1
Twenty-six years in the future.
The reinforced steel made an ominous sound as Sydney slammed the door. Her room was windowless, but that might be because it was underground. Not much of a view except for the earthworms. A moment later the door opened again, and her father—the vampire king—stood framed in the doorway, eyes glowing in what she was sure he felt was an ominous threat. She’d seen it so many times the effect had blunted.
She was too old for this fight. Instinctively she knew it. She’d become emotionally-stunted at adolescence, but he would never set her free. How could she discover who she was or how to be anything other than a child if she never left home?
“Dad! I’m twenty-seven. You can’t keep me locked away in your creepy compound for the rest of my life. However long that turns out to be!”
She might be immortal or she might have a normal human lifespan. They didn’t know. She was an oddity in the vampire world: born, not made. Her mother was human and the vampire king’s claimed mate. The claiming was the thing that made Sydney’s bizarre existence possible. She wished her parents had thought to use birth control because she had all the weaknesses of a vampire and none of the strengths.
Anthony growled. “I am trying to protect you. It’s not safe out there! You know it’s not safe.”
“Just get OUT! And send Jacob in. I’m hungry.”
The blond vampire’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides as if he wanted to throttle her but feared he’d kill her if he ever gave in to temptation. “I don’t like you alone with him. He could hurt you.”
They’d had this conversation for nearly ten years now. Yet another stale script.
Sydney rolled her eyes. “Then maybe you should have let me claim him instead of one of your minions.”
“I won’t allow my daughter to be mated to something so pathetic. He couldn’t protect you from a horsefly let alone a genuine threat!”
It wasn’t as if the vampire suitors were lined up down the streets. She’d never find a mate locked up here, that was for sure. And living here forever with her parents was just too humiliating. Practically every vampire left standing after the war wanted her dead because she was so weak. And they didn’t like for weak things to live.
Anthony disappeared down the hall and returned minutes later with Jacob in tow.
The human was Sydney’s age, one of many boys brought in for her to feed from over the years—just another thing that made her entire existence ghoulish. A five-year-old girl sucking the blood from a similarly innocent boy’s throat was disturbing in the extreme. She was glad she could barely remember it. She’d blocked out many of those she’d accidentally killed over the years.
Since the preternaturals lost the war and humans were protected in their magically warded cities, stray humans had become harder and harder to come by. It was necessary now to secure a permanent food source and lock it in through a mating. There was no more free range feeding unless it was wildlife in the forest, and that could only take you so far.
When Sydney was seventeen, it was decided that she should have a single, safe food source who wouldn’t die from too much blood loss.
Elise, a vampiress in the king’s employ had been ordered to claim Jacob as a mate and allow Sydney to feed from him. It was a mating of convenience—or by royal decree. Elise, not wanting to lose her safe resting place inside the vampire compound, had reluctantly and bitterly agreed, knowing she could never claim nor be claimed by another if she ever found real love.
The bitch hated Sydney for it, and the feeling was mutual. If Anthony was so concerned for her safety, maybe he should get rid of Elise instead of worrying so much about the human.
“Well,” Sydney said, “are you going to just stand there and watch? Can I just say, gross?” While it hadn’t been that way in the beginning, once she’d become a teen, her feelings about feeding had shifted. It had become something her parents were not welcome to observe. She needed privacy. “Go!”
“If you hurt her…” Anthony growled at the human.
“I’d never hurt her,” the man said.
Sydney thought Jacob was half in love with her. He was a good-looking man, but the feeling wasn’t reciprocated on her part. Even if it had been, it would be too weird that he was another vampire’s mate, even if in name and mystical link only. Sydney couldn’t let herself get attached.
“Dad, get out. I swear to you I will intentionally starve to death if you keep standing there.”
Anthony’s eyes flashed red, but he grumbled something incoherent and left, shutting the door behind him.
When she and Jacob were alone, Sydney deadbolted it. Her father could invent a reason to bust in, but at least she’d have a split second of warning first.
Jacob inclined his head. “Princess.”
“I’m not a princess, and you know it. And my father isn’t really a king. Kings need subjects, and in case you haven’t noticed, there are less than twenty of us in the compound. And Cary Town is a ghost town. Those days have been over for a long time.”
Cary Town wasn’t even protected anymore. The city’s protections and organization had broken down in the fighting, and no one had bothered to put the wards back up. It was something about how too much of a magical signature might draw the magic users back. Now only a few places were protected, not the whole city. The compound was one of those places.
She’d heard the stories of her father, decades ago, how ruthless he’d been. How he’d ruled over hundreds of thousands of their kind and even therians—the shapeshifting races, striking fear into the hearts of any who would dare go against him. Now most of the vampires were dead, and those remaining had scattered, with only the most loyal few staying behind with the royal family.
Jacob peeled his shirt off so it wouldn’t get blood on it. “So, what’s your pleasure today, Syd? Arm? Neck?” He winked at her. “Something more risque?”
She crooked a finger at him. “Come here.” Sydney sat on the edge of the bed, and Jacob joined her. She wished she felt that way about him. It would be so simple. He was attractive and kind. Even though he wasn’t strong like a preternatural, she believed he would give his life to protect her. And not out of some misplaced loyalty to her dad.
“This is so wrong,” she said. The past few months, the weight of what they were doing hung over her like a heavy fog.
Jacob pushed the long wavy blonde hair out of her eyes. “I love these freckles on your nose.”
Sydney scrunched her face in annoyance. She’d gotten those freckles from her mother, and she wasn’t nearly the fan of them Jacob seemed to be, which was another point in favor of him being smitten.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes,” he said. “What’s so wrong?” But she knew he was playing dumb and just wanted to avoid the conversation altogether.
She waved her hand around. “This! Me feeding from you. It’s just… I’m using you.”
He pressed a kiss against her throat. “So? Use me. I’m here at your disposal and pleasure. You have to eat, Syd.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”