Page 28 of Cloak of the Vampire
When he looked away and walked over to his desk, I exhaled the breath I had been holding in.
“Until then,” Abe said, now shuffling papers on his desk, “we’ll talk about the Auction.”
Murmurs broke out around the room, but with one piercing look from Abe, they ceased. He took his usual position in front of his desk, extending his legs out in front of him and crossing them.
“The Auction is a tradition that goes way back to the first vampires. It allows vampires—both newcomers like yourself and older ones—to cross over to a new League and start fresh. For newcomers, it is compulsory to participate. Do you understand why?”
I had a guess. I believed Ragnor and the other Lords wanted to stack their Leagues with as many Gifteds as possible, leaving little room for Commons. Anyone would prefer having Gifteds after all, right?
Considering everything I’d learned so far, it seemed that there were way too many Common vampires around, and no League needed or wanted that many of them. And just like that, a realization crawled across my mind, so cold that it made me shiver. The people in my class were not just my classmates. They were my competitors. And we had better start figuring out how to distinguish ourselves from one another and from the Gifteds, or we wouldn’t survive past the Auction.
“So if we’re all Commons and there are more of us than there are of Gifteds ...,” I mumbled from the back of the classroom. Abe looked at me with a small smile as if he’d been waiting for someone to get it.
“Continue, Aileen,” Abe said, his smile getting bigger as he pointed to me.
Everyone turned to look at me, and I shrank a bit more in my chair, hoping Abe would let it go, ignore me, and keep teaching.
“Continue, Aileen. You’re onto something,” Abe said, now standing with his hands on both hips and nodding in my direction.
I cleared my throat before continuing, then sat up in my chair.
“If we are all Commons and there are more of us than there are of Gifteds and limited space in the Leagues, then some of us won’t be here after the Auction. Some of us won’t make it,” I said, almost in a trance.
With a satisfied look on his face, Abe shook his head as if I had just solved the Da Vinci code.
“The Lords conduct a thorough background check on each candidate for the Imprint,” Abe said. “Everything about you, from the day you were born until the day you ended up here, is known and discussed by Lords across all the Leagues. But what mattersnowis your performance as a part of your League. You need to contribute to earn your place, and this is why you’ve been given temporary occupations—to help uncover your hidden talents and see if you can become an integral part of a League. You then present your skills at the Auction, and the Lords have the option of buying out each of you if you fit their purposes and job vacancies.”
It was a nice way to say we were all replaceable, and I believe that the occupations we were assigned played a part in it. For instance, Tansy got a job with Margarita at the Vampire Resources office, while I got kitchen duty. That said everything I needed to know.
Others seemed to think so, too, because Bryce, ever the cocky fucker, raised his hand. “Our jobs are a sign of future success, right?”
Of course he would think that. Bryce was the epitome of toxic masculinity. I was surprised Margarita hadn’t put him in his place yet.
“That is correct.” Abe nodded. “Some of you, the Lord wants here. He will bid on you at the Auction if this is the case.”
Jakob raised his hand as well. “A few of us have a meeting with the Lord today,” he said. “What does it mean?”
“Most likely, he wants to get to know you a little bit before the Auction,” Abe answered. “All of you will have meetings with him throughout this week.”
While the others seemed excited, I grimaced. There would be no getting to knowme.
I was a monster in disguise, after all, and I doubted monsters would sell well.
Abe must’ve seen that classroom spirits had plummeted, because he gave us a twenty-minute break after merely forty-five minutes of class. Once Abe walked out of the class, my classmates launched a heated, furious discussion about everything Abe had explained about the Auction.
I didn’t feel like listening. Instead, I felt like I needed to do something with myself before I went insane and punched someone. So I got up and stormed out of the room and walked down the hallway, just to put some distance between me and the others. I needed to be alone.
Unfortunately, alone time wasn’t in the cards for me, because when I turned a corner, I almost crashed into someone. Pausing, I raised my eyes and saw Cassidy in front of me, her gaze like a deer caught in the headlights when she realized I was standing right there.
Seeing her, I snapped. Squaring my shoulders and jutting my chin, I folded my arms and snarled, “You owe me some explanations.”
She looked anywhere but at my face. “Not now, Aileen—”
“Yes, now,” I cut her off. “I played along when you wanted to pretend like we were strangers.” I paused, seeing the perspiration glistening on her forehead. Her evident discomfort made me even angrier. “It’s time you return the favor.”
She paled and tensed. “What do you want?” she asked in a small, timid voice.
I didn’t waste any time. “Were you on the waiting list?”
