by Fiona Zedde
Kylie felt terrorized by her aloneness. By the fear.
One day or evening or night while her body was in shock from its lack of sleep and food, the doors of the cage shuddered and flew open. She smelled Olivia’s scent, heard her voice from far away quietly chanting Kylie’s name.
“Kylie, get up. Kylie. Kylie! Get ready to run.”
But where could she go? She could do nothing while chained and weaker than a newborn cub. Olivia chanted her name again, a sound she couldn’t ignore. Kylie blinked away her confusion and latched on to the sound of her name on Olivia’s lips.
Run. Yes, she had to run.
Kylie yanked at her chains as she got to her feet in a crouch, unable to do much more than that. Frantic footsteps pounded down the hall. Olivia’s. Like an apparition, she appeared in front of Kylie’s cage with something that looked like a remote control in her hands, a black rectangle covered in buttons. She rushed into the cage, frantically pressing buttons on the device, pointing it at the shackles around Kylie’s wrists. With Olivia’s scent so close, Kylie shivered, already on her knees and weakened, the smell of her blood and fear and the frantic sweat waking up every one of her senses.
She smelled everything about Olivia and could hear the pounding inside her narrow chest, the impotent slide of her sweaty fingers across the rubber buttons on the remote control. Even more than when they had thrown the vampire corpse in with her, Kylie felt gutted by her hunger.
Olivia cursed under her breath and shook the device at the shackles.
“What…what—are you…doing?” Kylie fought to get the words past her dry lips and heavy tongue. She felt as if razor blades were slicing through her throat with each syllable. But it was a welcome distraction from her hunger that yanked hard at her belly, seizing her every breath in its talons.
But Olivia didn’t answer, only continued pressing the buttons, pointing the device at the shackles. A zap of electric current rushed through the shackles, knocking Kylie from her shaky crouch. She tumbled back into the hard ground, groaning more from the torture of having Olivia close than any other pain.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Olivia panted and cursed. She slammed the remote against the chains. “This worked yesterday when I tried it.”
Suddenly, the doors to Kylie’s cage shivered. Her head jerked up just as they slammed shut, trapping Olivia in with her. Olivia looked up, startled, fear widening her eyes and perfuming her skin.
“Fuck!”
Kylie trembled, cringing back from her and the hunger tearing her control to ribbons. She dug her fingers into the concrete under her, crawling back as much as the chains would let her. They rattled, mocking her weakness.
Olivia’s brother appeared on the other side of the cage, his boots thudding against the concrete floor. “I told them you’d try something stupid.”
Olivia flew to her feet. She was trembling as fiercely as Kylie. “Let me out of here!” Her voice shook.
“You want to be with your little fuck toy so bad, enjoy.” He pulled a remote identical to the one she had from his pocket. “This one,” he said, holding up the device, “actually works.” He pressed a series of buttons on the remote, and Kylie’s shackles snapped open. Silence descended in the small cage as the cuffs dropped to the floor with a metallic clang. First the ones on her wrists, then the ones around her ankles.
Olivia’s heart thudded harder. She flew to the bars of the cage and gripped them hard. “Get me out of here, Max! Bertram will be so pissed when she finds out about this.” Her voice was sharp with rising hysteria.
“Pissed about what? Your vampire-loving ways? Finding out that her daughter is a traitor to the family?” He made a disgusted sound. “The best thing I can do for you is not tell Bertram what a dirty little vampire fucker you are.”
“Let me out, dammit!” Olivia screamed. “This is not a game!”
Kylie was lost in her terror. Her hunger. With her hands and wrists no longer in chains, she was free for the first time in hours, maybe even days. There was food for her to eat. She could touch as much as she wanted. But even as the wonder of her situation hit her—food, sweet God, food!—she recoiled.
This was Olivia. Not some blood sack waiting to be drained. She couldn’t do this. She just couldn’t. But the more she held herself back, the stronger her hunger became. It throbbed inside her throat like a frantic pulse. Her teeth ached in her jaws. In a hot rush, they pushed out of her mouth elongated and ready to feed.
