by Bocco, Diana
“What does that even mean, not from right here? Are there peepholes in the walls?” And as if it made sense, she actually extended her hand and touched the walls, searching for tiny holes. The walls felt dry and softly crumbled under her fingers. She moved her hand away with a cry of surprise.
“Relax, Belle. There are doors along the way, like the one to the room you used last night.” He reached for her and grabbed her hand. “We’re almost there.”
The touch felt electric. So warm and oh-so-right. Screams started to rise from inside her, telling her to let go, to not enjoy his fingers interlacing with hers in a firm grip. But she closed her eyes for a second, trying to silence them. She could convince herself he was the enemy most of the time, but when they touched, the buzzing of electricity between them was impossible to ignore and it made his all-encompassing, powerful presence almost too real to handle.
It also made the darkness a lot more bearable.
~*~
Letting Belle into his secrets was becoming some sort of a routine. This time, at least, was to his benefit. Or at least he was hoping it would be.
Her hand wiggled softly in his and instinctively, he squeezed just a little harder. To him, the tunnels were peaceful. A cry away from the sounds of the night and the whispering of danger outside the walls. When he had them built, he’d specifically requested that they kept them as close as possible to their natural state—crumbling earth rather than perfectly smooth walls. It made the tunnels and the darkness feel welcoming—and he liked it.
Of course, he could also see in the dark, so maybe the tunnels didn’t feel as welcoming for mortals walking blindly through them.
Belle’s heart was thundering. It was a sound he spent hours listening to while she slept. Although vampires had a heartbeat, it was a very different kind. His heart beat softly, sleepily. The kind of sound you expected from somebody ancient and immune to disease or stress—which he certainly was. Belle’s heart rate was very much different. It had a mind of its own, spiking up and softening down depending on her mood and—much to his satisfaction—also depending on how close he was to her.
Right now, her heart rate had been jumping up every time it caught a creak or a shred of movement. But the second his hand touched hers, it went into a race. Her blood sped up and the echoing of the thumps against her chest became all the more clear. It was such an enticing sound, it instantly awoke his hunger. It took a near unbearable effort to push the animal down and keep walking. For a second, he was too distracted to even answer back when she asked a question. Something about the whispering of the tunnels around them.
The smell of her blood blended in with the wildness of the earth around them. It was an exquisite mix and he wished he could turn around and take her right there. Every hunter cell in his body was fighting to take over and he found himself struggling to push them down.
When he saw the blackness ahead slowly melting into grey, he was just glad the walk was almost over.
“There.” He pointed it out to her.
After a few more seconds, the corridors started to become lighter, as if a grey sunset was slowly moving in towards them. It took several more steps before they arrived to the small entry hall and stopped right in front of a metal door.
This was it. Once he opened the door and they stepped in, there was no turning back. Too late to change your mind, Marcus, he told himself, and pushed the door open.
~*~
Seeing the tunnels get lighter had prompted her to sigh in relief. Marcus seemed at ease in the tunnels, but to her, they were just frightening. Complete darkness was a scary place to be—you couldn’t anticipate what was coming at you and from where. And after years of being afraid of the dark, being devoured by it was probably one of the most terrifying things she could think of. Her mind kept playing tricks on her, screaming for her to be afraid of the monsters hiding in the dark. It was almost easy to forget that she was holding the hand of the biggest monster of all—and feeling safe because of the warm electric charge surging between them.
She wasn’t sure what to expect at the end of the tunnel, but it certainly wasn’t the bluish metal door that was waiting for them. Maybe because all the other doors seemed to be so secrete, so I’m-here-but-I’m not, that this one seemed out of place—and somehow more frightening than all the other ones she couldn’t see.
Marcus said nothing as he pushed the door open, and her whole body tensed up in expectation. She held her breath and got closer to him, using him as a shield.
The world on the other side of the door stopped as the king stepped in. The brightness of the room attacked her eyes without mercy. She blinked twice, then closed her eyes for a few seconds to fight the tears forming. Breathe, she told herself, just breathe. When she opened them again and was able to focus, she gasped.
She was looking at one of the most advanced laboratories she had ever seen outside of a hospital. The room from the night before was nothing compared to the giant space opening up before her.
Only after she had absorbed every little detail in the lab did she notice the vampires dressed in white coats and staring at her.
“My Lord, we weren’t expecting you here,” one of them said to the king, although his eyes were locked on Isabelle.
She was just as fascinated with the view in front of her as they seemed to be with her. Why did he have a medical setup under the compound? Obviously the room she’d used the other night had been just a tiny part of something much bigger. Something beyond her wildest expectations.
