Indebted to the Vampires

Piper

I could say one thing about Darren. He was efficient. He showed me the laundry room and where each of the masters kept their baskets for when I collected them.

Collecting them was a different matter.

I had no idea whose room was whose. I needed a map or labeling system. Unfortunately, I didn’t think that Darren was going to draw me a map.

Thankfully, I didn’t need one. The hallway Darren pointed me to, the one to the right side of the stairs from the front of the house, had a row of rooms that were in the order of the masters’ ages.

The first door on the left was Antoine’s, which I definitely didn’t want to go into. I didn’t think any of them would be awake by now and really didn’t want to go waking up my new bosses. However, it was on my to-do list. It wasn’t like I had a choice.

Darren didn’t offer me any tips for how to go about getting the laundry from the rooms, so I was on my own against six handsome strangers, two of which I knew didn’t like me. One of them wanted in my pants. And, well, the other three? I didn’t really know anything about them except they were large and Antoine’s warning about the twin tricksters.

Sighing, I decided to start with the last door, Rayne’s room. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I waited a moment and then knocked again. Still no answer.

Slowly, I turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. The room was dark, and no sign of life could be seen from where I stood. Inching inside, I glanced toward the bed. Empty.

Of all the brothers I sure as hell didn’t expect the youngest, who looked like he was barely twenty, would be up at the time of day. Man, I remembered what it was like to be that young. Okay, hold up. It was only a few years ago, okay, seven, but it’s not like it was that long ago. However, while I was in college, I didn’t get up before noon unless I absolutely had to. Even then, I made excuse after excuse to make my classes in the afternoon.

Sadly, sleep was one thing I had to give up when I ended up living in my car. It’s hard to sleep when anyone could come by and see me sleeping. I’d been woken up by a cop or two already for being parked in a no-parking zone for too long, not to mention the one time I woke up to a homeless man jerking off in front of my window.

I shuddered at the thought.

Not wanting to come face to face with the man himself, I hurried into the room and found his laundry basket. Of course, it stunk to high heaven. Full of basketball socks and wet towels, no doubt.

I dumped his basket into my bag and realized that one bag was not going to cut it. Groaning, I lugged the bag over my shoulder and sat it outside the door. So glad I chose to wear jeans and a t-shirt for this. I was not going to waste my good work clothes for lugging laundry around, especially, laundry that smelled like something had crawled up in it and died.

Pulling out another bag from the pile that Darren had given me, I went to the next room.

If memory served, it would be one of the twins. No idea which one it belonged to though since there were no names on the rooms. I knocked on their door just like I did Rayne’s and once more came up with no answer.

Shoving the door open, I wasted no time crossing the room and finding the laundry basket. Whichever’s room this was, at least they didn’t stink as bad as Rayne’s. Darren hadn’t been kidding about them being tidy though. Not a single sock or pair of jock shorts on the floor. Amused by the concept of a neat man, I dumped the basket into the bag. When done, I started for the door but paused at a side table where some mail sat.

Figuring I could use that to figure out which twin’s room it was, I picked up the first envelope I found. The front of it said it was from some company called Opos Bank. Shrugging it off as some odd-named bank, I glanced down at the name.

Allister Durand.

This was Allister’s room. I tapped the envelope on my hand and glanced around the room with a nod.

Good to know.

I returned the envelope to the side table and continued on my way. I went through the rest of the rooms, each one as empty as the last. I wasn’t sure if I was happy or disappointed about that. A small part of me hoped I’d at least catch one of them in their boxers or even coming out of the shower.

I drooled a bit as an image of a wet and naked Wynn came to mind. The tiny towel he was wearing in my mind barely covered anything, and he had a teasing grin on his face as he ‘accidentally’ dropped it.

“You seem to be doing alright.” The very voice of the man I was daydreaming about appeared before me. “And here I thought I’d check to make sure the locals hadn’t run you off yet.”

My face heated, and I ducked my head. “No, I’m alright. Actually, you’re the first I’ve seen other than Darren or Gretchen that is.” I gathered the bags up and started to lug them back toward the stairs. Man, this was harder than it looked.

“Want some help with that?” Wynn tried to help me pick up the bags, but I waved him off.

“No, I got it. It’s my job after all.”

Wynn laughed that delicious laugh of his, and I almost melted right there. “That may be, but you are clearly struggling. I’m just doing the gentlemanly thing by offering to help.”

Smiling despite myself, I let go of the bags and turned to him. “I suppose I could let you carry one.”

