Bloodbound by Mistake

The chandelier above her gave the faintest sway.

Lena lay flat beneath Adrian Kane’s bed, holding her breath so hard her lungs were starting to complain.

The bedroom smelled of cedar, old books, and something colder underneath it all—something sharp enough to make every survival instinct she had sit up and scream.

Predator.

She licked her dry lips and immediately tasted garlic.

Oh. Right.

The garlic cough drops.

She’d eaten three on the way here.

The elders always said dignity was the last thing a vampire had. Even if you were starving to death, you were supposed to do it with pride.

Lena was beginning to suspect the elders had never tried maintaining their dignity while hiding under a man’s bed with garlic breath.

The bedroom door opened.

She froze.

A tall figure stepped inside, bringing a trace of the night air with him. He didn’t turn on the lights. He simply crossed toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, where moonlight caught the edge of his profile.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Straight-backed.

Dangerous.

Lena’s empty stomach twisted.

Now.

She launched herself out from under the bed.

She’d been hungry for so long that the edges of her vision were starting to blur. She didn’t need much.

One bite.

That was it.

One tiny, harmless, definitely-not-fatal bite.

Her fingers never reached him.

Something cold touched her throat.

“Food delivery?”

The man’s voice came from above her, low and faintly amused.

Lena stopped breathing.

Very, very slowly, she looked down.

A silver utility knife rested against the side of her neck.

Pure silver.

Her knees nearly folded on the spot.

“I—I’m the new housekeeper,” she blurted. “I’m here to… experience working life?”

Excellent.

Convincing.

A flawless performance.

Unfortunately, panic made her fangs slide out.

Even more unfortunately, the half-dissolved garlic lozenge still in her mouth chose that exact moment to escape.

Pop.

It bounced once across the floor and rolled to a stop beside the man’s polished shoe.

Silence.

Lena stared at it.

The lozenge stared back.

Well.

If she survived this, she was never eating garlic again.

She slowly raised her head.

Then she saw his face.

Deep-set eyes. High nose. Hard jaw. The kind of expression that made winter look warm and approachable.

None of that mattered.

She knew that face.

Every vampire in the East District knew that face.

Adrian Kane.

His name sat near the top of the clan’s forbidden-contact list.

Elite hunter.

Extremely dangerous.

Avoid under all circumstances.

There were rumors that he killed vampires with the same level of emotional investment most people used to tear up junk mail.

Lena felt heat crawl all the way up her neck.

Of every house in the entire city, she had somehow broken into Adrian Kane’s.

Fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic.

Her survival instincts deserved to be studied.

Adrian glanced at the dusty cough drop beside his shoe, then at the fangs she had failed to hide.

He said nothing for several seconds.

Those several seconds aged her spiritually.

“According to protocol,” he said at last, perfectly calm, “a vampire who breaks into a hunter’s residence and attempts to attack him—”

“DON’T BURN ME!”

Lena dropped to the floor and wrapped both arms around his leg.

“I’m sorry! I was hungry! I wasn’t going to drain you, I swear! I just wanted one bite! Maybe half a bite! Honestly, even a lick would’ve been fine!”

She squeezed her eyes shut and kept talking because apparently her final instinct before death was public humiliation.

“I can be useful! I clean things! Sometimes! Please don’t kill me!”

Tears came out somewhere in the middle of that speech and ended up smeared across what looked like an extremely expensive pair of trousers.

The thigh beneath her arms went rigid.

The silver blade was still close to her neck.

But it didn’t move.

A long moment passed.

Then a quiet sigh came from above her.

“…Get up.”

The blade disappeared.

Lena opened one eye.

Then the other.

Adrian was looking down at her with an expression she couldn’t read. He pulled his leg free, stepped back, and brushed off the exact spot where she had been clinging to him.

“Killing you would make a mess.”

Lena blinked.

“And I happen to need someone to clean the house.”

She blinked again.

“…What?”

“Basement level. Six tomorrow morning. The house system will tell you what to do.”

He turned away as though this were a completely normal employment arrangement.

“Consider it repayment for breaking into my home. Try anything again, and I won’t mind giving the cleaning staff a body to dispose of.”

He paused and glanced back over one shoulder. Moonlight cut along the line of his jaw.

“Now get out of my bedroom.”

His gaze swept over her once.

“And try not to lower the city’s average IQ any further.”

That was how Lena Vale became Adrian Kane’s housekeeper.

At six the next morning, the smart house woke her in the tiny basement room she had been assigned.

The room contained a bed, a wardrobe, and a bathroom.

That was it.

Apparently, surviving Adrian Kane did not come with premium accommodation.

Her job sounded simple enough.

Mop the floors, even though they were already spotless.

Wash dishes that could absolutely have gone into the dishwasher.

Water the black roses in the conservatory, which had once been Adrian’s mother’s favorite flowers.

And polish the silver.

That part felt personal.

