Stiltz Read online

  As a dhampir, I can sense the sun setting as well as any full-blooded vampire. I have about an hour until it’s officially sunset. Thank God for winter! My favorite time of the year here in Oregon.

  Humming slightly under my breath, I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to catch a few Zs. But even in the Verenim Family House, I had to sleep with one eye open, so to speak. I wasn’t permitted weapons inside—go figure—so I’d just have to make do with the dirty little secret no vampire wants to admit.

  A dhampir’s bite can be poisonous. Some latent gene gets activated when vamp DNA mixes with human, so we actually have venom we can inject at will. Crappy part about that is, the venom kind of affects us, too. It’ll kill the vampire we bite, and hey, maybe it’ll kill us along with them—or at least incapacitate us—but it’s a good backup plan.

  Some vamps won’t let a dhampir bite them because they’re paranoid about it, but it’d be impossible to do by accident. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but most people don’t walk around shitting themselves either. It’s a bodily function we can control.

  “Are you going to sit there for the entire meeting so I can dock your pay again or are you going to get your ass in the throne room?” Atticus asks, kicking my ankle.

  My eyes—both of which were closed incidentally—snap open, and I’m up with my hand around his throat before I even realize what I’m doing. Atticus’s back slams into the wall and he lets out a strangled cry.

  “Do not ever sneak up on a sleeping dhamp, you fucking idiot.” I shake him a little and squeeze my fingers a tad more tightly than I should. But this might be my one and only opportunity to scare the crap out of the little weasel. Not even his master will fault me for reacting after being snapped out of sleep. Vampires are cranky motherfuckers when they’re woken prematurely.

  I drop Atticus and he slides to the ground, clutching his throat, his blue eyes wide with terror. Considering he spends his days waiting on both crown and royal vamps, I’m surprised. What a wuss. He’ll never survive here. And no matter how pretty he is, they’re never going to turn him.

  If there’s one thing vampires and dhampirs alike despise, it’s cowardice.

  I leave Atticus trembling on the ground and head for the open double doors of the throne room, glancing at the clock as I pass by. Holy hell, I must’ve been tired. An hour and a half passed in the blink of an eye and all I got out of it was a crappy dream where I explained to myself about the uses of dhampir venom? What gives?

  Nobody looks at me as I move into the room, but they all know I’m there. A few lips even curl with disgust.

  Racist asswads.

  Weaving through the crowd, I take my place in the back-left corner with the rest of the for-hire outcasts. I’m the only dhampir there—we’re sort of a rare breed—but I’m not intimidated. I’ve lived my whole life learning how to toe the line around vampires and hide myself from humans. It sucks, but I’m used to it, and I don’t expect anything to ever change. How could it when I’m a goddamn pariah in one world and invisible in the other?

  My eyes scan the dimly lit room, the crimson chandeliers washing the crowd in color, tainting faces red. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in here is pale. There are vampires in every shade of the same rainbow humans fall under. Well, okay, vampires can get a bit lighter—I’m talking white-as-fucking-virgin-snow—and a bit darker, all the way to pitch-black-no-stars-country-night-sky. And undead vampires always have an ashier complexion, but basically we use the same color palette as our food, i.e. human beings.

  Reaching my hands up to my hair, I move to rake my fingers through the golden waves and then remember how perfectly sleek and styled it is right now. When I’m around these people, I need to look my best. It’s the only way to get any of them to even remotely take me seriously. Besides, my hair is only ever tamed into some semblance of order once in a blue moon. Might as well enjoy it.

  I cross my arms over my chest and glance around at the myriad designer dresses, suits, shoes, and jewelry. There’s enough wealth in this room to triple the GDP of a small country. It’s a little ridiculous, but hey, maybe I’m just bitter because I grew up sleeping in cars and on park benches.

  A human servant circulates with blood-spiked champagne and I snatch a glass, lifting the bubbly red liquid to my nose and inhaling. Human. Female. Definitely young and definitely excited. Lifting my head up, I take another sniff and realize that the waitress herself is the donor of this particular cocktail.

