Chapter 1

This would be a great way to die. The water beneath the abandoned bridge shimmers like black diamonds against the moonlight, and the current seems strong enough to carry my body miles from where I stand. There's enough distance between the rusty guardrail I'm peering over and the water below that hitting the surface alone could do me in, and I wouldn't have to worry about drowning.

On the list of potential ways to die, drowning will always be at the bottom for me.

Not that it matters anymore. If I jumped off this bridge, I wouldn't die. It would be freezing and deeply unpleasant, but I'd survive. Now that I'm a vampire, I'm practically immortal.

A stake through the heart is the only thing that'll take me out. I know because I've tried everything else.

If a human wanted to opt out of their future, they could just drink too much water in a short period of time, or eat something they're allergic to, or get a splinter and never have it removed, letting the infection grow and fester until it found its way into the bloodstream. The most innocuous things can take a person out. This isn't something I realized until I was turned, and dying became close to impossible.

Not because death was a foreign concept to me when I was human. Working in the medical field put death right in front of me, and it was my duty to step between it and my patients, protecting them from death's icy grip. I was a successful OBGYN in Seattle and had just joined an incredible all-female practice that was a five-minute walk from my large and remodeled Tudor-style house. A house that I bought with cash. My mom and I had finally reached a place of mutual acceptance––my mom accepted that I'd never settle for plain fruit as dessert, I accepted that she would always offer it anyway. I had wonderfully supportive friends, and I had just started dating the smoking hot anesthesiologist at the hospital that I'd been crushing on for months.

Then I lost everything.

Tears fill my eyes at the memory of that awful night. The eve of my thirty-third birthday. If only I had chosen to get a ride instead of walking home from the bar, then maybe I wouldn't have woken up in a stranger's apartment, thousands of miles from home, my heart no longer beating, and the thirst for blood so strong that my throat burned with the heat of a thousand suns.

Maybe I wouldn't be the monster I am today.

I swipe my cheeks, anger and defeat filling my chest as I lean heavily against the guardrail. It doesn't matter what could've been. This is my life now––languishing in a shoddy trailer in a tiny town in the middle of New Hampshire that most people have never heard of, expending too much energy trying to get the members of my cell to like me and failing miserably every time I refuse to hunt with them.

A flutter of wings to my right grabs my attention, and a crow lands next to me on the guardrail.

"Good evening, Felix," I say with a smile as I lean my cheek against my palm. I gave him a name because of how frequently the little bugger shows up. It's always when I'm in a sour mood, longing for my past. I like to think he's here because he wants to brighten my day, but he's a wild bird, so who knows? "I brought you something." Pulling my hand from the pocket of my cardigan, I place a dime on the guardrail next to him.

He caws in response before dipping his head and gently taking the dime into his beak. A few days ago, he showed up on my kitchen windowsill with a paperclip. After thanking him for his generosity, I waited until he flew away before tossing it in the trash. I know crows bring gifts to their friends, so I hope continuing this exchange makes him one of mine. I don't have many at the moment.

"Naomi!" Wyatt shouts from the edge of the forest. "Where are you?"

"On the bridge," I yell back.

Felix launches himself into the air a few minutes later when Wyatt clears the trees, and I swallow my nerves as I narrow down the possible reasons he could be looking for me. It could be a booty call, but the odds are greater that Elaine sent him to retrieve me.

"There you are," he says, his heavy gait making all kinds of noise in an otherwise peaceful setting. He steps onto the bridge, and the rusted decking creaks beneath his weight.

"What's up?"

"Elaine needs to see you," he replies as he crosses his thick farmer boy arms over his broad chest.

Fuck. I knew it. Elaine needing to see me is a bad sign. She only ever sends for me when she's inclined to berate me over what a terrible vampire I am and how disappointed my maker would be to see how little progress I've made since he dropped me at her doorstep.

I let out a wary sigh as I follow him through the woods toward the light brown, split-level house he shares with Elaine and Mike, the other two members of our cell. When I joined, Elaine didn't want me in the house, so she bought a repossessed trailer home at a police auction and parked it as far from the house as possible without going over the property line. We're not exactly besties.

"What is it this time?" I ask Wyatt, trudging behind him.

"She didn't say much," he mutters over his shoulder, "just something about an assignment."

An assignment? That sounds ominous given that the only place I'm allowed to go without vampire supervision is the Dunkin" Donuts on the edge of town.

When we enter the house, Elaine is sitting in her recliner watching HGTV, and Mike is reading an old, dusty phone book on the couch next to her. I have no idea why, and I don't bother to ask. The man looks like he stepped out of a Pinterest page for steampunk fashion. Why he chose to settle in the sticks when he could've stayed in London is beyond me.

These three aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, and somehow, they seem to be getting dumber each year.

"Got her," Wyatt says, pointing to me.

