by K. M. Shea
But blood donors were a sign of status. Most of the powerful vampire Families kept more blood donors than members so they never had to drink from a blood pack.
There was no way Killian freaking Drake’s vampire Family dined mostly on blood packs.
“Really,” Debra assured me. She stepped back, giving the delivery vampire a clear path when she returned with two more boxes. “In fact, Killian Drake only drinks packaged blood.”
I had to work hard to keep my jaw from dropping. “The Eminence,” I squeaked, my voice going high, “only drinks blood packs?”
Debra gave me a smile that was half wry half smug. “Indeed.”
The delivery vampire made four more trips while we waited in silence.
There had to be a reason for Killian Drake’s pre-packaged diet. I didn’t believe for a minute that the Eminence—the vampire leader of the Midwest—drank packaged blood due to the cost or the reluctance to see humans as dinner.
Once Debra had signed off on the blood delivery, she marched down to the kitchens.
Standing in the doorway, I was overwhelmed by the spotless white of the kitchen. The elaborate wooden cupboards and the fancy molding on the edges and corners were all painted white. White marble topped every counter, the walls were a shining white—the only relief was the stainless-steel appliances and sinks. And yeah, you got that right—there were multiple sinks, and four fridges that I saw—though I was willing to bet there was a walk-in fridge somewhere for the blood packs.
Scurrying through this intimidating domain was: a pair of chefs, three assistants, a baker who was busy rolling out cookie dough, and a teenage boy who must have been the dedicated dishwasher given that he was elbow deep in soap suds.
It seemed a little overkill given the number of blood donors in the house, but vampires could technically eat regular human food. Not much—and it didn’t have any nutritional value for them—but if most of them drank packaged blood it wouldn’t be too surprising that they prefer to have a human meal occasionally.
Two well-dressed females—both of them looked in their early thirties or so—were perched at one of two kitchen islands with an equally well-dressed man. All three of them were humans—you could tell by their colored eyes.
Vampires always have red eyes. The exact hue and shade of red varied per vamp, but was a dead-giveaway—and one they couldn’t easily hide.
This meant all three of them were probably blood donors since they weren’t dressed in the white and black kitchen uniforms and they seemed occupied with nibbling on food.
Debra waited a moment or two, but the kitchen staff were too busy working and chatting to notice her, and the blood donors were pretty focused on the baker’s progress with the cookie dough.
Eventually she gave in and clapped twice. “Everyone, this is Hazel Medeis. She is a newly sworn servant to the Drake Family, and will be serving here in the kitchens until we find a permanent spot for her. Please help and direct her as needed.”
The baker—a plump middle-aged woman—smiled. “Welcome to Drake Hall!”
The chefs—a man and a woman who stood close enough together I was starting to assume they were an item—eyed me up and down.
“Are you any good at food prep?” the male chef asked.
Debra held a finger in the air. “I’m not handing her over just yet—she needs a tour of the hall. But I’m going to leave her here for a moment while I call housekeeping to confirm her room location. You’ll give her something to eat?”
The kitchen staff nodded.
Debra laid a hand on my arm. “Stay here, I won’t be but a few minutes.” She swept off, her heels clicking on the stone tiled floor.
One of the woman blood donors smiled at me and patted the counter. “Take a seat!”
“Thanks.” I padded across the kitchen, tiredly rubbing my eyes.
Some of the staff were staring at me, and it took me a moment to realize it was probably my fleece pajama pants and dirty, scratched up feet. (Or it could have been the hair. My blond hair was probably a rat’s nest by now.)
The realization didn’t come with the flush of embarrassment you would normally expect. I just didn’t care anymore—a product of the traumatic night I’d gone through. But I recognized that I wouldn’t gain anything by freaking these people out, and I was going to be stuck playing a long game if I ever hoped to kick out Mason, so I tried to smile.
“Long night?” the friendly blood donor asked.
“Yeah. Really long.” I plopped down two chairs from her, and my smile turned a little more genuine when the female chef slapped a plate down in front of me that held a ham sandwich almost as big as my head. “Thank you.”
She slightly pursed her lips as she studied me. “Hazel Medeis…of House Medeis?”
I cringed—I hadn’t expected humans to recognize my last name. “Yep.”
“So, you’re a wizard, then?”
I picked up the giant sandwich, trying to figure out what end was best to start with. “A weak one, but yeah.”
The chef nodded and folded her arms across her chest, seemingly satisfied. “I expect they hired you because of all the murders?”
Chapter Six
Hazel
I mentally repeated her question twice before I set my sandwich down in my confusion. “I’m sorry…what?”
“Playing dumb, hm?” the male blood donor said in a growly voice, though his toothy smile was warm. “Probably not a bad idea—if the sicko responsible doesn’t know you’re a wizard you can better protect us.”
“What’s the count up to now?” the dishwasher asked. He almost lost his black framed glasses in the suds when he peered into the depths of his sink.
“Have there been any new murders?” a kitchen assistant asked.
“Not since Nick’s death yesterday,” the female chef grimly said.
“He was a vampire from the Kotov Family,” the baker sighed. “Such a loss.”
