Chapter Forty-One
Isaac screeched into a parking place at the flooring company that was Richard's seethe. Without any partiality, I thought Mikhail had a better front—booze, food, and big-ass TVs. They climbed out of the car, and, when I didn't follow quickly enough, one of them reached in and pulled me out, thankfully gripping my good shoulder. Once on the wet pavement, the other took hold of my hurting arm to lead me away, but both their grips were loose. I took a second to consider which way to run before jerking free of their grasp and booking it straight toward the street, but I barely made it to the sidewalk before Isaac knocked me to the ground. He took a clump of my hair and slammed my head into the pavement. I tried to groan and struggle free, but darkness quickly closed in around me.
When I opened my eyes, I was dangling from the ceiling, a rough rope bound around my wrists and attached to a nasty looking hook. My wet clothing was still dripping onto the drop cloth laid out below me, suggesting I hadn't been out for long. It wasn't surprising to find my wounded shoulder still on fire. I groaned, a small piece of my mind wondering why it wasn't healing at superhuman speed. Then I remembered the necessity of blood. When was the last time I'd drunk any? I honestly couldn't remember.
I blinked a few times, making sure I wasn't imagining things. I'd expected to be in some sort of dark and moist cellar. Instead, I was hanging in the main room where I had first met Richard. The only difference was the arrangement of the furniture—a few couches were pushed out of the way and the crystal had been replaced with metal tools that made me want to vomit. Next to the tools sat what looked like a very old, musty book. The grimoire, I guessed. I tried to look away.
Richard stepped into view, looking much like he had the last time I'd seen him—dressed in jeans and an ill-fitting blazer with a gold chain dangling from his puffy neck. He waddled over to me and smiled. Like the metal tools, his grin made me sick to my stomach.
“Just when I thought it might be impossible to capture you—thanks to that ridiculous warden of yours.”
I frowned. Did he mean Nik?
“I'm sure in your old age, you've learned nothing is impossible,” I said.
Though he stayed calm, he did give me a nudge in the shoulder with his thick, stubby fingers. I swung slightly on the rope as I grimaced. The pain in my shoulder was less, but not by much. Evidently, I didn’t keep my face as nonchalant as I'd hoped.
“Did you get hurt during the fight? Tsk tsk,” he said before pausing significantly. Richard frowned. “You should be more healed than this. When was the last time you drank anything?”
My eyes, which I had tried to keep away from his, quickly darted to his face. Was he going to do what I thought? Yep. Most definitely.
Richard waved his hand and a vamp opened a door. The assistant pulled a calm looking woman out of what appeared to be a large meat locker—gross! She was pasty white, more white than your average Olympian. Her blond, curly hair hung down her back in thin, frizzy waves. She reminded me of chemo patients on the news—their bodies barely hanging on to life. I stared at her as she neared me, her heart rate growing louder with each step. It was slow. Even. She wasn't afraid.
She should have been.
I gulped, trying to swallow the burning sensation away. I felt my fangs form in my mouth, barely aware of the pain. All I could think about was the beat of this woman's heart.
I forced myself to think of her as a human, not just a piece of meat. She probably had a family. People who loved her. Hopes. Dreams. I glanced at her frail limbs and pasty skin, realizing she'd been the property of the seethe for a long time and long since forgotten. My focus started to slip. I began to rationalize the choice before me—never a good thing.
No, my non-beating heart shrieked at me. I clamped my mouth shut and stopped breathing. After all, I can't die of asphyxiation. Or can I?
Richard quickly realized what I was doing. He pushed the woman up against me until my nose was a mere inch from her throat. I vaguely wondered if he was holding her up by the neck. The white dents in her flesh suggested that was the case. The skin around his fingertips was growing pink with the pressure of his grip.
Didn't she realize I was about to kill her? Why wasn't she afraid? The slow, steady beat of her heart made it easier for me to think clearly. I started counting them—not letting them be spasms of a muscle that sent blood pumping through her veins but rather simple numbers.
My continued abstinence infuriated Richard.
“Taking the moral high ground?” he snapped at me. “We all have to drink. And just for this, I will have you drink her life from her.”
“And if I refuse?” I asked with what breath I still held in my lungs. I inhaled through my mouth.
