Excerpt: ???

There was a figure in the darkness. In typical “I’m an evil villain fear and love me!” fashion, it was cloaked with a hood, sitting on a throne made of something that looked like gold. In reality, it was just a really good paint job. Hey, even the villain falls on hard times.

Athna knelt at the bottom of the stereotypical stairs, fighting the urge to sigh and roll her eyes. In the dark, dim light (even though it was noon. That drove her crazy, after so many years of serving this jackass, never being able to hold a meeting in the fucking sunlight. But hey, what can you do when your boss is a vampire?)

“You are late.” The voice startled her out of her inner monologue. For all he tried to play the regal Overlord, her darling boss fell very flat with his voice. Alonzo had been turned just a few months shy of his 13th birthday, and hadn’t quite made it to puberty. Every now and again, the high, nasal whine that Athna had to listen to every day would crack, and trying to pretend that wasn’t the most hilarious thing in the world was really, really hard to do.

All she had to do was remind herself that she worked for this eternally pubescent dick, though, and that brought her back down to heart.
“I had some personal business to attend to,” she replied, trying to keep her voice as steady as she could, torn between disgust for the circumstances that had lead to her having to take this job and utter amusement at the kid trying to keep his voice from leaping higher with his frustration. She tilted her head up, trying (and failing, but what did she expect when he was in the goddamn dark?) to read his facial expressions.

“Our mission,” Alonzo stressed, one long-nailed hand gripping the ornamental balls on his throne tighter, “is far more important than running to a filthy Human bank.” Despite the cracking, he managed to sound smug, and she bit back the growl rising in her throat, settling for tightening her grip on her robes. (Man, she hated those robes, but every job had a dress code…)

“I am sorry,” she managed, clenching her jaw. “My insurance was out of date.”