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“It is,” my neighbor agreed. “This is different. You’re a vampire.”

I stared at her, trying—and failing—to figure out what she meant.

It seems I’ve spent too much time around the listless Dracos children because I’m not following her at all. Perhaps I need to educate myself on modern society or soon I’ll be worse than my charges.

“I would assume my being a vampire would make the situation worse. Unless…” I took a step away from her. “Are you aiming to become a blood donor?”

Blood donors typically fell in one of three camps: those desperate for the money, those who aspired to become vampires themselves, and those crazy enough to behave like lunatic fans of vampires as they lacked the intelligence to realize just how dangerous we were.

“What? No.” It was Jade’s turn to frown at me—as ifIwas the weird one. “I just see vampires all the time for work at the Curia Cloisters. That makes you easy to talk to.”

“But you were raised around humans,” I pointed out.

Jade peered into her cup, which was wet with condensation. “Yeah, well, I was homeschooled. How are you liking Magiford?”

“It’s fine—very quaint,” I returned to my apartment, unlocked the door, carefully removed the key, and then paused thinking of the vampire slayer I’d met last night.

“It has some unusual points of interest,” I said.

I’d never known a vampire slayer to work with other supernaturals. As they somewhat mirrored vampires—all slayer families had some vampire blood in them—they were familial in nature, and typically only worked within their family lines.

That there was one running around the city, even if it was under the prerogative of the Regional Committee of Magic, was… odd.

“That’s great!” my neighbor said, her chirpy attitude making a strong comeback—which was a stark contrast to her nervous interaction with her fellow human. “Just wait until you see the supernatural fall market—it’s next week.”

I wanted to get away from the chatty human, but a supernatural market?It sounds like something I should be aware of—so I can avoid it.“And what, pray tell, is the supernatural fall market?” I asked.

My neighbor brightened—I got the idea she enjoyed being able to talk to someone about something that she clearly was excited for. “The Curia Cloisters sponsors a quarterly market that’s always themed to the season, so this quarter’s market is autumnal. There are vendors, food, photo ops, and it’s one of the only legal ways supernaturals can sell magical items to humans,” she explained. “You should stop by the Cloisters to get a list of all the other supernatural sponsored events!”

Yep. Something to avoid.

Satisfied with my conclusion, I stepped into my apartment. “I’ll have to do that. Thank you.”

“Yep!” The human smiled at me, her hold on the cup now relaxed. “Have a great afternoon, Connor!” She turned on her heels and started down the hallway, the curls of her short red hair bouncing with every step she took.

She’s definitely being overly friendly, not drawn in by my vampire powers or she wouldn’t leave so easily. How can she find other humans so terrifying and be completely unaware of the threat I pose to her?

Humans were weird—and stupid when it came to basic self-preservation methods.

Ignorance really is bliss.

I locked the front door of my apartment and wandered over to the fridge—which was stocked with blood pouches in a variety of blood types. I picked one at random, dumped it into a glass—drinking it from the plastic pouch left an aftertaste I didn’t like.

I sipped at the blood as I crossed the apartment, heading towards the laptop I’d left open on the dining table—a wooden furniture piece with an elaborately carved pedestal and padded chairs that didn’t match the cookie-cutter styled apartment.

With three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining area, entertainment space, and a patio that wrapped around the corner of the building, I was renting the largest, human owned and managed apartment that was available in Magiford. However, for a vampire, this was slumming it.

Our long lives meant it was easier to build wealth. I hadn’t lived in anything except luxury since before Ambrose, the sentimental idiot, had turned Vígí.

I stepped off the cheap Berber carpet onto the Turkish rug I had taken from storage and turned my sleek laptop on. The laptop was the only thing that accompanied me no matter which Dracos child I chose to plague, so I used two-step authentication to keep my whiny charges out of it—though the step was likely unnecessary as Killian was the only Dracos offspring to adopt the newest technologies.

My inbox was filled with emails—endless reports from the stooges I’d settled in the various Dracos households who reported in on the current state of their sires and respective Families, letting me keep track of each of my charges no matter where I was in the world.

The First Chevalier—the second-in-command—of Auberi and Aimé’s household had submitted a sniveling email begging me to come to their chateau in France as the twins were starting to spend more time asleep than awake.

I wasn’t too moved. I had some time before the twins would truly start to slip, and I didn’t want to overly coddle them or their minions would be even more demanding in the future.

One of my underlings in Sachiko’s household—the Ryuu Family—mentioned another vampire family had recently attempted to assassinate her.