Mercy's Debt (Montgomery's Vampires Series Book One) by Sloan Archer Read Free Book Online

appreciate their privacy. I’ll give you the address now. Let me know when you’re ready.”
    I grabbed a pin from my nightstand and flipped over the card. “Ready.”
    S he gave me the address and we exchanged pleasantries as the conversation came to an end.
    “Oh, there’s just one more thing, Mercy .”
    “Yes?”
    “Wear something sexy.”

 
    FIVE
     
    Dignitary was situated in an outlying suburb of San Francisco in a very exclusive side of town.
    The business itself was located inside of a house, but that didn’t really concern me much. Due to the density and lack of space in the city, many Bay Area companies were run out of residential neighborhoods.
    I’d been so worried about being late that I ended up arriving ten minutes early. I parked half a block away and sat in my car, scoping the house while trying not to look like a burglar casing the joint. I primped in the rearview mirror, adding more lipstick and adjusting my breasts in such a way that made my cleavage more buoyant.
    I thought I looked okay; not amazing and not horrible, just okay.
    As I’d been a broke student for the past four years, and then just broke in general, I didn’t really have a lot of clothes in the “sexy” department. I opted to wear simple black heels (and by “opted,” I mean that it was all that I had), which were the same shoes that I wore to my more “legit” job interviews.
    I also donned a slinky hand-me-down wrap dress that had been given to me by Liz, fretting about whether its light blue color was suitable for an evening get-together. Liz, beanpole that she was, was a couple of sizes smaller than me, so the jersey fabric the dress was made of pulled against my body in a way that I hoped was vaguely sensual. I felt more appropriately outfitted to go to a christening than to meet Michael and Marlena at the mysterious Dignitary to discuss God knows what, but it was the best I could muster on such short notice. I didn’t exactly make it a habit of meeting strangers late at night, so if I wasn’t hot enough, they could just sue me.
    E ven though it may have been foolish of me to meet with Michael and Marlena on my own, I hadn’t thrown caution completely into the wind. I left a note for Liz providing the address of my whereabouts, should I happen to disappear. Liz having the address really wouldn’t matter much if I wound up dead in a ditch somewhere, but the preemptive measure, no matter how useless, gave me some semblance of security.
    The house was painted a soft salmon shade. It looked like it had been taken straight out of the French Quarter in New Orleans and plunked down right in the middle of San Francisco. It was from a more graceful era, a time when one would sit on the porch drinking mint juleps, uttering pleasantries like “goodness gracious” and “I do declare.”
    I smoothed down the front of my dress, suddenly feeling a tad ratty and unbefitting for such an elegant environment.
    I raised my hand to knock on the door, but it opened before my knuckles could make contact against the thick wood. A woman wearing a tailored pantsuit the color of cream smiled out at me from inside the house.
    She was an amazon, about the same height as Liz, but built differently. She had one of those rare, almost unachievable body shapes that combined a perfect mixture of feminine curves and taut muscles. Her alabaster skin glowed from within like she’d been using fireflies as vitamins. Her bouncy hair hung loosely around her shoulders and was a shade I’d never seen before, a fiery copper with iridescent gold highlights. Her face was youthful but also shrewd, so it was difficult to guess her age, which I approximated to be around thirty.
    To state that the woman was merely “attractive” would not do her beauty justice. This was the kind of woman who inspired songs and maybe even a few suicides. I continued staring like a simpleton until her dazzling emerald eyes met mine.
    “You must be Mercy,” she said. It was