“Cyrus, this is Belle,” Marcus said, cocking his head slightly to the side, towards her. As if there was any doubt of who or what she was.
The vampire drifted his whole body slightly forward, and the skin on her arms quivered in response. The vampires here had a different air about them, one she didn’t quite like. The white coats didn’t help, either. She felt like an intruder snooping into a secret testing facility.
She looked around, searching for test tubes and blood-testing machinery. Lancets, tourniquets, and test stripes were spread around the room, sitting on tables and neatly organized on the shelves. Machines hummed in the background: a lab centrifuge, electrosurgery generators, cryosurgical systems. All you needed if you were playing around with blood.
Her heart hammered faster in her chest. Was that what they were doing?
“Belle?”
Was he testing her? Trying to see how much she could figure out before he actually explained what the hell was going on?
Her mind was spinning when she turned around to look at him. “What kind of blood are you testing?”
Marcus’ eyes flickered for a quick second. They got slightly darker, then back to light again. “Fake blood,” he said.
She shook her head slightly, as if that could help make her mind clearer. “What do you mean, fake blood? You mean a blood substitute?”
The vampire in the white coat searched for the answer in the king’s eyes. When Marcus nodded, he shook his head. “No, we’re working on artificial blood.”
It took a second for the information to click, but when it did, her heart skipped a beat. “Artificial blood?” Her mind was buzzing with questions and trying to pick which one to ask first was giving her a headache. “As in, to completely replace human blood?”
“That’s right,” the vampire confirmed.
It didn’t make any sense. The compound was full of people and she didn’t expect any of the vampires up there to be truly hungry. Unless he had something bigger in mind.
“Why?”
“We’re trying to figure out the perfect combination of nutrients for us,” the vampire—Cyrus?—answered. “So far, it hasn’t quite worked. We’re close, but something’s missing.”
Marcus shifted slightly next to her and his arm brushed hers. The electricity of the touch was enough to get her attention and make her turn towards him. He seemed different, as if the whole world had suddenly tipped on its axis and he had been staring at it while it was happenin
g. There was a deep light coming through his eyes—not from, but through them, from somewhere deep inside—and the instant she focused on them, something hit her. She blinked, trying to absorb the emotions and the knowledge he was letting out. Can you keep a secret, Belle? he had said. Never in a million years could she have imagined the magnitude of the secret he’d been holding.
“Is this for the rabids?”
Marcus held on to the answer for a few seconds, as if he was trying to pick the right words. She desperately wanted to urge him on, hurry up the information.
“That wasn’t our original intention for it,” he finally said. “We were just hoping to find a blood replacement in case…” He paused again, his voice softer. “In case humans became extinct at some point.”
The words hit her hard and rocked her to the core. So they were worried about it too. The extinction of the human race. She had been so consumed by the fear of it becoming a reality that she hadn’t even thought about the possibility of the vampires worrying about it too. If humans disappeared, vampires were doomed. It was such a simple, basic truth and yet it hadn’t even crossed her mind all this time.
It was more than just the realization of what he was saying. It was the sudden understanding that they had a common goal: keep humanity alive and thriving. Maybe the reasons for it were vastly different, but this secret, this lab, could somehow hold the key to the future of humanity.
When she finally spoke, her voice came out shaky. “So this would make us… unnecessary?”
“No,” he said before she’d finished speaking. “Even if we figure out how to make this artificial blood work, it’s not meant to completely replace humans.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will only provide us with nourishment,” he said, his voice soft. “Drinking from humans brings other pleasures.”
A buzz resonated in her ears before shooting down to her chest and grabbing a hold of her stomach. Pleasure. Her mind flashed back to Marcus moaning while rocking inside her, his teeth grabbing a hold of her neck or her inner thigh. The look of ecstasy in his eyes had been as much about her body as about her blood.
She blushed and turned her gaze towards the lab. The puzzled look in the vampire’s face was very telling. For whatever reason, she was different. Not only couldn’t she be charmed, but all of a sudden she had been given entry to the forbidden kingdom. A kingdom so ancient she could barely manage to grasp bits and pieces of it.
“What about the rabids?”
Marcus and Cyrus exchanged looks, but it was the king who answered. “We don’t know yet, but we’re hoping the void can be reversed.”
The scientist in her took over immediately. “If the void is only caused by a lack of nourishment, rather than by some sort of virus, it should be reversible with enough blood.”
Marcus’ lips curved up slightly. Almost a smile, but not quite. “And that’s why you’re here.”
Chapter 15
He had been waiting to break the news since back in his room. Now that he’d done it, it had just the effect he expected. She froze, her mind clearly going in a million different directions.
“Me?”
