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If Haven’s gaze could have gone any colder, Cy was certain it would have. “You know nothing about me. You think I want your blood? I can’t stand to look at you. Now. Get. Out.”
The door slammed in Cy’s face.
The pets’ quarterswere exactly as Cy expected.
Fine surroundings, soft mattresses, and lounging chairs provided plush comfort inside what Cy knew was, in all actuality, a gilded cage, a manipulated sense of freedom.
Human pets dressed in fine linens and silks that exposed bruised skin and scabbing puncture marks sat together, talking, resting, eating. There had to be at least twenty of them, mostly female, all beautiful. The best of the vampyre’s brood. Like his mother had been.
Ten adults and ten children. Cy gritted his teeth.
They had calm, subdued looks about them, barely glancing his way as Sirene shoved him inside and locked the door behind him. They weren’t interested in him at all, likely thinking him a newcomer of less station than themselves.
Pets were the chosen few. Among humans, it was a better life than most were granted merely because it wasn’t guaranteed torture and death. Though many pets died. Most did.
As Cy glanced around the room, he couldn’t help thinking of his mother. Her dark curls so like his own, often pinned up and away from her face. Vampyres liked to see their pets’ faces, for whatever reason. Perhaps it made them feel more alive to have a human face to stare into as they ate or fucked. Perhaps they just liked to see the horror and terror reflected in the expressions of a human’s face.
As he settled by himself on a lone mattress in the corner of the room, he sighed. He needed to get word to Thorne to let him know that he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his side of their agreement. He needed Thorne to intervene. That meant he’d have to interact with the other pets. Perhaps even their vampyre guards and masters. It would be a dangerous game but one he’d played before.
He looked around at the pets. Unguarded, they looked completely at ease, as though they had no care as to where they were, no fears in the world. Six women and four men, two boys and eight girls; they were all slender and lovely, their hair kept long and flowing down their backs. Cy would need to determine which one was most likely to open up to him, the one most likely to divulge information.
Gingerly, a little boy with soft brown curls met his gaze and smiled. Cy smiled back. Drawing to his feet, the boy approached. He held out an apple, shiny and red.
“I’m Wren,” he said softly.
“Hello, Wren.” Cy took the apple graciously, and the boy sat beside him on his mattress.
“You’re new.”
Cy nodded. “You’re not?”
“I was born in New Avalon. My mother was cattle.”
“How old are you?”
Wren smiled. “Ten.”
Ten.The same age Cy had been... “And you’ve been here your whole life?”
Wren bobbed his head in agreement.
Cy swallowed. “Who…who do you belong to?”
Wren smoothed down a long, brunet wave. “I’m Lord Garrison’s pet.”
It had been too much to hope that he’d belong to Thorne. “Lord Garrison?”
“He’s kind to me. He plays with me and feeds me the freshest fruit. He rescued me from the veal farm when I was just a baby.”
Cy shivered at the thought. “Do you ever see...Lord Thorne?”
Wren shook his head. “He doesn’t visit the pets. All his pets go to his personal quarters. And they don’t come back.” The little boy shuddered, perhaps unconsciously.
“How often do vampyres come to visit?”
“All the time,” Wren explained. “They come whenever they want.”
“Lord Haven?”
