Blood Kissed (Blood Heiress #1)
Chapter 1
Chapter One
Another quiet evening passed in the peaceful town of Dartmouth, Massachusetts as a gentle snowfall drifted from the skies. Even though the New England winters were beyond frigid, Emmaleigh loved the snow and longer nights.
After all, longer nights were a vampire’s best friend.
With a mug of salted caramel mocha coffee in one hand, she settled behind her desk and rifled through customer surveys detailing the spa services given during daylight.
Her personal office had only a single window, outfitted with total blackout shades.
Himalayan sea salt lamps provided her light and a diffuser perfumed the air with natural essential oils.
Much like the rest of the hotel’s interior, she’d decorated in blue, accenting with gold and occasional blooms of crimson offsetting the sea of sapphire.
This place was her sanctuary, a home away from home and a break from the fledgling, neophyte vampires she mentored at the coven’s manor.
Ugh. Dammit. While she wanted to take off early to go home, she didn’t look forward to fielding requests for her time. She had a new batch of newbs to train and work with, one of them a clingy, insecure vampiress hoping to become best friends.
Emma’s gaze drifted to her assistant, the closest thing she had to a bestie outside of the estate. “By the way, how was your shift today, Carly?”
The young redhead at the adjacent desk looked up and smiled. “Awesome. We were booked solid all day without a moment to breathe. The word of mouth advertisement is almost better than the marketing you’ve done on Facebook.”
“Excellent.” Emma grinned. Few things made her happier than knowing her pampered guests left the premises feeling like royalty, and she enjoyed reading about their experiences in the surveys. Since she missed most of their clients during their daytime appointments, written reports would have to do.
Night and Day Spa, located on the ground level of the Cerulean Legacy Hotel, was her pride and joy, and like most entrepreneurs with their own business, she was a dutiful slave to her craft.
Research whittled her evenings away, hours spent reading about new discoveries in holistic medicine, therapeutic massage, and herbal remedies.
Being a vampire granted all the time she needed to pursue career goals, and over the decades, she’d trained in everything from acupuncture and massage to becoming a registered dietician.
“Hmm,” Emma said, setting aside a survey.
“Anything bad?” Carly asked.
Limited to working at night, Emma had hired the young, bubbly college student from a nearby university to oversee the spa during her absences.
In return for acting as a personal assistant during the daylight, Emma gave her a drop or two of blood in a potion each season.
The concoction gave Carly a youthful, vibrant glow, but most importantly, she received the ability to remain awake for twenty-four hours straight to cram for her college exams without showing it.
While tapping her lower lip thoughtfully with one scarlet-painted nail, Emma gazed at the comments line on the survey. Brusque, impersonal, not very friendly but incredibly professional. “Nothing awful. I’d like you to take Lana aside tomorrow when she comes in for her shift. She’s not rude, but…”
“She needs a mild attitude adjustment. Don’t worry, I saw it, but wanted your thoughts before I said anything. Anyway, forget about her. What about you? I could have sworn you called me in to cover your shift.”
Emma set the pile aside then shrugged on a leather jacket over her ivory sweater and jeans.
“All right, all right. Sorry. Thanks for dropping back in to cover me.” On a typical night, she didn’t leave until four or five in the morning, sometimes six if she felt particularly brave.
She never left at a quarter after midnight.
“Yeah. No problem. Have fun with your friends.”
Emma chuckled. Carly was a good girl, and recently she’d begun to tiptoe around the subject of becoming a vampire herself. As a compromise, Emma had told her she’d consider it in a few years once Carly had squeezed more life under her belt and understood what she’d be giving up.
No more golden days on the beach with the sun against her skin.
No commercial airplanes and impromptu travel.
And no children, because most vampire pregnancies ended in stillbirth and miscarriage. A true pureblood newborn came in such rarity that the pregnant mother was protected and cosseted until the end of her gestation.
And the most difficult sacrifice of all: goodbye to all family and friends involved in the former life.
They couldn’t be allowed to discover their loved ones were now immortal monsters.
It had taken Emma years to get over the loss of her mother and older brother.
