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“Hey,” I said urgently. “Wake up. Are you okay?”

“Back for more?” she purred.

I blinked at her. “I’m not a vampire.”

She stared up at me and yawned. “Oh. Right. I don’t know you. Who are you?”

“I’m Sam,” I said quickly, trying to examine her body for wounds. And to my growing horror, I found them. There were bite marks all over, not just on her neck. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t look it. Her skin was pale, her forehead glossy with dried sweat. “I feel great.” She stretched her arms. “Reki just took a lot. He likes it rough, but he pays well.”

My stomach twisted. “And you’re okay with that?”

“Of course.” She sighed into the mattress. “Nothing hurts when they bite.”

I wanted to vomit. Her words were slow and slurred. Her eyes fluttered shut. I leaned over, trying to get a better look at her.

“Hey, who are you?”

I turned. An older woman stormed into the room. “You’re not one of my courtesans.”

“Does it matter?” I hissed. “She needs help!”

Concern crossed the woman’s features. She pushed me aside and pressed her fingers to the base of the girl’s throat.The concern evaporated as she turned on me. “My girl is fine. Now, who are you? One of Marta’s girls, trying to poach my best?”

If this was her best being “fine,” I had serious concerns about the entirety of her operation. “I’m not with Marta. I came to check on how the girls are treated. I… work for King Raphael.”

She arched a disbelieving brow at me, probably because I didn’t sound like I believed the fumbled lie myself. “You’re telling me the king ordered you to come here and check on how I run my business?”

Not exactly. In for a copper, in for a gold piece. Raphael never would have tolerated his orders being questioned though. He could say it was just because he was strong, but even when he was flayed open, bound by copper, he’d never lost the arrogance that kept his spine straight and his gaze level. I drew my shoulders back and stood eye-to-eye with the matron. If he could do it, I could at least pretend to have a fraction of his courage. “Are things so different here that you think the vampire king tolerates disobedience?” I forced my words to come out slowly, the way he so often did, and a zip of satisfaction went through me as the matron took a half step back.

“Of course not.” Her tone had turned from accusatory to simply brusque. “I simply didn’t realize who you were since you didn’t identify yourself or come directly to me and instead slipped into one of our service rooms.”

I arched a brow at her, letting her bluster. “I’ll be sure to let the king know you think his practices could be improved.”

The matron paled. “No need for that. Why don’t you join me in my office and tell me how I can be of service to the Crown?”

I allowed her to lead me deeper into the blood den. Unlike most of the rooms which only had a curtain, the matron’s office was concealed by a heavy wooden door. She pushed it open and gestured to the two seats in front of her desk. I didn’t want to sit with my back to the door. It would look strange to stand askance with the exit in sight, so I plopped down onto the very edge of the chair while the woman settled into a large plush chair that nearly drowned her. In the candlelight of the other room, I’d mistaken her hair for red, but now I saw it was more of a nutty brown. Her face was polished with the same cosmetics Amalthea used, but it was in heavy layers, the colors crumbling a bit at the edges of her lips and cheekbones. Unlike the minimal gossamer the workers wore, her chest was covered with a voluminous top that buttoned up as far as her chin and cinched at the wrists.

“I suppose I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Latia, matron and owner of this blood den for more than thirty years. How may I be of service to the Crown?”

It would have been polite to introduce myself, but I couldn’t even bring myself to give a fake name. “Describeyour”—disgusting, foul, exploitative—“business for me.”

Latia’s puckered lips twitched downward at the simplicity of my question, but apparently my lie about being here on Raphael’s orders held enough weight to stop her from voicing any more objections. “It’s rather simple. Every human in Damerel is expected to contribute, and the most valuable asset any human has over vampires is fresh, warm blood. I recruit the girls—and men, of course—in order to provide a carefully cultivated selection that appeals to the higher echelons of vampire society. I’ve worked tirelessly to establish our humble little den. The vampire nobility know they can come to us for vibrant, well-nourished sustenance, and in return I make sure the compensation keeps all my people taken care of.”

“So the vampires pay you and then you pass the coin on the workers?” I confirmed.

Latia shrugged. “Within reason. There are expenses to the upkeep of this establishment, their appearance, and so on. It’s easier if I manage the money and they manage the clients, you see.”

Latia’s “within reason” and mine likely differed. Given the blissed-out state of the workers, though, they might not protest as much. “So all the vampires do is bite? No… touching?”

“Not hardly.” She beamed. “Some dens keep the two services apart, but we want to keep our customers sated.Thoseneeds often go together. Not always, of course, but there’s something so wonderfully pleasantabout the two combined, or so I’m told. I work hard to ensure our workers are appealing on all fronts.”

Bile rose in my stomach. “And they’re okay with that? The humans?”

A careless shrug. “One bite and no one is saying no. As I said, they’re compensated.”

I could believe that. Just the memory of Raphael’s bite could turn my breathing shallow. But that had been different. Everything about Latia made my skin crawl. Perhaps even more so than the vampires. They were awful, yes, but they had to drink blood to survive. Latia had taken that hunger and turned it into a profit. I’d judged the humans for being fed on, but was she any better, facilitating deals while carefully covering her body, setting herself apart?