Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Roxy

Okay, fine.

Yeah, I should have had wards up.

A few low-level protection sachets.

Drawn a protective sigil on the door itself.

Hung a dark black tourmaline over the frame.

Something, anything.

To be fair, I'd been, you know, meaning to do it since I moved in. I just never got around to it.

Of course, though, by the time an evil spirit entered your home, it was too late for such things.

If I hadn't been so caught off-guard, maybe I could have come up with some sort of spell on the fly. But this particular vampire had been, well, distracting.

By that, I mean he was gorgeous.

You know the kind of good-looking.

That masculine, yet aristocratic, facial structure with a cut-glass jaw, a brooding brow, a straight nose, and sunken cheekbones.

His inky hair was pushed back from his face, and his ice-blue eyes seemed to cut right through you.

That was the reason I hadn't reacted.

Or, at least, that was what I was telling myself as he flew across the room, wrapping an arm around my waist, and pulling me back against his lean, firm body as his hand slapped over my mouth.

As I tried to make myself feel better for not realizing that the vampire would clearly have ulterior motivations for getting himself invited into my home.

Though, mostly, what I was thinking about as he flew me out of the apartment was how I hadn't had a chance to pause my show, and now I was going to have no idea where I'd left off when I got back home.

If .

I was pretty sure this was an if I got home sort of situation.

The world whirred around me at the speed we were moving, my stomach swooping the way it might on a carnival ride.

Then, in one swift motion, the vampire was in the backseat of a town car. And I was situated on his lap.

The car flew away from the curb, but the vampire never released me during the whole ride.

I conserved my energy, figuring fighting him was futile in such a confined space. Vampires were, after all, notoriously fast and strong. My best bet was to wrestle away when he tried to get us both out of the car.

The problem was, I hadn't anticipated how many staff members the vampire had.

The second the car slid into a spot on the curb outside of a massive, historic brownstone, the door was being opened, and we were gliding out, flying up the stairs, then having a door slammed behind us by yet another servant before I could even think of trying to get away.

One blessing, though, was that the second we were behind guarded doors, likely ensconced in soundproof walls, given a vampire's special sort of diet that often involved a lot of screaming and pleading to have their lives spared, was that the vampire released me.

Not realizing how accustomed I'd been to being carried by him, my legs hadn't been prepared to hold my weight, and I folded to the floor right there in the foyer.

I was in no hurry to get to my feet even as I watched the vampire's back, as he gracefully made his way into a room off the foyer, likely expecting me to follow behind.

I went ahead and took a moment to look around.

It was an ornate, cozy space full of original wood with rosettes and intricate embellishments. There was a center staircase leading up to the second floor. The walls had been painted a deep forest green and all of the windows from my vantage point had richly colored stained glass.

I couldn't help but wonder if the stained glass was a way for the vampire to move around during daylight hours without bursting into flame.

My gaze slid to the man standing just inside the door, burly and suit-clad with dark eyes. "I don't suppose you would step aside and let me walk out of that door, right?" I asked.

He didn't bother even to glance in my direction.

"Right," I said, sighing as I got back to my feet.

Taking a deep breath, I decided I should at least figure out what the bloodsucker wanted from me to make him go through the trouble of impersonating my delivery guy.

My heart ached for the perfectly good Chinese food just sitting on the floor in my apartment, uneaten.

I moved into the front room, finding a study. Or, rather, given the number of built-in bookshelves, a library.

The walls and all of the shelves were painted in a deep slate gray, and the numerous lamps placed about didn't quite light up the whole space.

There was a black Chesterfield couch situated under another stained glass window. A book sat open on the arm.

Directly forward, set up in front of a fireplace, was an executive desk with two barrel chairs.

The vampire stood behind the desk, patiently waiting for me as I moved into the room.

In the low lighting, he looked a bit more ominous than he had in my brightly lit, drab apartment.

"So, do you have a name? Or should I keep mentally thinking of you as ‘the vampire'?"

"My name is Nathaniel."

"Seriously?" I asked, a laugh bubbling up, threatening to burst out.

"What is so funny?"