He didn’t answer right away, partly because he wanted to give her some time to figure it out. But also because Cyrus seemed more than intrigued with Belle and Marcus wanted to make sure limits were set right there, right then. His eyes flashed into darkness for a second, and Cyrus immediately stepped back. It was just a small step, maybe a fraction of an inch—but enough to let him know the lines had been drawn in the sand.
When Marcus turned towards Belle, his eyes were back to a soft silver.
“I was hoping you’d be interested in joining the scientists here at the lab.”
A cloak of silence extended over the room. He knew all vampires in the lab had been hanging on to every word of the conversation. Since they could hear him from the other side of the room without any effort, they had all pretended to be focusing on the task in front of them, although he knew for sure the king walking into the room with a human was eventful enough to surpass anything else. Now that he’d stated the actual reason for bringing Belle down there, he could feel the mix of surprise and concern breathing over the space.
“What?” Her voice came out small.
‘We need somebody who has a better grasp of human physiology than we do,” he said.
Understanding washed over her face. Beautiful and smart, he thought. Then he pushed the thought away. Also fragile as any other human.
She shook her head and wavered slightly. He immediately extended a hand and grabbed her arm, offering a steady anchor. A soft electric charge passed between them where their skin touched. The effect she had on him still surprised him. He had expected to enjoy her, to feed on her once or twice, and then get bored. But the more time he spent around her, the stronger the connection seemed to become. And that electricity, that whirl of energy that connected them every time they touched… It was just getting stronger by the minute.
It was a sobering realization.
Not only the fact that he was enthralled by a woman this much, but also the fact that the enthrallment was growing, feeding on the energy between them. He suddenly felt very tempted to pull her away from the lab and the hungry eyes around them. An almost uncontrollable need to stake a claim over her, take her back to his room and keep her all to himself.
He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. Focus.
Belle’s fingers slid over his arm as if they belonged there. It felt like an incredibly intimate gesture, the move of a lover who wasn’t afraid of letting others know she belonged to somebody. Or maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him—in which case he had to believe the warmth exuding from her was also a lie.
“I think… I think I can help,” she finally said, and he believed her.
He turned his face towards Cyrus and saw the look of fascination in his eyes. If there was ever any doubt she was Marcus’, the last few seconds had to have been confirmation enough. Most of the vampires there had never seen him with a pet, because the few he’d had never been more than that, pets. He was beginning to realize Belle was a lot more. And while her blood was intoxicating—even now, he could smell the excitement running through her veins, making him ache for a taste—it was everything else she was that it was the most intriguing. Not being able to charm her was frustrating, but it also made her superior to others. In a way, it made her closer to him. Impenetrable and unique, that was what Belle was. And the challenge of figuring it all out was proving far more exquisite than he could’ve dreamt of.
“She’ll be safe down here, My Lord,” the vampire said and Marcus was glad he didn’t have to explain anything else.
He turned to Belle, who was glowing with excitement. This was her turf, what she knew, and probably what she missed.
“Why don’t you let Cyrus show you around for a while? They’ll escort you up in a couple of hours. See what you can do, if anything, to help.” Then he paused for a second and his eyes scouted hers. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
She nodded with resolution. “Oh, yes. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
He doubted she had meant for the words to hurt him, but they stung anyway. He had a moment of second-guessing himself, where he wondered if giving her space and time away from him was a good idea. The idea bothered him and when he grabbed her arm to let her know the rules, his fingers closed on her skin a little too tight. Sharing her with others wasn’t something he wasn’t looking forward to, as irrational and insane as that was. But he was also afraid that without a solution, without a touch of magic from somewhere unexpected, the world was running out of options.
It took him a second to realize he was clenching his teeth. He wanted to tell her that she was only allowed down here because he was being generous. Let her know that he had the power to take it all away if he felt her slipping away from his grasp.
Instead, he let go of her arm and took a step back. “
Upstairs in three hours,” he ordered before disappearing into the darkness of the tunnels.
~*~
Marcus had turned around and stomped out of the lab before she had time to realize what had just happened. Somewhere in the tangle of thoughts rushing through her mind, she had missed something.
“Isabelle,” Cyrus interrupted her thoughts. “Let me show you what we have.”
She turned around to face the vampire and nodded. She was already in the belly of the beast. Might as well play along, she told herself.
“Have you tested the blood?”
Cyrus nodded. “As much as we can in machines.” He paused for a second, unsure of what to say next. Or maybe measuring his words as to not say too much. “We’ve also… tasted it.”
The words had no impact on her. Funny that less than a week ago, they would have sent chills down her spine. Now it was just data, numbers and words she was being fed for processing.