“Miss Sears, try to stay out of Mrs. Donovan’s way for the rest of the night. And you should definitely keep your distance from her husband,” Marcus ordered.
The blonde walked away, a sheen of tears in her eyes.
I turned on my husband and pointed at him. “You have a lot of explaining to do. I believe that you didn’t sleep with her, but that girl is obviously in love with you. She was hurt. You should have told me about her and don’t throw Dev in my face because I never hid him from you.”
“How can you hide him from me when he’s always on top of you?” Daniel asked, still seemingly confused by the entire episode.
“I’m not always on top,” Dev replied. “I often enjoy being on bottom. I like the view.”
Daniel had gotten good at ignoring Dev. “Z, I had no idea she thought that about us. I swear I just needed someone to talk to, and she was a good listener. Hell, most of the time I was talking about you. I never said anything to make her believe she was more than a friend.”
“I’ll have her reassigned,” Marcus said with an imperious wave. “I won’t have her causing trouble. The last thing we need is our slaves wreaking havoc. I warned you about getting too friendly with them, Daniel.”
“Slaves?” I asked, my voice tight.
Daniel grinned at his patron. “I’ll leave you to the explanations. I have to set up.” He kissed me hard and quick. “Stay out of trouble, Z.”
As I watched him disappear down the hall, I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be easy.
“Come, cara.” Marcus offered me his arm. “You can rail at the injustices of our world in the parlor.”
“So slaves?” I let Marcus lead me down the hall.
Marcus shrugged. “Of course. Did you expect vampires to run the club? We have human slaves to do menial labor.”
“By menial labor he means all labor,” Dev pointed out helpfully.
“How exactly does one become a slave?” I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear the answer, but it was like a car accident.
Marcus stopped and looked at me like I was the most naïve of children. “One is born a slave, Zoey. It isn’t difficult. The slaves mate and create new slaves. I believe the modern term is ‘renewable resource.’”
I felt my blood pressure rise. “Marcus Vorenus, that is the most horrible thing I have ever heard. Are you telling me you’ve enslaved entire generations of humans so you don’t have to worry about payroll?”
“Well, not me personally,” Marcus replied. “It’s the way of our world.”
I made the horrible mistake of looking into one of the rooms we were standing near. It was small, but there were two females and one male sitting on a leather couch. They were wearing little in the way of clothing. There was a desk where a man sat with a large book in front of him. Alexander Sharpe stood in front of the desk.
“I’ll take the blonde,” he said in his crisp British accent. The man at the desk signed out Alexander’s dinner and the poor blonde found herself on the creepy vamp’s arm. Alexander nodded at me. “Good evening, Mrs. Donovan. I’m surprised Daniel brought you here. He always swore he would never bring his precious blood to a place like this.”
“Sharpe.” Marcus acknowledged the Brit. “Mrs. Donovan is here at Louis’s pleasure. Daniel isn’t happy about it. I would advise you to make her stay as pleasant as possible or he’ll be unhappy with you, too.”
“We couldn’t have that now, could we?” Alexander said enigmatically as he ushered his dinner up the stairs.
I shook off the need to shower again. I felt that way every time I found myself in the same room as Alexander. “So that girl—who may or may not survive the night—is a slave, and her parents were slaves before that.”
Marcus nodded. “Yes, Zoey. How did you think we filled positions? Did you think we held a job fair? All the humans here are slaves in one form or another. They were either born into slavery or chose to enter it because they wished to serve Vampire. Ms. Sears was born a slave. She grew up in a vampire household and proved to be intelligent and organized. She was trained to run a business and was promoted to manager of this club. Now she will be demoted to blood slave. I warned Daniel he should feed from all of them so as not to show favoritism.”
“Please don’t, Marcus.” I didn’t want to give a crap about her but an unwanted sympathy was creeping in. “Don’t demote her. It’s Danny’s fault. I don’t really blame her. If I had to live like she does, I would have fallen for the first decent man to come my way, too.”
“You’re too kindhearted, cara,” Marcus said. “She’ll cause trouble.”
“Maybe she’ll start a slave uprising and I can join in,” I replied tartly.
Marcus shook his head Dev’s way. “Who does she think runs her household? Who does she think cooks her meals and cleans the rooms of her home?”
I slowly turned to look at Dev, who was doing the running-two-fingers-across-his-throat thing to tell Marcus to cut it out.
I smiled up sweetly at my lover. “You pay Albert, right?”
“Of course,” Dev replied, lying straight through those perfect teeth.
“Albert’s a slave?”
“Not at all, my love.” Dev took one of my hands in his. “Albert is family. Just because I bought him at an auction doesn’t make him any less a member of our little family.”
My mouth fell open, and I just stared at the two of them.
“Fae society is full of slaves,” Marcus pointed out.
“That is a complete lie,” Dev returned. “We don’t consider them slaves. They’re serfs and vassals. It’s a completely different thing.”
“Yes,” Marcus murmured. “It is different because you use different words. The result is the same. Zoey, you’re surrounded by slaves. It’s a fact of the world you live in.”
I poked Dev in the chest. “You’re going to free Albert the second we get home. You’re going to offer him a generous salary, medical and dental, and a 401k.”
Dev smiled smoothly. “Of course, darling. I’ll throw in some vacation time as well.”
“Do you always just give in like that?” Marcus asked.
Dev shrugged. “Absolutely. It’s so much easier than arguing. I’d spend hours with her pissed at me and I’d only give in anyway, so I make my life simpler and just lay down in the beginning. When I first met Zoey, I promised I would lay down for her anytime she liked. I keep my promises.”
Just as I was about to start walking again, Chad came down the stairs. He looked nothing like the sweet, smart lawyer I’d met a year before. He was like sin on two legs. His hair was longer, framing his handsome face. He wore tight black leather pants that showed off his lean physique to spectacular advantage. His white shirt was half opened, revealing his sculpted chest. This Chad was a rock and roll god.
“I’d like to speak to Zoey for a moment, Marcus,” Chad requested with a slight smile.
Marcus glanced around to see if anyone else was noticing the exchange. “All right, but be careful. You’re not supposed to know her.”
Chad took my hand and led me quickly up the stairs and to a bedroom. He shut the door behind us and sighed. “How are you doing, Zoey?”
“I’m all right.” I waited for him to ask me the question I didn’t want to answer. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. I’m turning out to be quite the spy. I’ve gotten close to Marini. He’s taken with my talents. It’s about to get bad, Zoey. You have to warn my master. Marini is doing things behind his back that Marcus doesn’t even know about. In the last few months, he’s ordered the executions of three powerful werewolf alphas in Europe. He’s intensely interested in subjugating the wolves as they were when the vampires were powerful. He believes he can do this by putting Daniel in a corner. He’ll work on the wolves in Europe and then force Daniel to bring the American wolves in line.”