Realization dawned on Laszlo’s features as he loitered at Ambrose’s side, whereas Kane turned even stonier, his jaw locked in a tight clench.
“You havepluck, darling.” Ambrose capped my water, twisting the lid into place with a grin so rich and seductive my bones turned to jelly. “And I think you’d make a fine vampire familiar.”
Wait. My eyebrows rocketed up as the alarm bells blared.
Vampirefamiliar.
Was he saying he’d turn me into a—
“A familiar is a non-vampiric being who manages a coven’s household,” Laszlo told me in the same sweet tone he’d used when he promised he’d be back to collect me before I knew it. I should have stayed put. I should have listened. My next teeny, tiny swallow was an agonizing reminder that no matter how confused and curious I was over these alphas, I wasn’tsafe.
Then, as if sensing my thoughts, Laszlo grabbed the other armchair and pulled it up beside Ambrose, sitting on the edge, both of them in front of me now.
“Familiars are the protected guardians of vampirekind,” he remarked. “They’re off-limits even to our worst enemies because they take a vow to watch over us during the daylight hours. Familiars see to the upkeep of our homes—cleaning, repairs, finances, maintenance. They have authority in the daylight hours to dismiss staff, hire contractors, find blood donors.” The plastic bottlecrunchedobnoxiously in my fist, and my face went white-hot at the sound. Laszlo’s lips twitched, but he maintained his kind smile as he added, “Vampires on Yarrow feed primarily from a blood bank. You would be responsible for ensuring our pantry is full of our preferred blood types, stored at the appropriate temperature.”
That… seemed like a huge responsibility.
Despite the blushes, reminders of their beautiful bites tingling on my thigh, my butt, my neck, my wrist—I looked from Ambrose to Laszlo to Kane, then back again, three times, waiting for the punchline.
But their silence suggested they were… serious.
For the first time all night—shit, for the first time in alongtime—pride swelled in my chest.
And then the cynical part of me stood up. The piece of my being who shielded me through Jackson’s deal, debt, trafficking, my first night at Club Mistletoe and the six months in a cage that followed,shesensed a trap. “R-really?Me?”
“There would of course be a formal familiar contract for you to sign.” Ambrose leaned a touch closer, his tone taking a turn for the serious. “We expect at least a year’s pledge from our familiar to start, though many work with their covens for the rest of their mortal lives.”
I swallowed hard, then winced.
This was… a lot.
Coming in hot and heavy—
“We would also pay your debt to the Misery Pack—tonight, preferably.” Ambrose grinned when I bolted upright, the leather creaking with the sudden movement. “You can consider it your first year’s salary, paid in advance. There would be a private room for you at our estate, including a nest if you desire, and a small weekly allowance outside of the household budget for personal necessities. If this is agreeable, you would leave with us tomorrow night on our employer’s yacht—”
“We don’t work a traditional job, omega,” Kane growled, his grit coming close to popping the daydreamy bubble blooming around me and Ambrose. He closed in on his bond from behind, lording over him, over me, over everything in this world if he wanted. Crimson god,alphain every sense of the word, Kane peered down at me and spoke with a flash of fang. “It’s bloody. Dangerous. Violent.Criminal.”
Torvald had called them mobsters.
Was I ready for that?
Could I turn a blind eye if things got squicky?
“You’d also need to go on heat and scent suppressants,” Kane grumbled, “since you’re… unbonded.”
His voice cracked at thatword, that reminder of my status in our society. An unbonded omega was never safe, always up for grabs if some dick decided she belonged in his pack. Sure, most islands had laws, policies and procedures, matching ceremonies, scent cards—it varied. The Bog was a nightmare, a place where my kind had no voice, no say in where I went or with who.
But if I needed to take some pills and pretend I was a beta—for freedom, for a job where I could make my own money and I could come and go as I pleased, where I could run a household without being locked in the nest, forced to have kid after kid after kid until I just couldn’t anymore…
“But I-I…” I pointed to my chest.Fuck, it hurt to talk. “J-justhouse?”
“Yes,” Ambrose said firmly, glowering at his fellow alpha. He might have enjoyed pain play, but I hadn’t felt genuine fear around him until this moment, until I caught the menacing twinkle in his narrowed blues that made Kane growl low and break eye contact first. “Really, there’s no need to involve you in our professional affairs.”
Slowly, Ambrose rose to his full height, still staring Kane down, until eventually the mountain of an alpha snarled and stalked off, pacing around the rug that stunk of my slick, my snowdrops ripening in the air.
“What do you think, Holly?” Laszlo whispered. He smoothed a big, cool hand over my knee, then gave it a little squeeze, drawing my gaze to his. “Would you like to work for us? Mistress of our house—keep us all in line?”
Mistress of our house.