"Ah, there she is," Elaine adds, clapping her hands together. Her cheerful expression immediately puts me on edge.

"Salutations, Naomi," Mike says, temporarily removing his pipe.

"Hi," I mumble quietly. If my palms could still sweat, they'd be drenched right now.

"Did you order a printer?" she asks. Waving me over to her side.

"No," I tell her. There's no way I could even fit one in my trailer. Not that I even have use for one if I could.

She shakes her head as she stares at her phone. "I got this email from Circuit City saying that the printer I ordered is ready for pickup, but the payment method needs to be updated. Did you––"

"That's a spam email," I tell her. "Don't click on anything and don't provide any payment information."

"If there's no printer, why would they send me this email?"

"Because they want to steal your money," I spell out for her. "Also, Circuit City closed in 2009." It's such an obvious scam. How can she not see that?

Elaine sighs as she deletes the email.

"Um, Wyatt said you were looking for me."

"Yes," Elaine says, her blue eyes gleaming with excitement. "I have a very important assignment for you." She uses her kitten-heel-covered feet to close the footrest on her recliner. When she reaches me, she swipes through several pictures on her phone before turning it around. "Do you recognize him?"

The man in question has the sharp, angular features and lean-but-cut build of someone who models tuxedos for a living. His hair is light brown and somewhat long, but styled with enough gel to keep it brushed back and off his pale face, and he's dressed in a crisp, white button-down shirt, a gray-checkered tie, and matching gray slacks that look perfectly tailored to his body. All the photos seem to have been taken as he's leaving a corporate building and about to cross a busy street. His brow looks permanently furrowed, as if he's carrying the weight of an entire planet on his shoulders, when, in reality, he's probably stressed over a quarterly earnings report, or an upcoming shareholder meeting, or something else that rich white guys like him take way too seriously. He's pretty, I suppose, if you're into the whole arrogant CEO vibe.

"No, I've never seen him," I tell Elaine.

Elaine chuckles. "Well, he's about to be your new boss."

"My…boss?" I stammer, confusion making me slightly lightheaded. "You got me a job? I thought I wasn't allowed to have consistent access to humans until my twentieth fangiversary."

"You've shown impressive restraint for such a young vampire," Mike says with a proud nod.

Translation: I haven't killed anyone since I turned, so I'm not as much of a threat as most young vampires would be.

I'm caught off guard by the compliment. Mike is certainly nicer than Elaine, but he rarely offers support of any kind.

Elaine tilts her head to the side. "That's one way to put it. Another way would be," she pauses, chewing on the inside of her cheek, "since you refuse to embrace your instincts and contribute to our food intake, we've found an alternative way for you to live among us without being such a mooch."

Ouch. Though I suppose my refusal to hunt with them has been the biggest source of tension since I arrived. They don't understand why I won't drain or kill a person for blood. To me, the reason is obvious. I spent my entire adult life in the medical field, trying to help or heal the patient in front of me. It doesn't matter what I am now, or that I need to consume blood in order to survive. I'm not about to desecrate the Hippocratic oath like some selfish asshole.

My maker, Xavier, insisted it was a temporary affliction that only baby vampires suffer from. "Once everyone you know is dead, you stop caring about who you hurt in order to feed."

That was one of the last things he said to me before he shoved me out of the car in Elaine's driveway, followed by, "I'll come back for you once you've outgrown this pitiful state."

I hope he never does. And I really hope he's wrong. Maybe it's counterintuitive to the way most vampires think, but I like knowing that I'm still me. That I care about the safety and well-being of others. I don't want that to change.

"You have a Zoom interview tomorrow with the company's COO. I think her name is Thea," Elaine says, interrupting my thoughts. She hands me a piece of paper. "Thea…something. I don't remember. Here's your résumé. Don't fuck it up."

"Wait," I choke out, my mind racing with all the unanswered questions. "What position am I applying for?" The paper in front of me has my name at the top and lists a bunch of jobs that I've never had. "This résumé is completely inaccurate, by the way."

Mike and Wyatt start packing a duffle bag that's sitting on the bench next to the front door.

Elaine sighs, looking annoyed. "You're going to be the CEO's executive assistant. His name is Kyan Monroe, and we need you to get close to him. Spy on him. Figure out what he's hiding in that big, fancy building he owns and runs the company out of. And see what you can find out about his brothers too."

"His assistant?" I ask. "I've never had a job like that. This résumé says I have fifteen years of experience as a receptionist and assistant to top executives. How am I supposed to fake that?"

Wyatt tosses a rope and duct tape into the duffle, along with three empty stainless steel water bottles. Elaine tosses a change of clothes on top and zips the bag closed. "It's answering phones and scheduling meetings. How hard can it be? Just act like this is a role you're comfortable in, and you're eager to make Monroe's life easier. That's all he wants."

