Sweet Blood (At First Bite #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

bloom

I blinked tears from one eye as the contact lense folded instead of going onto my eye normally.

Again.

Muttering a curse, I pulled it away and blinked a few more times. One of my irises was muddy brown in the mirror. The watering one was a red so bright it nearly glowed.

I unfolded the contact and tried again to pop it back into place. Despite wearing the things since I was a toddler, I still wasn’t used to them.

At this point, it was safe to say I would probably never adjust.

It had been an incredibly long morning, which didn’t help. The company I worked at was closing on a massive deal, which meant lots of paperwork for my boss.

My boss didn’t do paperwork. Or anything, really.

He put it all on my plate. I was technically just his assistant, but everyone I worked with knew his job was mine in everything but name and salary.

I had pulled an all-nighter to get it done. Now, I just needed to get Steven, the company’s chief of operations, to sign it.

Which would probably take all day. Our COO existed to make my life difficult.

The bathroom door swung open, and I closed my eye slowly over the contact lense. My best friend was supposed to meet me there, but I worried anyway.

Constantly.

If someone saw my red eye, they’d know what I was.

Everyone else in the company would find out soon after that.

By the end of the day, I’d be in prison just for existing. If not straight-up dead.

Vampires were hated, after all. We only survived if we stayed hidden. The werewolves who ruled human society had ensured that.

Harper’s scent met my nose.

I relaxed and lifted my eyelid. Thankfully, the colored contact lense stayed where it belonged, making my red eye look the same shade as the other one.

With my straight, dark brown hair tied up in a high ponytail, my freckled, tan skin, and my average build, the contacts made me look like a completely human and entirely normal twenty-five-year-old.

“I brought coffee,” Harper announced, as she locked the door behind her. She had drinks in both hands, and I recognized the smell of our favorite shop’s vanilla lattes immediately.

The bag hanging on her shoulder probably had the change of clothes I’d asked her to bring me.

“What happened? Are you okay?” I asked.

We only spent money on fancy coffee when something went wrong. The coffee the office provided was too good to bother.

“Okay isn’t the word I’d use.” Harper crossed the expensive charcoal flooring to meet me at the far end of the gigantic bathroom.

Werewolves preferred everything oversized, and the company we worked for was owned by some of the most powerful wolves.

“Did you feed someone last night?”

“Yeah.” The dark circles under her eyes stood out against her paler-than-usual skin as she leaned against the sink.

Her platinum blonde hair fell sharply to her chin, and the short black blazer and slacks she had on worked perfectly with her strong build.

Like everything else in the thirty-three-story office building, the sink screamed luxury. The whole bathroom did, really.

Wood-like tiles covered the walls that weren’t occupied by the arched windows and elegant stonework our city was known for. A few large, strategically placed fake plants made it feel more comfortable.

“Who did you feed?”

“Velour.”

“Ugh.” I made a face.

“I know.” She set the coffee cups down and handed me the bag she’d brought in.

The oversized, fuzzy blue sweater and soft black leggings I pulled out were far from business attire, but my boss didn’t care what I wore as long as I continued doing his job for him.

I dressed as casually as I wanted—which meant I hadn’t worn nice pants for years.

Leggings for the win.

“I had to pull the sweater out of your hamper. You really need to do laundry, like always.” She slipped her hands in her pockets. They were trembling a little.

“You shouldn’t have let him bite you again this soon. It hasn’t been long enough. You know the Guild’s rules.”

Unlike me, Harper was human. The Guild was the group that organized the few humans who didn’t hate vampires to keep those of us without a steady food source fed.

She was raised by the woman who led the Guild, and while that woman was a shitty mom, she’d drilled the rules into Harper like a fucking impact driver.

“I know. It wasn’t planned.”

“He bit you during a hookup? Did you report him?”

“There wasn’t time.” She focused on the cup in her hand, avoiding my gaze. Definitely acting weird.

“You didn’t go to the Gathering?” Gathering was the ridiculous name the Guild used for their meetups where vampires were allowed to feed on willing humans.

“No. Did you? You were supposed to feed last night.”

“I’ll be fine for another week.” Technically, I was breaking the rules too. Vampires were supposed to feed every week.

