by Rye Brewer
It did stop, but not for good.
I wasn’t stupid. I wept openly as he stepped away from the controls. He went outside and closed the door behind him.
I could breathe for a second.
Where am I?
I barely remembered being in the car on the way to… this place… the… warehouse? That was it, or what it had looked like from the outside—big, boxy, broken windows near the top, no light visible from the outside.
It sure didn’t appear that way from the inside. I could’ve sworn I was in a hospital—or a lab of some type. Tiled walls and floors. There were two other beds in the room, but mine was the only one in use. Were the other ones ever used? I hoped not.
I lifted my gaze to the ceiling.
There was a skylight up there. It was closed, but I could see through it. The sky was still dark. It was still night, or early morning. I couldn’t have been here for too long, but it felt like days. When was dawn? When would it end?
Would the sun rise before I was dead?
My restraints were tight, made of a strong leather.
I was still in my dress from the club. Why did I ever go? I should’ve known I wouldn’t find Gage.
Nobody knew where I was, and they never would. I would disappear without a trace. I was one of those girls. So, this was the sort of thing that happened to women when they up and disappeared. They ended up in a warehouse hospital or wherever I was and were never seen again.
The door opened, and my heart raced all over again.
I couldn’t seem to stop shaking, no matter how I tried.
Dietrich seemed as cool and calm as ever. How could he torture me without batting an eye or breaking a sweat? He couldn’t have a soul.
“So. Are you willing to tell me the truth about your association with the vampires?”
“Please,” I whispered. I could barely form words anymore.
“Please, what?” he cooed as he walked over to me.
“Please, stop hurting me. I don’t know anything. Please. It’s a mistake.”
“I’ll decide whether this is a mistake,” he murmured with an almost loving smile as he rested his hand on my ankle.
Keep reading for an excerpt from the next book in the League of Vampires series!
2
Gage
What was Dietrich doing to her in there?
I slammed my fists against the cage bars, hoping I could maybe do… something. Anything. Crack them, break through them. But even though the warehouse looked rundown and falling apart from the outside, that wasn’t the case inside.
They must have gutted and refurbed the entire place. The walls were almost soundproofed, and the cage they had locked me in was solid steel.
I roared every time I heard her scream. What were they doing to her? I strained my ears against whatever they had set up to muffle the noise—vampires had supernaturally good hearing, after all. They probably weren’t used to having vampires as prisoners. Or they weren’t used to prisoners who could scream the way Cari was.
“No! No! I don’t know anything! Please!”
I leaned my forehead against the bars and squeezed my eyes shut tight. I wanted to block it out, but I couldn’t. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t. I’d never felt so useless in my life.
“Tell me about the vampires,” he demanded.
I snarled when I heard his voice.
Dietrich.
He was the one that locked me up in a cage in a small, closed-off little room that could’ve been a closet.
He was slick and thought he was smarter than everybody around him. He was sure Cari was a spy and I was there to rescue her. Well, one out of two wasn’t wrong.
“I don’t know any! Why don’t you understand?” Another scream—the overhead fluorescent light flickered.
He was electrocuting her.
I kicked and punched the cage wall, screaming almost as loud as she did.
Silence.
Then, “Tell me about Gage Bourke.”
“Wh—what about him?”
“You know him, then? You just said you don’t know any vampires.”
More silence.
“Vampire? I barely know him! I only met him that night, in front of the club—and I never saw him again after that! I swear! I swear…” She broke off into gut-wrenching sobs.
“I almost want to believe you,” he murmured.
“I mean it! I mean it, please. I don’t know him. Stop hurting me, please.” Her voice was weak, like a wounded bird.
The room went silent.
Somehow, that was more ominous than the screaming.
I looked up. The lights glowed steadily. No current. I could still hear her breathing, her hitching, gasping sobs for air.
Then, a tear.
Clothing. Her dress.