No. No. No. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
But the more she mentally resisted, the stronger the hunger held her in its grasp. A growl reverberated throughout her entire body. Her fingers curled into talons at her sides. The hunger pounded hard at her, drumming through her brain, overwhelming all her senses.
Olivia was only a few feet away, her back stiff with fear. She shook the bars of the cage and screamed at her brother who only stared at her with a look of satisfaction.
“Let me out, Max!” The fear sang out through her voice, more potent than any aphrodisiac, any ambrosial scent. “Damn you!”
Kylie’s tenuous control snapped. With a growl, she sprang to her feet, grabbed Olivia by the waist, sinking claws into her skin through her thick sweatshirt, and pulled her back into her. Olivia screamed, her sweat-slick fingers losing their grip on the cell’s bars. Her blood scent rose in the air.
“Kylie, no!”
Olivia closed her eyes, screaming, refusing to look at Kylie. But Kylie didn’t want her to look. She only wanted to drink her up and not see into the eyes of the woman she had made love to what seemed like only a few hours before. The woman who had betrayed her.
She pulled her back, Olivia’s fingernails tearing at her hands as she fought the grip on her waist. But Kylie didn’t care about that minor, inconvenient pain. She yanked Olivia’s head to the side to get access to her slender throat. Kylie sank her fangs into Olivia’s neck. They both moaned at the same time.
She was sweet. And Kylie was ravenous.
It was beyond pleasure. Beyond the simple satisfaction of hunger. Within seconds of the penetration of her teeth into the butter-soft flesh, Olivia went limp, her body accepting the delectation Kylie brought even while was being drained of every drop of her lifeblood.
The flood of ambrosia rushed into Kylie’s mouth. She groaned with the bliss of it, feeling her own body sway with the weight of Olivia’s. They fell to their knees, Kylie behind Olivia, Olivia with her head hanging limply as Kylie drank from her with fangs buried at their deepest depth inside her throat.
Olivia had stopped clawing at her hands and now held on to them, gripping Kylie with a surprising strength.
With the gush of blood into her mouth, reason and perspective reasserted themselves. She knew suddenly that it had been four days since she had been taken by the humans. That Olivia had tried to help her. That Olivia was dying, and dying at her fangs.
But she couldn’t stop herself from drinking. She had been starved for too long. Her control was no longer hers. And the blood was filling her up, plumping so many parts of her. Even with her hunger, she was aware that this was not an ordinary meal. She couldn’t stop feasting.
“Stop!” The breath heaved in Olivia’s throat. “Stop. Please.” But the words contradicted the way she bent her neck for Kylie, how she pushed her hips back into her, the kittenish sounds in the back of her throat that were so much like the ones she uttered when they made love.
Kylie was undone. She was confused. Lust and right and wrong and control had all melted away into the same thing: Olivia under her fangs where she belonged. No one else mattered. Nothing else in the world deserved her attention but the woman in her arms.
She released her grip on Olivia’s waist to rip away the sweatshirt and the shirt underneath it, exposing her bare skin. Olivia flinched into her, moaned her name.
“Touch me,” Olivia gasped.
It wasn’t what she wanted. It couldn’t be. Not to be taken on the cement floor while h
er brother watched and the surveillance system recorded it all.
But she was as much a prisoner of Kylie’s hunger as Kylie was. Kylie knew it and fought against it. But not hard enough. Her fingers found Olivia’s nipples, caressed and squeezed them, tugged at the points that were hard with arousal. She wanted to suckle her breasts, take her nipples one after the other on her tongue. But she could only do one thing at a time with her mouth, and the crimson fountain was much more important.
Olivia groaned as Kylie slid her hands down her jeans, between her thin panties and her hot flesh. She was wet. Slick with a different kind of hunger, eagerly welcoming Kylie’s fingers into her pussy. She dipped her fingers in for a taste, delving as deeply as the position would allow then came for her clit, caressing the hard nub of feminine flesh. She sucked harder on her neck.
“Baby….”
