“I am his slave,” she says on a sigh.
“What? That monster! You do all this hard work making his vineyard an award winner and he doesn’t even pay you? Neli, you can’t allow him to treat you like that!” And why am I even having this conversation? It’s not like I can believe a word she says. She and Boz are liars and killers.
“I’m going to explain slowly and carefully. All I ask is that you keep an open mind, okay?”
I nod, but really I’m thinking about how I’m going to keep my family safe from these two psychos who’ve become entrenched in our lives.
“When my parents gave me to him as a child, he never used me or turned me. He bonded me to him with a blood ritual. Our lives are tied, and now I cannot die unless he kills me. And, Stella, I want to die. I’ve been around longer than I ever dreamed possible. I want my freedom even if it means through death.”
I squeeze her arm. I might not believe in this whole vampire thing, but I believed her just now about wanting death. “Oh, Neli, I don’t want you to die. Is there someone I can call? Do you have a therapist?” Maybe she’s supposed to be on meds and forgot them back home. That would explain her state of temporary insanity and longing for death.
“I’m not suicidal, Stella. I’m immortal, and death is different when you’re immortal. Death is a relief. I have lived in that same damned castle for over five hundred years, doing the same damned thing year after year—take care of vampire, run vampire’s business, move vampire’s castle, hide vampire and myself from world. I’m tired of working! And, honestly, my only other option is to become a vampire, which would happen if I tried to end my own life or someone else killed me.”
“Let me get this straight. You believe your options are to die, become a vampire, or be his slave for eternity?” She needs help.
“I’m actually Boz’s majordomo.”
“What’s that?”
“I run the household,” she says proudly. “I’m at the top of the servant hierarchy.” At my confused look, she adds, “It’s a medieval thing.”
“But I never saw other servants.”
She huffs. “Can you give me a little dignity here? I prefer having a title to being called slave.”
“Oh, of course, sorry.” I try not to let my true feelings show through—she’s nuts!—and she should be in therapy. As for the fantasies she and Boz share, I think they’re engrained in some sort of delusion to justify their psychotic, killer tendencies.
“You still don’t believe me, do you?” Neli asks.
I stare blankly. I hate lying. I truly do. But I don’t know if she’s mentally stable enough to hear the truth.
“Fine. Here.” Neli grabs my hand and sandwiches it between hers. The look in her green eyes is suddenly intense, almost hypnotic. In an instant, I feel an energy pulsing through my hand, up my arm, and into my body. My heart starts pounding, and images of Boz flood my mind. Him dressed in a black velvet suit, riding under a moonlit night, slashing his sword at a pack of hissing men with long incisors. “You feel that? That buzzing? That’s Boz’s blood in my veins. You can feel it because you’re his mate. You’re destined to be with him.”
I jerk my hand away. She said nothing about the vision I just had, but yes, the buzzing was there. And just like that, something clicks in my mind. I know she’s telling me the truth. I feel it in my heart, like I feel Boz. It’s almost as if he’s always been there, but my mind couldn’t see it.
“Holy shit,” I mutter. “Boz is a vampire.” And that means Neli is an immortal human. I swallow hard and mutter, “Majordomo is a very nice title.”
“Thank you.” She blows out a breath. “So now that you believe me, I’m sure you’ll have lots of questions?” Her voice turns cheerful and she starts clapping. “And now you can understand how excited I was to realize you’re his mate. All the signs are there! So once you accept your place with him, I’ll be free, and you’ll have everlasting love and happiness.”
“Hold on. You really were serious about dying.” I flash a worried look at her. This is all too much to take in, but two things are certain: I haven’t accepted my “place” with him—there’s a lot to think about, including what that means for my family and for my future. And two, I do not want Neli to die.
She smiles. “Yes. It’s a gift for me, not a sadness.”
My mind flashes to Boz lifting his head, blood oozing out of his mouth, the dead man lying on the floor.
“He didn’t just kill that man; he ate him,” I whisper as it all starts to sink in.
“That man was a vampire hunter and was about to drive a wooden stake through Boz’s heart. It was kill or be killed.”
There was a wooden stake gripped in the man’s hand. Neli takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. In that moment I understand the gravity of the situation. She’s bonded to a vampire who’s claimed me as his mate. And she wants to die.
My breath turns shallow, my vision dimming at the edges.
“You’re looking a little pale,” she says, guiding my head down. “Head between your knees. Can’t have you passing out here.”
I stay that way for a few moments until my breathing evens out. I slowly rise and face her, my eyes intent on hers. “Be honest. Are you a vampire?”
She bares her teeth. “No fangs. And I can eat real food. I told you I’m his majordomo.” Fancy title for a sad state of affairs.
“Wait. Do vampires eat anything besides…” I can’t even say the word. It’s disgusting to think of Boz drinking blood.
“They can’t ingest human food. Wine is just about the only exception.”
Now that she mentions it, I never really saw Boz eat anything, though he did take a bite of steak at dinner last night. Then he spit it out in his napkin. I thought he was diet conscious or didn’t like his food. But not being able to eat? How awful.
“Sorry, Neli. I like eating. I don’t want to be his slave. And, even if I could accept that, what if he bonds with me and then lets me die to bond with another?”
“Excellent question. I’m glad you’re thinking this through. The mate is special. You wouldn’t be his slave, and it’s a forever bond. Boz would never force your hand. He wants you to come to him of your own free will.”
My mind drifts to the odd conversation I had with Boz before I went to his room. He wanted me to have sunshine, scuba, and children of my own, something he thought I couldn’t have with him. At the time I thought it was an excuse, but under the new circumstances, more and more is making sense to me. “And he can’t have children?”
“You can’t if he turns you.”
I gulp. “Into a vampire?”
She hesitates before saying in a rush, “Yes. But the good news is all that everlasting love and happiness! You’d live forever, sealed to each other in an unbreakable bond. It’s better than a human marriage, which can be dissolved so easily nowadays.”
I take a deep breath, my mind finally calm enough to think this through. “So you’re saying I’d become a vampire and live forever with him. What about my family? Can they live forever too?”