  Huh.

  The drink is bubbly and fizzy and metallic in my mouth, and luckily, since I haven’t had any real food in hours, the booze goes straight to my head. By the time I finish that glass and switch it out for another, I’m having a much better evening.

  Almost an hour later because, you know, why the fuck should the king have to show up on time—he’s superior to everyone else in here, obviously—the room gets eerily quiet. Most people don’t even bother to breathe. Since I’m half-human, I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter and my body does it for me. Never in my life have I heard a sound so loud as a single dhampir breathing in a room brimming with vampires.

  It makes me stand out...in a bad way.

  The king saunters in from the direction of the crown chambers, an entire entourage surrounding him. Since most people in this room would gladly kill him and usurp the family seat if given the chance, he has to keep around either those who are bound to him, who actually like him, or who he pays ridiculously well in order to stay alive.

  The man can’t be more than three years older than I am, but he has a tired, almost bored face, like he’s just done with life and can’t be bothered. If I were someone else, I might find him attractive with his thick, curly black hair, spring green eyes, and big lush mouth. But there’s just something about him that fails to get my lady parts in a tizzy.

  Not like Sorrow and Vyce, I think, daydreaming about my one-night stand for far longer than I should. There are many reasons why those kinds of interactions should only last one night, and even though those guys were hot, like fucking hawt, spelled wrong and everything, I need to let them go.

  I exhale sharply and draw the eyes of all the vampires in my immediately vicinity. Even though they’re about as low-ranking as they can get, shit on the bottom of the shoes of the royals and the crowns, they look at me like I’m something the cat threw up.

  Good thing I’m not a sensitive person or that might bother me. In reality, I have the emotional complexity of an eggplant, so the fact that they hate my guts and want me dead doesn’t bother me in the least.

  The king slouches lazily in the intricately carved wooden throne some pompous a-hole dragged over from the old country. He looks a tad ridiculous in it, dressed in thousand-dollar designer jeans, boots, and a loose black button-up.

  His ice-blue eyes vaguely remind me of Sorrow’s. Actually, as the king flicks his gaze over to me, I realize they’re more like mine. Well, like my one blue eye anyway. He stares at me for a disturbingly long time, drawing the attention of the crowd. Great. Just what I needed, a bunch of nosy, entitled vampires staring at me in the velvet and diamond dress. Half of them look at me like they want to rip my throat out and drink me dry, and the other half look like they want to fuck me...and then drink me dry.

  Vesnic of House Verenim—aka the vampire king, if we’re being blunt—turns his attention back to the clustered royals at his feet. Those simpering sycophants gaze up at him like he’s a god incarnate and yet, they’d kill him first chance they could get. It’s nauseating to watch.

  “I have an announcement,” the king purrs, sending ripples of pleasure through the crowd. To be fair, there’s a reason this man is king and it’s not just because he was born into it. He’s as powerful as Vyce, Sorrow, and Wolfe, this overwhelming presence that seems impossible to be contained in a man as young as he is. Crown blood runs hot with magic, that’s for fucking sure. “It’s come to my attention,” he continues with a small roll of his blue eyes, “that there
are those in the ranks of House Verenim that would like to see me take a queen.” He pauses to grin, and flashes his fangs. It turns his face from lazy to terrifying in an instant. “Or...another king perhaps,” he muses, taking a champagne glass from the hand of a woman in his entourage. “Alliances made, families united,” he mutters, like the idea doesn’t hold even a lick of appeal for him.

  And then those blue eyes slide over to me again, and I feel my cheeks flushing red. Shit. Now everyone in the room is glaring at me, just daring the king to choose a dhampir so they can tear her throat out. Hah. Not that I wouldn’t take him up on the offer. Shit, I might not find the guy attractive, but becoming an overnight princess and future queen is a fantasy even little girls with hearts of eggplant can get on board with.

  But I have a feeling he wants me for something else—namely, to kill somebody.

  I sigh and snatch yet another glass of champagne, trading out my empty glass in the process.

