamp as old as you is bound to work an interesting gig.”
“Old?” he asks, cocking a black brow at me. “We can’t be more than a decade apart, at most.”
“What?!” I blurt out with another laugh. “Dude, how old do you think I am?”
He taps his fingers on the table, a bemused smile tracing his lips.
“I could ask you the same question.” He lifts the bloody glass to his mouth again and sips slowly, throat working, tongue tracing the rim and then sliding across his lower lip. I can’t look away. “What are you? Mid-twenties?” The corner of his mouth quirks up in a smile.
“Twenty-five. And you...three hundred? Four hundred?”
Vyce chuckles, this low, sensual purr that makes my throat feel tight.