Lily

The next morning I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. I deliberately didn't drink that much at the party so my head would be clear, but I still felt like I'd taken a bath in a distillery. My head ached so bad that it hurt to open my eyes, and the slightest sound was like an icepick ramming in my ear.

God, it would be so nice to take a sick day. I just wanted to stay in bed, cuddling with Salem, and sleep through the migraine. But, despite what the generous benefits package says on paper, everyone knows you don't get to take sick days until you've been working for at least five years. And the fact that the managing and executive partners were taking Friday off only meant that the other partners got to leave maybe an hour early, which meant the associates, junior associates, paralegals, and filing clerks might be able to get out on time for once.

Corporate law is no joke, but I'll take it over the public sector any day. I temped at the DA's office for a while after graduation, and it did have much better hours. That office was a ghost town once 5 pm rolled around. But the pay was shit, and half the lawyers didn't have experience in any kind of law except criminal. Imagine a fresh-faced paralegal guiding a full-blown lawyer through a civil case. No thank you. I'll stick with drafting research documents and putting merger case files together.

That's right. Actual, legitimate, legal work was my dream job. It was the job I worked my ass off for. And as I sat down at my desk that morning and started to work, I felt all the stress from the previous nights' events wash away as the hours progressed.

I am a paralegal. I work for the law firm Adams & Stafford. I make a decent wage that pays my bills and debts and leaves just enough left over at the end of the month to put some savings away. Sometimes on the weekends, I'll go out to the movies. I'll even go on the occasional date with another paralegal from another firm, but not that engineer who stops at the same Starbucks as I do. Not again. That was a disaster.

I am a paralegal.

I am not a slayer.

My hands hesitated over the keyboard. The old silver ring on my index finger glinted in the harsh fluorescent light over my desk.

I'm not a slayer. I haven't been for a very long time. But, for the last few weeks, I sure have been acting like one. I stalked a target based off a whim. An assumption I'd made after a few words and a handshake. The only reaction Atreus had to the silver was a sharp snap like a static shock. That's what I thought it was at first. There was no burning or sizzling or hissing.

There were other inconsistencies. Atreus walked in the sun, and he had a reflection. There were stories of vampires who were so powerful they could ignore the harmful rays of the sun. But I have never heard of one who had a reflection.

If I hadn't watched him take a bite out of that janitor, I would have moved on with my life. A part of me wondered if I should have just moved on anyway.

No, I am not a slayer.

Yet, I still pulled out that box from the back of my closet and slipped the stake carved from a five-hundred-year-old white oak tree into my purse. I still logged into the safety link app so that, even if I failed, the local slayers would know there was a vampire in the city. I still enticed and seduced him until he followed me into that alley.

Yeah. I could lie to myself all I wanted, but the fact remains that I did exactly what I ran away from all those years ago. I could have... should have... approached the local slayers, given them my suspicions and evidence, and let them take care of it. The only problem with that was the risk that they might know who I am.

I convinced myself that I had to deal with it to protect my new life. Not the literal act of living. But the life I built through this career.

Slamming my fingers back on the keys, I finished the report and sent it to the printer. Nadine was in the middle of a phone call when I typed my security code to initiate the printing. While I waited, I wandered into her office and slid my butt onto the edge of the desk, crossed my legs at the ankles, and stared out the window at the not-so-spectacular west-facing view of another immense office building across the street.

A bank, I think. Normal people pushing paper, crunching numbers, and living their lives. The kind of normal I used to crave and is now in my grasp. I couldn't let the events of last night disrupt everything I worked so hard for. I had to get out of this damned slump.

"Either you had the worst sex of your life last night," Nadine finally put the phone back in its cradle. "Or something more than the boss's cock was blown."

I burst out laughing at the crass joke that she could only get away with around me and so late in the day when there were fewer people around. "There was no blowing of any kind last night." I shook my head. "Nothing happened."

"Oh please," she rolled her eyes so hard they were about to roll right out of her head. "I'll give it to you, though. I've never seen a guy fall so hard for a few sweet words. Come on, Lily. I want to know everything."

"I promise you, nothing happened. He met me in the alley, but he changed his mind. He said it would be inappropriate, and he didn't want to cross any professional lines. So, I went home, and I assumed he went back to the party."

She narrowed her eyes at me. The words rolled off my tongue easily enough, but her bullshit alarm was going off at full volume. It's a lot harder to lie around people who are trained to lie. "Then why are you so mopey?"

"I don't get 'mopey' over a guy rejecting me."

"You sure? I've walked past your desk a dozen times today, and you never looked up once. I don't think you even heard me, so I just let you be. I had to fend off Anders for you."

