Chapter 2

CAERYN

My mother's expression softened. "He takes what he takes, Caeryn. We survive."

"We shouldn't have to."

The words slipped out before I could stop them. I felt my mother stiffen, her hands dropping from my face.

"Caeryn," she said quietly. "Don't."

I looked away. The fire crackled in the hearth, casting shadows across the stone walls. I could feel the rules pressing against my throat, demanding to be spoken, demanding to be obeyed.

Never question.

But I was so tired of just obeying everything. I was so tired of pretending that this was normal, that we were lucky, that survival was enough.

"I'm sorry," I sighed. "I didn't mean—"

"I know." She touched my chin, tilting my face back toward hers. "I know, little one. But you have to be careful. The walls here have ears."

I nodded. She was right. She was always right.

"Where's Father?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Washing the cars out back." She turned back to the dough, her hands resuming their steady rhythm. "He'll be in for breakfast soon. Sit and eat."

I slid onto the bench at the table, and she placed a warm roll in front of me, still steaming from the oven. I ate slowly, savoring the warmth, the softness, the rare sweetness of fresh bread. In the De Laurentis household, even food was a luxury. The Bound were fed, but not well. We were kept alive, nourished few enough times so our blood didn’t ‘loose flavor’.

As I ate, I watched my mother work. She moved with ease, her hands shaping the dough into perfect loaves. But I noticed the way she favored her left side, the way she winced when she reached too far. The feeding had taken more out of her than she was willing to admit.

I thought of my grandmother.

She had died when I was twelve, drained too many times, too close together, until her body simply gave out. I remembered her hands, gnarled and thin, resting on her chest in the hours before she passed. I remembered the way she had looked at me, her eyes clouded with pain and something that might have been pity.

"Don't fight them," she had whispered. "Don't fight, Caeryn. You must survive."

I have been surviving ever since.

The kitchen door creaked open, and my father stepped inside. He was a tall man, or he had been once, now his shoulders were stooped, his spine curved from years of labor. His hands were stained with grease and oil, and there was a smear of dirt across his cheek. He looked tired. He always looked tired.

But when he saw me, he smiled. "Caeryn."

I rose and crossed to him, letting him wrap me in his arms. He smelled of motor oil and cold air, and his embrace was strong despite his weariness.

"You're up early," he said.

"So are you."

He chuckled, a low, rasping sound. "Couldn't sleep. The cars don't wash themselves."

I pulled back, looking at him. His face was weathered, lined with the years of servitude, but his eyes were kind. They had always been kind. It was a miracle, I thought, that the De Laurentis family had never managed to take that from him.

"Did you eat?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Not yet. Thought I'd join you and your mother first."

My mother smiled over her shoulder. "Sit down, old man. I'll bring you a plate."

We sat together at the long wooden table, the three of us, a small island of warmth in the vast, cold sea of De Laurentis manor. My father ate hungrily, tearing into the bread and cheese like a man who hadn't eaten in days. My mother watched him with a soft expression, her hand resting on his arm.

I watched them both.

They had been Bound, just like me. My mother had been raised in these halls, had learned the rules from her mother before her. My father had been brought in as a child, an orphan from the outer villages, chosen for his strength and his blood. They had fallen in love somewhere between the feedings and the fear, and had somehow found each other in a world that made them into nothing.

They had chosen each other.

Sometimes I wondered if that was brave or foolish. Love, in a place like this, seemed like a cruel joke. It gave you something to lose.

But watching them now, my father's hand finding my mother's under the table, the way she leaned into him, the quiet comfort they took in each other's presence, I understood. They had needed each other. They had needed something to hold onto in the darkness.

I had never had that.

I had never let myself want it.

"Caeryn," my mother said, breaking the silence. "You're scheduled in the heir's chambers today, aren't you?"

I nodded. My rotation had changed last week, a sudden shift that no one had explained. The servants' assignments were usually fixed, unchanging for months at a time. But someone had decided that I should serve the heir's quarters now, and no one had told me why.

"Be careful," my father said quietly. "I've heard things about the young master."

"What things?"

He exchanged a glance with my mother. "He's... different."

"Different how?"

"He doesn't feed." My mother's voice was barely a whisper. "Not from humans. Not from anyone, they say he refuses."

I frowned. A vampire who didn't feed? It was unheard of. The De Laurentis fed on the Bound like we were cattle, taking what they needed without thought or hesitation. The idea of one of them choosing not to, it made no sense.

"Why?"

"We don't know." My father shook his head. "But he's the heir, Caeryn. The future master of this house. Whatever he is, whatever he does, don't cross him. Don't draw his attention."

Keep your head down.

Never question an order.

Never look a vampire in the eyes for too long.

"I won't," I said.

But even as I spoke, I felt something stirring in my chest. A flicker of curiosity, small and dangerous. A vampire who refused to feed. An heir who was different from the rest. What did that mean? What kind of man…what kind of monster chose to starve rather than take what was freely offered?

I pushed the thought away. It didn't matter. Whoever Malcolm De Laurentis was, he was still a vampire. Still my master and he was still the reason my family wore bandages around their necks, wrists and hearts.

I was bound, nothing more.