Silver candlesticks. Silver vases. Silver picture frames. Silver decorative pieces that served no practical purpose except, as far as Lena could tell, to remind visiting vampires that life was pain.

Every time she touched one, her fingertips prickled. If she handled them too long, dizziness followed.

By day three, she had developed a personal hatred for interior design.

K, the head of security, was a middle-aged man with a face that suggested smiling had been removed from his job description.

Sometimes he stood at the end of the hallway and watched her work.

One afternoon, he found Lena leaning against the wall, pale and short of breath, still clutching a polishing cloth.

“You’re the first vampire I’ve seen walk away from Mr. Kane alive,” he said. “And somehow, he put you on staff.”

Lena tightened her fingers around the cloth.

“Treasure it, little vampire.”

She didn’t answer.

He had no idea how much she did.

Every night, she silently cursed the clan elders who had thrown her out.

Starvation wasn’t dramatic.

It was miserable.

Her stomach cramped until she couldn’t stand straight. Her arms and legs felt heavier every day. If she got up too fast, black spots swarmed across her vision.

Sometimes, when no one was watching, she licked the half-healed cut on her wrist—the one she’d gotten from brushing against a silver ornament a few days earlier.

It barely helped.

But barely was better than nothing.

Then, one evening, Adrian came home from a workout.

Lena nearly dropped the rag in her hand.

His black tank top was damp with sweat and clung to his torso. He tugged a towel from around his neck and wiped his face, water still sliding from his hair.

Then he tilted his head.

A vein moved along the side of his neck.

Lena stared.

Her mouth watered instantly.

To a starving vampire, that vein might as well have had a glowing sign above it.

DINNER.

She bit down hard on her lower lip and twisted the rag until her knuckles hurt.

Don’t move.

Do not move.

Moving would be extremely stupid.

Moving would get her killed.

Simple.

Unfortunately, hunger had never shown much respect for logic.

It felt like someone had reached inside her abdomen, grabbed her organs, and was slowly twisting.

Adrian passed her without a word.

Lena stayed perfectly still until he disappeared upstairs.

Only then did she exhale.

“Great,” she muttered at the floor. “Now I’m attracted to cardiovascular anatomy.”

By the seventh night, she could barely stand.

Lena lay curled on the thin mattress in the basement, shaking so badly her teeth clicked together.

Her vision refused to focus.

Her ears rang.

Even the blood inside her own body felt too slow.

This was ridiculous.

She was going to become the first vampire in history to starve to death inside a hunter’s house.

Not slain in battle.

Not burned by silver.

Not dramatically executed by an ancient enemy.

Starved.

In a basement.

The humiliation alone might finish her off.

Eventually, survival instinct won.

Lena dragged herself upright, caught the wall before she fell, and made her way upstairs with all the grace of a recently reanimated corpse.

The study door was open.

Warm light spilled into the hallway.

Adrian sat behind his desk, looking at his laptop with a slight frown. He wore dark lounge clothes, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

Lena stepped inside.

He looked up.

His expression changed almost immediately.

Her skin had gone nearly colorless. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. At that point, simply remaining vertical was probably her greatest achievement of the week.

His brows drew together.

Lena tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

So she walked toward him instead, one unsteady step at a time.

When she reached the desk, she put out a hand.

Her cold fingers closed around his forearm.

Warm.

God, he was warm.

And solid.

Under her fingertips, she could feel the steady beat of his pulse.

Her fangs ached.

“Mr. Kane…”

Her voice was little more than a rasp.

“Blood.”

She swallowed with difficulty.

“Please.”

Adrian didn’t move.

He let her hold his arm while he studied her.

His eyes were dark and impossible to read.

“Why,” he asked slowly, “should I save you?”

Lena’s vision dimmed around the edges.

Seriously?

He wanted a reason now?

Her brain searched desperately for something intelligent and found absolutely nothing.

So she forced the ugliest smile of her life.

“Because…”

She swallowed again.

“You’re a responsible citizen?”

Adrian’s expression did not change.

That seemed rude.

Lena took another shallow breath.

“You can’t just… let someone starve to death…”

Her knees weakened.

“…in your own house.”

There.

A flawless legal argument.

Someone should put her in law school.

Her strength gave out.

Lena sagged against his arm, breathing hard, her forehead nearly touching his shoulder. Warm air brushed over his skin with every breath.

The study went quiet.

Only the soft hum of the laptop fan remained.

Then Adrian moved.

He lifted the arm she was clinging to.

Lena raised her head weakly.

For one strange second, she wondered if she had finally starved herself into hallucinating.

Adrian looked at her for a long time.

Then a soft sound left him.

Not quite a laugh.

Maybe disbelief.

Maybe regret.

Maybe the sound of a man realizing he had somehow acquired the world’s most inconvenient vampire.

With his other hand, he slowly rolled up his left sleeve.

Pale skin appeared beneath it.

Then the veins.

Clear.

Close.

Alive.

Lena stopped breathing.

Adrian held his wrist in front of her mouth.

“Bite.”