Page 76 of Only Fangs

“You won’t regret it. It’s super fun. The best event of the season I promise. Ohhh, is that Olivia?” He points towards a female vampire who is chatting to Clara. “I must go and say hi. Hope to see you soon, Master Brody.” He flashes me another grin and saunters off.

I turn round to find Ari staring at me with her mouth wide open. “Who was that?”

“Some dude called Blundell.”

“What did he give you?” She sounds worried.

“His number. He invited me to join a hunt.”

“He did what?”

“Yeah. Fucking creepy bastard.” I shake my head. “I didn’t think any of them would be that blatant.”

“I think you might have given some of them too much credit.” She sounds almost sad. Like melancholy laced with anger and bitter disappointment in her fellow vampire.

I can see them now. So clear its’s as if we’re standing in broad daylight. These vampires would kill me without a second thought. The only thing standing between them and savagery is the threat of a scandal which could expose them to their non-vampire counterparts because they might hate the normies but they’ll still hoard our money like fucking dragons. Oh, and that they think I’m one of them.

I try to tamp down the rising panic. The panic that says I’m literally dead if the mask slips.

Ari’s finger tips are light on my arm. “Are you OK?” She reaches up on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear.

“I’m fine,” I whisper back, plastering a smile on my face.

“I can feel your heart racing.”

“I… I…” I stammer, unable to get the words out.

Ari leads me away from the crowds.

Chapter 39

Ari

Ican tell that he’s starting to panic, the emotion welling up inside of him. We need to get out of here, away from the crowds and the people who might just figure out what he really is.

“Follow me,” I say and pull him towards a huge painting of a landscape. It’s so large it reaches the floor and almost touches the ceiling, spreading an image of Dartmoor in all her rugged beauty across the wall. I press a spot on the frame, just below shoulder height and there’s a barely audible click. A gap opens behind the painting and I drag him through it into a corridor behind.

“What is this place?” he asks as the painting swings back into position. “It’s… warm.” He sounds utterly confused.

“That’ll be the sconces,” I tell him, motioning to the light rushes every few metres.

“But…” he trails off.

“It’s how the staff get around the house,” I tell him. “Like a series of back passages so they don’t disturb the guests. It’s warm and well-lit because… well, most of the staff are human.”

He nods. “OK. That makes sense. And these are all over the castle?”

“It isn’t a castle,” I remind him.

“A technicality.”

“But kind of. These lit staff corridors are mainly in the entertaining areas. But there are secret passages all over the place. A lot of them hidden, forgotten to history.”

“Sounds creepy.”

“Creepy, yes. But useful.”

We make our way down the corridor and then take a left at a T-junction. We pause for a moment and Brody puts his eye up against a hole in the wall.