The faintest sound of protest fell from Olivia’s lips although her hips moved with Kylie’s fingers, encouraging the erotic caresses, the float and feather on her clitoris that brought Kylie to life. This was a moment to live for. A woman giving in to her passion. She sucked harder at Olivia’s throat, drinking deeply at the gift she knew could only be given once.
Kylie was only vaguely aware of the audience around them. Olivia’s brother. The cameras. Others who had come to stare. Others who were shouting at Max to pull Olivia out of the cage.
Kylie wasn’t aware of the words, but they didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was feeding her hunger. The blood. Olivia’s whimpers. A mixture of arousal and fear. The frantic tremor of her pulse that gushed blood harder and faster into Kylie’s mouth.
Her skin tingled. She felt that Olivia was emptying, felt her life rushing out along with the blood and then, it wasn’t about feeding anymore but about the sensuality of the experience, the life under her, rushing toward her with open arms that all she had to do was take. Pleasure exploded in her mouth, under her skin, between her legs.
Because of what she was, she could not stop being aware of her surroundings. She knew that once she started feeding, Max stared at her and Olivia with a look of satisfaction, malice bright in his pale eyes. Kylie knew that his men had come running to stare in horror and tell him to stop this thing and let Olivia out in the name of their god! But even he had to know it was too late for that.
Kylie was loose and rabid with hunger. If anyone opened the cage, she wouldn’t stop with the prey she already had in her grasp. She wouldn’t stop until they were all dead.
She was distantly aware of a new scent, someone powerful who the others reacted to with fear. A cold-voiced command instantly quieted the room. Then the smell of medicine. A spit of sound. Dart guns. She twisted so the darts wouldn’t hit Olivia, protecting her with her body while the darts rained down on her shoulders, back, and thighs. The pain stung her.
She snarled when the first few tranquilizer darts hit her, but did not release her hold on Olivia. She felt five shots. Eight. Then fifteen before she lost count and began to feel their effects.
No! A part of her screamed out when the first wave of unconsciousness hit. But it barely lasted a second. Not yet! Don’t take her away from me.
She tightened her hold on Olivia, sucking harder, her fangs wetly tearing more of the blood-splashed flesh to allow more nourishment to flow into her mouth. She sucked harder. Hunger and pain twisting her body as more darts poured down at her. She fought the effects of the tranquilizers but could not win the battle. Her body sagged with weakness. Her eyes dropped closed.
“Now. Get Olivia now.” The cold and controlled voice sliced into Kylie’s awareness.
The doors of the cage slid open. Freedom! She shoved at Olivia’s limp body and leapt up. Or at least she tried to. She could only manage a weak flick of her hand before she felt Olivia being pulled away from her. Human hands grabbing her wrists and ankles to shackle them once again and wrap chains tightly around her middle, binding her to the metal post in the center of the cell.
The humans rushed out of the cell with their burden. The gate slammed shut. It all took only seconds. Kylie knew because she counted them while waiting for the tranquilizers’ effect to wear off as she lay on the hard floor, her muscles limp and useless.
Nineteen seconds after the last concentrated burst of darts and she felt like herself again. No body-aching hunger. No tunnel vision. Just her with the stolen blood leaping through her veins and scarlet nourishment dripping from her face.
She came fully to herself to see the humans carrying away Olivia’s body down the hallway, a barrage of emergency activity. Boot steps pounding against the concrete, shouts for a stretcher, a blood transfusion, a doctor.
Kylie could still taste Olivia on her tongue. Her body was healing and getting stronger with each breath the humans drew while Olivia was only getting weaker. Her life was in Kylie’s mouth. She swallowed the lightly spicy flavor of her. The blood slid down her throat in a delicious slither that made her tremble with satisfaction.
Her body was replete, satisfied for the first time in days. But inside, she felt flayed alive. It was like killing her grandmother all over again, draining someone she loved simply for her own survival.
She cringed back against the thick metal at her back, sending the manacles on her wrists and ankles clanging. Kylie stared at the woman on the other side of the cage, but all her attention was focused on Max. Kylie noticed then that the woman, despite her combat boots, jungle fatigues, and black tank top that showed off lean and effective-looking muscles, was elegantly made. She had queenly features, skin the color of blond oak, and she wore her hair in thick cornrows down to her waist. She looked ageless. And familiar. Ah, yes. Another face from Olivia’s photo album.
