Oh shit. My satchel! The orb! I’d had them before.
My pulse quickens. Where are my things? Did someone take them?
I’m about to move to search the dresser when Sayah skitters back into the room, her movements jerky as if startled.
“What is it?” I ask in a rush. My anxiety spikes. Not many things can disturb a shadow.
Her chin lifts up as if she’s looking at the door. A warning. One that doesn’t come soon enough, because the door opens and a man steps in. Sayah quickly dives back inside me, making me stumble from our forced reuniting. It’s like a punch to the chest.
The man pauses mid-step, and my breath catches. I’m sure he’s seen Sayah. He must have, but he doesn’t say anything. Only stares at me with eyes that are a hypnotizing shade of blue and a scowl that creases his brows.
For the first time, I look at him—really look at him—and my heartbeat races for another reason. He’s outstandingly handsome. No, he’s gorgeous, with dark hair cropped short and styled away from his face, a square nose, full lips, and a strong jawline lightly shadowed by facial hair. He’s dressed in a midnight-blue collared shirt and dark pants. Both had to have been made for him specially, and it only adds to his overall commanding presence.
But what strikes me the most are his eyes, which I can’t seem to look away from. Besides their intense color, I can’t help but feel like he’s seen a great deal, holds a lot of secrets and power. It’s intimidating. Even as he stands there, not saying a word, I find myself backing slowly toward the window.
My ass hits the sill, and I know I have nowhere else to go. He hasn’t moved a muscle, yet he’s backed me into a dead end.
His frown fades into a look that appears more bored than anything else. “It’s a long way down,” he says. His voice is as steely and refined as his looks, with a deep accent that swirls around the ends of his words.
I force myself to look away, momentarily breaking eye contact.
Get it together, Aria. Stop ogling.
I suck in a deep breath, hoping it’ll be enough to clear my head. Then, forcing bravado into my tone, I ask the only question I can think of at the moment. “Where are my things? My bag?”
He blinks, as if that was the last thing he’d expected me to say.
Suddenly conscious of the nightgown and my lack of modesty, I fold my arms over my chest. “My clothes,” I make sure to add. Although the idea of this stranger having his hands on me paints a very different picture in my mind than the white-haired man who’d brought me here.
“Anything you came with has been put away.” He gestures toward the dresser. “In there.”
I glance that way and instantly hear the familiar buzzing of the orb in my head. Softer now, since it’s buried somewhere in the drawers, but relief floods me at the sound. I praise my luck no one’s found it. If I can get out of here, then I can still sell it at the market and start my new life with Joseline. Like we’d always planned.
Suddenly, the handsome man stalks closer to me, closing the distance between us, and I press my back against the window. Orange and red light from the fireplace dances across his face as he stares down at me with a scrutinizing gaze, and my heartbeat gallops.
“Why are you here?” he asks. No—he demands.
“I-I—” I stammer, taken off guard by his sudden nearness. He’s so close now, I can smell his masculine cologne.
The muscles at his temples jump as he clenches his jaw. “Well?”
Inside me, Sayah paces, not liking how this man is trying to bully an answer out of me. Anger stirs, and this time when I meet his gaze, I don’t falter.
Why am I here? What did he think? That I had a choice in the matter?
“Why don’t you tell me?”
His lip curls, obviously not used to being talked to this way. “I’ve been told Ramos brought you here in exchange for another’s debts. A warlock.”
Ramos had to be the white-haired guy who’d knocked me out.
“If you mean kidnapped me, then yes. I guess so.”
“Ramos has been with us for quite some time. He may be just a dhampir, but he has a special set of skills that have proven handy when it’s time to collect payment.”
Just a dhampir? Half human, half vampire, they are considered rejects, the effect of what happens when the blood-exchange ceremony goes wrong. They’re rare, though. Most are killed for being abominations, so I’m shocked to have met one at all.
Like their full-vampire counterparts, dhampirs crave blood, but unlike full vampires, they can walk in the sun without turning into a pile of ash. I still have my neck intact and all my blood… why hadn’t Ramos bitten me? Instead, he’d pinched me with his fingers and somehow that’d been enough to knock my lights out. Some kind of pressure-point voodoo or Jedi mind-trick?
Still, my mystery visitor doesn’t move away from me; he only continues to study me with a piercing gaze. Could he be a dhampir, too? I’m not sure… Everything about the man in front of me is different. More controlled. More powerful. More everything.
“Ramos also said you have great power and could be useful to us,” he says. “That you’re special.”
“He lied,” I say, holding my chin high.
His brows raise. “Oh?”
I’ve piqued his interest now, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.
“Yeah,” I reply. “I’m just an ordinary. I told your dhampir friend the same thing.” If I can keep up this facade and make him believe I’m nothing special, he could report to whoever’s in charge that there’s no reason to keep me here. He could free me and go after Murray instead.
“An ordinary.” He emphasizes each word as if he doesn’t believe them.
“Yep. Nothing special here. I’m plainer than sin.”
Slowly, the corner of his mouth lifts, amused. “Plainer than sin, you say?”
Is there an echo in here?
My insides squirm under his look. It’s as if he knows my secret but is waiting for me to slip up and reveal it myself. Like he’s playing a game with me that I can never win. I hate it.
I may be pressing my luck, but I have to try. “Afraid so.” When he doesn’t reply right away, I add, “Since there’s been a misunderstanding, I’ll just go. Then Ramos or whoever can collect the debt with Murray. Like it’s supposed to be.”
“Let you go? But the warlock traded your soul in place for his as payment. He is your legal guardian, correct?”
Soul? That’s an odd way to say it, but okay. “Well, yeah, legally, but—”
He cuts me off. “And you are under eighteen?”
“Only for a few more hours, technically.”
The smirk never leaves his handsome face. “We own you then.”
My stomach flips. So this guy is one of the Lords I’ve been brought here for. But he looks so young. Maybe mid-twenties, at most. How could he be the leader in some underground supernatural crime ring?
“But-but—I don’t belong here.”
“What a coincidence,” he says simply. “Neither do I.”
A chill snakes up my spine. When I meet his gaze again, I find his eyes have changed. The cool blues and whites have been completely swallowed up by blackness.