by Mara Leigh
I long to die quickly. Die now before these monsters do whatever they have planned.
After my last few marriage ceremonies, Xavier’s guards were cruel, but now that their king is officially done with me I’m fair game. For anything…
Fear overtakes every part of my body. Shaking, my eyes covered, I can barely hear or smell or think. I can barely breathe.
“Get out!” Pike yells. “You heard the king. She’s mine. I am the one who gets to fuck her. I’m the one who gets to kill her. Me. Don’t come back. Spread the word. Anyone sets one step on the stairs to the dungeon, anyone sets one foot in these halls without my permission gets staked.”
“Okay, okay. Be greedy.” The metal object clangs against the floor.
The hinges creak, then the heavy door slams.
I am again alone with Pike.
With my toes barely touching the ground and my ankles spread wide and shackled, my legs tremble. Pike presses his wrist against my mouth.
“Drink.” He strokes my hair. “You’re going to need your strength. Please.”
At that last word, I almost yield. But even more than I want his blood, I want to yell at him, to scream in defiance.
But I can’t risk it.
If I part my lips, even a millimeter, I won’t be able to resist his vein. Pike wants me strong so his torture will last longer and as much as I want to live, I will not satisfy his vicious desires.
But my own vampiric urges may be stronger than my will, stronger than my mind. During the ceremony, those urges tricked me into thinking I could love King Xavier. A monster.
I don’t love him. I could never. Just like I could never take a taste of the savage beast who’s tempting me now.
Pike finally withdraws his wrist.
I gasp and then lick my lips, ravenous for blood. Pike’s blood.
Even blindfolded, I know he’s moved several feet away. I can still smell him, hear his blood, imagine its taste.
I’ve been hungry before, but never thirsted like this.
From behind me, Pike’s hands land on my shoulders and I brace, ready for penetration and pain, but instead, he strokes my throat, licks my barely pulsing vein. Then his hands trail softly over my naked body.
“Rest,” he says as he strokes me. “No one will dare come down here until I say. And know this. If you leave here, I will find you. No matter how far you run, I will find you. And yes, some day I am going to fuck you. I’m going to fuck you again and again and again. I’m going to fuck you until neither of us can stand, until neither of us can breathe. But not today. When I fuck you, you’ll want it. And you’re going to want it even more than you want my blood right now.”
Want Pike? He’s delusional.
Yes, he saw me nearly cave to Xavier, but the idea that I’d ever have sex with this beast—and willingly? Not a chance.
As I lie trapped on the bench, Pike licks and kisses me, running his firm tongue and lips over every inch of my exposed skin—my back, my ass, my inner thighs.
And I hate my body for how it responds as his mouth caresses me in ways that are at once comforting and arousing. My mind is repulsed, but my body isn’t. Instead, wetness pools between my legs and my skin heats, and I find it hard to keep my hips still against the bench.
His lips leave my skin, and I hear the unmistakable crunch of fangs plunging into flesh, but I feel no pain. Instead I feel the warm drip of blood on my back.
Pike paints my back with his blood, his hands massaging, no doubt marking me as a threat to the other guards. He’s determined to be my sole inflictor of torture, the one to kill me.
His blood absorbs into my skin, and the feeling’s so powerful, so energizing, so—arousing.
My hips circle, and the strategically placed ridge on the bench finds my clit.
I still my body. More aroused is the last thing I want.
Pike breathes heavily behind me. I hear and feel his labored breath even as I continue to smell and taste the promising song of his blood.
Just when I can barely stand it, just when I’m about to cry out for his vein against my mouth, to beg for his dick to impale me, he leaves.
Pike leaves me alone in the dark with only my fear and the anticipation of more pain that I know will this time end in death.
Selina
After Pike leaves me in darkness, I yield to the lure of the bench’s ridge and grind my clit it until I come.
My orgasm explodes, pulling every part of me inward as if my body’s imploding into my pounding core. When my breathing returns to normal, I realize the sensation of drawing inward wasn’t just my climax-induced imagination. Parts of my body actually did move.
Parts I know shouldn’t move while I’m restrained on this bench.
But my legs definitely drew closer together.
I release the wooden handles from my tight grip and I discover my wrists aren’t clamped either.
I lift my head and the leather strap behind it easily yields.
Weak and blood starved, I can barely see in the darkness, but realize I’m not tied down except at the waist. I reach back and fumble to unbuckle the leather strap constraining my torso.
The second the buckle yields, my body slips off the bench. My legs refuse to support me, and I land crumpled on the cold stone floor.
Pike must have thought me so weak he didn’t even bother to tie me down. He only restrained me enough so I wouldn’t fall.
Or maybe this is his sick game? Maybe he wants a hunt before his kill?
Even fully fed, my strength would be no match for Pike’s, or any of the king’s Guard. Even with the dungeon weapons on the wall, I can’t fight Pike and win.
But doing nothing means death, too.
Even if it plays directly into his plan, I have to try to escape.
Struggling onto my hands and knees, I smell blood. Blood besides that which covers my back. Human blood.
Following my senses, I creep forward on hands and knees until I find a small bowl of the nourishing red liquid.
