Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I’m agitated when I get out of the Jeep. There isn’t even a valet to receive me. Not that I informed anyone that I was coming, but I have made my expectations clear. They are to carry on with their duties when I’m not here the same they would if I were.
And this party is not something I would allow.
I am not overly heavy handed with the halfbreeds, and there is no class or instruction manual to explain my expectations to them—but isn’t this one common sense? I mean, it’s my home and they are throwing a party.
Feels… disrespectful.
Halfbreeds are an interesting addition to the vampire lore. In the human world halfbreeds would be something half-human, half-vampire. But of course, they got this wrong too. A halfbreed has been poisoned with the vampire blood through a bite from me, or Lucia, or Josep.
Well, not Josep. And not really me, either.
But it doesn’t make them vampires. It just makes them slaves. They need more blood after that. From us mostly, but a feeder works in a less potent way as well. But we don’t hand this blood out liberally.
The halfbreeds don’t get a long life—in fact their lifespan is considerably shorter than one of a human who has not been poisoned. But they do heal quickly when they are first made and, after a period of years and feedings off of us—well, Lucia, mostly—they do gain a little bit of magic. A little bit of strength, a little bit of second sight, and excellent hearing. Not to mention secrets. They get to walk this world with more knowledge of the obscure and strange than most.
It’s a horrible deal if you ask me, but humans. Who can explain them?
I’m just about to swing open the front doors of the lodge when they come bursting out towards me. There is a moment when I think, Finally. My welcome.
But it’s a half-naked couple of humans—humans I have never seen before, so are not my staff—who nearly knock me down as they push past, laughing and carrying on like drunkards.
I push on.
The music is thumping, the beat rocking the floors. A girl bumps into me, spilling her drink on my pant leg. I open my mouth and growl at her, baring teeth.
She giggles uncontrollably, stumbling away from me in a fit of laughter.
The rage inside me builds, raising my already too-high body temperature, and I look around, searching for a familiar face.
I have to travel through five rooms and pass several dozen people before I finally find one. A lowly female halfbreed who was so fresh when I last saw her, she tried to chew her way into the neck of the feeder.
Now her mouth is covered in blood. Like she has been feasting.
Once I see her, I see others. There is a group of them spilling out of the industrial kitchen.
One boy—maybe in his early twenties—pushes past me, laughing and high on something. Blood, from the looks of it.
My blood.
The blood of my feeder.
But then he does does a double-take and he’s just about to open his mouth and scream my arrival when I beat him to it.
“Where is Lucia!” I bellow these words out.
People stop. Not all the people. Just the ones in the nearby rooms. Because my voice has shaken the house and the elaborate, dangerously heavy, chandeliers are swinging from the ceiling.
Slowly the partiers realize that something is amiss and they all stop their dancing and revelry and go quiet as the music continues to thump arounds us. I simply look around flashing rage with my eyes.
“My lord!” Lucia scurries out the crowd. She is wearing a long, elaborate black silk gown with layers upon layers of lace that drags on the floor behind her like a tail. Her look has always been overly sexual—her red hair, long and flowing almost to her knees, her full, crimson lips, those green eyes dotted with black, and her breasts. She is forever showing off those breasts. Right now, they are literally spilling out of the black corset top.
Her mouth is not ringed with blood, not the way that little halfbreed’s was, but there are traces of it on her lips. And now that I know what to look for, I see that they have all been drinking. Even a few humans.
“We weren’t expecting you, my lord.”
My lip curls up as Lucia comes up to me. “Apparently not.” I reach up and she cowers back, then looks embarrassed when all I do is wipe away a bit of blood from the corner of her mouth with the pad of my thumb. She glances over her shoulder and I know what she is thinking. I can practically read her mind.
She’s thinking… Did they see me cower?
Oh, they did, Lucia. They did.
She will never admit that I frighten her, but I can smell her fear. She has always been afraid of me. Ever since I first found her in the disgusting summer heat of the Roman catacombs five hundred years ago.