‘Yes, my lady, I swear it on my life.’ Indeed, he reeked of truth.
‘You would mention that.’ She trailed a finger down the minion’s neck. ‘Seeing as it’s about to be required of you.’
With a rabid growl, her human features disappeared as her facial bones shifted and her fangs descended fully. She sank them into her servant’s throat, his cries filling her ears like chamber music, his blood disappearing down her gullet along with the secret of the missing ring.
She dropped his limp body to the hand-knotted Turkish carpet, licked a bead of blood from the corner of her mouth, and headed to her office. She’d make a note for Octavian, the head of her household staff, to remunerate the dead kine’s family, but the cost was worth it. Killing soothed the painful memories of her past and what had been taken from her. It gave her the strength to face the enormous amount of work ahead.
She stopped at the door and glanced at the lifeless form fouling the perfection of her sitting room. She’d worked so hard to get where she was and sacrificed so much, she hated to see anything mar her home. She shook her head at the dead kine. Had she been that vulnerable as a human? No. The streets had beaten the soft edges and innocence out of her before she’d lost her baby teeth. Humans were like that, turning on each other, picking the weakest among them apart, using one another for their own means. They deserved what they got at vampire hands.
Would the comarré be that vulnerable? Probably. The pampered creature had little chance of realizing what she possessed in that ring. Not even Algernon had fully understood it until Lord Ivan’s explanation. How would a comarré know she held the key to a prophecy that might change the world? She was nothing but a blood whore. A piece of property, no different from the ring she’d stolen.
Tatiana smiled grimly. Well now, that wasn’t true at all.
The ring had a future.
Chapter One
Paradise City, New Florida, 2067
The cheap lace and single-sewn seams pressed into Chrysabelle’s flesh, weighed down by the uncomfortable tapestry jacket that finished her disguise. Her training kept her from fidgeting with the shirt’s tag even as it bit into her skin. She studied those around her. How curious that the kine perceived her world this way. No, this was her world, not the one she’d left behind. And she had to stop thinking of humans as kine. She was one of them now. Free. Independent. Owned by no one.
She forced a weak smile as the club’s heavy electronic beat ricocheted through her bones. Lights flickered and strobed, casting shadows and angles that paid no compliments to the faces around her. She cringed as a few bodies collided with her in the surrounding crush. Nothing in her years of training had prepared her for immersion in a crowd of mortals. She recognized the warm, earthy smell of them from the human servants her patron and the other nobles had kept, but acclimating to their noise and their boisterous behavior was going to take time. Perhaps humans lived so hard because they had so little of that very thing.
Something she was coming to understand.
The names on the slip of paper in her pocket were memorized, but she pulled it out and read them again. Jonas Sweets, and beneath it, Nyssa, both written in her aunt’s flowery script. Just the sight of the handwriting calmed her a little. She folded the note and tucked it away. If Aunt Maris said Jonas could connect her with help, Chrysabelle would trust that he could, even though the idea of trusting a kine – no, a human – seemed untenable.
She pushed through to the bar, failing in her attempt to avoid more contact but happy at how little attention she attracted. The foundation Maris had applied to her hands, face and neck, the only skin left visible by her clothing, covered her signum perfectly. No longer did the multitude of gold markings she bore identify her as an object to be possessed. She was her own person now, passing easily as human.
The feat split her in two. While part of her thrilled to be free of the stifling propriety that governed her every move and rejoiced that she was no longer property, another part of her felt wholly unprepared for this existence. There was no denying life in Algernon’s manor had been one of shelter and privilege.
Enough wallowing. She hadn’t the time and there was no going back, even if she could. Which she wouldn’t. And it wasn’t as if Aunt Maris hadn’t provided for her and wouldn’t continue to do so, if Chrysabelle could just take care of this one small problem. Finding a space between two bodies, she squeezed in and waited for the bartender’s attention.
He nodded at her. ‘What can I get you?’
She slid the first plastic fifty across the bar as Maris had instructed. ‘I need to find Jonas Sweets.’
He took the bill, smiling enough to display canines capped into points. Ridiculous. ‘Haven’t seen him in a few days, but he’ll show up eventually.’
Eventually was too late. She added a second bill. ‘What time does he usually come in?’
The bartender removed the empty glasses in front of her, snatched up the money, and leaned in. ‘Midnight. Sometimes sooner. Sometimes later.’
It was nearly 1 a.m. now. ‘How about his assistant, Nyssa? The mute girl?
‘She won’t show without him.’ He tapped the bar with damp fingers. ‘I can give Jonas a message for you, if he turns up. What’s your name?’
She shook her head. No names. No clues. No trail. The bartender shrugged and hustled away. She slumped against the bar and rested her hand over her eyes. At least she could get out of here now. Or maybe she should stay. The Nothos wouldn’t attempt anything in so public a place, would they?