Existence

by Mel Teshco

  She lifted her hands and clasped my shoulders, and I inhaled sharply at the rush of warmth and the jolt of instant connection. It was that same touch that sent rebellion hurtling through my body, shredding my doubts and ripping the blinkers from my eyes.

  Passion and self-belief now pulsed through my veins, drowning out any lingering weakness. I stood straighter, shoulders back, hands clenched. I didn’t have time to tell her everything I’d learned and observed, but I’d tell her everything that might aid in our plans.

  “The vampire will be sleeping his deepest at midday. Nothing will rouse him then.”

  I’d never call the vampire my master again.

  She nodded. “Good. Can we access his private chambers?”

  I pushed an unsteady hand to my forehead. Whatever she was planning didn’t bode well. But I’d been a sheep for so long I no longer had the right to be the wolf. For the moment I’d go along with her plans.

  I nodded. “Yes. He trusts me.” Why wouldn’t he? I’d cooperated in every way to ensure my survival. It was a bitter pill to swallow. “I can freely enter.” Though there’d be consequences I didn’t want to think about if our escape failed.

  She blew out a slow breath. “Good. I have a plan.” I followed her into the bathroom, my stare meeting hers in the reflection of the mirror. Her beautiful emerald eyes flashed with defiance even as she chewed her lower lip. “We need something to break the glass.”

  I nodded. I’d come too far to back down now. I was only glad the vampire had allowed my one vanity of having a mirror while there were no ‘playthings’ around. Of course, the mirror would be taken away the moment the vampire wasn’t wholly fixated on his latest prize.

  I grabbed the nearest hanging towel, wadded it behind my elbow and lifted my arm, thrusting it back. My elbow thudded against the towel. A satisfying crack sounded and I let my arm fall away, the towel dropping to the floor.

  The splintered glass made us look like some kind of hall-of-mirrors trick, distorted, almost manic. Our appearance was the least of our problems.

  Maya retrieved the towel and gently pried off a piece of glass shaped like a spearhead. “Perfect,” she whispered, voice awed. She looked up at me. “Now we enter your master’s chambers.”

  “He’s not my master anymore,” I said, voice low.

  She smiled, warmth for a moment superseding her rebellion. “I’m glad.”

  We stood still, staring at each other. Her mouth parted in a slow smile, her skin flushing. When she darted her tongue out and touched her lips, I suppressed a groan and forced my mind out of the gutter. Except my cock thickened to bursting and the air fairly crackled with intensity and repressed sexual need.

  If—when—we made it out of here, I’d fuck Maya every which way until she was screaming my name and panting for more. Fuck her until all thoughts of the vampire dimmed into the recesses of her mind. Fuck her until I too forgot about everything but this woman who already crowded my head and had me questioning my morals.

  My mouth dried and my voice emerged as a croak. “If you’re thinking of killing him, think again. He hasn’t lived this long by being weak. He’s immortal, a powerful vampire.”

  I had no real idea how many other vampires there were, but I’d concluded from the bits I’d learned and unwittingly picked up from the bloodsucker that the vampire race was a rare breed. Of course, being an eternal being, one probably didn’t need progeny to continue the genetic line.

  Her smile dimmed. “I never thought to kill him. I just want to cut him so you can drink all that you need. At least until we get to a hospital.”

  The only hospital we’d go to if we told humans the truth was a mental hospital, but I’d save that argument for when we got out of the nest. Still, I was suitably impressed she’d realized no cutlery was stored here, no glasses or cups. Nothing that could be used as a weapon. Everything was taken away with each meal.

  But there were some things Maya didn’t know. “Too much of his blood will kill me,” I rasped, my belly roiling and cramping with hunger at the thought of sustenance.

  “Is that what the monster told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believed him?”

  She had a point. Whatever else the vampire was, he wasn’t a saint. Evil lived inside him, a darkness that left him unable to care for humanity. What were a few lies to keep me even more under his control?

  Then she blinked, as if clearing her head, and said, “Lead the way.”

