It wasn’t until he’d disappeared and the chatter from the crowd had spilled over me once more that I realized he’d left his cane in my office. The guest book would have a record of his room number. I’d have it returned to him later.
“Ma’am,” Etienne said, steering my attention back to the task at hand, “the overseer is asking after you.”
Distracted by Jack, I’d almost forgotten I was hosting a monster. “Is he happy with his suite?”
“I believe so.” He gulped.
I noticed the top button on his jacket gaped open. “Best button yourself up tight, Etienne, lest you broadcast yourself as prey.”
He hastily obliged, paling with every second.
“Does he have his… bloodslave?” I asked, scanning the crowd to make sure all behaved and smiled. Everything was calm. I doubted it’d stay that way for long.
“I sent five to his room, but he sent them away… undecided.”
I sighed and found Etienne’s darting expression again. “I’ll deal with him. You are to assume I’m otherwise engaged for the next three nights. Don’t worry about my well-being.” I held his gaze so he knew I’d seen his face when the overseer had forced me to kneel. “I’ll be all right.”
He nodded tightly. His concern was sweet but unnecessary.
“Oh, and see what you can find out about a new guest called Jack.”
“Jack…?”
“Just Jack,” I said, wondering if there was more happening inside these walls than I could see. But the station saw everything, and if it wished it, Jack would find me again—or I’d find him.
Chapter 3
Night
The grand suite dominated the entire fourth floor of the central building, right over the station’s beating heart, the Grand Hall. The building’s vast wings stretched to the east and west. Most guests enjoyed luxurious accommodations in those wings. Overseer Ghost was not most guests. No other room but the grand suite would do for the VGs most esteemed vampire.
I opened the outer door, passed through the inner hallway under thick tied-back drapes, and knocked on the white-painted, gold-leafed inner door.
I had a key that opened every door, but it would be best to keep that secret to myself, especially for what would come later. For now, I had a role to play.
“Come.”
I gathered my wits like I gathered my skirts and opened the door.
I’d seen the room before, that morning in fact, but now it was occupied and it had changed. Black and red threatened to swallow me whole the second I stepped across the threshold, from the white light of the inner hallway into the dark. The Night Station’s magical touch shivered through me. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, when the world got busy, I forgot the station was alive. At times, it gently reminded me. Just this morning, boxes and dust had cluttered the suite, and now it was dressed to the highest standard. My staff had not done this. Plush carpet, of a red so dark it would hide spilled blood, softened my footfalls. Black panels hugged the walls, while gold-leaf frames swirled and traced delicately sweeping waves and filigree. Furniture led the gaze on a chase around the huge space. And this was just the suite’s lobby. Beyond the closed doors was the master bedroom, with its dressing room, complete with a selection of the Night Station’s outfits, each uniquely tailored to fit every guest’s dimensions. A sumptuous bathroom with a sunken bath waited to embrace the tired guest. And so much more.
Black windows beckoned me forward. The outside was so empty it might be another world. I saw only myself in the reflection, hovering like a real ghost, dressed in my layered gown and so easily assumed to be the epitome of grace, when in fact the dress—my first gift from the station—held lethal secrets. Just like me. In the day, shutters would seal those windows so tightly that not a single shaft of light could squeeze through.
“Did I not tell you to come?” His stern voice grabbed at me from the dining room.
I had already displeased him tonight. Now was not the time to dither.
The dining room was no less impressive, featuring massive candelabra and shining silver cutlery, but the grandeur lost some of its luster when my gaze fell on the overseer.
He stood at the end of the table, the fingertips of one hand resting on the glossy tabletop while the other was neatly tucked into a pocket. Black velvet swirled at the edges of his black suit jacket. His burgundy shirt gaped at the neck, flaunting a freedom no human had. He was a vision of lace and silk and velvet.