“No!” I screamed, pounding on the bars again. “Don’t you touch her! Don’t you touch her, you bastard!”
I focused my hearing and heard him grunting rhythmically, heard the sound of her rasping breaths in time with his grunts.
Her weak “No… no… no…” reverberated in my mind.
I fell back against the bars and held my head in my hands. This was all my fault. I should’ve gone to her when I had the chance and told her not to go into the club. I should’ve dragged her kicking and screaming from there if I had to.
If any of the shifters had caught up to me, it would’ve been better than listening to what I’d heard tonight.
The door opened.
I jumped to my feet when I saw him standing there in the doorway. I made a move toward him, but he held up one hand. “Any farther and she’s dead this very minute,” he said.
I froze.
“Why are you doing this?” I snarled, fangs bared.
“Put those things away,” he sneered, looking me up and down. “You’re no match for me. I’m not afraid of your pointy teeth. Besides, it’s not like you’ll ever get out of that cage. And I know you’ve been trying.”
“Why are you doing this?” I repeated.
“Because we know she’s a spy for your kind, getting information on our club and who we are.”
“That’s not true. She’s been telling you the truth all this time.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I haven’t—ahem—enjoyed getting to know her.” The corners of his mouth curled up in a smile. “Besides, she’ll be dead soon.”
The words hit me like lead weights.
I barely had time to react or even think by the time he stepped out into the hall and the door swung shut behind him.
3
Cari
I wasn’t sure what was real and what was a dream anymore. I had to be hallucinating. Maybe somebody up there finally took pity on me and let me zone out during the worst of it.
I opened my eyes and looked up at the ceiling. I felt… sore. Bruised. I realized that part hadn’t been a dream, the way he had climbed on my body and…
I whimpered and shifted my weight back and forth on the table, wishing I could close my legs or cover myself up. He had torn my dress.
I couldn’t take much more. I knew that. I wished it would just end. I didn’t want to live anymore if life was nothing but pain and humiliation and horror.
I wished he would kill me. That was what he wanted to do—I could tell. He wanted me dead. I was a fly he could pull the wings off of. Something to watch squirm and suffer before drawing one last breath…
I felt myself blacking out and welcomed it. I longed for the comfort of oblivion. It didn’t hurt when I was unconscious.
Visions of vampires kept flashing through my mind.
Gage? A vampire…?
I woke up when the door opened, and the sight of not only Dietrich, but two others made me try to crawl farther up the gurney out of sheer instinct.
The restraints on my ankles bit into my skin, but I still strained against them anyway. The expressions on their faces told me what they wanted.
They were almost
drooling, breathing heavy through their noses like animals. They smelled their prey. I choked out a sob and something like a plea for mercy. Mercy, please. Kill me already.
“Didn’t I tell you she was tasty looking?” Dietrich asked.
“I can see why they wanted her,” one of the other two said.
I struggled to keep my eyes open long enough to look at him.
He was dressed identical to Dietrich, and I thought I remembered him from the club. The other one, too. They danced with the girls.
“Please… just end this…” I whispered. I could barely lift my head from the bed. I could barely get a sound out of my scratched, bleeding throat. I could taste blood because I had screamed myself hoarse and then some.
They smiled in unison. “We will,” Dietrich whispered.
And that was when the real nightmare began.
The three of them sort of… melted. Their features changed.
I have to be dreaming this. I’m unconscious. I’m not really here. I’m far away. Maybe I died. This can’t be real. They’re not… changing.
But they were.
Dietrich went down on all fours, and his clothes shredded to reveal thick, black fur covering his body. His face elongated, his ears moved up to the top of his head, his teeth lengthened, and, when he snapped his jaws, he growled like a… wolf.
A wolf. He wasn’t human, he was a wolf.
And the others. One turned into a tiger. The other was a dog—no, a coyote. A wolf, a tiger and a coyote where three men had been standing moments before.
Impossible.
