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He hired a crew to come in and clean his office as a starting point. As soon as they showed up tomorrow, he was going to see about getting the other rooms cleaned from top to bottom too. It made him slightly ill to think what kind of filth he’d been living in since moving into his new home.

Baxter didn’t work from home often, but he did sit down at his desk and have a look at the paperwork that was there. Some of the papers had a date on them from over twenty years ago, and he hadn’t paid his electric bill in five years. Knowing that he had no one to blame but himself, he began making notes on things that he needed to be caught up on. One of them was paying his utility bills so they’d turn the power back on to various things that were coming into his house. Since he rarely ate at home, he never noticed that there was nothing in the cupboards. He thought that his house was worse than his mother’s.

Doing something about it made him feel slightly better. However, he knew that things had gone bad. There were dead plants all over his house. Dust on the dining room table that he was sure hadn’t been used in decades. Baxter was making notes on things that he’d found and was just going to leave it all and move away when his brother York came by again.

“I’ve been looking over my house. I’m ashamed to say that I’m embarrassed to have a look around.” He said that he’d felt the same way when he’d had a look around his mother’s home. “She at least had some staff to dust the dining room. I might be better off starting with a new table rather than trying to clean the dust off the one in there. It’s bad, York. Worse than I’ve ever seen and we’ve been around forever.”

“Are you going to do anything about it? I’ve made me a list of things that I want done, and I’m sparing no expense in getting it done. We’ve been lazy, and that’s the only way to put it. Lax in getting our houses in order, and now we’re paying for it. I’ve already made a list of contractors that I’m going to have come in and do the yard. The house is going to be sandblasted to get all the crud off the walls outside.” Baxter asked if he was going to have it redone too. “The house? No. No one should have painted the brick in the first place. I’m taking care of that first thing.”

“Good. When you’re done, I’ll do the same.” They talked about their yards because it was the first thing that people saw. After they got that in order, York was going to have the rooms redone so that they looked pristine. He was excited about getting that part done. “I’ve decided to take out all the bushes around the house and have roses put in place. I think they’ll make the stone walls look cleaner, especially after the walls are redone.”

“What are you going to do about the furniture? I think I asked you that before, but I can’t remember. I have so much stuff in storage that I could probably outfit an entire house for nothing more than the cost of having it moved out and into the new-looking house.” York said that he had the same but was going to have it redone as well. “Good idea. There is no point in moving the same kind of mess in the house that we have now. I’m going to take my cues from you from now on and get my house looking good. Do you suppose the others will want to do the same?”

“I had a talk with Gibson. He’s moving. He said that he wants a new home that he can start from the beginning with. I don’t blame him. His house is a little older than yours but still out of shape.” He asked about the other three. “I haven’t talked to them since I asked them if they wanted to move into the family home. I know that they’ve been living in their homes for a while now, but I have no idea how they feel about their homes. Yardley is the only one with a brand-new home, so he might just revamp it so that it looks better.” Baxter asked if he thought all the houses needed to be redone. “I’d say that’s a yes. We’ve been really lax on a lot of things lately, and I wonder why no one has said anything to us before now.”

“We’re vampires.” That wasn’t a great reason, but it was good enough. Some people still thought that they killed when they drank from them. York took care that rogues weren’t around to give them a bad name, but he could be a monster too when it suited him. He wasn’t just the vampire slayer in name. York was a monster too when it suited him. “Most people could care less what we are so long as we don’t bother them. And in our homes, we’ve done the same thing. We have let things slide because we’ve had no use for the nicer things in life. Don’t you agree?”

“I don’t know about that, but I will agree that we’ve been really terrible about a lot of things. We should have hired staff a long time ago. And locally so that we can have a good rapport with our neighbors. We need to rethink a lot of things and get on them. I think what we’re doing now is a good start.” York agreed and said that he was going to work on things from now on. “As am I. I want to make sure that things are as nice as we can make them. Beginning with our homes.

Chapter 2

York liked the way that his house was looking. So far he’d been living in the house for a month after it had taken him six months of getting things organized and cleaned up. Going from room to room, he couldn’t believe how much better things looked than they had before and was glad that his mother had decided to move out of the family home so that he could make it his own.

He had staff too that he enjoyed. Not having to worry about how much dust was on the table in his dining room made him feel so much better about his house and the grounds surrounding it. He was, in a word, proud of his home and the things that had been done to it. He ended up in the kitchen again to ask if things were what they needed.

