Fangs for Freaks (Book 2: Half-blood vampire series)

Chapter Five

Piper left me with my shame. I guess she sensed it was time to let her logic sink in. I lay down on the bed, debating if I should grab a little sleep. I was used to sleeping only a couple of hours at a time. In order to graduate from high school, I had to be able to attend my day classes, so I learned to survive off of napping. Instead I decided to search out my sorority sisters. After all, they were my job. I was in the business of protecting them. It seemed natural to assume they might eke out a little gratitude and I could desperately use a pick-me-up.

I wandered upstairs and found Ileana going through her new purchases. She was giving orders to her maid to hang this, press that and put away the other. When she was satisfied everything would be accomplished to her satisfaction, she brushed past me and headed downstairs.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” I asked the maid from the doorway, fed up with “Sophie, fetch this for me.”

“No mum,” she answered quietly, never tarrying from her task.

“Well for heaven’s sake, why not? You’re a human being and deserve to be treated with respect. Don’t you want more out of life than jumping up to do her”—I gestured my thumb in Ileana’s direction—“bidding?”

“My family has been in the service of the Romanavs for centuries. It is an honor to serve my lady.”

“Really?” I puzzled, wondering if a long-standing employee /employer relationship was really worth putting up with Ileana.

“Yes, my lady has been very good to my family.”

“Oh, do you have brothers and sisters who work for her as well?” I leaned against the door frame.

“No mum, I am an only child. Every daughter serves my lady. I do, and my mother, and her mother before her. It has always been so.”

“Wow, so your mom and grandma served Ileana’s mom and her grandmother?” Talk about a family business.

Sophie stopped her folding actions and looked at me in speculation, then turned back to her task. “As I said, my family has served the Romanavs for centuries.”

Well, okay then. I left her to her lady’s maid tasks and went in search of Carl.

Carl and I began our relationship hating each other. Back when I was first changed, he thought I was mocking him when he asked to see my fangs and I showed him my stainless steel fang headgear. But over the last eight months, we’d become almost friends. Actually, I think he still had a thing for Piper but she hadn’t shown any romantic interest in him after he was her date for Homecoming. She liked him well enough but wasn’t willing to date a vampire, and I couldn’t blame her. Relationships were tough enough without adding the whole Undead thing into the mix. I worked with Carl and over time, I managed to grow on him. Much like a fungus, he was fond of saying.

I figured he wouldn’t be too thrilled to hear how I left Thomas stuck in California. When I found Carl at the massive dining room table, poring over some paperwork from his briefcase, he smirked as I entered the room and commented, “Never a dull moment around you, is there?”

“Ah, I see Thomas has filled you in.” I grabbed the chair across from him and sank into it.

“Breaking rank and leaving your partner essentially locked in a safe house while you placed yourself in danger is grounds for an inquiry.”

“I did not lock anyone in a safe house!” I hotly refuted. “I left him asleep in his room in the middle of the day! It’s not my fault he can’t go out in the sun. And, for your information, I am the Protector of the half-bloods and I shouldn’t have to wait for an Investigator to go talk to them.”