“Oh?” Wynn arched a brow and moved in closer, reaching out to take the bag. Our hands brushed against each other, and my breath caught.

After I reminded myself how to breathe, I licked my lips and offered him a weak smile. “Well, we can’t have it being said that you weren’t a gentleman, now can we?”

“No, I suppose not.” Wynn leaned toward me, and I was frozen to the spot. His piercing blue eyes locked with mine, his pupils dilating as his nostrils flared. My eyes started to flutter shut, but all of a sudden, Wynn backed away. “Your hand is bleeding again.”

My brows furrowed at his random statement. Glancing down at my injured hand, I could see the red bleeding through the bandage I had replaced after my shower this morning.

“Oh, I guess I am. Probably aggravated it with all the bag moving,” I murmured out loud. When I glanced up from my hand, Wynn was gone.

Staring at the place he had once stood, I wondered what his problem was. He had been nice enough to bandage my hand yesterday, but clearly, I had been right about him being queasy about blood. Although, that didn’t stop him from feeling up my hand and wrist last night.

Snorting, I shook my head. Strange men.

With Wynn gone, I had to take all the bags back downstairs myself, which ended up taking half the morning. By the time I was done, I stank worse than Rayne’s laundry. My stomach growled, ready to eat itself, and I wasn’t even half done with my chores.

I think I’d earned a break. At least, a snack. You know, to keep my strength up.

Gretchen wasn’t in the kitchen, nor Darren when I arrived. However, there was a sandwich sitting in the middle of the island with my name on a sticky note stuck to the edge of the plate. Pulling the plate over to the edge of the counter, I sat down with a sigh.

With no one there to bother me, I took my sweet time eating my sandwich and then putting my plate in the dishwasher. Feeling parched after my sandwich, I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Twisting the cap open, I chugged the cool liquid and waited for the clothes to buzz.

What would it be like to live in this house for real? Instead of me doing the laundry and cleaning, I’d be a lady of luxury. No need to work because I’d have millions I’d inherited from my parents. I tried to imagine what kind of parents the masters had. They were each so different it was hard to figure out if they had the same parents or if they were brothers by choice.

All I could say was they had good taste in siblings.

I giggled to myself and tossed my bottle in the trash as the clothes buzzed. I switched the clothes from the washer to the dryer and then headed toward the living room to work on the next item on my list.

It was strange. As I went through one chore after the other, besides the one appearance of Wynn, I didn’t run into any of the other brothers. Darren was the only one I saw, and usually, that was only for him to bark more orders at me or complain I wasn’t doing something right. It wasn’t until the sun had set and I was dead on my feet that I ran into one of the masters.

“Ah, so you’re still here.” Rayne appeared in the kitchen and opened the fridge. He pulled out a bottle with his name on the label and took a deep drink. There’s a bottle in there for each of them, but I wasn’t sure what exactly it was. I just assumed some kind of protein drink.

I watched as the bottle came down from Rayne’s mouth that his lips were stained red. Definitely some kind of health drink. I wanted to gag just thinking about it. No, thank you. I’d take my vegetables the all-natural way, not smashed or juiced to a pulp.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” I asked, digging my fork into the left-over container Gretchen had set out for me.

Rayne snorted. “We have a bet going actually.”

“A bet?” I choked on the drink I had just taken a gulp of. “Really?”

Beaming at me, Rayne nodded. “Yep. I bet you wouldn’t last a day.”

Rolling my eyes, I turned back to my food. “Well, you lost. I’m still here.”

“Not for long. Night’s fallen.” Rayne flashed his canines at me and walked out the door with his bottle in hand.

“Well, that was cryptic,” I muttered to myself and finished my meal. After I was done, I gathered up the laundry that had finished, preparing to take them back to their owner’s rooms before going to my room for the night.

Taking the clothes back was going to be harder than picking them up since my chances of running into one of my new employers was high. Thankfully, Rayne was doing whatever college-level douchebags did so I could easily drop his clothes off without a problem. The same went for Allister’s clothes. However, when I went to drop Drake’s clothing off, I wasn’t so lucky.

“Why hello there. Miss Billings, is it? Or can I call you Piper?” Drake grinned at me, his body only partly covered in a towel, his skin still wet from his shower. It was like he had read my mind and knew about my daydream earlier today, and as my eyes followed the trail of water moving down Drake’s rippling abs and to the bulge below the terry cloth, I knew I was in trouble.

Astronomically.