A/N Sorry, guys! Magical PR 101 is indefinitely on hold. I encourage you to check out my main story, Paladin.

For the umpteenth time, I wondered what the hell I'd been thinking when I accepted the job offer.

My very first week on the job, and I'd managed to spill coffee on three separate occasions, delete several important client documents - oh, and create grounds for magical warfare of epic proportions.

Luckily, the latter issue had been settled, thanks to a few placating emails from my boss, Jim. Really, it was amazing I hadn't been fired yet.

Instead, Jim, a gruff, middle-aged werewolf, simply clapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Buck up, newbie. I'll be damned if someone doesn't declare war before the day's out."

Ever since the magical world went public - nearly a decade ago - I 'd been fascinated by all that goes bump in the night. I even majored in Inter-Species Politics in college, with a specialization in vamp-human relations. That's why, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and touting my brand new diploma, I had applied for a job with Wickman and Burnham's, the top public relations agency for Inter-Species Affairs in New York.

Wickman and Burnham was the oldest PR agency on the East Coast and one of the first to open a practice devoted to the needs of nonhumankind. In fact, W&B had handled the media campaign for the weres and vamps going public, which was widely viewed by the media as a great success. Of course, other public relations firms had since entered the scene, as magical acceptance and integration was an ongoing process. Even the most successful PR campaign couldn't erase the prejudices of a millennium of fairy tales. And besides, the weres and vamps had accumulated quite a bit of wealth in their extended lifetimes, and the magical affairs field was proving to be very lucrative.

Given my vamp specialization, I'd been assigned to the Vampire Rossi account, a powerful Italian-American family of vampires with deeply entrenched roots in the Big Apple. Many suspected the Rossis of ties to the mafia, but being new to the job, I wasn't yet privy to whether there was any truth behind the rumor.

"Newbie!" Bossman barked. I jumped at his voice, knocking my fourth cup of coffee over. Into my computer. Rats. IT was going to kill me.

As I started to grab napkins to clean up the spill - I now kept a stash at my desk - Jim growled, "For the love of...Corrie, stop that for a moment. About the Rossi account."

I stopped my frantic wiping.

"You've got a meeting with the Rossi client tonight. Drinks at 9 at The Graveyard. I assume you know the basics?"

I recited by rote: "Don't use perfume. Don't wear anything low cut or brightly colored. Don't stare."

Jim nodded. "Good. And don't order any food. It's considered rude."

"I know. I won't screw this up," I promised.

"Well, try not to cut yourself." 

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, Boss."

***

If there's anything the vamps hate more than sunlight, it's tardiness. As such, I arrived at The Graveyard promptly at 9:00 pm. Despite its Gothic name, The Graveyard was anything but. True enough, it was a favorite haunt of nonhumans and the bartender on Wednesday nights was reputedly a zombie, but beyond that, The Graveyard was really quite modern. Even so, I found the sleekly elegant nightclub intimidating, a sentiment reinforced by the hulking (human) monster of a bouncer who triple-checked my ID and aggressively searched my person for silver before granting me entry.

I immediately felt underdressed in my conservative sheath dress and opaque black tights.  Everyone else was dressed to the nines. The club was filled with the beautiful, the rich and the famous. Although not all club-goers possessed all three attributes, I noted, as I spotted Matilda Mathison across the room. Matilda was the painfully ugly but fabulously wealthy heiress to Mathison Corp., one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Mathison Corp was in the process of developing oral contraception geared towards the werewolf community - weres' super fast metabolisms rendered the regular Pill completely ineffective. If the drug was a success, the multi-millionairess would become a member of the billionaire's club.

For me, however, the fur-friendly pill was a bit of a PR nightmare. In fact, it had been the catalyst for my little mishap earlier this week. The drug was sponsored in part by the Rossi family, so I'd been pulled in to help with a Were-Vamp roundtable about the drug on CNN. A number of weres saw the drug as a slippery slope on the road to forced sterilization and accused Mathison Corp. and the Rossis of "barely disguised racism." During the interview prep, I may have insinuated that all intelligent women of age, regardless of their species, should be on birth control. Sometimes I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.

