“I have other matters to attend to…pompous ass,” I mutter as I throw back what’s left of the covers and wobble over to the light switch. Fake, fluorescent light floods the room and reveals what I hadn’t noticed before; beyond the cutout screens of mythical animals as they frolic lie a desk, armoire, and chaise lounge grouping complete with reading lamp. I feel like I’ve fallen into a super-sweet-something party where everything coordinates and there should be eighteen to thirty screaming teenagers in fluffy dresses bursting through the door any moment. I turn on the reading lamp and turn off the overhead, feeling like if I puked it would be in pastels at this point. “This is why people have trouble accepting reality when they get kicked out of mommy and daddy’s house,” I mutter, turning back to the armoire and tearing through it in search of actual clothes.

Given that I woke up in a sexy Victorian nightmare I should have expected my search to be futile, but I still tear though the closet even though the tags on the garments that have tags are disheartening, to say the least.

“What a crappy joke to play, even for vampires!” I shout, noticing that everything is two, if not four, sizes too small. “This is really low,” I mumble, searching through the scraps that might make up clothing, if I knew how to arrange them in such a way to completely cover my naughty bits. Throwing yet another piece of ‘clothing’ that’s actually lingerie across the room, I catch sight of myself in the mirrored door of the closet and I gasp.

Never—not once—in my adult life have I dreamed of looking the way I do when I peer into this mirror. All the dieting and exercising, all the cross-training and mixed martial arts classes, all the pills and potions and fat-targeting lotions haven’t done a damned bit of good budging me from a configuration once called, ‘pleasant, pretty, but not gorgeous’ as an ex-boyfriend once said when he thought I wasn’t listening.

And all that has changed. Pounds have melted off my middle and stuffed themselves in my chest. My bottom is suddenly perky and lean, the perfect capstone to the toned, flawless legs it perches on. My hair shines with commercial-like radiance and every inch of my skin; every scar, every scrape, every scratch that marred perfection has been erased and replaced with pale, creamy incandescence. (The vampirism didn’t account for my paleness, by the way, I was pale to begin with. There are African-American vampires and they aren’t ashy at all, just so you know—vampirism doesn’t wash you out, it just impedes any attempt to acquire a tan.) I can’t even form a thought, not even enough to ask what happened to me, but the soft laughing in my mind is probably just hysteria edging in.

In the end I have to settle on a pair of black silk pajama pants and the matching camisole with its spaghetti straps. It’s a lot like what I was wearing originally, but since it’s black and clean it somehow feels more appropriate. Then I turn my back on the armoire and its host of indecent, lacy, strappy, vinyl and velvet horrors.

Thus attired, I make my way over to the door and even IF they’re been hinges on the INSIDE of my prison (which there aren’t) the massive structure would probably have impeded my attempts to lever my way free anyway.

That would have been too easy, Jarvis whispers through my mind and I snarl.

That would have been sloppy, I snarl back and he chuckles before retreating. “Wait!” I shout, both in my head and out loud,

Yes my pet? he murmurs and I snap,

“I’m not a goddamn pet!” it soothes me to some extent to say the words out loud as well as in my head. It makes me feel less crazy, though I’ve always known that vampires were telepathic to some extent. ”I want out,”

When you’re ready, Jarvis says, his mental tone distracted (and if that isn’t enough to piss off a newly-Turned vampire, I don’t know what is) and it pushes me over that edge that always kept me from acting out.

I slam my fist into the door—no longer caring, as I once would have, that it will hurt—and the door shudders in its frame as an impact crater the size of a Pilates balance ball appears as if by magic. No, not magic, my fist. I smile wickedly and think, cool…

CEASE THIS INSTANT!!! Jarvis shouts inside my mind and I fall to the floor clutching my now-ringing skull. The second I can think straight again I reply,

“Let me out,” and I hear him snarl before going silent. “How much do you like this door?” I ask sweetly and am answered by a growl and,

Promise that you won’t attempt to escape or kill who I send to open that door and I will let you out of that room,

“Promise that they won’t attempt to kill me,” I snap and he sends me crashing to the floor once more by shouting,

I WILL NOT BE TRIFLED WITH, WOMAN! And I want to bark with amusement but I can’t do anything but smile as I fight to peel myself up off the rug.

“Fine,” I mutter, willing to concede to what would be an entirely reasonable request, if I actually cared about my continued existence. Almost instantly the door swings open, revealing that same southern vampire (Archard, I remind myself) is standing before me, a disapproving moue staining his features.

“Honestly, have you no couth?” he asks in his deep-drawl and I can’t but help but give him a saucy smile before answering,

“Honestly, don’t you know no one uses the word ‘couth’ anymore?” Archard tries to look deeply offended but instead winds up looking comical and I have to clasp my hands over my mouth as a tittering giggle attempts to force itself past my lips.

“If you were my daughter, I’d call you a brat,” he continues, sweeping his arm toward the massive stone hallway to indicate that I should take the lead. I step past him and mutter,

“I don’t think what Jarvis has for me is fatherly affection,”

“Master Jarvis,” he interrupts and I stop, glaring at him. A small eternity of moments pass before I see in his expression that my eyes have stopped swirling like a blue-green cataract of white-water and he continues, “It is best that you make some attempt to appease him, as he IS the Master of every vampire in Haven.”

“Yours perhaps,” I reply, and the conversation stops right there. “Where shall we go?”

“Where do you want to go?” Archard asks, wincing as I say,

“Home,”

“Within the mansion?” he amends as quickly as he can. I look up and down the dark hallway and everything is huge and uninteresting.

“The library,” I settle on, wanting the quiet, undemanding companionship of books instead of all these strange, new, potentially violent people.

“That,” Archard starts and I cut him off,

“There IS a library in this overblown mausoleum, isn’t there? Or do vampires prefer the mind-numbing uselessness of TV in this day and age?” A distant look crosses his features for only a moment before he inclines his head toward me.

“As you wish,” he replies, before taking the lead and moving swiftly down the hall.

What the hell? I wonder to myself and mercifully, no one answers.