“She better survive this,” the woman said to Max. “Or not even God can help you.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop at least ten degrees with each word she uttered, words so cutting and deliberate that Kylie felt their effect. But she didn’t feel sorry for Max. Not at all. She wanted to tear him apart with her fangs and claws then spit out every ounce of his poisonous blood that ended up in her mouth. Kylie trembled with anger and fear.
Olivia.
It didn’t matter that she had been thinking of destroying her a few hours before. It didn’t matter that she’d gotten the chance to do just what she had threatened. None of that mattered now that Olivia’s human life was hanging by a frayed thread just a few yards away.
The woman in fatigues turned away from Max after a charged instant to look past him and down the hallway where Olivia had disappeared. “Volt it,” she said.
“With pleasure, Bertram.” Max flicked a glance at Kylie. “For how long?” His voice held a note of relief, as if he were glad the human woman was focused on something else besides him.
“Until I say stop.” Bertram looked at Kylie.
Kylie felt as if the woman was mentally dissecting her, assessing each of her parts in order to properly break her down later. Strangely enough, Max was looking at Bertram the same way.
“The highest voltage available,” Bertram said.
At the word “voltage” Kylie jerked to attention. Her body stiffened at the thought of what Bertram could mean. The woman walked away from the cell without a backward glance. Seconds later, Kylie began to scream.
Chapter Twenty-two
Agony.
Every second passed in a haze of agony for Kylie.
She felt intense pain and the scrape of her screams against her throat. Electricity surged through her body in an unending stream, frying her nerves and synapses over and over again as they healed. Her skin twitched and burned and jerked against the concrete slab, her body shuddering and bucking into the hard cement, scraping her skin, bruising her bones, knocking her into merciful unconsciousness for precious seconds at a time. Her back jerked in an excruciating arch off the metal pylon that only heightened the electricity’s effect on her flesh. The shackles around her bare wrists and ankles burned into her skin with each burst of curre
nt.
The smell of her flesh and hair burning filled her nose. The blood boiled in her veins. Her fingers and toes and arms and legs twitched. Minutes passed. Hours. Maybe even days. Then the electric current stopped its assault on her body. The respite caught her in mid-tremor, and her knees slammed once more against the hard concrete. Kylie panted in fear and relief, reverting back to the human habit of breathing in the midst of her pain. Her skin hummed. Her heart felt like it was still beating.
“You’ve taken my daughter away from me.” The woman in fatigues appeared in front of her cell. Her face was cold in its anger. There were dried tears on her cheeks, but sadness had already given way to fury. “So I’m going to take everything away from you.”
Kylie panted against the floor, head hung low and heavy, unable to process what the woman was saying, only knowing that Olivia was dead. She wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. She regretted her decision to come to Atlanta. She regretted seeing the ruby necklace on the television. She regretted the chase, the sun that drove her into Olivia’s apartment. She wanted to tell the woman that she was sorry. But because apologies would change nothing, Kylie kept the words to herself.
“Where is she?” she croaked.
“It doesn’t matter where she is. That’s none of your business.”
She looked up at the woman through the heavy fall of her thick hair, the kinks and curls falling into her eyes. “You started this,” she said. “If you had left me alone, she’d still be alive.”
“Would she?” The woman came closer to the cage. She had a much more fearsome presence than Max, her eyes burning with a killing fire that promised to lay waste to everything in her path. “She drew you to her. This wasn’t a result that either of us put into motion.”
What did the woman mean? Kylie couldn’t bother to hide her confusion.
“I guess you didn’t know that, did you?” The woman looked at her with contempt. “Olivia had cancer and she wanted to survive at any cost. She wanted to be turned into one of you.” Her lips twisted with distaste. “I banished her from the family thinking that once she’d seen what she lost, she’d give up on that stupid idea.” Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. “Then you stumbled into her trap, stupid little vampire. We should have killed you that first morning.”