“I'll make you drink her, her and many more,” he added in what sounded like a yell without his volume actually increasing.
Richard took a paring knife from the table and made a small slit on her neck, which immediately began to flow freely down her white chest. She flinched slightly, but her calm demeanor never faltered, as if she trusted him completely. The sight and increased smell broke what little willpower I had left.
I burst out of my protective shell of control and yelled at him in guttural tones. I shook, trying to free myself from the rope around my wrist so that I could reach the food. I no longer felt the pain in my shoulder, masked as it was by my need, my desire. All I cared about was getting what I wanted.
Richard smiled and pulled the woman’s bleeding throat away from me. It wasn’t far, but it was enough to extract a cry of protest from my constricted throat. His smile widened as he enjoyed my complete loss of control. Finally, when I was straining against my binding and doing more damage to my shoulder, he pushed the girl up to me. I bit down, sucking the blood from her body. A brief moment later it was over and she was just a heap of flesh on the floor. I didn't notice, didn't care. Richard already had another person ready to replace her. He didn't have to cut the skin for me this time.
At some point during my feeding frenzy, they lowered me to the ground. When I became aware of my surroundings again, I was kneeling on the first woman's back, my bound arms wrapped around another victim's neck. I looked up at Richard and Isaac—who had entered without my knowledge. Their eyes were bright with their own desire. Or maybe it was just pride in having corrupted me so easily. I felt blood dripping from my chin and wiped it on my shoulder.
That's when I saw them. I hadn't just killed the woman and the man I now held. No. I'd drained many others. In fact, I huddled over a pile of bodies. I started to count them but stopped at five. It was just too much. Besides, I was having trouble telling where one body ended and another began.
“What have you done?” I whispered, staring up at Richard.
“What have you done.” It wasn't a question. My impotent heart shuddered as I looked down at the bodies as if it would start to beat again just so that it could break in anguish.
Richard's flat lips pulled up into a sickening smile. He was right. I couldn't take it. I shoved the most recent body from me and started scooting away. My shoulder didn't hurt anymore. Why should it? I'd just drunk over five people worth of blood—way more than I had yet to consume at any one time during my week as a vampire. In fact, it might be more than I had consumed in total. So naturally, my shoulder wouldn't hurt. The broken bones had completely fused thanks to the power of human blood. I felt energized. I wanted to run a marathon or swim the English Channel. I quickly poured the new energy into feeling guilty.
Before I could roll to my feet, Isaac jumped forward and yanked my arms over my head. He easily lifted me up to the dangling chain and snagged the rope binding my wrists onto the hook. I spun slightly, and that's when Emma came into view.
That bitch!
Unlike the other two, who seemed to be enjoying themselves, she looked downright pissed off. I wanted to smile at her, to make her angrier, but I couldn't pull my mind from the pile of bodies that had recently been my breakfast. I felt hot tears prick my eyes and be
gin rolling down my cheeks. I didn't wipe them away. It's not like I could have, even if I had cared.
Emma sauntered up to me; her dark brown eyes squinted into an ugly glare. This time, she wore a tiny, speckled gray cocktail dress. Her chocolate brown hair was piled into a mop on her head with delicate curls hanging in precisely uneven lengths around her head. Her makeup was flashy like she intended to go to the bar later tonight.
“So you were the girl we were after all along. I never thought to doubt Nik’s story. But I suppose I was blind, all things considered. He can be a great distraction. Though I’m sure you would know nothing about that, despite your lies. Nik told me the truth. He would never stoop to a flat-chested boy-child like you.”
True enough, I thought. Compared to her curvy shape I was nothing but an ironing board. Normally the taunt would have stung for its truth, but not today. I didn't have room for my ego next to my remorse. All I wanted was for them to kill me, to erase the guilt I now felt. Yes, they would kill me soon. They had to, to bring Sedgrave back from the dead.
Wait. That was bad.
As much as I wanted to die, I didn't want my death to bring about more pain and suffering. I had to get them to kill me quickly before they could do the ritual. It was the only way. But how could I make them angry enough to forget their goal?
Before I could think of a plan, Emma slapped me across the face, the momentum causing me to spin a few times before the heavy rope grew too tight and forced me to spin backward. And that gave me a hint. Of the three, Emma was the most volatile. To her, I wasn't just a sacrifice. I had lied to her. About her boy-toy no less. I'd made it personal.
