My Blood Tastes Sweet

Chapter 2

To everyone else, Elliot Ashford was the most desirable bachelor in high society.

The Ashford family had moved to Vesperton 10 years earlier. With their immense wealth, they quickly became one of the city's most powerful families.

Elliot was the sole heir of his generation and handsome enough to turn almost any woman's head. His features were sharp and striking, and his gaze was always cool and distant.

Whenever he appeared at an exclusive party, his pale skin and powerful build set him apart from every other wealthy heir in the room. He moved with the easy confidence of someone born into old money, and even his smile was polished yet distant.

Countless women dreamed of being the one who stayed by his side, catered to his every need, and received priceless jewelry whenever the mood struck him.

What they didn't know was that Elliot was more than 200 years old.

He was a vampire.

The Ashfords belonged to an ancient pureblood line, the closest thing vampires had to aristocracy. Elliot needed human blood regularly to maintain both his strength and his sanity.

In public, the Ashfords passed for human. To keep their secret safe, they relocated every few years. Only Elliot's personal maid, the woman he fed from, knew the whole truth. Most of the other servants at Ashford Manor had no idea what he really was.

In more than 200 years, Elliot had gone through more personal maids than anyone could count. Their real duty was always the same: whenever he needed to feed, they had to bare their necks for him.

His personal maid appeared to be an ordinary servant, but in truth, she was his blood servant.

Elliot had a volatile temper, and many of his personal maids lasted less than a month.

I first saw him under a full moon. He held me tight against his chest and breathed in my scent with his eyes half-closed, as though I were the finest thing he had ever tasted.

Elliot said I was obedient and that my blood tasted better than anyone else's. I had lasted longer than any of his previous personal maids, which made me his favorite blood servant.

What he never understood was that I didn't want to be his blood servant at all.

On some nights, when he was in a good mood, he fed gently. He would lick my skin first and take care not to bite too deeply. Afterward, he would lick away the last trace of blood and press lingering kisses to the wound so his saliva could help it heal.

When he finished, he carried me back to bed, weak from blood loss, and tucked the blanket around me. At times like those, he could almost pass for a tender, attentive gentleman.

When he was agitated, however, every trace of restraint vanished. One bite could drain enough blood to make me lose consciousness.

Once, for reasons I never learned, he went completely wild. His fangs tore into my carotid artery. Pain ripped through me, and I clutched the sheets as a cry escaped my throat.

My cry only seemed to excite him. He left bites across my neck, lower abdomen, waist, and thighs. By the time he was done, my body was covered in raw, bleeding wounds.

Even when I was barely conscious, he still hadn't had enough. He lifted my thigh and licked the blood from the wounds there. In the moonlight, his red eyes locked with mine.

In that instant, I understood with terrifying clarity that he was nothing like me. He was a powerful predator who could take my life without a second thought.

I had never been so afraid.

I never knew how long he kept going. I passed out from blood loss before he finally stopped.

When I woke, I was lying in his bed. The Ashford family's private physician had given me a blood transfusion and bandaged the wounds that were still open. He said I would have died if treatment had been delayed by another 30 minutes.

Elliot sat on a nearby sofa with one leg crossed over the other, calmly reading a book.

He didn't even look up when he said, "Fine. I'll be more careful next time."

'But what does that change?'

The next time he needed blood, I would still have to offer him my neck, even though the sight of his fangs made my entire body shake.

He gave me the necklace after that attack. He called it a cheap trinket from an auction and said it wasn't worth much.

I later learned that the necklace was called "The Tear of the Deep." It was one of a kind, set with an exceptional pigeon blood ruby from Lumeria. An antique dealer valued it at more than 10 million dollars. Only an ancient vampire clan like the Ashfords could get their hands on something so rare.

The necklace also had another purpose.

Once a blood servant put it on, the vampire she served could track her wherever she went.

The moment Elliot fastened it around my neck, he forbade me from ever removing it.

It wasn't a gift. It was a chain binding me to him.

The one million dollars a year, the priceless necklace, and every other luxury the maids envied had all been bought with my blood and my life.

Megan knew none of that. She saw only the money and jewelry and thought I had been handed the opportunity of a lifetime.

I didn't explain the truth. Instead, I encouraged her.

"Go after the position if you want it."

She froze, apparently surprised by how calmly I responded. A moment later, her confidence returned.

"Don't worry. I'm going to get that job."

I turned and walked away.

A cold draft swept through the corridor. I touched the blood servant mark behind my ear, and tears pricked my eyes.

If I could, I'd run out of this manor right now and never come back.

But I couldn't leave.

Elliot wouldn't let me leave.