"I mean, aren't vampires named cool things? You know… Dracula, Angelus, Lestat, Damon, Spike…"

"Fictional characters," he said, biting off the words like they left a bad taste in his mouth.

"I mean, I guess there are other ones with boring names too. Edward and Bill come to mind," I said, nodding.

"If you must know, Nathaniel was a popular name in the 1700s."

1700s.

That meant this vampire was, roughly, three hundred years old.

No wonder he was so fast.

I always wondered if the rumors were true about these nightwalkers. About how the older they were, the more powerful they became.

Since the only other vampires I'd known were under one hundred years old and their floating thing was maybe only the speed of a middle-aged mom's power walk, and this guy seemed to warp time when he did it, then, yeah, I guess those rumors were true.

"But you could have changed it," I said, shrugging. "Everyone who once knew you is dead, so no one would know. Though, that sounds like a lot of work."

"Yes, perish the thought of doing a little extra work," he deadpanned, making my brows raise.

Vampires were capable of a sense of humor? Who'd have known?

"So, Nathanial-Your-Name-Is-Totally-Not-Lame, what do you want from me?" I asked. "To bite me? Because I wouldn't advise that."

"Why not?" he asked, head tilted to the side. And, did his gaze slide to my neck, or was that just my overactive imagination?

"Well," I said, finally dropping down into one of the barrel chairs, watching as Nathaniel lowered into his seat as well. Old-fashioned good manners apparently held up even three hundred years later. "I once tried to donate my plasma to a vampire blood bank," I told him.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would you donate your blood?"

"For… easy money?" Why else would anyone donate?

"You were unsuccessful?"

"Apparently, my blood tastes like battery acid," I told him, shrugging. I'd ended up going to a human blood bank. They paid significantly less and had all sorts of limits on how often you could donate. The vampires didn't really care if you became anemic, obviously.

"Battery acid," Nathaniel repeated, pressing his lips together. "You come from a long line of witches then?" he asked.

"My mom, aunts, and grandma were all witches. I don't know beyond that."

"If your blood has that strong of a taste, I suspect your lineage goes back longer than I do," he said.

"Okay. And why are we talking about my ancestry? What does that have to do with why I'm here?"

To that, Nathaniel sat back in his chair, steepling his hands in front of his nose as he considered what he was going to say.

"I have… an arrangement for you."

"An arrangement? You know, I actually can't right now. My schedule is jam-packed."

"Watching brainless television programs and eating fried potatoes?" he drawled, brow quirking up.

"I have work."

"You create vending machine spells."

"It's still work." I had a little burn on my thumb to prove that effort actually did go into the spells.

"Barely."

"Anyway, I'm busy. So, thanks. But no thanks," I said, getting to my feet and starting toward the doorway.

Before I could make it there, though, I felt the chill rush past me, along with a black blur in my peripheral vision. Then he was right there in front of me, arm out to block the rest of the doorway.

"I'm afraid this is not a negotiation."

"Then why call it an arrangement?"

"In an attempt to make this more civil."

"Right. A vampire with morals. Cute," I said, irritation growing as my stomach started to rumble louder with each passing moment. "What do you want from me?"

"Your assistance."

"My… assistance?" I asked, brows raising. "Doing what?"

"At first, stealing a key."

"At first?" I asked. Because this was sure starting to sound like a lot of work. Which, you know, was simply not my thing.

"Yes, first you will steal the key. Then you will use the key."

"What does it unlock?"

"A labyrinth."

"A labyrinth," I repeated. "Like… of hedges?"

"No."

Mr. Talkative over here.

"Why can't you steal the key and unlock the labyrinth?"

"Don't you think I would have if it was possible? Both are protected by magic."

"I see. Well, I think you need someone stronger than me for that kind of job. I can write you a list," I said, turning back toward the desk to grab a pen and paper.

"You will be doing these tasks," he said, appearing in front of me once again.

"Or what?"

"You will be doing them because you are not going to turn down the reward for accomplishing the tasks to my satisfaction."

"And what kind of reward is that?" I asked, angling my head up to hold his gaze. I was going to go ahead and pretend the shiver that slid down my spine was fear, not interest.

"Two million dollars."

Like some cheesy mafia movie, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

As if I had a choice to begin with.