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Kade walks over and drops onto the end of the couch. It’s unsettling how comfortable he seems in my apartment. Like maybe this isn’t his first time here… A chill runs through me, and I push the thought away. I can’t think about that now.
“Calla Montgomery,” a new voice says, and another of the guys gets off the couch and walks toward me.
My breath halts as I take him in. He’s dressed in black from head to toe in wrinkle-free pants and a button-up shirt that makes him look as if he’s about to attend a charity banquet. His hair is a deep brown, cropped on the sides and slightly longer on top, but styled expertly, not a piece out of place. His face is all sharp angles, paired with dark brows and thick lashes. He’s tall and built like Kade, and definitely not the kind of person you’d want to meet in a dark alley—or anywhere for that matter. My body tenses, recognizing the vampire before me as a predator. Everything about him warns me away and pulls me closer in the same breath. It’s a contradiction that makes my head spin. He’s different than the others. I don’t know why or what it is about him that makes me realize it, but there’s something about him… I reel my thoughts in. Now isnotthe time to debate this.
I press my lips together for a moment. “If I say you have the wrong person, will you leave?”
Kade chuckles from the couch, but the guy standing in front of me doesn’t so much as crack a smile.
He watches me thoughtfully for a moment, those silver eyes darkening and slicing right through me. “You understand why we’re here.” It isn’t a question.
“Of course she knows, Atlas,” Gabriel chimes in.
“For me,” I say anyway. My voice is flat, emotionless.
“Are you afraid?”
I almost laugh at the audacity of his question. “No. No, I’m super thrilled to have four strangers in my apartment for the sole reason of stealing my future.” I clamp my mouth shut as stiffness ripples through my muscles, but it’s too late. The words are out there.
Out of nowhere, the fourth guy appears in front of me, making me jump back in surprise. His hair is white, but what really catches my attention are the black ink tattoos covering his arms and what I can see of his chest from the black V-neck he’s wearing. Vines of differing sizes wind around his left arm with thorns spaced along them and incredibly detailed roses, shaded in such a way they appear as if they’re on fire. I’ve always wanted a tattoo, but I’m not sure what. That, and the idea of undergoing that amount of pain on purpose… I don’t really understand it. Though I get the feeling that’d change after my first one.
“Perhaps not thesolereason,” the tattooed vampire muses, and my eyes snap to his face just as his smoldering gaze trails the length of my body.
Heat floods my cheeks, and I stare at him, wide-eyed. I want to look away, to run far, but I have nowhere to go. I won't make it past these guys—I need to be smarter, which likely means I need them to think I’ve given up. At least for now.
“Don’t freak the poor girl out, Lex,” Kade says, pulling himself off the couch and approaching the small group we’ve made in the middle of my apartment.
My stomach feels heavy as my gaze bounces around the room. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something that definitely won’t help my situation.
I shouldn’t be in this mess.
These guys—thesevampires—are here because my ancestors promised them the first-born female of their bloodline in exchange for saving their lives. To help them out of some shady, very much illegal business deal they got wrapped up in on Wall Street. Long story short, they sacrificed my life to save themselves, sealing the fate of an unborn girl before she even had a chance.
You’d think that might deter my great-grandparents or my grandparents or even my parents from having children. But no. In my mom’s defense, she didn’t know about the deal the Montgomery family made with the vampires until she was pregnant. My father kept it from her and prayed—like his father and grandfather did before him—that the child would be a boy.
When the doctor told my parents I was a girl, they were heartbroken. My mom was beside herself with anger—toward my dad and the cruelty of the fate her family had been given. They wanted to protect me, of course, but how were a couple of humans supposed to fight four hundred-or-so-year-old vampires? Any possibility would’ve been laughable at best. That’s the problem with blood oaths. We are bonded on a level I’ll never be able to outrun. Though that certainly isn’t going to stop me from trying.
I moved to Washington, D.C. from New York City three years ago, just shy of my twentieth birthday. I took a couple of years off after high school to travel the Pacific Northwest—and had the time of my life experiencing new places—before moving here to start my undergrad in Sociology at Georgetown University, courtesy of the guilt money my parents send to pay my tuition and rent. It’s an unspoken agreement. They wire money into my account, and I live with knowing my own family sacrificed my freedom—and most likely my life—to these assholes.
Sociology piqued my interest after taking a very basic course in high school, and when it came time to decide the path for my future—even with how bleak I knew it would be—something in my gut told me this was the right choice. I’m almost halfway through my major and that hasn’t changed—even though everything else about my life is about to now.
“We’ll give you a few minutes to pack a bag,” Atlas says, moving toward the kitchen and snatching a bright green apple from the bowl on the island. My best friend Brighton and I took a pottery class last year, and that uneven, lumpy bowl was my creation. Art in that form clearly isn’t my forte. Atlas takes a loud bite and leans against the counter.
I watch him with a renewed sense of bitterness. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Not only am I pissed you showed up here in the middle of the fucking night, I’m in university. It’s the first week of March—I can’t just leave halfway through the term.”
“That’s what you’re concerned about?” Lex asks with a sharp laugh, arching a dark brow at me. His brows are an odd contrast to his fair skin and white hair. “Humans truly are silly creatures.”
Of course it’s not my main concern, considering they are actively upending my life and I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen when we leave this place, but if I let any of that in even for a moment, I’m going to lose it. So I don’t. Instead, I snap, “You might be concerned too if you were forking out sixty grand a year.” He doesn’t know it’s not coming out of my pocket.
He shrugs. “You don’t want to pack a bag, fine. I’ll do it.”
Before I can protest, he’s gone in a blur of movement, causing a burst of air to blow my hair across my face. I tuck the dark brown waves back over my shoulder and glance around the room.
Kade grins at me when my gaze reaches him. “He’s gonna go through your panty drawer.”
I shake my head as exhaustion pulls at me. Evidently, the adrenaline is wearing off. “I don’t care.”
“We should go,” Gabriel says from the couch, drumming his fingers along the back of it. “Calla’s had a long night.”
