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“No worries, the morning after is always super awkward. I get you.” The worker slipped it back into her vest and she retreated toward the delivery van idling outside of the gates. The multitude of boxes on the floor stared at me mockingly. I didn’t have the energy to bring them all in. I turned and closed the door on the bright sunlight, sealing my fate.

I’d chosen.

Each heartbeat tried to punch through my chest.

I’d never get to see Peter again.

The excruciating pain in my lungs tightened. It felt like I was having an asthma attack, but I hadn’t had one ever since they’d fed me their healing blood. Whenever they fed me, it served as a balm on my weak lungs.

I crumpled to the floor and thumped my head on the door. This was safest for Peter.

A shaking sob left my lips and I hugged myself.

“You made the right choice to not run off.”

I gasped, slamming my elbow on the door with how fast I jolted.

With a grunt, I bowed forward, palming my elbow.

A brunette stood over me in yoga pants and a nylon, form hugging shirt.

Hoisting myself off the floor, I straightened to find that she was extremely fucking tall. Two heads over my average five foot six and a half inches.

I searched her face. She didn’t have the smooth porelessness I was used to seeing on vampires, and her chest moved up and down in rhythmic breaths.

“You’re human.”

“I am,” she drawled in a thick southern accent. “I’m glad you chose to stay. Tackling you would have been embarrassing. I’d hate to get on your owners’ bad side.”

Owners?

I wanted to exclaim and ask what she was talking about but it didn’t seem the most important question to someone I’d never met.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Maddy, Talia’s human.”

She said it with such ease and pride. Talia, the female vampire that Asher sired?

“I’ve heard a bit about you. Human Pet to Crimson Coven.”

“You’ve heard about me?” I poked at my chest as if it wasn’t obvious.

She grunted and pulled open the front door and started dragging the packages into the house. She hugged the last box to her chest and kicked the door shut with her toe.

“You’re the human they took to Crimson Nights. Talia is extremely curious about you, almost fixated and I have not seen her focus on something like that for a few decades. All vampires view us humans as less than them, there are a few here and there that are sympathetic like Talia, but the Crimson Coven?”

She grimaced as she hugged the last box then turned to walk down the hall leading to the kitchen. “They’re hard core. The only one known to show empathy is the priest, but from what I hear, even he struggles with his apathy default setting.”

“Oh.”

I picked up my pace to keep up as she returned to the kitchen with even, wide steps.

“But you’ve not only gotten their attention, but you’ve also become their Pet.” She looked over her shoulder and wiggled her eyebrows up and down. “And they don’t want to kill you for betraying them? Crazy props to you.”

“How do you know about that?” My lips felt numb. She spoke of it so easily, as if it hadn’t affected my entire life.

She dropped the box on the granite counter where I’d been thoroughly licked yesterday.