“Look at you.” He snorted a humorless laugh. “Wrapped up so tightly it’s as though you seek to hide yourself inside all that fabric.” His voice had a rumbling smoothness that he’d likely perfected over the decades. He wielded it the same as he did the power in his gaze. Like all weapons they had at their disposal. Venom. Charm. Strength. Viciousness.
“Do you find the accommodation to your liking?” I asked, entering without permission. I ignored the dress comment, finding it too close to the truth to dwell on.
He arched an eyebrow at my approach, unacustomed to anyone being so forward.
“It is… adequate.”
Adequate. He was lying. He was impressed, and we both knew it. “The attire is striking on you, sire.”
His eyes narrowed. I’d displeased him. I made a mental note to veer away from mentioning his appearance again, at least in a good light. Perhaps he liked to hear he was ugly. I’d soon learn his quirks so that I might use them against him.
“Your reputation precedes you, Lynher.”
“My guests refer to me as Miss Aris or Ma’am.” I hadn’t told him he was wrong, and he hadn’t yet agreed to behave like a guest. This was a game. He’d win, but no game was worth playing if the outcome was set.
I’d moved on, stepping behind him and taking in everything about the room and him. Every glance told me more. He believed he had the power here, and he wore his confidence like a second skin. Decades might have passed since someone had surprised him. Longer since anyone had challenged him. An overseer as feared as he was often found themselves surrounded by yes-givers. Liars. While I could lie, and would lie, I also planned on telling him the truth. He likely hadn’t heard it in a while.
He watched me walk around his room, his minnow swimming in his ocean. Or perhaps a better analogy here would be snakes, as he’d been the first to mention them. He was fast and lethal, and a single drop of venom or his teeth in my neck and I’d be his. But I was a small thing, a nothing thing. A garter snake with no bite. Or so he believed.
“You asked to see me?”
“I was expecting you to be here, waiting for me,” he said, his tone guarded.
I laughed, startling him, but his widened eyes turned back to razor-thin slits.
“You find me amusing?” he asked.
“I have a thousand guests on any given night and all believe I should be waiting on them.” I let that sentence dig in before adding, “You’ll have to be patient, sire. There is but one of me.”
He breathed in, a sign I was getting beneath his skin as he didn’t need to breathe at all. “You play a dangerous game.”
“You refused our bloodslaves?” I asked, changing the subject to distract him from my game-playing. “You have my assurance they are all clean and well behaved.” The words tasted bitter.
“And what if I don’t want well behaved?” He smiled like he knew the question would rile me.
He’d been in the war. He’d hunted down his prey. I was too young to remember anything, but Gerome had seen the vampires kill in the thousands. I’d found him crying alone once, and he’d told me it wasn’t magic that had almost wiped out humans; the vampires had done that.
“I can have that arranged.” I stopped at the foot of the table and looked up to find his silver-eyed glare pinned on me. “You merely have to ask and it will be arranged.”
Three days. That’s all I needed to wipe this monster off the map. But I wouldn’t subject any of my staff to his barbaric whims. It would be me, if it came to it. “What can I pro
vide to make your stay more pleasant, Overseer?” Every word tasted like ash on my tongue. I swallowed, but the taste lingered.
He considered my words as carefully as I’d constructed them. He knew I’d resisted his charm. What else of his could I resist? For someone like him, I was something new, something of a challenge.
He waved my question away and seemed to reset his thoughts at the same time, as his gaze softened. “You’ll accompany me on a tour of this fine station.”
“Very well.” I approached and offered my arm.
When he looped his arm in mine, a tic started at the back of my mind—a very human instinct to recoil. Every inch of my skin wanted to crawl off my bones and hide. Predator, my body screamed. I smiled at the monster beside me and shoved all the fear far, far away. I could scream and cry and rage at daybreak, but not yet. NOT. YET.
His fangs gleamed their threat and their promise. We both knew I wouldn’t make it through the next few hours without him trying to breach my defenses, but for now, he was content to play. While he played, I’d learn all about Ghost and how best to make sure he didn’t leave my care alive.
