“You’re new?” I heard a female voice behind me. I turned around.
“I am.”
“Fresh meat’s always in high demand. Yours will be choice.” A woman with a short but very wild black mop of hair pinched my cheek. “So young.”
“Everyone seems to feel that way, though I don’t feel particularly young.”
“Ah, but you are. Just look at the place.”
She felt behind my back. At first, I couldn’t figure out why, until I realized that she was stroking the uneven place on my flesh where I’d been branded. “Still hurt?”
“Not really.”
“You’re Sergei’s,” she said, seeing the wreath of flowers at my ankle.
“And you too?”
“No. Heavens no. And glad for it too. He’ll work you hard.”
“That’s what I want,” I said haughtily.
“Let her go, Cece, she’s got work to do.” The hostess from the foyer was passing by us,