I lap like a kitten until I find the strength to lift the bowl and drain it. I must have found the vessel they use to provide me with teaspoons of blood at a time. As my belly fills and the blood absorbs into my bloodstream, my night vision slowly and faintly returns.
Weakly, I stand.
Pressing my ear against the wooden door, I hear nothing in the hall outside.
I tug on the handle and wince as the heavy door creaks on its hinges. After a quick check, I slip into the hallway. I’ve never been down here on my own, and never noticed much of this corridor beyond the flagstone floor.
The walls are also stone and they’re damp, like I’m far underground. Without lighting, it’s hard to make out many details, but I see a piece of cloth hanging from a hook on the wall. I tiptoe forward to retrieve it, hoping it’s something I can use to cover up my blood-smeared, naked body.
When I reached the cloth, I discover a trench coat and quickly put it on, belting it tightly around me, and then I look up and down the hall, trying to choose a direction.
The direction I came from leads toward the Great Hall, and even though the failed wedding ended some time ago, the hall’s likely still filled with vampires. Vampires out to torture me for rejecting their king.
Choosing the lesser of two evils, I head forward into the unknown.
The corridor turns several times, and I pass many closed doors much like the one I came out of. I try not to think of the possible prisoners behind those doors. I’m not even sure I can save myself.
I reach a dead end, and my heart sinks as I press my forehead against the cold damp wall there.
A slight breeze tickles my skin.
My palms roam the damp wall, trying to find a crack, a handle, anything. I scrape my nails and fingers over the surface, not caring if they become raw—I’ll heal if I live—and I finally discover a tiny stone jutting out from the rest.
I push it. Nothing happens.
Gripping it tightly between my scra
ped thumb and index finger, I tug on the stone. Part of the wall slides open.
I quickly slip through the opening and run, hearing the door close behind me. Not that the closed door will help much. I assume Pike knows about this passage, and once he discovers I’m gone, he’ll come after me. It’s not like a closed door will slow him down.
The passage is narrow, but the ceiling is at least seven feet high and I guess—I hope—that it’s a way out of the palace, used by King Xavier’s Guard when they go out to hunt or recruit—like the night Santos found me.
Like switchbacks up a mountain, the uphill passage slopes and turns many times until it ends at a metal door. Without hesitation, I open the door, then quickly slam it shut.
Daylight.
My face, hands, shins and feet sizzle, all my exposed skin fries in the sun, and I wish I’d taken another second to consider the burning star’s angle so I could estimate the time and know when it might be safe to try again.
But the direct sunlight is too much to bear for more than an instant, and so I don’t get an indication of time the second time I open the door, either. Instead, I use my sunburn as a timer. Each time I’m healed enough to open the door, I try again, then again, determined to keep trying until either Pike finds me, I’m burned to a crisp, or the sun has set, whichever comes first.
Living in the palace these past fourteen months, I’ve lost all concept of time, of night or day. I figured the wedding was scheduled at night, but had no idea. Contrary to legend, vampires have no preference for night or day, as long as we can stay away from the sun. No sunlight ever penetrates Xavier’s fortress, except where and when he wants it to.
During my punishments, I often suffered sunlight torture, exposed to short scalding bursts of light that ravaged my skin. Xavier would reopen the light tunnels each time I nearly healed, then when I was burned he would kiss me and soothe me and try to convince me to love him.
I lived through that torture and worse. I can live through this, too.
Bracing against the pain of my burns, I huddle in the darkness by the door, listening for signs of Pike and wishing I’d had more than one tiny bowl of human blood to sustain me. Each time I open the door, it takes longer to heal, and I won’t last much longer.
Xavier liked me to be yearning for blood at each ceremony, and clearly that part worked. He made me want him today; he made me want Pike.
I press my healing cheek against the soothing cool metal of the door. After I escape the palace, then what?
I was only a vampire for three months before I was captured, and I spent all of it moving from place to place, seeking out the basements of abandoned buildings for shelter and surviving on the alcohol-diluted blood of drunks staggering down alleyways before dawn.
As a lone vampire, especially a lone female, I was endlessly hunted by the syndicate recruiters—and the human police.
Humans discovered vampires were real when I was a little girl. Since then, all police carry stakes.
Vampires have no rights. For us, there’s no innocent before proven guilty. We don’t get judges. There are no juries of our peers. Police have orders to kill vampires on sight.
That’s why the syndicates and kingdoms exist—for protection. Strength in numbers. At least, that’s what Santos argued to lure me to Xavier’s court in the first place. But if life at court is what protection looks like, I’d rather live in danger.
Feeling strong enough, I try the door for the fifth time. Fresh air brushes my still stinging face and relief floods through me as I look up at the twilight-hued sky and step into an alley between rows of tall buildings.
I smell humans, many humans, even though none are in sight.
No idea where I am, I let the door close, then realize I can’t go back through it, even if I had the desire—or death wish. Closed, the door blends so well into the wall I can’t even see where it was.
I cautiously walk the alley, looking up at the buildings, searching for landmarks. I assume it’s still Toronto, but Santos blindfolded and drugged me before taking me to the palace, so I can’t be certain.