* * *
Ghost appeared not to notice how the corridors had miraculously emptied prior to his arrival, or how all but the vampireguard were deep in conversation, or how guests averted their eyes as we entered the Grand Hall. By now, everyone knew I was entertaining the overseer. They all wanted a look at the vampire with the fiercest reputation, bar the queen herself, but few ventured too close.
I traded smiles while the vampire on my arm marked each soul we passed by, the shimmer in his eyes seeing deeper than the superficial. He’d paid attention during the tour, absorbing every detail about the Night Station and its peaceful role in these troubled times. I’d told him the myth of how the station had appeared at the same time as magic, when a dark-matter experiment buried in the Alps had gone so very wrong and torn the human world open, inviting in all the bad things. I’d told him of how the station moved, and he’d laughed, like such a thing were fantasy. For a being made of magic at his roots, he was surprisingly blind to it. I saw it all around him, as shifting and alive as candlelight. It was corrupted, as magic always was with the Dark Ones, but there all the same.
I’d also told him about the lore that claimed the arrival of Ghost was a death omen. He didn’t laugh that time, but held my gaze before leaning in and brushing his reply against my cheek. “Only my enemies need fear me, Miss Aris.”
Even after he’d withdrawn, the touch lingered across my jawline. The touch had been no mistake. Vampires weren’t careless with their touches, unlike humans. Instinct demanded I shove him back and run far away from this monster in velvet and lace. Even as screams filled my head, I angled my face toward him, snaring his gaze before it could drop to my neck. I had my coat back on, buttoned up to my chin, but this close, he could hear my blood pumping, and like Caine on the platform, he only had a finite amount of control.
“Why are you really here?” I asked as we performed a slow sidestep around each other, the crowd forgotten.
“Ah.” He breathed in and straightened, cutting off the intimacy. “I was going to discuss this with you tomorrow, but as you’ve asked…” He took my hand and guided me to sit at a nearby occasional table, then settled in the opposite chair. We’d found a nook at the edge of the Grand Hall, tucked in shadow. Alone yet surrounded by hundreds. Intimate but exposed.
A face in the crowd caught my eye, mostly because he wasn’t laughing or chatting like the others. Jack stood on the other side of the Hall. Impossibly, a line from him to me had opened through the crowd, as if everyone had known when to step aside to reveal him.
He didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. And in that second, I could almost feel his rough hand in mine.
“… high-value cargo…” Ghost was saying.
I blinked. The crowd pulled together, flooding the inexplicable gap, and he was gone. Was it the Night Station’s influence that kept bringing us together or fate?
“He must be quite the man to pull you from my presence.”
Danger lurked beneath Ghost’s wry tone. I smiled, giving him all my attention again, and boldly placed my hand over his on the table. “Just another guest. My apologies, sire. You were saying?”
His brow pinched. “On the second day of my stay, at exactly zero-five hundred, an inbound train will stop at Platform One to take on water and fuel.” He lifted my hand, leaned an elbow on the table, and brought my loose fingers to his lips, as though to kiss them. A more civilized guest would think it a polite gesture, despite the intimacy of it, but a kiss was not his intention. His grip turned to steel and clamped closed, trapping my fingers in his vise-like fist. Pain radiated through my hand, trying to twist me to his mercy. I pulled, but there was no use fighting him. If he wanted, he could throw me down onto this little table and snap my neck before I could draw enough breath to scream. The station would stop anyone else, but was he different?
“If anything should interfere with this train and its cargo, I’ll hold you personally responsible, Miss Aris.” He hissed my name, revealing fully extended fangs.
“Naturally, sire.” I breathed too fast and smiled thinly.
His fist opened, freeing my trembling hand. He tracked every movement as I pulled my hand to my chest, his black pupils blown wide.
I could still walk this back. I fluttered my lashes and smiled. “As formidable as you are, this is my sanctuary, and any harm that comes to me or my guests shall be met with equal force.” His top lip peeled back in a snarl. “Trust me when I say you do not want to do this here.”