“You know the Guild’s rules.” Harper’s tease was soft.

Something was seriously up with her. She was never this quiet.

I opened my mouth to call her on it, but she asked quickly, “Did you finish the paperwork?”

“I just need Steven’s signature. Assuming he actually lets me do my job for once. What kind of mood is he in today? I haven’t—” I unintentionally cut myself off with a massive yawn.

Harper grabbed one of the lattes and lifted it toward my face. “Here. Drink this.”

I snagged it from her before she literally poured coffee into my mouth. We both knew she really would.

And since that was the second gathering I’d skipped in a row, I was going to be living on even more caffeine than usual instead of blood for the next week.

Vampires were in hiding, so we couldn’t just go around biting humans every time hunger struck.

Two weeks without drinking blood meant both healing and functioning slower, but it wasn’t the end of the world unless you were attacked or something.

Vampires were basically just enhanced, immortal humans who could survive better than our mortal counterparts. Our bodies were stronger in every way, but the difference wasn’t extreme.

Our systems burned through blood to keep us alive, which was why being attacked was more dangerous if you weren’t feeding regularly.

Even werewolves couldn’t identify us without seeing our fangs or red eyes, so my chance of being attacked was almost zero

I took a long drink of my coffee.

Lattes were second only to blood in my book, and it was a close competition.

Harper opened her mouth to say something, but a piercing scream stopped her. We both jumped at the sudden noise.

What the hell?

Screaming definitely wasn’t a frequent occurrence in Darkwood Investment’s headquarters.

I flashed Harper an alarmed look before rushing out of the bathroom, forcing myself to move at a humanish pace.

There was a crowd gathering in the hallway outside a glass-walled office. All of our coworkers were either on their way over or already there.

We joined the massive, moving group, letting them carry us down the hallway until we were outside the office too.

I craned my neck, trying to see over the other men and women in front of me.

Someone to my right passed out, taking two other people down with them.

I couldn’t smell blood, so I didn’t think there was a gruesome crime scene, but something was obviously going on.

Gasps and whispers flooded the group.

It took me a few seconds to separate one panicked voice from another.

“Is he dead?”

“That has to have come from fangs, right?”

“He’s definitely not breathing.”

“How did this happen?”

“How long has he been dead for?”

“There’s a vampire working here? Who? Where?”

“Someone needs to call the Alpha.”

It took a solid two minutes before everyone in front of me moved just enough that I could get a good look at the scene.

When I did, I sucked in a sharp breath.

Steven was draped over his desk. The side of his neck was torn wide open, but there was no blood in sight.

Someone had drained him completely, then ripped his neck to hide the size of their bite.

It was a vampire classic, as far as killing went. I’d been shown pictures throughout my childhood, trained and traumatized by my loving parents so I would understand the damage I could do if I wasn’t in full control of myself at all times.

But who would’ve done it?

A group of werewolves known as the Alpha Pack ran Vast City. They were the largest, most powerful wolf pack that existed, and much to the chagrin of the human government who tried to pretend they were on top, the wolves owned most of the large companies in the city. Hell, in the world.

Including my workplace.

Draining someone in our office building was like waving a red flag at a bull.

Err, wolf.

I knew every one of the twenty-five other vampires in the city. None of them worked near my building, and we all fought like hell to stay hidden from both the humans and the wolves. Draining one of the top investment bankers in a werewolf-owned company would be suicide.

It would ruin the reputation we’d been trying unsuccessfully to repair for nearly a century since the Supernatural War had ended, too. The war had been werewolves vs vampires, and the wolves had obviously won.

The people in front of me moved enough to hide the body from my sight, but I’d seen plenty.

Other than me, what vampire in the city had a reason to want Steven dead?

Who would be willing to risk not just their own head, but our families’ necks too?

Werewolves weren’t kind. The pack who ran the city particularly wasn’t. They would hunt every single family member of whoever did this. They would probably enjoy it, too, the vicious assholes.

A hand landed on my shoulder, and I spun around fast.

Inhumanly fast.

Thankfully, the crowd’s attention was focused elsewhere.