When I stopped spinning I smiled at her, cramming all my contrition into the back of my mind. All the feelings of guilt and despair had to be dealt with; I took a short second to pack them up tight, so they couldn’t escape and distract me from what I had to do. If I was going to trick this woman into killing me, she couldn’t notice the raging battle consuming me from the inside out. And so I took all those emotions: fear, anxiety, dread, sorrow, and a few I doubted had a name and pressed them down until I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
I'd make it all better by getting them to kill me before the ritual could take place.
“True,” I smirked. “I’ll never have a chance with Nik. But will he take you back after this?”
I was out on a limb here, metaphorically speaking. I had no idea if Nik was actually in on the whole scheme. Part of my mind, the part that loathed him, had no doubt. Another part, the one that remembered all the hurt he had endured for my sake, flinched away from the idea. Just like my sorrow, I stuffed these thoughts down into my gut. I chose to have faith in him. I chose to believe he had suffered for a cause and not a show. Emma couldn’t see the doubt in my eyes.
“After all, he has endured horrible pain and loss just to keep me from you and your friends. Do you think he can just forget that this whole mess caused all of his humans to die?”
I spotted a small tick around Emma’s left eye, though her smile stayed calm and relaxed. I’d hit a nerve.
“Nik needs to learn to take and consume his food. This habit of his to become attached to his cattle is ridiculous. In the long run, he’ll thank me for it.”
“You really believe that?” I asked. She was making this too easy. “I saw him after his people were slaughtered. I saw his anguish. He looked like a man who had lost his wives, children, uncles, aunts… everyone, all in a single day. You honestly think he’ll thank you one day?” I let pity drip into my voice.
Her jaw clenched and her hands tightened into fists.
“Besides that, your friends here,” I nodded toward Richard and Isaac, “Ransacked his home. Almost killed his friend. Not to mention the amount of bodily damage he sustained. You really think Nik will just get over that?” It wasn't entirely true, the werewolves had attacked him in his home, but I wasn't about to get caught up in minor details.
“In time,” she whispered.
“Ha! Then you don’t know Nik as well as you think. Nik is a man of integrity, honesty, and loyalty.” Something about my statement felt right. “Traits you know nothing about. Even if”—and I let the doubt I felt show through my voice—“Even if he still has feelings for you after all this, he won’t take you back under principle. Your actions have destroyed his life.
“Instead, he’ll come and rescue me, as he always does... always has. And I’ll be there for him as he grieves. I’ll be the shoulder he cries on, so to speak. And in time, he’ll see the real me. When the day is done, Nik will be mine… not yours.”
And that was the catalyst, even if it was the opposite of what I wanted.
She lunged at me, her fangs suddenly at the ready and clawed at me with her fingernails, shredding the skin on my arms, while she sunk her teeth into my neck.
I wish I could say I was getting used to agonizing pain, but I don’t think epic pain is something you get used to. Let’s just say it hurt, and move on.
I could tell she had intended on tearing out my throat, but before she could sink her teeth deep enough into my flesh, Richard and Isaac yanked her from me. Nonetheless, I screamed as a chunk of my neck was severed from my body. Not-so-thankfully, with all the human blood flowing through me, I healed in a matter of minutes.
Isaac and Richard had to work together to pin Emma to the concrete floor. “Calm down,” ordered Richard. She didn’t obey. She didn’t have to. After all, she wasn’t a member of his seethe. She was a primus of her own seethe; technically just as powerful. When she failed to obey, he slammed her head into the concrete. Unlike me, she didn't lose consciousness, though it did clear her senses enough to regain her composure. She glanced up at Richard, ignoring the flow of blood streaming from her scalp. It was already beginning to heal. Evidently, she had fed recently, too. “Leave, Emma. You are too emotionally involved.”
“I can handle it,” she responded in a breathy voice.
“And if you can't? Are you willing to risk everything?”
Emma hesitated a moment before nodding. I had to give it to her, she did know how to set aside her ego for her mission. They let her up and she gave me one last glower before marching out of the room. The back of her head was matted with glistening blood. Richard nodded to Isaac and followed her out.