  Something flared inside me. Excitement. Hope. Emotions that had too long been dormant. I stepped outside the bathroom and stilled at the vampire’s door. I looked at her. “And if we succeed, what is your plan for the security guard and chef?”

  She shrugged, though her eyes gleamed with inner fire. “We’ll wing it. Stab them both if we have to.”

  Something beat faster inside me. My heart. It had been too passive, too dreary for too long. Maya’s fierce passion tugged at something deep within, an answering passion and desire to be free. To break away from this forced existence I’d grown accustomed to living.

  I nodded and opened the door. I’d been in here before. Of course I had. Someone had to clean the room. Though I’d long ago realized it was the vampire’s way of keeping me busy and out of trouble. After all, it would have been effortless for him to groom another weak-minded mortal to do his dirty work.

  Still, I’d only entered once before when he had been sleeping. I’d known it was sacrilege to enter without invitation, but I’d burst into the room anyway, panicking about Sophie slowly dying in the bathroom, her wrists hacked and slashed by a knife the chef hadn’t noticed was missing.

  I hadn’t been able to wake him, despite my shouting and swearing. But when the vampire had woken hours later he’d known I’d entered his chambers. There’d been no need for violence. Instead he’d withheld his vein from me, watched dispassionately as I’d writhed on the floor, clutching at my belly.

  I had no idea what punishment he’d dealt the chef for the missing butter knife, but the man no longer showed any personality. He was as devoid of life as Sophie had become.

  I shrugged away the horrid thoughts and focused on the moment. The room was huge, a master bedroom where the mattress had been removed from its base so that my master could lie comfortably on his back on a pallet. No coffin for this vampire, though I suspected that was another myth.

  A telescope sat idle at the huge tinted windows, which were presently blocked by thick, heavy curtains. I knew the sun wasn’t fatal, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable for the vampire, not with his albino complexion and an inability to drink water to rehydrate.

  Blood was his one and only staple.

  The wall behind his bed had inbuilt shelving that was crammed with old books. Many of those books, I guessed, were even more ancient than the vampire himself. But though I’d often wondered what the books contained—there were no titles on the colored spines—I was forbidden to open and read them. I was only ever allowed to touch them with a duster.

  The vampire would know if I opened one, and he’d taken great care to explain I’d face a slow, torturous death if I read even a single page of the tomes.

  I stopped at the pallet and stared down at the vampire who’d been my master for so long. The same vampire who’d changed my life dramatically, made me his living, breathing slave and blood donor.

  He lay asleep with the smooth, relaxed features of a little boy. I compressed my lips. Awake or asleep, the vampire’s evil was hidden behind an innocent mask.

  Maya handed me the wedge of glass, her voice inflexible. “Don’t overthink it. Just do it.”

  I clasped the shard, hatred for the vampire coiling through me, almost as powerful as my hunger. I wondered then if the glass could do more damage than just a little blood loss.

  “We need to hurry,” she urged beside me. But it was the giveaway tremor in her voice that made me realize she too suffered from desperate hunger and more than a little fear.

 
; I nodded and clutched the vampire’s arm, slicing a long incision across his wrist. Blood beaded in a thin line and I dropped the shard, careless that it shattered across the floor as I bent and sucked the crimson drops down my throat. I groaned at the flavor that danced across my tongue, savored the trickle that had my synapses snapping to attention and my taste buds rejoicing

  Strength flooded through my system, tearing away the ever-present weakness that had become a part of my everyday life. I’d only had a few sips at most, yet already I felt as if I could take on the world. Conquer it. The rush of power swept away my hunger, even as I was greedy for more.

  But, the moment I heard Maya groan, I stopped and turned to face her. She was white with need. I held out the limp wrist that could easily lift a man of my height by the throat. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  As long as the vampire didn’t feed from her again, her will wouldn’t be broken, nor would she be desperate for sex. She’d be physically and mentally stronger, at least until our next blood craving.

