Amidst the excited murmuring of the crowd, Maxine continued, “Tonight, the prize is utterly singular — a treasure so rare that it’s almost guaranteed that you’ve never andwill neverencounter her equal in your lifetime. My friends… may I introduce you to Francesca Sinclair, a golden anchor!”
The curtain came up a lot faster than she anticipated. Blinding white light consumed her, blocking out even the vagueshapes of the room beyond her place on the stage. She blinked rapidly, momentarily more stunned than nervous, as a gloved hand settled on the center of her back.
The heat of the lights made the skin of her cheeks tingle as she obediently stepped up beside Maxine. Spots floated in front of her eyes, but as they began to clear, the dark shapes of the audience bled into view.
Fear, instinctive and base, bled through her veins. She stood stock-still beside the statuesque Maxine, who laid that gloved hand on her shoulder, offering what comfort she could.
Tilting her head toward the crowd, Maxine’s cascade of perfect red waves slid over one creamy shoulder. “Ladies, gentlemen, and those of you gloriously unchained by conventional binaries, please open up the envelopes on your tables.”
A wave of noise crested, all rustling paper, shifting chairs, and frantic whispers. Francesca’s eyes darted from side to side, definitelynotlooking for the man who’d barged into her room. Not that she could really make him out if he was there. The faces in the crowd were hardly more than a loose assemblage of shadows, but she could make out gold-edged envelopes being torn open and the flash of heavy white card stock being hastily extracted from them.
“Inside the envelopes you’ll find our golden anchor’s details, including a perfect bill of health from three separate doctors, a personality assessment, a short introduction penned by our lovely Francesca herself, and a copy of the contract on offer tonight.”
Maxine squeezed Francesca’s shoulder. In her smooth lawyer’s voice, the vampire continued, “Francesca has offered her blood to the winner of tonight’s games for one month. To get the chance to win her contract, all participants must put up an entry fee — listed there in the materials provided.”
Another wave of sound moved around the room. This time, it wasn’t all excitement.
Unruffled, Maxine made a commiserating sound in the back of her swan-like throat. “I understand that the entry fee might feel unreasonable, but I have no doubt you’ll understand why we have raised the bar quite so high in a moment.”
Flicking her fingers at someone unseen just off-stage, Maxine set a flurry of activity in motion.
Almost like they appeared out of thin air, a fleet of crimson suit-wearing servers melted out of the darkness, each of them carrying what looked from a distance to be an empty silver tray. Francesca watched nervously as they flitted between tables, stooping occasionally to offer something nearly too small to see.
Only when the nearest vampire to the stage — a mature man with a shaved head covered in blue-black snake tattoos — uncapped his did she realize what they were: tiny glass vials of her blood.
Her stomach dropped as she watched him bring the vial to his nose for a deep, almost frantic inhale. Then another. And another.
All around the room, the vampires went silent as they savored the bouquet of the blood taken from the crook of Francesca’s elbow only half an hour prior. The spot had been covered in a silicone bandage and carefully concealed with makeup, but as she watched her blood circulate around the room, she swore she could feel it ache.
She’d never had the occasion to see herself as something worth sampling before, but she supposed there was a compliment hidden in being treated like a grocery store cheesesomewhere.
Before Casanova, Francesca hadn’t given much thought to being a vampire’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner. In the months since she came to the city, she’d cleaned their houses, quietlyserved them synth, and occasionally shared an elevator with them. That’s as far as her association with them went. There were never any dreams of finding a dashing vampire boyfriend when she’d been treated as less than them from the moment she stepped foot in their territory.
At least, untilhim.
But she’d known from the beginning it was all a fantasy, and no matter how much she enjoyed their conversations and the way he looked at her, Francesca wasn’t a good fit for him. Or his fangs.
Maxine was different. She was the first person to treat Francesca as a real person, and somehow, despite their enormous differences, they’d become good friends.
A bubble of disgust burst in her throat as she watched a man try and wedge a thick, ring-clad pinky into the tiny vial. Even obscured by the deep shadows and the glare of the stage lights, she could make out his hunger to get at that tiny sample of her blood at the bottom.
It curled his shoulders. It hunched his spine. It forced the tip of his pinky into the vial again and again, never getting closer to the prize at the bottom.
It took everything in her to stop from recoiling. She’d signed up for this. Every step of the way, she’d been asked if it was really what she wanted to do. Maxine had drilled into her the risks and the many ways things could go wrong.
And I could’ve taken Casanova’s money.
A ridiculous thought. There was no telling how bad off she’d be if she’d accept that insane offer from a vampire whose name she didn’t even know.
But she looked for him.
Her stomach fell. No matter how hard she strained her eyes, she couldn’t find the familiar shape of him in the crowd.
SIX
Maxine hummed a knowingsound into the slim microphone. “I doubt many — if any — of you have had the privilege of tasting a golden anchor before. That’s unsurprising, considering our dear Francesca is one of perhapsfiftyknown in the entire world. Her status was confirmed by the doctors in the assessments we gave you.”
Taking her hand off Francesca’s shoulder, Maxine gestured grandly to her. “Now known as V-rep, it’s a blood type so coveted by our kind that wars have been started over less than what we handed out to you just now. It has a unique flavor profile that has been called the sweetest drink only the luckiest vampires could ever know.”