“In Drake Hall we lost Wanda, Kevin, and a maid!” The other female blood donor, who had been staring at her plate this whole time, hotly declared. Her face was a little red and her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “They may be humans, but they still count!”
The male blood donor patted her hands. “The Drake Family will avenge them.”
“I heard Killian Drake himself is getting involved,” the male chef said. “That’s what last night’s meeting was for. And her, probably.” He nodded his head in my direction.
I had been puzzling through the conversation and steadily working away at my sandwich—I don’t know if it was because I was starving or if it was the magic of crispy bacon layered with ham and slightly melted cheese, but I swear it was the best sandwich ever. Unfortunately, when the talk finally worked back around to me, my mouth was full, and I almost choked on crumbs. “Really,” I said when I finally managed to swallow my food. “I have no idea what any of you are talking about. I pledged myself to the Drake Family because of a…situation. I’m not here to help with finding a murderer.”
The atmosphere in the kitchen dampened instantly.
“Oh.” The woman chef’s shoulders drooped.
“Wait a moment—you’re Hazel Medeis.” The baker paused in the middle of pressing a heart-shaped cookie cutter into the dough. “You’re the new House Medeis Adept.”
It seemed I hadn’t completely cleared my throat of all the crumbs, as it abruptly squeezed shut. “Yeah, that’s me.”
The baker eyed me. “Did they kick you out because you don’t have any power?”
“Martha!” the female chef snapped.
“It’s not a secret,” the baker argued. “I read about it when I was scanning the minutes of the latest Regional Committee of Magic to see what they said about the murders.”
The topic appeared to have safely returned to the murders given the winces around the room—though I got the feeling several of the staff were sending me thinly veiled looks of sympathy.
I wanted to take another bite of my sandwich—a
crazed murderer running around was hardly noteworthy to me. Not since Mason had implied he was happy to murder my friends and family to get me to marry him, which pretty much topped the creepy meter for me. But if there was a psycho out to get the Drake Family—or vampires in general—given my recent luck it seemed like there was a good chance I’d blunder into him. So, it was probably best if I learned more.
I wiped my mouth off. “How long have these murders been a problem?”
“A month, maybe?” The dishwasher boy scratched his head, leaving a glob of soap bubbles in his hair. “That’s when we lost Wanda. She was a blood donor.”
“The Drake Family will handle it,” the male chef firmly said. “They care for their own, and though one could not accuse them of being fond of humans, they never shirk their duty toward us.”
I bet they didn’t. The more the staff were under the vampires’ thumbs, the easier it would be to subdue or get rid of a problematic servant or blood donor.
Don’t get me wrong. Not all vampire Families are power hungry and obsessed with influence—though the majority of them are.
Most newer vampires—like the delivery vamp—are way more chill and calmer once they make the complete transformation.
The problem is that these days it’s really hard for an old vamp to successfully sire a new vampire. Like, if there were more than ten new vampires in the Midwest per year, I’d be shocked.
This wasn’t a problem just for vamps, though. Werewolves were almost at the same level.
You’d think wizards and fae—being born—would escape this, but instead it just seemed like each new generation being born was less powerful than the previous.
Magic was…well…dying. We tried to keep it a secret from humans, but over the past two generations it had become unfailingly obvious that if we didn’t do something fast, supernaturals would die out altogether—or leave only the crazy psychos alive like the oldest of vampires and the most deranged fae kings and queens.
That was why we went public when we did. We were hoping by turning humans into our allies, we might be able to find a solution to magic’s weakening.
“If the murderer attacked you, Hazel, would you be able to fight it off?” the chattier of the two women blood donors asked.
I scratched my cheek. “Not if they killed a vampire.”
“Nick—rest his soul—was a mid-level member of the Kotov Family,” the baker said. “The Kotov Family is competent, which probably makes him roughly on par with the weakest vampire in the Drake Family.”
“Yeah, but the Drake Family is the most powerful in the Midwest,” I pointed out. “And wizards can’t take out vampires on our best day. If Nick Kotov was as strong as even the weakest Drake vampire, whoever killed him is super powerful, or really well prepared. And, as was mentioned, I don’t have strong magical abilities.”
“We’ll trust in the Drake Family,” the male blood donor decreed. “They’ll handle it.”
The dishwasher boy and the quiet female blood donor didn’t seem nearly so convinced, but they delicately changed the topic to the dinner menu, which was when the vampire strolled in.
His suit was so perfectly pressed and his tie was so snug I swear he couldn’t have looked down without breaking his neck. (Was the suit thing a dress code around here? Because matched with his slicked back, bright red hair it made him look like a model for men’s cologne.)
“Sir!” the male chef barked. “How can we help you?”
“I have no need of help.” Though his pale skin gave him a delicate, almost anemic look, his red eyes flashed with a cruel savagery that revealed his true nature. “I’m here to fetch a blood pack for the Eminence.”
One of the assistants scurried across the kitchen, throwing open the door of what I had assumed was a pantry, but was actually a walk-in cooler.
The vampire boredly looked around, leaning against a countertop with the casualness of a satisfied predator as the kitchen staff and blood donors beamed at him.
