But that had not changed the months his bride managed without her missing lady parts.
“I’m going to start with your fingers since you removed April’s,” he said, revving the motor of the saw.
“Wait!” He sure was prepared to make some heinous moves based on some big assumptions here. “Of all the vampires in the world, what makes you think I’m the one who did this?”
He walked closer to me and I tensed, certain he was going to strike at any moment. He’d given no warning last time. “I worked in a blood lab back when you bloodsuckers were legal. Back when my family was taken from me,” he said through gritted teeth.
Not making the connection, I asked, “What does that have to do—”
“I kept the blood samples taken from the crime scene at my house. I took them everywhere with me as I hunted down and killed every soulless one of you I could get my hands on.”
Was I missing something? What in the hallway of hell did any of that have to do with me?
“I hunted vamps by night, continued working in the lab by day until I had almost given up finding you. Then one day I got lucky. Your paperwork came through needing to be tested…for a new narcolepsy drug therapy treatment, I think.”
Ohhh. I was starting to see where this was going. “And let me guess—my blood matched a sample taken from the scene.”
His answer was to grab my tightly bound arms from behind my back and slice right through my middle, ring, and pinky fingers. I screamed as they fell to the floor and more of Punch’s blood spilt with them.
Dario screamed too. Though he wasn’t hurt physically, he was forcing himself to relive the horror that had befallen his beloved. I also got the feeling he wasn’t used to torturing women.
But I hurt too badly to pity him at the moment.
Struggling to get a handle on the pain, I choked, “It wasn’t me. When were they killed?”
“Ten years ago,” he whispered then fell to his knees in sobs. “Your blood matched just a few weeks ago.”
When my blood had been drawn from Dr. Floyd’s lab and sent off for testing in order to participate in one of his new clinical trial studies. I hadn’t even gotten the results back from that analysis yet and I was already being punished for it.
“Dario, you listen to me and you listen good: It. Was. Not. Me. I could not have done it. I’ve only been turned three years.”
“I may not have your superior intelligence, Willow, but I’m no fool. How could you only be a vampire three years but your blood match a vampire murder scene from ten years ago.”
I thought back to the transition ritual. To the part where Max had cut out my heart while it was still beating, while I was still alive. To the part where he drained me of blood and filled me with his own. To the chant Saybree made while my body convulsed and died and reanimated.
Thinking back on a few days ago when Dr. Floyd had analyzed my blood in his own lab and had said the composition of my blood had changed, I realized I had been wrong about Max’s blood mixing with the composition of mine. His blood had completely taken over. Though I still didn’t know who had killed Dario’s family, I knew whose bloodline it had come from. We all shared Max’s blood. And his alone. It took over the body of every vampire he sired, meaning someone in Max’s bloodline had done the deed.
“Tell me how it’s possible!” he said, waving the saw in front of my face.
“Because your blood samples belong to my maistre vampire. Anyone of us in his bloodline who has been a vampire for ten years or more could have done it.”
Silence. Pacing.
Maybe he will let me go.
More silence. More pacing.
“Then I must kill this maistre vampire of yours. You will tell me where he is,” he huffed finally.
Chapter 33
Fat chance in hell of that happening. “Fuck you.”
His hand came down across my back with that saw three times, making me scream and spin around like a Tasmanian devil. He didn’t even care that blood was landing all over his picture.
Grabbing a handful of my hair, he pulled my head up and forward long enough to spit in my face then dropped me to swing around again.
“I don’t want to do this to you. Really. I don’t. Torturing a woman, alive or undead, is not in my nature. But revenge is.” He walked away to put the saw down. “I want the bastard who killed my family. I kill your maistre, I kill all o’ ya, right?”
Struggling to talk, I mumbled, “No incentive to tell you anything then, is it? Go ahead and kill me now.”
I heard him pick up something from the table and walk over to me a second before I felt agonizing burns across my back as he spritzed my wounds with liquid. It was the equivalent of a human having salt pored in a gaping sore. It hurt like hell.
Just my luck to have a creatively sadistic fuck on my hands.
“Know what this is?” He’d waited until I was done screaming to taunt me. “Holy water. Yep. All kinds of new ways to hurt you with it.” He laughed. “Bet you were wondering why you didn’t pick up my scent outside the club. ’Cause I washed myself in holy water. Guess you can say it gives me a protective coating.”
Interesting. Humans took the business of exterminating vampires seriously. Apparently, torture methods had been perfected as well.
And we were the bad guys?
“You say you didn’t kill them. Fine. Help me get the one who did. I wouldn’t be killing any innocents. You vamps have mercilessly killed and lived off humans. It’s only fair that y’all die in exchange for the lives y’all’ve taken. Allow me my justice.”
“I already told you I’ve killed no one. I don’t believe in murder. Goes against my religion.”
He laughed. “Religion?! You’re kidding, right?”
It was no use. He wouldn’t get it. “And don’t give me that ‘no killing innocents’ bull. You killed Ivan. Other than using his dick too freely, he had hurt no one.”