"Shit, sorry. I'll apologize to Anders when I see him on Monday."

"Good. He doesn't like being ignored. So, if it wasn't the new big boss man, what has your head stuck in the clouds?"

I blew out a breath and looked back out the window. "I've been thinking about my family a lot lately," I muttered. It was the first truthful thing I'd said all day.

Nadine turned in her chair, giving me every ounce of her attention. Well, shit, I didn't want that either.

"You've been here six months, and you have never uttered so much as a word about your family," she urged me to continue. "Spill. I'm not taking no for an answer this time."

"There's not much to tell. They're all good, hardworking, blue collar New Yorkers. I'm just the traitor who went to college."

"They're disappointed in you? Lil, you work for one of the top law firms in the country. Don't they understand how difficult it is to get a job here?"

"What part of blue collar didn't you get?" I scoffed and sighed again. "I could be out here bringing peace to the middle east, but as long as I'm doing it behind a desk, I'm just white-collar trash who sold her soul to The Man."

"I thought being the first kid in the family to go to college was a point of pride, not contention."

"Can't speak for anyone else. Just my own nightmares." I groaned and dug my fingers into the aching neck muscles. "Sorry, Nadine. I don't mean to trauma dump. Just ignore everything I just said."

"I will not," Nadine huffed indignantly, standing up and reaching for her coat. "I'm going to keep peeling back your layers until you spill all your secrets."

I laughed, but I knew she was right. I have been a bit too complacent around Nadine, and I was going to have to patch up those holes in my safeguards. She didn't need to know the torment that came with knowing about the supernatural.

"Hey, can you take these up to Rhodes' office?" she asked me, holding out a stack of files for me to take. "I want to sneak out of here a little early, and if I go up there, I risk the lawyers having 'one more' thing for me to do."

"But you'll put me at risk of 'one more thing'?"

"Of course. That's what you junior paralegals are for."

"Thanks a lot." I rolled my eyes, picking up the files from her desk and grabbing the contract from the printer on my way out. "Have a good weekend, Nadine. Say hi to the kids for me."

"We're going to the beach on Sunday. You should join us!"

I just waved without giving her an answer and headed back for my desk to drop the contract papers next to my computer before continuing towards the elevators.

The managing and executive partners worked on the top floor and, God damn, is it nice. A huge receptionist desk acted as gatekeeper. Large, gilded lettering was mounted on the wall behind the desk, spelling out Adams & Stafford. There were contractors already taking measurements and photos, planning the best way to mount the new name on the wall.

The ten offices were lined along the edges of the building, so every single one of them had a view of either the city, ocean, or a mix of both. Each office had their own secretary or assistant desk right outside their doors. Each of the assistant areas could have held two of my cubicles comfortably. I can only imagine how much easier it would be to stay organized with that much space.

Atreus's office was around the corner from the elevators on the east side. It was a large L-shaped room to take full advantage of the spectacular view. To my surprise, there was another wall to make a full square and closing off the assistants' space, meaning I had to walk through another, smaller office to get to his desk.

The two walls separating the office from the elevators and the conference room next door were lined with beautiful mahogany bookcases. The ornate, black-stained desk was tucked into one side of the so the user's back was to the windows, and they looked out towards the assistant's office. Two high-back chairs sat on the other side, clearly meant for guests, but not clients. On the other side of the L were two couches and a coffee table. Every piece of furniture had a rustic, almost gothic feel with the elaborate carvings into the wood. I'd bet my life they were real antiques.

Not exactly subtle. The whole place screamed vampire.

I dropped the files on that heavy desk and ventured closer to the windows. The view was the best part of the office. I was high enough to see over the other buildings and the view stretched out over the bay, Virginia Key and Miami Beach, and finally the ocean beyond. Clear skies with only a few white, fluffy clouds in the distance, and an ocean so blue it would make your heart ache.

That was the view that felt like home. A real home. I looked on the same ocean growing up in New York, but it was grey, cold, and unwelcoming. Just like the so-called family I left behind. Breathing in deeply through my nose, I let out the breath and all the anxiety I'd been carrying for the last few weeks. The vampire was dead. Everything was back to how it should be.

The sound of the glass door sliding shut made my muscles stiffen, and a low chuckle confirmed what I was desperately trying to deny. I turned, silently begging, damn-near praying, that I was wrong.

"Now, remind me," Atreus drawled, sliding the lock into place, and activating the opaque feature of the smart glass. His lip curled up in a smirk, the light glinting off a lengthened fang. Slowly, the whites of his eyes turned black, while the stunning blue irises started to glow red. "What was your name again?"

~

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