“Yes, sir. Things are just nice.” He didn’t eat at his home; he had no reason to, but he did make sure that the people working for him had at least one hot meal a day. Feeding his staff was a perk that all five of his brothers did now. “The driver said to tell you that the car is ready for you to use whenever you wish. He’s changed the oil and brake pads on it.”

“Good. I have figured out that I love to drive.” He didn’t have to do that either. With his magic, he was able to pop in and out of places anytime. Going to the garage to see what he could get into there, he was surprised to find a woman standing in the place where his driver was supposed to be. “May I help you?”

“No.” He thought her rude but was in such a good mood he was willing to overlook her behavior. “I have everything under control. You don’t need to be checking up on me all the time.”

“Since this is the first time I’ve met you, I doubt that anyone could accuse me of checking up on you but the one time. And since this is my house, I can do that if I please. Now, what has you in a twist when I don’t believe I’ve met you before?” She rolled her eyes at him, and he felt his temper, which had been slow to rise over the past year, start to rise up. “I’ve asked you nicely; now I want to know why you’re in my garage.”

“I’m the mechanic, if you must know. I’ve been working on the cars here, though I doubt anyone cares. They’re not being well taken care of.” He said that he’d only just bought them and thought them to be in good shape. “Well, they’re not. Whoever you bought them from, if you indeed did buy them, should have their license revoked. They needed new everything before I’d trust them to be driven out on the road. You should take better care of your things from now on.”

“You’re not at all nice, are you? I hope you’re finished here. I don’t want to have to see you again.” She said that she didn’t work for him but the owner of the cars. “That would be me. I own not just the cars but the garage that they’re in as well.”

“You’re not old enough to own shit. You’re a liar.” He did know that he didn’t look any more than twenty-five at the most; he also knew that his messy blond hair did nothing to instill confidence in how much money he had. But he wasn’t a liar. And he was much older than her by centuries. “You’re the owner’s grandson or his son but not the owner of any of these cars.”

“Well, you’d be wrong about that. I’m not only the owner but—you know what. I have nothing to prove to you. Send your billing to the household, and I’ll pay it. You’ll see then that the lord of the manor is me.” He hated trying to explain himself and didn’t care that it was a stupid human. “If you’re finished, you can go.”

“Not until you tell me the truth.” There was a small clearing of the throat, and he looked at the doorway that he’d just come through. There stood Jenkins, the butler to the household. The young lady spoke before he could. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here for his lordship. I heard arguing and couldn’t help but overhear you calling him a liar. He is indeed the lordship of the household and has been for many years. If you would give me your billing, young lady, I’ll see that it’s paid post haste.”

When she turned and looked at him, he could tell that she still didn’t believe him. He was so pissed off that he wanted to show her his beast and prove to her that he was old enough to be the lord of the manor. Taking the bill to Jenkins, he nodded in satisfaction and left the doorway. Just as he was going to get into his car and go to the office, she stood with her arms over her breasts.

He felt his fangs lengthen and the need to bite her, to feed from her, made his beast a little angry. Just as he was going to calm himself, shake off the feeling that she needed to be beneath him, he did indeed get into his car. Waiting for the garage door to open so that he could leave seemed to take forever, and he watched the door go up rather than the beautiful woman that piqued his curiosity. Not to mention his beast.

He was at work for nearly two hours when the first of many reports came in to the office that he was needed to kill another of his kind. He was just in the mood to do so and was happy that he was going to be able to go out and use some of the pent-up energy that he had. Willing himself to the site of the rogue, he watched as he showed himself to others, and that’s when he struck.

Wounding him, the two of them circled one another for several minutes. His arms were bleeding badly, and it wouldn’t heal because York had been the one who had given it to him. Watching him carefully, he circled around with his hand and tore at his other arm. Now he was wounded so badly that he could lift neither of his arms and was standing there with his precious blood draining him even more.

“You’ve committed crimes against humans for no reason.” The beast snarled at him, and he backed up a step. “You will die by my hand so that all of humanity will be safe from now on.”

“I’m only the tip of the iceberg for you.” The voice was harsh and weak; the beast was dying, and he didn’t know it. “I will kill you and all of humanity before I finish, and there will be nothing you can do about it.”

Lunging forward, he grabbed his throat and ripped it out. He knew from experience that the beast wouldn’t stop until he was completely dead. While he tried to stop the sputtering flow of blood that came from where his throat had once been, he looked at York with terror in his eyes. Soon after his head fell backward off his shoulders, he turned to ash. Much quicker than they usually did.