“What? I don’t know an Ivan.”
And he called me a liar. “Riiiight. Regardless, I ain’t telling you shit.”
He paced a minute then stopped. “Tell you what, Willow. I don’t have the stomach or patience for this. I’m going to get a few reinforcements and I’ll see how you feel after that.”
Lovely. Couldn’t wait.
He cut off the light and exited quietly.
Since I hadn’t yet felt burning rays from the sun that I was sure was in the sky by now, either I was underground or he had the windows covered and the door led to a hallway instead of directly outside. Listening carefully, I heard nothing. No dripping faucet, no chirping bird, no crawling rats…I smelled nothing either. Nothing but the iron in my own spilt blood. He must have washed the place down with holy water, making it difficult to figure out how to escape.
I was glad he was gone but it was disconcerting.
Sort of felt like the calm before the storm. And the reinforcements would be coming in on a cloud of barbarianism with lightning from Lucifer. I was sure of it.
So where the hell was I and how the hell did I get out of here?
My last thought before I fell asleep.
When I awakened, I had a feeling I had only been out a short while, which was a bummer. The pain from my lacerations and amputations hit hard. Since I’d lost so much blood, I was healing slower and wished I could have stayed asleep while my body repaired itself. Could have really used a longer break from the pain.
No such luck.
See, when you’re a vampire, you feel things more intensely. Pleasure is soooo good. Pain is…well, it’s something awful.
And I was feeling awful. The power boost Punch had given me was running dry because of all the stress my body had been under since.
Thinking of Punch made me remember how much of my blood he’d taken. It acted as a drug for him, an aphrodisiac, something that made him euphoric for a while, then the high was gone. The bond was not.
Vampire blood in another supernatural established an indefinite magical
bond that grew less intense over time if the supernatural did not continue drinking vamp blood. But the bond would not go away completely without supernatural intervention like a spell or ritual. A human would have to re-charge his vampire blood intake more frequently since the magic was one-sided, but not a were-animal. Punch, the werewolf, was mine.
I’d taken a lot of his blood too. Maybe he could find me, rescue me.
My mind called to him on its own before I had a chance to think through the ramifications.
Punch…
It was like a whisper on the wind that floated through the air, through the molecules of the wall, out into streets and into his home, until it found him and landed on his skin, his essence. He sucked in air as if to keep from drowning and looked at me. I looked at him. Fire looked at me. Then I threw myself from their bedroom where Fire was no longer the red fire-breathing dragon, but a pasty white woman with freckles, riding her chocolate stud as they were close to simultaneous orgasms.
Didn’t want to watch. Didn’t want to interfere. Didn’t want to call him to help me when he and his woman were making love. Making up.
Then I heard footsteps. Heavy boots. Several sets in no hurry, but coming steady and they were going to be here any second.
The door opened and I opened my eyes to one, two, three, four sets of boots entering the dark room. Someone cut the light on so they could all see me better because it certainly wasn’t for me to see them. I could see just fine in the dark and I was sure they knew that.
Someone said something in a language I didn’t recognize and the salacious mmmm at the end was not the giveaway for what he had in mind. His hand sliding up from my bare breast to my crotch was.
It was going to be a long day.
Unfortunately, there was no Calgon to take me away.
“Told you she was hot. But don’t let her fool you. She’s no Mary Poppins. I’d stay away from her fangs and keep her chained up with the silver or you’ll be sorry,” Dario said. “And she has narcolepsy. So don’t think she’s dead just ’cause she passes out.”
“A narcoleptic vampire? Ain’t she special,” said one of the thugs.
“So you want us to beat her without killing her?” a different guy asked.
“I don’t care what you do to her as long as she coughs up the location of her maistre vampire,” Dario said then stepped towards the door. “I would do it myself, but I lost lunch and dinner after what I did to her earlier. Let me know when she talks.”
Things didn’t get better. In fact, once Dario left, I was closed in with three of the horniest, most disgusting “reinforcements” to ever walk the planet. Made Dario’s torture seem pansy-ass. Also made me feel sorry for Houston single women.
But I’d never give up Max’s location.
Because truthfully, I had no idea where it was.
Chapter 34
“I don’t know,” I said hoarsely.
I had screamed so much I was barely audible. Yet, they continued.
And we were supposed to be the soulless, heartless, merciless creatures.
They had taken me down some hours ago, wisely leaving my hands chained behind my back and my feet chained together. I thought that, along with my physical strength, would keep them from wedging themselves between my legs. But never underestimate the determination of a horny man with access to a naked woman. They managed to enter. Several times.
Better than having them use the saw though.
After coming once they’d grown more creative in ways to inflict pain on me. Guess they had less pressure on their balls and more blood flowing to their itty-bitty brains. Valentina could use them in her shows provided they learned the concept of “safe word”. One had even cut off my nipple when I mentioned he had a baby dick and fucked like a turtle.
My bad. Note to self: never insult a man’s manhood while you’re chained up even if he really is under-endowed.
