Page 4 of Bleed

I lean back, stretching my arms over my head. “Concerned doesn’t pay rent,” I reply simply.

That shuts him up.

Silence settles over the room, all three of us thinking the same thing. That as far as making money goes, it almost seems too easy.

“Feels like a trap,” Dev mutters finally.

“Everything’s a trap,” I sigh. “At least this one pays well.”

Alaia giggles softly, her eyes flicking between us. “I mean… we’ve done worse for less.”

Another understatement.

Dev once snorted a shot of Jägermeister for twenty bucks, which was hardly worth the hour he spent puking in the bathroom afterwards.

I grin, pushing up out of the chair and crossing the room. Snagging the card from Alaia’s fingers, I twirl it between mine as I head toward the kitchen.

“This seems like a bad idea,” Devin grumbles.

“Bad ideas are kinda our brand,” I shoot back, pulling open the fridge and grabbing a beer off the shelf.

My roommates’ recklessness is part of what drew me to them in the first place. Wild recognizes wild, and the three of us are cut from the same cloth, our skin branded with tattoos and our souls tarnished by bad decisions.

The last girl I lived with kicked me out because she didn’t like the way her boyfriend stared when I walked around in my underwear, but that’s never been an issue here. Alaia and Devin are free spirits like me– messy, chaotic, and impossible to scandalize. The only person I’d probably rather live with is my best friend Taylor, but she’s never really been a roommate kind of girl, making this arrangement the next best thing.

“So, are you in or what?” I ask as I turn back around, nudging the door closed with a hip.

“Of course I’m in,” Devin scoffs, the corner of his mouth quirking despite himself.

I pop the cap off my beer and tip the bottle toward him in a mock toast, grinning wickedly before taking a long sip.

I can already feel it– something shifting, like a door cracking open just enough to let something new slip through.

Opportunity. Risk. Something bigger than the same cycle we’ve been stuck in.

Tomorrow, I’ll call.

Tomorrow, everything changes.

Chapter

Two

NOW

Asleek black car waits at the curb when I step out of my building, the engine purring low beneath the glow of a flickering streetlight.

Right on time.

The click of my heels echoes down the street as I make my way toward it, not in any particular rush. I’ve learned how this world operates over the past six months, and it didn’t take long to figure out who really holds the power in an underground blood economy.

Spoiler alert: it isn’t the vampires.

They may be intimidating as a species, but outlawing live feedings has tipped the scales. If a vamp wants to feed directly from a living source, they have to play by the agency’s rules. They can send out as many ‘engagement’ requests as they want, but donors are the ones who decide whether to accept or decline– which means, at the end of the day, we’re the real commodity.

It’s an intoxicating feeling to be the one holding all the cards for once.

Onyx silk slides over my skin as I move, the designer-label dress hugging my petite body like it was made for me. It’s ridiculously expensive– the kind of thing I never would’ve even tried on six months ago, let alone owned. Now, it’s just part of my regular wardrobe; attire fit for an engagement with a wealthy immortal.