  She fell on the vampire’s arm like a starved dog attacking a meaty bone. She took as much as I had, then dropped his wrist and backed away, her face blanching whiter still even as her lips were smeared in contrasting red. She shuddered. “I didn’t want this—”

  “You needed it.”

  She swiped her arm across her mouth, smearing blood. “That’s no excuse. I’m not addicted. Not like—”

  “Me?” I finished drily.

  She took another step back. “I need to get out of here.”

  I grabbed hold of her arm to keep her still. “And if our brainwashing prevents us from leaving?”

  “Then I’ll use a chair to break a window and jump to my death.”

  I grasped both her arms, fury of a totally different kind burning through me. After the vampire had captured me, I’d survived by becoming a human husk, empty of emotion and feelings. I wasn’t that person anymore. “That won’t happen, not while I’m alive. We will escape this place. Escape it together.”

  Chapter Four

  I looked up at the man I’d once thought was indifferent, and saw fire and passion blaze through his dark eyes, along with a whole bunch of other emotions I knew weren’t there just from his recent feeding. He clenched his big hands and he stood taller, his posture confident and strong.

  He was becoming the man I guessed he used to be. The man I’d glimpsed behind his apathetic stare.

  His fervor increased my own and dizzying relief pushed away the horror of what I’d done. I swallowed the last of the metallic flavor in my throat, which tasted too much like rapture, before I nodded. “Even monsters have weaknesses. We can defeat this. Together, we’re stronger.”

  Despite the roiling disgust that filled me from the inside out after feeding from the vampire, it’d also made me feel invincible, as though I could achieve anything. Jumping out of a window had become the least likely conclusion and the very last resort.

  Alexander cupped my face, his voice low. “Together we will.”

  He bent his head and kissed me, his lips warm, his breath tainted with the blood we’d shared. But somehow that didn’t matter. If anything, it made me want him all the more. I pressed closer to him, his cock a thick wedge against his jeans, his kiss deepening and his groan tingling my lips and making my belly quiver with need.

  I pulled back and looked up at him, seeing him through new eyes. He was a survivor first and foremost—he knew what needed to be done to live. His mental strength would see us through this ordeal. I managed a smile. “No turning back now.”

  His stare glowed with arousal and need. “No turning back,” he echoed.

  We both knew this was do or die. We had nothing more to lose. I had no idea if wood through the heart killed a vampire or even if beheading one would destroy it once and for all. But if glass was our only weapon, I wasn’t about to spend the next few hours speculating or doing our best to kill the monster when escape was within our reach.

  I only hoped drinking the vampire’s blood hadn’t mentally bound us to him even more. An invisible link we wouldn’t be able to break.

  The elevator dinged and my thoughts tuned out. I turned to Alexander and he nodded before we moved silently out of the vampire’s chambers and into the living and dining room.

  It was oddly thrilling to be so ultra-aware of the man I’d kissed, to sense him near me even without seeing him. The chef pushed his trolley toward the dining table while the big guard stepped just outside the elevator and crossed his arms.

  Though Alexander and I hadn’t exchanged plans, we seemed to know exactly what to do. He moved toward the guard while I approached the chef, who was retrieving the hot, fragrant dishes from his food trolley and carefully placing our meals onto the table.

  I picked up the nearest metal serving dish by its stub handle. “So sorry,” I murmured politely, before I swung the dish hard. Meat and vegetables in some kind of gravy flew through the air and splattered across the marble floor before the metal dish clanged loudly against the chef’s head. He fell like a sack of potatoes.

  I turned just in time to see the guard step forward, his fist flying at Alexander. I heard the smack of flesh, stood transfixed as Alexander bent forward with a grunt at the impact to his gut. Then he looked up and caught the guard’s other flying fist in his hand.

  “Time to knock some sense into you,” he said congenially, before he punched the guard’s jaw. The big man crumpled like a deadweight.