  Vesnic turns his attention back to the cloying beauty of the crowd.

  “If you study our history,” he continues and several people shift and murmur. Vampires rarely shift or murmur, so they’re clearly confused by the king’s tangent. “You’ll remember that once upon a time...” He trails off and grins again, this awful rictus that stretches across his face like a scar. “We manipulated Mundanes into choosing gold as their currency standard.” Ah, so we’re resorting to racist slurs now. Mundane is about the most fucked-up thing a vampire can call a human or a dhampir. “Because our people, we had the magic to transmogrify useless items. We could make gold and control human economies. As you also know, that skill’s long been lost.” The king sneers and stands up, throwing his head back and finishing off his champagne. He chucks the glass against the wall nearest me and it shatters to pieces, catching the red glow from the chandeliers. It almost looks like shards of solidified blood, all that glass.

  I shiver as Vesnic passes his gaze over to me again. Whatever’s coming, I’m not going to like it, am I?

  “So I’ve decided,” he continues, letting his sharp gaze sweep the crowd. I can feel the power in it, rolling over us like thunder. Lightning shivers across my skin as I shudder. I’m the only one that reacts to it, damn it. Fucking vampires. “That I will marry any individual that can turn straw into gold.”

  Holy. Shit.

  My blood turns to ice as images of my mother flash in my head. This is too fucking eerie. No way the king just picked this at random, right? But then, nobody knows—or rather nobody should know—about what happened between my mom, Rumpel, and whatever vampire crown was involved. Mom never told me, but now I’m starting to suspect I’m standing in the same fucking house that sent my mother and me on the run for twenty frigging years.

  This is too weird. The urge to escape that room, those people, it surges through me fast and hard. Fight or flight has taken over, and I know my own limits better than anyone. If the king somehow knows who I am, then there’s no way I can fight through this. I have to run and start all over again. Finding another vampire house that’ll accept a dhampir—even as a for-hire slave—is a tough prospect. Most of them will kill me on sight. Shit.

  And I can’t live among humans. I just can’t. I’ve tried and I’m too...other.

  The king keeps staring at me, though? Why?

  He grins again and then gestures with his chin in my direction. A man in Vesnic’s entourage, dressed in ripped jeans and a band t-shirt that are honestly probably ‘designer’ and cost a fortune, moves over and leans down to whisper in my ear.

  “Ass on the dais,” he growls, and I curl my lip up in a snarl. If I didn’t think punching him as hard as I can in the stomach would get me torn to pieces, I would do it. Instead, I shove past him with a dismissive knock of my shoulder and move up to stand next to the king.

  This could be bad. This could be really bad.

  “I’m assigning Cameron of House Verenim to actively search for a person that fits this description,” he continues, and my mouth gapes open in shock. What? This is what Atticus was talking about when he said a more permanent position. I’m literally being tasked to do the impossible? “And if no one comes forward or if Cameron can’t find the person we’re looking for, then I’m content to rule alone.” Vesnic snarls this last part out and then smirks triumphantly. He’s assigned his useless dhampir slave to the task, and he’s set a precedent that nobody alive can meet.

  Well, that he thinks nobody alive can meet.

  “False claims,” he starts, using his nail to slice across his own neck. Blood wells crimson against white flesh, and the crowd leans forward like a field of flowers collectively straining for the sun. “You get the picture,” Vesnic finishes, licking blood from his thumb. I sniff the air, expecting a king’s blood to smell irresistible. Instead, it’s almost cloying. I frown and take a small step back. “The next person who petitions me to choose a bride or groom who cannot spin straw to gold will have their head on a pike next to the false prophets.”

  I watch in morbid fascination as the king licks his finger and drags his fingertip over the wound to close it, turning and leaving the dais the way he came.

  After he goes, the reality of what just happened sinks in.

  The king gave impossible requirements to his future bride.

  Requirements that I know exactly how to meet.

  Shit.

  So...is it worth the risk to visit the Stiltz’ brothers and ask for a favor?

