Page 23 of No One’s Daughter

​“Clear.”

​The word released us and we retrieved our weapons and moved on.

​As much as we both loathed the Ninth headquarters, neither of us had any interest in travelling all the way out of the city to the private safe house we’d been working out of. And it made sense to stay close.

​We made our way down the stairs into the belly of the building, and by the time we’d made it to the residential level, the city was gone.

​No windows, no natural light, only structure and control.

​Corridors stretched out before us, identical in design, lined with doors that bore no names, no markings. Just numbers. They were temporary quarters, somewhere to get some shut eye, but nothing more.

Barry—a young turned one—ran up to us with a nervous energy. “Oh good, you’re both here, that makes my life easier.”

I didn’t even want to ask. “Why?”

“The boss wants you in his office pronto. Sent me out to find you.”

“Did he say why?” This was the last fucking thing we needed. What could Valerius possibly want? We typically stayed out of his way, and therefore his wrath and I much preferred it that way.

“Didn’t say, but I wouldn’t keep him waiting, you know what he’s like.”

Everyone knew what he was like.

I nodded, and patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

Marlette and I made our way through the halls of the Ninth to the rear elevator—the only one that went up to the level where Valerius’s office was.

The Ninth, as it had been named by Valerius, was a vampire stronghold in this world. Established so that every vampire answered to it, with no exceptions—the official story was that we were here to protect the humans of these lands from vampires. Keeping our own in check so to speak. But the unofficial reason was far more sinister.

We entered the lift without pause. It recognised us immediately. No buttons, no input. The doors sealed and we ascended. The doors reopened on his floor. The room was surrounded with floor to ceiling windows. A reminder that there was nowhere to hide.

I stepped into the office first, Marlette a second behind me.

The boss stood facing the vast city below as he watched over it like some overlord, his hands placed casually in his perfectly tailored suit trousers. Dark hair, kept immaculately in place, framed a face too composed to ever be mistaken for careless. Everything about him was strictly controlled. Expensive in a way that went beyond clothing. His authority wafted off of him in a way that didn’t need to be spelled out. It was just there. He didn’t need to assert it because it was already understood as fact.

Valerius Adenauer, the youngest yet most ruthless prince of the old vampire kingdom.

He and I had never seen eye to eye, he knew it, and I knew it. He tolerated me because of who my maker was and his importance back home. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill me though, it just meant he needed a really really good reason to do it, and I refused to give him one.

He turned with a smile plastered across his features, teeth showing and everything. And his eyes, sharp and assessing, missed nothing. They lingered just long enough to unsettle, never long enough to read. It was meant as intimidation, but he’d have to do better than that to rattle me.

“Take a seat, detectives.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He had a love for using human terminology and job descriptions, when what we really were was hunters and executioners of our own kind.

Marlette and I each took a seat in the chairs facing his office desk while he relaxed back into his leather high back chair.

A pause followed—measured and deliberate. The kind that stretched just long enough to remind you that he dictated the pace of every interaction, no matter how insignificant it might appear.

“I trust your night has been… illuminating.”

There was something in the way he said it. Not quite a question. Not quite a statement.

“Two scenes,” I replied evenly. “Unrelated. One consistent with the previous incidents. The other—rogue activity.”

“Ah.” He shifted slightly as though considering that. “Chaos and absence, arriving so conveniently within the same span of hours. How… obliging.”

His gaze settled back on us then, as though trying to read the unsaid.