I shrank back in my seat and did my best not to be noticeable—the less vampire attention I received the better.
Of course, this meant he looked right at me instead of watching the blood donor sitting a seat down from me who was clearly trying to get his attention.
I stared at my plate and didn’t dare look up—a good defense mechanism.
Vampires didn’t have mind control powers per se. But they could dazzle a person into complacency, which was close enough for me.
The vampire narrowed his eyes and delicately tilted his head back, sniffing the air. “What’s a rat-blood doing here?”
I stayed huddled on my chair and kept my eyes on the counter. “I’m a new kitchen servant. I said my vows to Killian Drake last night.”
The vampire scoffed and took a step closer, but was fortunately blocked when the over-eager assistant zipped out of the fridge and skidded between us, holding a blood pack on a silver platter.
“Would you like me to deliver it to the Eminence, sir?” the assistant asked.
“No.” The vampire grabbed the blood pack and meandered out of the kitchen without looking back.
“That was Rupert,” the chatty woman blood donor confided to me. “He’s like Killian and drinks packaged blood—which is a real shame.”
The male blood donor rolled his eyes, but added, “You don’t need to be afraid of him.”
I squinted at him. “He’s a vampire. It’s healthy to be afraid of him—you should be afraid of him.”
“Nah,” the female blood donor said. “Not here in Drake Hall! The vampires care for us.”
There was nothing in Rupert’s manners that had hinted at that, and knowing how little Killian Drake cared for anyone not a vampire, and that he had a history of eliminating anyone who got in his way, I was not inclined to believe them.
The skepticism must have showed on my face, because the blood donors spent the rest of the time trying to convince me of the vampires’ cold but real kindness until Debra came for me.
It gave me the shivers to see just how little the blood donors understood about the creatures drinking their blood.
A week passed, and I numbly settled into my new routine—which was a never-ending schedule of working, sleeping, and eating.
I liked it.
I was thankful that I didn’t have to think, and I didn’t even try to process Mason’s betrayal. But sometimes at night I’d wake up in a sweat, remembering with vivid clarity the way Felix sagged as Mason’s magic hovered over his heart.
I hadn’t wanted something that would distract me from my parents’ death, buuut it seems like I got it anyway.
I did odd jobs in the kitchen—putting away clean dishes, fetching ingredients for the chefs, arranging the baked goods on pretty trays—and I did my best to be friendly to my co-workers, so they accepted me readily enough. (Though I think they found my guarded manners toward our vampire bosses a little offensive. But that mostly just showed how little humans understood about our world.)
My biggest concern was the vampires.
I did everything I could to stay out of their way and escape notice. Thankfully, it wasn’t hard since no one could accuse a vampire of harboring excessive amounts of noblesse oblige.
I didn’t actually see them too often—I volunteered for early morning shifts and errands where I would be least likely to run into them. But after a week of living with the Drake Family, I actually got a glimpse of some of the elite vampires training.
It was evening. The sun hovered on the horizon, casting a blood red splash of color on the gunmetal gray clouds, and the vampires were holding practices outside.
I was carefully trotting along the outer wall of the massive mansion. I’d been sent to retrieve some fresh mint for one of the dishes that was going to be served with dinner. The mint was part of the herb garden tucked into the fold of the massive backyard garden. And just beyond that garden was the vampires.
It looked like they were practicing swordplay, but they were moving so
fast it was hard to see.
It was pretty gutsy of them to practice in the sun—or maybe that was the point? Sunlight can’t instantly turn a vamp into dust, but it slows them down mentally and physically, and it’s an unpleasant sensation. But, watching the deadly Drake vampires, I suspected that was probably why they were outside—and why they were moving so fast even as the red sky glowed above them.
I paused at a patio door that would lead me into the mansion, and glanced back over my shoulder.
The vampires were streaks of black and white, their swords colliding in movements that I could track only with my ears. I wondered…could I learn to be competent with weapons to make up for my poor magic?
Grit scraped stone, and I jumped as I peered farther up the walkway, freezing when I saw the tell-tale black and white suit of a vampire.
I had come to find that all Drake vampires wore expensive suits, and this vampire was standing in the shadows so I couldn’t make out if it was Rupert or any of the other vampires I’d seen glimpses of. It didn’t matter though. His presence was enough to make me jerk out a stiff bow and dart into the mansion.
I carried my basket of mint sprigs to the kitchen, doing my best to stay out of the way as the rest of the kitchen staff frantically tore around, rushing to prepare the evening meal.
“I’ve got the mint,” I called.
“Good, out of the way,” someone ordered.
I jumped back to the doorway to avoid being bowled over, and caught sight of Debra marching down the hallway.
“Hazel—perfect. Do you have any chores at the moment?” Debra smiled and glanced down at her wristwatch.
“No.”
“Would you help two of the maids outside? Rupert informed me that the dragon statues lining the driveway need to be cleaned. The maids are almost finished, but they’re running behind. Their shift is about to end, and The Eminence does not like to see the cleaning staff out after sundown.”
Yeah, and I was sure it was out of concern for his staff. Right. The jerk probably just didn’t like his view being spoiled, or something equally prissy.
