Chapter Three: The Vampire Bargain

Annabel's POV

Three months.

My knees knew it better than my mind did — a permanent ache ground into the bone from marble floors and cold stone and the particular punishment of scrubbing surfaces that were just going to be dirty again tomorrow.

I'd cleaned three hallways, two staircases, and a sitting room that hadn't seen actual use since Aldric's father was alive. Now I was on the fourth hallway, bucket beside me, brush moving in the same circular pattern I could do half-asleep. Which was useful, because I usually was.

I heard the heels before I saw her.

That specific click — sharp, deliberate, the rhythm of someone who wanted you to know they were coming and wanted you to have time to dread it. I didn't look up. I'd learned that. Keep your head down, keep your hands moving, give them nothing to work with.

The heels stopped directly behind me.

I kept scrubbing.

"You missed a spot."

I closed my eyes for exactly one second. Then I opened them and kept working.

"I'm talking to you."

I set the brush down and started to rise.

"Did I say you could stand?"

The voice was smooth and unhurried, Lennon. I stilled, half-risen, caught between positions, which was exactly where she wanted me. A few pack members had paused in the hallway. I could feel them watching. I kept my face completely neutral and straightened slowly anyway.

I turned around.

Lennon stood six feet away in a dress that hugged perfect on her body. Black hair perfectly curled, posture immaculate, a smile arranged on her face that looked almost warm from a distance. Up close it was something else entirely.

"Is there something you need, Luna?" I kept my voice flat. Professional. Gave her nothing.

She tilted her head. "Need?" A small laugh. "No. I just wanted to see how you're settling in." She began walking a slow circle around me, eyes moving over me the way you'd assess livestock. "The uniform suits you, actually. Very — functional."

I said nothing.

"I asked you a question." She stopped in front of me. "What does it feel like? Being a servant." Her eyes were bright with it, enjoying every second. "In your own home."

The word home landed like a blade. I kept my expression still.

"I do my job, Luna. That's all."

She laughed — a real one, like I'd said something genuinely funny. "Your job." She glanced at the bucket, the brush, the raw state of my hands. "Right." She stepped closer, dropping her voice just enough to feel intimate, which made it worse. "Did you actually think he'd choose you, Annabel? Even for a second?" She searched my face. "Did you really stand there in that ceremony hall and think — this is it, this is my moment?"

My jaw tightened. I said nothing.

"Because I need you to understand something." Her voice went softer, which was its own kind of warning. "Aldric was never going to choose you. Not in any version of any world. You were a mistake the Goddess made, and he corrected it." She smiled. "I corrected it."

"Congratulations, Luna."

Something shifted in her expression. The pleasantness thinned.

"I'm pregnant," she said. "Twelve weeks. It's a boy." She let that sit in the air between us. "A future Alpha." Another pause, deliberate and precise. "I cannot wait for you to change his diapers. It suits you, honestly. Cleaning up other people's messes." She looked me over one final time. "That's all you've ever been good for. Pathetic, worthless omega — "

Something rose in my chest. Hot and fast and completely against my better judgment.

I opened my mouth.

Her hand connected with my face before a single word came out.

The slap cracked through the hallway loud enough to make someone gasp. My head snapped sideways. The sting spread instantly across my cheek, eyes watering from pure reflex — not grief, just nerve endings reporting damage.

Before I could recover she grabbed a fistful of my hair, fingers digging into my chin, forcing my face toward hers.

"Don't." Her voice was very quiet now. Almost gentle. "Don't you ever forget what you are and what I am. If you so much as breathe in a way that inconveniences me—" her grip tightened "—I will make what happened in that ceremony hall look like a kind memory. Are we clear?"

She shoved me backward.

I caught myself against the wall, shoulder slamming into stone, and stood there with my hand pressed to my face and my heart hammering so loud I could hear it.

Lennon turned to the small crowd that had gathered — eight, maybe ten pack members, all wearing various expressions of carefully neutral entertainment.

"Everyone." She gestured toward me with the casual ease of someone introducing a new piece of furniture. "This is Annabel. Former Beta's daughter, current pack servant." A bright smile. "If you need anything dirty handled — floors scrubbed, gutters cleaned, anything you'd rather not touch yourself — she's available." She spread her hands generously. "Consider her a resource."

Laughter broke through the hallway like a wave.

My face burned. Not from the slap — from the sound of it, from the way it rolled so easily, so naturally, like I was the most reasonable punchline in the world.

I kept my mouth shut.

Fighting back would be worse. I knew that. I'd learned it the hard way in smaller moments than this, and this was not a small moment. This was Lennon reminding every witness exactly where I stood and exactly what happened to people who forgot it.

She walked away without looking back, her heels resuming that slow, deliberate rhythm down the hallway, her laughter trailing behind her like perfume.

I picked up my brush.

A young servant girl appeared at my elbow — couldn't have been more than sixteen, wide-eyed, voice barely above a whisper.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine," I said.

She hesitated. "You should be careful. Luna Lennon — she doesn't need a reason. Everyone knows that." She looked down the hallway where Lennon had disappeared. "Just — don't give her one."

She slipped away before I could respond.

I kept scrubbing.

***

That night I couldn't sleep.

I lay on my cot and stared at the ceiling until the pack house went quiet, and then I got up and walked — not going anywhere, just moving, because lying still with my own thoughts had become its own kind of unbearable.

The hallways at this hour were empty and dark. My feet knew the route without thinking about it.

That was the only reason I heard it.

Voices. Low, urgent, coming from behind a partially open door near the east corridor. Lennon's private study.

I should have kept walking.

I stopped.

I moved close to the wall, held my breath, and listened.

"—getting impatient." Lennon's voice, stripped of all the warmth she performed in public. "The vampires want their offering and they want it now."

My blood went cold.

I pressed closer, nudging the door an inch wider with my fingertips.

Three figures inside. Lennon near the desk. Amelia beside her, arms folded, expression composed. And a third — a man in black, face covered, posture tight with the specific tension of someone who was afraid of the people he was standing in front of.

"I'm handling it," he said.

"You've been handling it for two months," Amelia said sweetly. "Get as many omegas as you can. Suitable ones. Or I'll use you as the offering myself."

The man in black shifted. "I — I just think, with the Alpha so close by, the timing—" he swallowed audibly "—someone might notice the omegas going missing—"

Lennon moved so fast I barely tracked it.

One second she was by the desk. The next her hand was around his throat, claws extended, the partial shift rippling across her face — jaw elongating slightly, eyes going gold.

"Say that again," she said softly. "Tell me again about someone noticing."

"I— Luna, I—"

"If Aldric finds out." Her claws pressed in. "If anyone finds out — I will not simply kill you. I will make sure they find pieces of you in three different territories. Nod if you understand."

He nodded. Frantically.

She released him. Stepped back. Smoothed her dress.

"Next new dawn," she said, voice completely pleasant again. "I want the shipment ready."

"Yes." He was shaking. "Yes, I'll have them. I promise."

Amelia smiled the way she always smiled — warm, patient, impeccably timed.

"Wonderful. And not a whisper of suspicion from anyone." She tilted her head. "Not that it would matter. Even if someone did hear something—" her eyes swept the room "—who would believe them?"

I stepped back from the door.

One step. Then another. Slow and careful, every movement deliberate, until I'd put ten feet of hallway between myself and that room.

Then I pressed my back against the wall and stood there in the dark with my heart slamming against my ribs.

Vampires.

Omegas.

Sacrifice.

I pressed my hand over my mouth.

What the hell had I just heard?