I sit on the medical table in a stranger's home, a stranger who might be the most powerful vampire in the city, and try to understand what just happened.
My life was supposed to end tonight. In an alley, alone and afraid, poisoned by my own desperation.
Instead, I'm here. Alive. Being calledinterestingby an ancient vampire who looks at me like I'm a puzzle he wants to solve.
I look down at my arms. The black veins are still visible but fading, my vampire healing finally kicking in now that it has clean blood to work with.
Dr. Dalton is still there, checking monitors, making notes on a tablet. He glances at me with something that might be professional curiosity.
"Your recovery rate is unusual," he says, more to himself than to me. "Fledglings typically take longer to stabilize from contamination this severe."
"Is that bad?"
"No. Just..." He pauses, frowning at the readout. "Different. I'll need to run some bloodwork once you've had more time to process the clean supply."
He moves toward the door but stops, looking back at me with an expression I can't quite read.
"For what it's worth," he says quietly, "you're in good hands. Maximus doesn't save people unless he means it."
Then he's gone too, leaving me alone with my questions.
Chapter
Two
Iclose the door to the medical facility and stand in the hallway for exactly three seconds before Marcellus appears.
He moves silently despite his size, six-foot-four and built like the enforcer he is. Two hundred years old and utterly loyal, which is the only reason I tolerate his occasional questions.
I found him two centuries ago, a fledgling abandoned by his maker and half-feral from hunger. Gave him purpose when he had none. He's been my second-in-command ever since, the only vampire I trust completely.
"You brought someone here," he says. Not a question. He would have been alerted the moment I entered the property with another vampire.
"I did."
"Into the sanctuary."
"Yes."
His jaw tightens. But bringing an unknown vampire into my private residence violates every rule I've established over the last four centuries.
"She's contaminated," I explain, moving past him toward my study. "Microplastics and opioids. Severe poisoning. She'll need monitoring."
Marcellus follows. "And this required bringing herhere?"
"She was asking about me. Using my name all over the city."
That stops him. For a moment, his hand drifts toward the blade he keeps at his hip, old instincts from his human life as a soldier.
"You should have killed her," he says flatly.
"Perhaps."
"Then why didn't you?"
I enter my study without answering. The room is exactly as I left it three hours ago, desk cleared, books shelved with precision, curtains drawn against windows that will face east when the sun rises. Everything in its place. Everything controlled.
I pour myself a drink from the crystal decanter on the side table. Whiskey, aged fifty years. It does nothing for me physiologically; alcohol stopped affecting me centuries ago, but the ritual is soothing. The burn in my throat is a memory of being human.
