The Shadow Empire [SAMPLE]

Chapter 1

Current day

"Wicked, wretched, or damned?"

Dark furrowed eyebrows and green eyes flickering in confusion is the only response I get.

"Well?" I prompt, taping my nails on the bar top impatiently. "Which are you?"

The patron blinks. "None of the above?" he answers, and it sounds more like a question. He pauses. "I hope."

I chuckle, finding his reply amusing. "If you're coming to The Shadow Empire, you're definitely one of them. So, what will it be?"

His eyes widen, as if he had just arrived at the gates of heaven and been turned away. Or maybe more accurately, at the gates of hell and been given a warm welcome.

"Oh, quit messing with the boy, Jade." My gaze slides to the right of the man who can't decide what kind of cursed he is, where Oliver tsks in disapproval. "He's new blood."

My lips curl up. "New blood, yeah? Let's hope not. The damned have quite a taste for that."

Oliver sighs, turning in his stool to face the new blood, who's eyes are peeled wide open. "You'll have to pardon Jade, she takes the role of the surly bartender a bit too seriously."

"Surly bar owner," I correct, lazily propping my elbow on the bar table. The new blood is lucky—or unlucky, rather—that it's slow enough for me to have the spare time to mess with him.

"Surly bar owner who also makes the drinks," Oliver amends, rolling his eyes as he looks back to the new guy. "Surly and rude as she is, she's correct. If you're here, you're one of them."

"How am I supposed to know?" New Blood asks with a twinge of exasperation.

Oliver shrugs. "Are you a vampire, werewolf, or witch?"

New Blood does a double take. If he's not careful, his eyes will pop out of his head, and I certainly won't be the one to put them back in. "Vampire, I guess."

"You guess or you are?"

Oliver groans in annoyance. "C'mon, Jade. This conversation is getting tedious, even for someone will an eternity's worth of time to waste vexing people."

"To be fair, I hex as much as I vex," I say mildly, running a damp rag over the bar table while we get this sorted.

"If that's the case, I feel bad for the city of Blackhelm, because you're always vexing people."

I wag a finger at him scoldingly. "Watch it, or I'll hex you."

He waves a thin white napkin in the air. "Alright, I surrender. But if you don't give the poor boy some help, he'll never be able to order."

"Is there a menu?" New Blood interjects hopefully.

"No." Why in God's cursed name would we have a menu? It would be more than suspicious if one left the building and a human saw a cup of blood offered at my respectable establishment.

"Just tell her if you're wicked, wretched, or damned and she'll make you something you'll like." Oliver nods in approval as he finishes his own glass of a little creation I call the Whitney Gobbler: a sweet whiskey garnished with seasonal fruit.

And, of course, blood.

"I don't know which one I am," New Blood practically yells.

I'm about to tell him not to yell at me in my own bar when a regular patron, Jackson, approaches and claps his broad shoulder. "He's a wretched, of course. One of ours."