So in order to keep their minds off the saw, I had resorted to titillating them, pretending my vampire libido wanted them. Encouraging them to insert dicks in my orifices rather than sharp metal objects. I was not having a good time, mind you, but Dario would be pissed to learn I was not suffering. That they were no closer to extracting Max’s whereabouts. That I’d survive awhile longer with more time to plot their demise.
And sure as shit stinks, their demise was coming since I’d discovered a few clues about my prison. One, while lying on the floor, I had detected faint scents of bleach and Lysol which told me this was already a sterile environment before Dario had doused it with holy water. And two, now that I was no longer hanging upside down, I got a good look around at all the white cabinets and white tables covered by clear plastic to catch my splattered blood. There was not much else to go on since my abduction had been premeditated, but these clues were more than I had before.
Unfortunately, no one had been stupid enough to get a blowjob. My fangs were itching to bite a dick off.
“Where is he?” Little Dick asked for the fifteen-millionth time.
Lying on the cool concrete floor, I just shook my head back and forth. How many ways could I say I didn’t know?
Max had sired hundreds of female vampires (though I wasn’t sure how many still existed), joined forces with another vampire clan, and accumulated more power, more possessions, more wisdom than anyone I’d ever known. He had been around for over two thousand years and he’d done that by shrewdness and careful planning. We all came to him blindfolded. We left only after he scrubbed our brains of his location. It was a safety precaution for all of us. No one feared the other would turn on him and thereby kill us all. It had been smart. It had been effective.
And it would be the reason I met my final death alone today if I did not figure out how to escape.
Little Dick looked at his watch then straddled my chest. He’d obviously decided he had wasted enough time. “Where is he?” he asked.
“I don’t kn—”
I never finished the sentence because he had punched my jaw so hard it cracked. And he was wearing metal mesh gloves so I couldn’t bite through his skin.
He punched again.
I could take it. Been taking beatings since I was a child. This was nothing. Only thing missing was the prayers to God for my salvation. Which would have been nice.
Unless God wasn’t going to answer.
“Where. Is. He?” he asked, accentuating each word with a kick to my side.
Yeah, that’s really going to make me talk, you overcompensating motherfucker.
Pulling my knees to chest, I tucked my chin to shield myself from the beatings as much as possible since his fists and steel-toed boots were packing more power than my parents’ belts.
I was happy to feel my consciousness slipping from me again…
“Hang in there, Willow. I’m right here,” came the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. The voice of love and concern. “You’re not alone this time,” he said.
Squinting through swollen lids and bright lighting, I saw him crouching in front of me, smiling warmly, rubbing my shoulder.
Comforting me like he’d done years ago when I had confided in him about my childhood.
I forced a smile. Because either I was delirious with pain and imagining things or Ivan’s ghost had picked the perfect time to show up.
Chapter 35
When I reached my hand out to touch Ivan, Little Dick ceased his ministrations and stepped back. “Man, this bitch is crazy,” he said to no one in particular.
Tuning them out, I stared into Ivan’s sapphires and thought of how beautiful they were, though not as mesmerizing as Aaron and Remi’s. Not as creepy as when Remi peeped through them, not as innocent as when Aaron did.
Just realized I had a thing for eyes and not just because they were the windows to the soul I used for captivating brains. In fact, an argument could be made that my men’s eyes were so beautiful, they captivated me.
And it wasn’t just about eye color. Sapphire or metallic blue, emerald or neon green
, smoky black, it didn’t matter. It was also the thickness of the brows and where the bridge of the nose fit between…
The non-English-speaking guy had come over and started smacking my face around, so I mentally withdrew unto myself. Focusing on my men and their eyes…and their captivated brains.
My mind wandered all over the place. Anywhere was better than here.
Speaking of captivated brains…
Emmanuel had asked me to make it where he never had to come back. What if I could use my power of captivation over each of Aaron’s personalities and command them to appear only at pre-approved times? Maybe I could repair some of the damage I’d done to their brain that caused them to shift randomly by forcing them to shift according to a calendar schedule. Mason could go back to shifting only once every six months, Remi every Saturday, and Emmanuel not at all. It wouldn’t be permanent, of course, but it may buy us a little time. Time without Aaron’s medication.
If I survived today, I’d have to try it.
Provided Aaron was still alive since I hadn’t gotten the protection amulet from Saybree yet.
Hopefully, Dario was nearby, focusing his efforts on breaking me instead of going after Aaron in the meantime. While I was preoccupied with reinforcements.
Who were breaking me down bit-by-bit.
Going in and out of consciousness was no longer helping my mental state. Meditating on everything other than pain no longer kept me grounded. I was a ball of nerves, a cesspool of desperation. Wondering if this was the beginning of insanity.
My mind had begun reaching out to Max for help, knowing that was a bad idea in all regards. One, although I didn’t know exactly where he was, I could still sense he was miles away. Still well-hidden in another country. Two, even if he was close, it was daylight. And three, if by some swing of the devil’s dick Max would come rescue me, he’d be putting himself and the clan in danger. If he was unsuccessful in saving me, I was truly dead anyway.
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