  Because I live above a Chinese food restaurant, down the street from a cemetery, and I work for fucking scraps.

  I’d rather be queen.

  4

  My pay upgrade is quite substantial, enough that I can actually afford to take myself out to a nice dinner and buy some shoes. And all to perform a task that the king truly believes can never be met. The safe option here would be to keep my new job for the rest of...eternity? Or at least until a new king is crowned, or the current one actually gives up and takes a queen.

  Vampires might be immortal, but they’re hardly eternal.

  Vesnic’s dad, Besser—who would’ve been the one to imprison my mom if my hunches are right—only ruled for fifty years before he was murdered by the queen of a rival house...who was then quickly dispatched by Vesnic himself. Ah, the struggle is real.

  “What do you think?” I ask Harry, sitting in The Dragonfly and sipping some blue nightmare my ogre friend calls Caribbean Sea. Sigh. Unsurprisingly, it tastes like gin and tequila. “Do I just sit pretty and enjoy that I have all the time in the world to hang out here and get drunk with you? Or do I push?”

  We’re sitting alone in the bar while Harry cleans glasses and tries not to continuously bring up the ogre girl he took home last week—the very same one he pointed out the night I slept with Vyce and Sorrow—for the hundredth time. He actually managed to convince her to sleep with him and, also unsurprisingly, she was not happy with the size of his dick. They never are; I just wish he would learn.

  With just the two of us in there, I feel safe enough to talk vamp business. The walls of the bar are spelled to keep out scrying spells and block outsiders from hearing anything that goes on inside, no matter how good their supernatural senses are.

  “You stay put with this gig and stop pushing boundaries before you get yourself killed,” he mutters, finishing his glass polishing and then going for his silver shaker. Damn it. I’m getting another mixed drink, aren’t I? What’s wrong with plain Scotch?

  “I’d be queen, Harry. Queen. These fuckers have treated me like shit since birth. My mom never even got to have a life of her own because of them.”

  “You don’t know if it was House Verenim for sure,” he mumbles as he pours...gin and tequila into the shaker and I sigh.

  “I meant vampires in general,” I say as Harry purses his lips. His upper one is about twice as full as the lower giving him this pouty look that helps draw those ogre girls in in the first place. Without that, I doubt he’d be able to pick them up at all.

  �
��If you become queen, they’ll exhaust their resources trying to murder you, and the king won’t do shit to stop them.”

  “If I bargain with the Stiltz—” I start, just before the door opens and Miri waltzes in with this big huge grin on her face.

  “There are already three people dead outside House Verenim,” she says, bringing along a wave of fresh gossip with her sickeningly sweet floral perfume. “Two were mages who used spells to make the straw look like gold. And the third was this high-ranking royal vamp who didn’t even try. Basically volunteered and then offered her family’s fortune to the crown.”

  “Humility and common sense don’t exactly run rampant in the vampire community,” I murmur. Now, I’m not the only person in the world who knows who the Stiltz are and how to make a bargain with them, but knowledge of them is pretty rare. Anyone who makes a deal with Rumpel Stiltz’ kin—or even Rumpel himself—is bound to secrecy. My mother was an exception; she was immune to magic. We had no idea why because she was entirely human, but spells just didn’t work on her or my grandparents either. It was how they were human and yet still ran in supernatural circles.

  Once, my grandfather cheated at cards and an angry mage threw a spell his way. Didn’t work. Bounced right the fuck off. So the guy hired him as a bodyguard and well, Grandpa’s inclusion into high-ranking circles is what got Mom into trouble in the first place.

  So. Mom escaped with me and then told me everything she knew about this world within a world.

  Fuck, I miss you so much, I whisper to her, closing my eyes and tamping down the feelings of heartache. It’d taken over twenty years, but someone in Rumpel’s employ had finally found her and ripped her to pieces.

  She’d given her life for mine and I wasn’t going to waste it skulking in shadows for the rest of my life. But isn’t it better to actually have a life? You’re going to get yourself killed. Huh. My inner conscious apparently agrees with Harry, but fuck them both.