A glance to my right revealed we had garnered quite the crowd. The alien-looking elves with their big, oval eyes and pointed ears openly observed, while others were more careful with their glances. They didn’t care for me. They were more curious to see what could happen in this sacred place so they might later do the same.
I didn’t see Ghost move from his chair or stop beside mine, but I felt his hands grab my wrist and shoulder and yank me to my feet. The sudden jolt whipped through me until all I could see were those black eyes and shining fangs.
This confrontation had been building since he’d tried to charm me on the platform and I’d brushed him off. It seemed our overseer needed a lesson in Night Station etiquette.
I let him think he’d caught me, allowing his killer instincts to ramp up, and then I twisted my trapped wrist enough to clutch his arm. Power shocked through me and into him where my hand touched his arm, snapping, hissing, sparking. With a shout, he tore himself away. Lazy smoke trails drifted upward from the singed patch on his immaculately tailored outfit.
I rolled my shoulders and righted my jacket by pulling on the lace cuffs, hiding the now-blazing x-symbol. “Kindly refrain from threatening me and your stay will be far more pleasant.” A step closer brought me within whispering distance. Furious silver sparks blazed in the overseer’s dark eyes. His fangs—fully on display—leaked debilitating venom. It was my turn to lean in and whisper against his cheek. “Sleep well under my roof, Ghost.”
Turning on my heel, I left him there, my last words ringing in his ears. In less than an hour, the sun would rise. Day would break, and Overseer Ghost would find himself in my care until the realm of Night returned. The bastard wouldn’t be sleeping well.
Chapter 4
Day
High-value cargo.
My boots struck the corridor floor in time with the words repeating over and over in my head, as though hammering nails into my soul.
High.
Value.
Cargo.
I veered through a door and into an inner passage, took a sharp left turn through another door, slinking through the station’s service sections like a snake through tall grass until I was sure no one was following me. Plucking the key from my pocket, I stopped outside the last door at the end of a long narrow passage. A nothing door. It could have been a closet for all its dullness. I listened, waiting for any sign I wasn’t alo
ne. Warm morning sunlight filtered through the window blinds. I didn’t look outside. Nothing changed out there. Empty buildings. Empty streets. Looking outside reminded me of why we were in here, living the illusion of freedom.
An extra few moments, just to confirm no one was observing me, then I slipped the key into the lock and turned it over.
Inside, stairs spiraled downward. Down and down and down. I ran my hand along the high-gloss wooden banister. Candlelight rippled over lavish gold- and green-patterned wallpaper. Down into what might as well have been a different world.
I emerged into the mirror image of the Night Station, complete with long corridors, high ceilings, and polished paneled walls. Only here, the entire front section of windows had their shutters thrown open, inviting sunlight in. My steps lightened, relief lifting the weight of responsibility off my back. It was day, and things were different now. So very different.
Platform One still ran the full thousand-foot length of the station’s frontage, but nobody gathered there. Any creature looking in from the outside would assume the station was as deserted as the surrounding crumbling buildings. The station was only seen by those it wanted to be seen by.
Pulling off my jacket, I unbuttoned the first few gown buttons, freeing my neck and shoulders to the air’s cool kiss.
The library here glittered with books, all lit by sunlight pouring in through vast arched windows. It smelled like warm books too, like home. But this home truly was my sanctuary.
Sprawled in the chair at my desk waited a man I sometimes hated, often admired, but always loved. Kensey Aris. My brother had kicked his boots up on the edge of the desk, raining dirt on the desktop and floor. He’d managed to tie his unruly dark hair back. Mostly. A few too many curls fell free, stroking his cheeks and jaw. It was a miracle he’d buttoned his shirt up without missing a hole. We were twins. You could tell by our eyes and in our cheekbones, if we were standing next to one another, but that was where our similarities began and ended.
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