Escape?she thought, inwardly cringing.Zia, you dramatic bitch, he’s not going to eat you. He’s going tofireyou.
And still, she felt a shivery little thrill at the idea of being eaten by her vampire.
Was it bad that she felt a deep, dark thrill at the idea of her nearly faceless boss eating her? Certainly. Absolutely. She had officially gone way, way too deep down the rabbit hole of her crush and at some point taken a left turn into weirdo town.
For godssakes, she’d never even properly seen him. He was just a shadow in the window of the manor on the mornings she arrived just before sunrise. Sometimes, when she worked up the nerve to really look, she thought she spied that signature vampiric eye-glow through the leaded window panes.
And that was it.
He was nothing but a shade — a suggestion of a shoulder, a fleeting glimpse of a strong profile, andmenace.
Everything about him and the rules of his estate screamed that he was dangerous and wanted nothing to do with anyone, least of all the weird woman hired to look after the rose garden in his backyard.
So why on Earth did she think about himconstantly?
Even that moment, when she nearly slid through the dirt of the bed to reach the final bush, her hands aching fiercely with cold and her heart going a mile a minute, she thought of him.
A large part of her wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Vampires werescary.The dark terrified her. The idea of fangs sinking into her throat should have made her want to run home to her brothers, her parents, and the safety they promised.
The man made every one of her instincts bristle with warning, and getting caught at this moment would mean losing the job she loved.
But a small, dark part of her thrilled at the possibility of finally, finally catching a real glimpse of him. An even darker part found the idea of him catching her, pinning her down, and taking a long, sensual sip from her veins so blazingly erotic it burned.
Not worth your job, you horny idiot,she chastised herself.
Zia held her breath as she dropped onto her hands and knees to seal the bottom of the last plastic sheet. She stared at the display on the heat gun and counted down the seconds. A bead of sweat slid down her temple.
The gun beeped.
Thank the gods.Zia scrambled onto her feet, heedless of the dirt and plant detritus that streaked her cute but apparently unseasonal capris, and turned to jog back to the greenhouse.
She froze, staring at the vague shape of the greenhouse. Her stomach dropped.
“Shit.”
Sometime between getting down on her knees and getting back up again, night had fallen. The garden was nothing more than blue and violet shapes. The sky, when she lifted her wide eyes to see it, was a deep, velvety blue. Only a razor thin line of orange gilded the treetops in the distance. When she blinked, it vanished.
She stood amongst the roses, now safe from the coming freeze, in complete darkness. The estate had no outside lights, seeing as vampires didn’t need them. There wasn’t even a moon to light her way.
Zia stood frozen for several terrible seconds as she grasped the enormity of her mistake.
The number one rule you need to remember,Mr. Eisele had lectured on her very first day of work,is to never, underanycircumstances, stay on the grounds after sundown. Doing so will result in immediate termination, understood?
When she asked why, he simply answered,Because Mr. Bounds should never even have to know you exist, Miss North.
His stern voice echoed in her head as she frantically considered her options. Getting to her car required she walk past the manor house and back down to the lot in complete darkness — something she wasn’t even sure she could work up the courage to do.
Even if she could manage to push through her fear of the dark, when she got to the parking lot, she was certain that the gates would, in fact, be closed.
Mr. Bounds did not play around with his security, no matter how much she hoped there would be a glitch in the system, or a dropped shift in the rotation of guards he employed. The gates locked at sundown, just as they did every single night before.
If she could get all the way there — in thedark,that was also thewoods —she would then have to request permission to leave. The guards would contact Mr. Eisele, and she would be summarily fired.
Knocking politely on Mr. Bounds’s door would result in much the same. Not that she could ever work up the nerve to do it even if he wouldn’t immediately fire her. As much as he tantalized her, he also scared the shit out of her.
It was half the fantasy, really, but not at all useful in her current situation.
Sneaking through the woods and back to the main road to hitchhike was out of the running, too. Her initial briefing when she took the job went over many details of the estate on the whole, including the state of the art sigil-lined electrical fence that ringed the entirety of the grounds. It not only kept people out, but it worked beautifully to keep foolish rosariansin.