Pulling my gaze from Matilda, I scanned the room for my client, not entirely sure who I was looking for. I'd only spoken to him briefly over the phone and of course there were no pictures (contrary to popular belief, vampires are perfectly capable of showing up in photographs. Camera flash, however, irritates their skin so they tend to avoid photo opps).

"Look for a tall, pale guy with black eyes and black hair," Jim had said.

I glared at him. "Great. You might as well read me the definition of 'vampire' out of the dictionary."

"No worries, kid, you'll find him. Besides, there's always the rose."

"The what?"

"The Rossi Rose. No Rossi leaves home without it."

"So you're telling me he'll be holding a rose between his teeth? Like some sort of demented Lothario?"

Jim shrugged. "Could be."

With that helpful tidbit in mind, I continued to search for our elusive client. No roses as far as I could see.

"Ms. Eaton?" I jumped several feet.

"Pardon, I did not intend to scare you. Are you Corrie Eaton with W&B?" asked a cool and cultured voice from behind me.

I turned towards the source of the voice. Wowzer. Mr. Rossi, I presumed, was gorgeous. Not handsome, per say - he was far too pretty to be called anything other than beautiful. As Bossman had said, Rossi was tall and pale, with black eyes and hair. Really, though, that description did him no justice. Rossi was tall, all right. He towered nearly three heads over my admittedly diminutive 5'3 frame. Rossi was fashionably slim, though I was aware his narrow frame belied his inhuman strength. His coal black hair, however, was definitely longer than fashionable, caressing sharp cheekbones before falling in waves to his shoulders. And his eyes...while at first glance Rossi appeared to be a few years shy of thirty, his ancient, knowing eyes revealed his true age. Not a spark of light dared to trespass on the pupil-less, midnight black. A girl could lose her soul in eyes like that, and I didn't mean that figuratively.

Suddenly aware that I was staring (okay, ogling), I blurted out the first thing that came to mind-- "Where's your rose?"--and then mentally berated myself for the less-than-professional introduction. Stupid girl, getting flustered over a pretty guy. In my defense, Rossi's looks were somewhat unexpected - vampirism did not guarantee eternal beauty (thanks for that misnomer, Twilight), only immortality and eternal bloodlust.

At my insolence, Rossi pulled back his lips into a toothy snarl, his canines extending downards. Or at least, I thought it was directed at my rudeness until I noticed a tiny bloodred rose on his left fang. I caught myself leaning forward to get a better look before remembering why I was here.

I cleared my throat and stuck out my hand. "Corrie Eaton with W&B. A pleasure to finally meet you in person."

Rossi's fangs retracted, and he grabbed my hand, bringing the underside to his lips. "The pleasure's mine, Ms. Eaton." He pressed a light kiss to the inside of my wrist, his eyes growing even darker, predatory.

I shivered, more in fear than lust, I think. "Please, call me Corrie," I said, my voice only quivering slightly.

"You can call me Ross. My real first name is somewhat of a secret." Holding my hand as hostage, he led us towards a secluded table at the back of The Graveyard. Ever the gentleman, he pulled out my chair and waited for me to sit before seating himself.

A secret name, eh? "You know, you have client confidentiality," I said, my curiosity peaked.

The left side of his mouth inched up. "I'm counting on that."

Before I could respond, a cocktail waitress appeared at the side of our table. "The usual, Ross?" she asked. She batted her eyelashes and leaned forward in a way that put her girls in full view. Apparently our waitress had a little crush.

Ross took a moment before answering. "Actually, Maddy, I'll have a pint of AB negative, if you've got it on tap."

Crap. My blood type.

Maddy turned to me, sizing up her competition. "And for you, ma'am?"

I gave her my least threatening smile--she could have him. "A glass of Merlot."

As Maddy sashayed away from our table, Ross focused his impenetrable gaze on me. "I must say, I expected W&B would send someone older. More experienced."