I can probably pull that off. Something still seems off about this plan though. "What do you have against this guy?" I ask Elaine. "Is he threatening to go public with what we are?"

She hands the bag to Mike and frantically fluffs her blonde ringlets, a move she always makes when I'm on her last nerve. "You know that old cop who sends us information on all the newly released convicts? Officer Burton? He wants us to spy on Kyan. Apparently, him and his brothers have been causing trouble around town, and Burton is desperate to get at least one of them behind bars on a charge that'll stick. He says he won't give us the monthly convict lists until we can provide information on Kyan that he can use to make an arrest."

That seems flimsy as fuck. "Why does he even need us? Can't Burton plant drugs in his backyard or pull him over for a broken taillight and then claim Kyan's resisting arrest?" Straight out of the bad cop playbook.

"Officer Burton has kept us fat and happy for decades, and now he needs us to return the favor. It's the least we can do," she snaps. "Burton even told me he suspects the Monroe brothers aren't human. He doesn't know what they are, just that they're incredibly dangerous. And now they're fucking with our food."

Hm. That's a new one. "We're sure they're not vampires?"

She rolls her eyes. "Obviously not. I'd know if another cell had moved into our territory."

I chew on the inside of my cheek as I consider this. It still seems like a strange mission to take on, considering we have no proof these guys are dangerous. And given Burton's track record of giving Elaine names and addresses of ex-cons and covering up their murders once Elaine has sucked them dry, he certainly isn't a Boy Scout, so why would she trust anything he tells her?

She huffs a breath at my lack of enthusiasm. "Well, if that won't motivate you to put some fucking effort into this task, try this one on for size. If you don't track this guy's every move from the moment you're hired and report back to me, I'm going to send you back to Xavier."

The only reason Elaine took me in was because she owed Xavier a favor from years ago. If she calls him and tells him she refuses to keep me as part of her cell, I'm screwed. The things I witnessed Xavier do to people after he turned me still give me chills. He doesn't just kill to eat; he tortures humans for fun before draining them. That man is a twisted, depraved motherfucker, and I don't want to be anywhere near him.

"Okay, I'll do it," I tell her with a shaky nod.

She grabs a set of keys from the hook by the door and tosses them to me. "His office is in Manchester. You can use the station wagon for your commute."

Gee, what a generous gift. A car that's thirty years old and barely runs. "I thought the brakes needed to be replaced?"

"The brakes are fine," Elaine replies with a dramatic eye roll. "It's not like a car crash would kill you anyway. What are you worried about?"

Oh, I don't know, killing someone else on the road? I don't bother saying this to her, though, because she doesn't care. Given her ability to glamour people into doing whatever she wants, you'd think she could show up at a car lot and leave with however many cars she felt like getting for exactly zero dollars. She's certainly done that for Mike and Wyatt. But she'd never waste her powers on me like that.

Mike heads out the front door with a stack of books under one arm and the duffle over his shoulder. Elaine stands in front of the hallway mirror and touches up her matte red lipstick with expert precision.

Wyatt puts on a backpack and shoots me a boyish grin. "Want to come along this weekend? We're hunting college students up north at Plymouth State. I'm sure you could do your Zoom interview from a Starbucks or something."

I appreciate his continued efforts to include me. He's the only one who seems to like having me around. When I first joined their cell, we had a bit of a fling. I was lonely, and he had a calming presence and kind eyes. We haven't hooked up in over a year though. He's offered, but I haven't had any interest. Maybe my depression has killed my supercharged vampire sex drive.

"Thanks, but I have a group meeting tomorrow night. I don't want to miss it."

"Aww, another gathering for you and your anti-sucker pals?" Elaine says mockingly as she holds my gaze in the reflection of the mirror. "Do you all sit in a circle and cry about how precious human lives are?"

"It's a Sippers Support Group, actually," I quietly correct her. We hate the "anti-sucker" label, and Elaine is very aware of this. "We mainly talk about how difficult it is to live in a world where we're constantly shamed for our lifestyle."

I wish I had the guts to stand up to her, but she's older than me by over a hundred years. Since vampires get stronger as they age, that would make her the equivalent of The Hulk and me a fruit fly. Plus, she knows she doesn't even have to touch me to hurt me. She can threaten to send me back to Xavier, and I'll cave and do whatever she wants, short of draining a human.

Wyatt must see the anger in my eyes because he nudges Elaine toward the door. Then turns to me with a sympathetic expression and says, "Have a good weekend, Naomi. Good luck with your interview."

I hear Elaine yell, "You better fucking get the job!"

The door slams behind him, and I let out a long sigh of relief. It's not like I have much time to relax though. I need to start prepping if I want to land this job in order to spy on the mysterious CEO Elaine has deemed her nemesis.

I like him already.