  I frowned. It can’t be that easy, surely? But then the vampire blood we’d ingested had filled us with physical strength as well as mental sharpness. Was that why the vampire hadn’t wanted Alexander or any of his donors to drink more than a few drops?

  I strode toward Alexander, determination filling me. “Come on,” I urged.

  He held out his hand and I clasped it before we ran together toward the elevator. I expected the same barrier to stop us going all the way. When nothing happened, and Alexander pressed the button and the doors slid closed behind us, I turned to him and began to giggle uncontrollably. “We did it!”

  His face turned white. “I don’t fucking believe it.”

  “Believe it, Alexander! We’ve just escaped the bloodsucker’s nest!” I pressed a hand to my mouth, my eyes wide. “I thought the vampire’s blood would increase our bond to him. I was so wrong.”

  Alexander tipped his head back, his voice breathless with elation. “It’s why he never wanted us to drink more than what we needed to keep us alive. The blood makes us not just physically stronger, but mentally too, immune to his brainwashing.” He looked back at me, his jaw taut. “He’ll come after us. We have to be prepared for that.”

  The elevator dinged before its doors slid apart, revealing the carpeted foyer of the ground floor. Glass sliding doors were invitingly close. I turned to him and clasped his hands. “Then we run and we keep on running. Because nothing will make me come back here. Ever. Again.”

  He squeezed my hands. “Agreed…on both counts.”

  It was surreal walking through the lobby amongst everyday people with their mundane, everyday lives. People who barely spared us a glance. The same people who were totally clueless about the monster who resided in the very same building.

  A monster who’d soon wake and undoubtedly seek revenge.

  The sharp ping of cutlery and the scent of grilled onions and steak, along with other tantalizing smells, wafted our way. Lunch appeared to be in full swing, and I wondered how long it’d be before restaurant staff noticed their chef was missing.

  We stepped out onto the street, hurrying through the humans who were busy going about their day. Suited businessmen, blue-collar workers, and moms pushing prams. I sucked in the exhaust-fumed air. Smog had never smelled so damn good!

  But I wasn’t going to get too lost in the moment. Wasn’t ever forgetting what I’d escaped. “How long have we got before the bloodsucker wakes?” I asked.

  A muscle in Alexander’s jaw flickered, his mouth t
ightening even as he glanced at the clear sky. “It’s after midday. At a guess, I’d say we have between three and four hours.”

  “Shit.” I pulled him to a stop and he turned to face me. “But we do have time to head back to my share-house to grab some clothes, money and supplies. One of my housemates is around your height and build. I can grab some things for you too.”

  He nodded, though I could see he was both fearful and distracted by everything around him. I had no idea how long he’d been locked away, but imagined the technology had dramatically changed. It would be a lot to take in. Like he’d been in a time warp.

  Two policemen in full uniform strolled past and I turned to stop them. Alexander clasped my forearm and whispered, “They won’t believe us. And unless you want to be admitted to a psych ward, I’d suggest you don’t say a word.”

  I blinked back sudden emotion. Was he right? Would anyone believe us if we told them the truth? Hell, before I was captured I wouldn’t have believed it either. I bit my bottom lip until I drew blood, then nodded acquiescence. “You’re probably right.”

  He released my forearm to carefully blot away the blood on my lip with his thumb. “I wish I wasn’t.”

  I managed a smile, my skin tingling and my emotions dancing at his gentle touch. “My only wish was to escape from the bloodsucker’s nest. Since that came true, I refuse to push my luck wishing for anything else.”

  His eyes glinted. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”

  My throat dried, my entire being responding to him. “I only survived a few hours up there,” I said hoarsely. How he’d survived for so long in the nest I had no idea.

  I turned away from the seriousness of the moment and hailed a taxi, before directing the driver to the suburb of Maychim. There was not a moment to waste on being poignant, our future wasn’t secure now we’d escaped the vampire.

  It was a relief to watch the building we’d escaped recede into the distance. I shivered. Though I knew the vampire still slept, I almost imagined the bloodsucking monster was watching our escape through his telescope.