I reach an intersection, and the CN Tower appears between two buildings.
I know where I am. But it’s been fourteen months. Do any of my daytime hiding spots still exist? I have until dawn to find out.
But first, I need to feed. Feeding is risky this soon after dark, but I head toward the Entertainment District, hoping to catch someone on the way home from after-work drinks.
Luckily it’s spring, so my trench coat doesn’t look out of place, and I slink through the vibrant city streets, tugging the coat around me, hoping it covers Pike’s blood, and lets me pass as a human.
Chapter 4
Selina
Four hours later I’m beyond famished. The tiny bowl of blood I found in the dungeon wasn’t nearly enough to sustain me, especially after months of starvation combined with healing from today’s multiple sunburns.
Without feeding, I will never survive until dawn. And this time of year, dawn will come soon.
My ideal meal ticket should be someone alone, preferably a straight male I can lure somewhere private, but the only men I’ve spotted have been in groups, or with women, and none looked like a promising meal.
Not an easy meal, anyway. And tonight I need easy. I need the McDonalds of blood feasts—fast and effortless and out of a readily disposable container.
Not that I plan to kill my dinner’s container. Not if I can help it.
Guilt floods inside me. Not since the very first time I fed have I killed a human. But tonight, like that first night, I’m so hungry and out of control, I’m not positive I can stop feeding once I start.
Giving up on the Entertainment District, I wander west toward the Junction, close to the tracks where the streets are quieter, a mixture of old factories, houses, and a few funky coffee shops and bars.
I’m stronger and faster than any human, but slow for a vampire, and I feel at risk in my weak condition, not to mention my naked condition. Naked under this trench coat—except for Pike’s blood.
I shudder. Even worse than the risk of human detection, Pike is surely hunting me now. Can he track his scent? Is that why he marked me? I wish I knew more about my own kind.
A light rain starts to fall as I stand in an alley near one of the only factories that’s not yet converted to condos. I let it wash over my face, almost tempted to take off the trench and let the rain wash off Pike.
A man turns the corner from a street parallel to the alley, and hope rises in my chest. Alone, dressed in a suit and walking with a slight stagger, he’s likely been out drinking since work, and with any luck I’ll be able to lure him deeper into the alley.
My target meal hails a cab and disappears. Crap.
Dizzy with hunger, I head down the alley, hoping I might find a safe place to rest. Or if I get even more desperate, a rat.
“Hey there.” A man steps out from the shadows.
I jump back. Even though I’m a vampire, I haven’t lost the instincts of a human woman. I know the math. Strange man + alley = danger.
Ha! These days I’m the danger.
“You lost?” he asks.
I shake my head as I size him up and glance around to make sure he’s alone, that we aren’t being observed. Have I finally found dinner?
“Whatcha got on under that trench?” Hooking his finger under the knot at my waist, he tugs me forward and looks at me with the most revolting kind of hunger. The hunger of a man who wants sex and nothing else—and I’m not talking nice sex either. His is the hunger of man who thrives on overpowering anyone weaker.
My instincts scream run, but I remind myself that I’m the one who can overpower this human.
“Come.” He tips his head down the alley. “It’s more private down here.”
I narrow my eyes. Does he think it’s that easy? Would any woman be stupid enough to follow him into the alley?
Even I don’t want to follow him, and I want to eat him.
Grabbing my arm, he yanks me forward, and I fall to my knees on the dank asphalt. I’m even weaker than I realized.
“Get up.” He roughly grabs me around the waist and lifts me to my feet. His arm pins mine against my side as he yanks me aggressively along the alley.
Before I can react, my foot lands in a rain-filled pothole and I stumble.
“Fucking drunk,” he says with obvious disgust.
To keep me moving, he pulls me hard against his side, and my bare feet scrape along the broken asphalt as I fight to find my footing.
“I’m not paying for this,” he growls.
“Paying?”
“To fuck you.”
I wrench myself out of his grip. “What makes you think I’d fuck you?” I no longer even want to drink his blood.
“Bitch.” He grabs my hair, yanks hard and turns me, pushing me face first into the damp brick wall.
My face hits before my hands, and the impact stuns me, giving him the advantage—for an instant. He holds my cheek so hard against the wall I’d have a brick patterned bruise on my face for weeks if I were human.
I feel a tug at my waist and my coat’s belt drops to the ground. He flashes a knife near my face—one he obviously just used to cut off my belt—and then uses his body weight and other arm to pin me.
“One peep out of you and you’re dead,” he growls in my ear as he gropes the front of the coat, presumably looking for buttons that aren’t there. Discovering that, he rips the garment off my body, nearly tearing one of my shoulders from its socket.
I no longer care if I drink this guy dry. In fact, I can’t wait to kill him.
“What the fuck? You’re covered in blood.” He presses his lips against my ear, his beer-tinged breath nearly making me puke. “Into kinky shit are you? This will be fun.”
He kicks my legs apart. Pushing his arm across my upper back, his body weight holds me firm as he fumbles to get out his cock.
Now.
I push back against the wall and turn. Cock in his hand, he looks stunned that I’m free. But instead of attacking I lean back against the wall.