I bristled at that. "I assure you, Mr. Rossi, both Jim and I are fully confident in my ability to handle anything you have to throw my way. For the record, I graduated magna cum laude from Yale's School of Magical Communications, and consulted on a number of inter-species cases before I even graduated."

Ross leaned back in his chair. "Ah. I'm a Yalie myself."

I perked up immediately. "Really? What year are you? Maybe I'll know some of your classmates."

"I graduated in 1875."

"Oh."

"Vampire," he reminded me.

"Yes, I know," I said, blushing profusely, the blood rushing to my cheeks.

Ross hissed, his fangs pressing lightly into his lower lip. "If you could refrain from doing that until our drinks arrive, I'd appreciate it."

I attempted to hide my flaming face with my hands."Sorry, Mr. Rossi, I'm Irish. We can't help it." Ugh, this meeting was not going well.

Fortunately, Maddy arrived at just that moment. Ross grabbed his drink from her tray and took a long draught. Sensing the mood, Maddy plopped my wine in front of me then hightailed it out of there. Wishing I could do the same, I took a longer than polite gulp to calm my nerves.

"My apologies, Corrie, I'm a little hungry."

"Uh, no worries," I said weakly.

"Anyway, I didn't mean to question your abilities. We could use some fresh blood on this account." I hoped he meant that metaphorically.

Taking a deep breath, I launched into the mini-speech I had prepared. "I have some great ideas to bolster your CSR initiative. First, I think it's imperative we overhaul your youth outreach campaign..."

Ross held up a long white hand, stopping me mid-speech. "In due time. We have something more pressing to deal with at the moment. A PR crisis, if you will."

I blinked. "With Mathison Corp.? I don't think we'll need to deal with that again until the drug reaches the trial phase. Besides, popular opinion's on your side."

Ross waved that away. "No, no that's merely a trifle. This is a far more sensitive issue we're dealing with. And it's sort of a...vampire-wide problem. The Rossis have offered to take the lead, but that's mostly because the other vampire families don't want to touch it." He leaned in conspiratorially. "If you handle this well, Corrie, it will be very, very rewarding for you. But..." he paused.

"But?"

"If you screw this up - or break our confidentiality agreement - the consequences will be very, very dire. And I don't just mean for the vampire community."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Yes."

I folded my arms over my chest. "I would need to double check, but I'm almost positive physical threats are in violation of our client contract."

"Oh they are," he said with a feral grin. "You can run away anytime, little girl."

Lord knows I couldn't resist a challenge. And he'd called me a little girl, the bastard. "Fine," I snapped. "What's the big hullabaloo, vamp?"

He grinned widely, his fangs extending again. The rose, I noticed, was now on his right fang. Interesting.

"I'm going to enjoy you," he said, running a shockingly pink tongue over the rose tooth.

I snorted. "Over my dead body, Dracula."

"How wonderfully apropos. That, you see, is the problem."

"What do you mean?" I asked warily.

Ross reached across the table and gripped my hand tightly. Too tight.

"Ouch, Ross, your hurting me!" I cried.

"Do you swear, Corrie Eaton," he intoned, his voice like an icy whip. "Do you swear to hold this secret close to your heart until it ceases beating? Because the day you reveal it without my explicit permission will be your last."

"I swear, alright? Now let go of my hand!"

Ignoring my protests, Ross pulled my wrist once again to his lips, forcing me to lean halfway across the table. "So be it," he whispered, and plunged his rose fang into my palm.

"What. The. Fuck."

Ross retracted his fangs and released my hand. "Well, now, that's settled."

"What the hell did you do that for? I'm your publicist, not your dinner!"

"Standard procedure for any high level, species-wide secret. I'm surprised you didn't learn about it at school, although I suppose the last secret we had of this magnitude was several centuries ago. Check out your palm," he instructed, nodding towards my injured hand, in which I held a balled up napkin to staunch the bleeding.

I gingerly removed the sticky napkin from my hand. Huh. Well, would you get a load of that? Etched into my lifeline was a precise replica of the Rossi Rose.