Her father had died in the war when she was an infant.
After waving goodbye, Emma stepped outside the manager’s office and meandered down the hotel corridor. Her brainchild was flourishing, and wealthy tourists came from all over the States to indulge. Of course, she also catered to a particularly special clientele.
Some of their customers knew what they were, and those mortals lived for receiving the occasional bite. She’d pitched the project idea to the vampire overseeing their coven, and its opening in his hotel had created countless opportunities for the coven to safely feed.
Her closest friend, Angela, believed the recent focus on work had become an escape from the dilemmas of her personal life. Or lack of one. Emma ignored Angie whenever she brought it up.
Heels clicking against the marble floor, Emma crossed through the expansive reception hall.
Stars twinkled overhead in the night sky, visible through the domed glass roof.
By day, the room was awash in sunlight that sparkled against crystal chandeliers and threw rainbows dancing across the floor and walls.
A special solar-shield coated every pane of glass in the building from the lobby to the most expensive suite. The vampires didn’t make daytime appearances often, but they valued their skin too much to risk being without it. The same technology protected their manor.
A pair of vampires from the coven manned the hotel security posts. Arthur waved to her in passing, but his partner whirled in an abrupt about-face to stare at the wall.
Good.
Peter Mitchell was a douche of the highest caliber.
Seeing him made her blood boil, especially when he’d sexually harassed her a year ago when they were both assigned to monitor the security station in the coven’s residence.
Ever since one of the master vampires ordered Emma to report his misconduct, he’d gone out of his way to pretend she didn’t exist.
She would have given her right fang to be a fly on the wall during the tongue-lashing Peter had received. He’d also been confined to his personal quarters for six months and assigned nightly mucking duties in the horse stables.
Of course, the master who had convinced Emma to report Peter—also the same master who had given her an unforgettable night of ecstasy months ago—pretty much pretended she didn’t exist either.
Adrian Kennedy hadn’t said more than three words to her at a time since that night, and those only when he was issuing assignments.
Because of his responsibilities. Because he couldn’t play favorites.
Not that he cared to give explanations, so she was making a logical assumption.
The alternative, that he’d just used her for a night’s pleasure, was too horrible to consider, especially since he’d taken such offense to Peter’s behavior.
Whatever the reason, it made things tense and awkward, so she had taken to spending more time at the spa than their coven house.
The brisk walk from the hotel doors to the parking lot gave Emma a chance to be alone with her thoughts.
The benefit of becoming a vampire was that illnesses no longer touched her, and though it was downright frigid, she tolerated it as a necessary evil.
Vampires didn’t experience cold in the same way.
No wonder Carly wanted to join them permanently.
At night in Dartmouth, no one would question her as she meandered through the silent suburb on foot.
About thirty thousand souls occupied the town, and when their coven operated at full capacity, eighty-five of those were vampires.
The Belleridge Coven of Dartmouth was the largest assembly of her kind in the United States, and also the oldest, founded centuries ago by patriots eager to escape English rule.
Brennan Stevens was only the second vampire lord to rule in Massachusetts, rising to the throne when his predecessor lost the will to live and walked into the unforgiving sun about a century ago.
While Emma and Brennan didn’t speak often, she liked him.
More importantly, she appreciated his investment in her dream.
And the chance he’d given her when he accepted a shy request from her to relocate from the Rosenhaven Coven of San Antonio to his region nearly three years ago. If he hadn’t, she’d be dead, either slaughtered by furious werewolves or hunted down by their own kind.
Last Emma had heard, the Council of Elders had sent about a dozen Overseers to Texas, and the lawmen who monitored their kind were still trying to untangle the knot of lies surrounding what the hell happened down there.
She shivered. Overseers meant bad news. While terrifying, they performed a necessary evil by rooting out corruption and committing executions where necessary.
No one knew how her old coven had flown under the radar so long, but it was only a matter of time before the Overseers tracked down the last escapee and put them to the stake.
Around midnight, Elm Street received no traffic. The still night surrounded her, dark with exception of the occasional street lamp. Her heels clicked against the sidewalk.