My muddy brown eyes met a pair of panicked ones I knew better than my own. Harper’s were about the same shade as my colored contacts.

“You need to get out of here,” she whispered.

My stomach clenched.

With how much money Steven had made for the Alpha Pack, the wolves would absolutely send someone to look at the crime scene. Possibly to interview everyone who worked on the floor.

This was bad.

Very, very bad.

It wasn’t easy to pick out a vampire in a group of humans, but there were ways to do it.

Someone bumped my shoulder before I could reply, and I turned again quickly.

The crowd around us was getting louder.

Someone must’ve called the Alpha by then, and since he owned our company, I was sure he would send someone out quickly.

He’d be insane not to, if there was really a vampire behind it. We could move too fast.

The pack’s headquarters was the building right beside the investment company’s office. Most of the city called it The Tower. If I was going to leave, I needed to do it fast.

If only I wasn’t running on fumes and a tiny bit of coffee after staying up all night to finish paperwork.

A bullhorn suddenly blared, silencing everyone.

My head jerked toward the noise, and I fought hard not to cover my sensitive ears. My eyes widened immediately when I saw who was holding the megaphone.

Silently, I urged my contacts not to fall out again.

That was the only way this situation could get any worse.

Because the man holding the megaphone was none other than our company’s owner.

The Alpha of the Alpha Pack.

He was over six and a half feet of pure, sun-tanned muscle, outfitted in ripped jeans and a t-shirt that clung to said muscle far too well. Both of his arms were covered in ink, and he wasn’t sporting the cocky grin he usually wore in pictures.

His messy copper hair was long enough to curl a bit at the back, and the top of it fell to his cheekbones. Somehow, they were even more chiseled than those photos showed.

Though his feet were bare, no one would dare point out that Maverick Darkwood had forgotten shoes.

Harper quietly stepped in front of me. I was two inches taller than her, but she still blocked me well enough. Not that the physical shield would actually help anything if the Alpha Pack realized what I was.

Maverick lifted the megaphone to his mouth, then said through it, “Move.”

The crowd parted like he was their alpha.

I guess maybe he was. He did basically own the city.

Maverick tossed the megaphone to one of his goons and strode through the gap in the crowd. He passed Harper and I without pausing, and disappeared into Steven’s office.

Thank god.

“Everyone, back to your desks,” one of Maverick’s goons barked, his eyes narrow as they swept the crowd.

“Fuck,” Harper muttered, understanding the full impact of the situation at the same time I did.

There was no time to run. I was faster than any werewolf, but we were on the twenty-second floor. They could catch me on the stairs, or in the elevator. If I tried to hide somewhere else in the building, they’d just track me.

We started shuffling in the direction of our desks with the rest of the crowd. Everyone was whispering again, but none of the werewolves barked for us to be quiet.

My desk was around the corner, in a massive, open space full of cubicles set up in clusters that we could easily see over. We usually just called them desks, because they provided basically zero privacy.

I gave Harper a small smile when we went in opposite directions, and whispered, “I’ll be okay.”

She didn’t look convinced.

I felt the same.

Like everyone else, I sat down at my desk and tried to look normal. And terrified.

That part wasn’t hard to fake, considering there was a damn good chance I was about to get murdered by a bunch of werewolves who thought I had killed my boss.

Everyone in the office was seated a few minutes later.

The moment Maverick stepped out, silence fell over the room.

The air was heavy with tension.

Or maybe that was just me.

One of the two goons who had come with the Alpha tossed him the megaphone as they met up at the front of the hallway that led to Steven’s office. The Alpha caught the device smoothly and lifted it to his mouth again. “Sit down.”

Everyone obeyed.

I heard a muffled curse as someone behind me moved so fast that they missed their chair and landed on the floor.

“I want a list from each of you with the name of everyone who’s had problems with Steven.” The Alpha’s voice was so loud, I fought the urge to cover my ears. “We’ll talk to you individually. You can be damn sure we’re going to find whoever did this.”

He hit the bullhorn button again, his eyes scanning the room for anyone who flinched.

It took everything I had to force myself not to react.

His gaze caught on me anyway and lingered for a beat before moving on.

I was totally screwed.