"Jim is going to flip when he sees this," I warned.

"Oh, don't worry. Only you and other members of my family can see it. And maybe the occasional fortune teller, if she's the real thing. Of course, other vamps will be able to sense it."

"And what's the point of this invisible ink?"

"Nothing too crazy. Just lets other vamps know that I've claimed you."

"Um, excuse me?"

"That you're mine. My human."

"Well, begging your pardon, Mr. Rossi, but that was not what I signed up for. All I agreed to was keeping your bloody secret. Who the hell are you to interfere with my love life?" Okay, so I didn't have a love life, but he didn't need to know that.

Ross sighed. "Please, Corrie, calm down. It's not nearly as dramatic as you're making it sound. You're free to fraternize with whomever you want, human, vamp, or even were," he said, shuddering at that last one. "All this does is let other vamps know you are under my protection and privy to any information that will help the vampire cause. If they attempt to harm you in any way, they will have to answer to me."

Still suspicious, I asked, "And that's it? No nasty side effects I should be aware of?"

"Well. Just the one."

"Full disclosure, please."

Ross smiled wide, allowing his fangs to extend slightly. "Reveal anything without my permission, and you'll drop dead on the spot."

And for the umpteenth-plus-one time, I wondered what in the hell I'd been thinking when I accepted this job.

***
The rest of the meeting had gone downhill from there. Ross refused to tell me anything more until I "calmed down." Instead of saying something I would regret - and I had a litany of things I'd like to say to Mr. Rossi - I chose to say nothing at all. We agreed upon a story that I could share with Jim, as he would undoubtedly ask me how the meeting went. Pissed off at being forced to lie to my boss (the alternative was my funeral), I made Ross promise to give Jim a glowing report as well. I figured I might as well get some benefit out of this twisted client relationship.

We'd also agreed on our next meeting--the next night, midnight, at the Rossi mansion in upstate New York. Ross seemed to think I should be honored by the invitation, but I was mostly annoyed at the late hour. Comes with the territory, I suppose.

The rest of our time together was conducted in complete silence, me staring daggers over my glass of wine and Ross, either oblivious or unbothered, sipping away at his pint of AB neg while checking emails on his Blackberry. I left The Graveyard as soon as was polite to do so, though not before downing two shots of whiskey at the bar. Frankly I was tempted to drink myself into a stupor. And would have, too, if I didn't need to be in the office and functional by 9:00 a.m.

By the time I got home to my apartment on the Upper East Side, I was exhausted, physically and emotionally. Here I was, all of 23 years old, one week into my first real job, and already I was dealing with a death threat and an ethical dilemma. Pretty sure that withholding information from my boss was not going to ingratiate me to him any. And I had a feeling I wasn't going to like whatever Ross had to tell me tomorrow night.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, I was bowled over by a large, heavy body. Wet kisses covered my face.

"Hey, Bran, let me up, will you?" I said, laughing. When I moved into the apartment three weeks ago, a horse-sized dog mutt of unknown heritage was already there to greet me. He didn't have a collar or dog tags, but he was very sweet and house trained, and I didn't have the heart to turn him over to the pound. So I named him Branigan after my great-uncle, and now we cohabited my tiny apartment.

Honestly, I preferred the company and it was nice to come home to a warm, friendly face, especially since I didn't really know anyone in the city yet.

Bran sniffed at my right hand, the one Ross had inked, and started growling softly. I guess his doggy senses picked up on the Rossi rose, too. "I know, Bran, baby. The mean vampire did it to me." Bran looked up at me, his big puppy eyes sad and accusing. "Don't look at me like that. I didn't ask for this."

Bran cocked his head to one side and stuck out a conciliatory paw. I accepted his apology, and then wrapped my arms around him, burrowing my face into his thick golden fur. Bran stood their patiently while I sobbed like a pathetic little girl against his torso, feeling more alone than I had in a really long time.

"Alright, you can sleep in my room tonight. But no hogging the bed!"
****