I had lost blood, I was unconscious, I was dead, I was anywhere but in this hospital or lab or whatever the hell it was. I wasn’t in real life anymore. Things like this didn’t happen in real life. People didn’t turn into animals.
They advanced on me, and I screamed a long, silent scream—it was all I could do. The wolf jumped up on the gurney.
Oh, no!
I squirmed and thrashed until I tore at the muscles in both of my shoulders, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t escape.
He slashed at me with long, sharp claws, dragging them across my stomach.
Bright-red blood bloomed on my white skin.
The others ripped at my thighs, my arms, my chest. I screamed silently, on and on, thrashing and rolling my head from side to side. Trying to fight them off, trying to end the pain.
Soon, I didn’t have the strength anymore. Soon, it didn’t matter anymore. I closed my eyes as they growled and roared and sliced at me.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, lost in a red-hot haze of agony.
I heard Dietrich’s voice. “Bring in the vampire. Use the cage. Open the skylight.”
Everything went black.
4
Gage
Two of Dietrich’s thugs wheeled my cage to Cari’s room. Then they left.
I didn’t ask why. It seemed pretty obvious. They wanted me to watch her die.
And she was dying. It was obvious.
The cold, clinical white lights in the cold, clinical white room showed off her chalky, pale skin. Against that, her blood shone like rubies.
The smell filled my nostrils, overcame my senses. It was everywhere. She had bled so much. They had torn her apart. She didn’t have much longer.
Moonlight flowed into the room from the open skylight, just over where the shifters left my cage. I was only a few feet from her.
I looked up and realized I would be dead soon, too. The sun would rise in a few hours and climb high into the sky, right over where I was standing. I couldn’t escape it—no matter where I moved in the cage, moonlight touched my skin. I was completely exposed.
I glanced at Cari again. Her chest rose and fell slowly as she took shallow breaths. Her eyes were closed. There were burns all over her, too. I couldn’t imagine the pain she must’ve gone through when she screamed. She would be out of pain soon.
I didn’t know if I should be glad for her or rage and thrash against the cage bars to try get her out of here, to a hospital or someplace they could help her. Not like I could get out of this cage. Too solid. Vampires were strong, but we weren’t omnipotent.
She might already be too far gone.
I clenched my teeth against the roar threatening to escape. I wouldn’t give that sadistic bastard and his friends the satisfaction of hearing me yell.
Instead, I whispered. “Cari? Can you hear me?”
She didn’t move. Her breathing didn’t change.
I gripped the metal bars tight enough to hurt. She was going to die, and I was going to have to watch, unable to help or even touch her.
Think. Think.
The cage was on wheels. I threw myself against the bars and it moved—maybe an inch, but it did move.
I threw myself against them again.
And again.
Until my arms cried for mercy and my bones rattled every time I hit the cold steel. I didn’t notice it at first, because I couldn’t keep my eyes off her even as hot tears rolled down my cheeks. Tears. I was shedding tears for her. Me. A vampire.
It was because I was unable to ignore the way her chest rose less and less, slower and slower, shallower every passing minute. She didn’t have long.
“It’s my fault!” I grunted as I hit the bars. “I should’ve stopped this!” I hit the bars again. “I killed her!” Another hit, until I was next to the gurney she was strapped to.
I could barely lift my arm to slide it through the bars, but I managed. I wanted to stroke her hair and wash the blood off her body. I wanted to cover her and give her a little dignity. I wanted to hold her and give her a little comfort as she died.
Instead, I took her cold, limp hand in mine and wished I could rub warmth back into it. I would do anything to save her life. She deserved to live.
“I’m so sorry,” I groaned. “Cari, please, believe how sorry I am. I didn’t know it would come to this. It’s all my fault this happened and my fault for underestimating them and only thinking about myself and hell… please, don’t leave me. Please. Stay. Stay with me, Cari.” I squeezed her hand as tight as I dared, but she didn’t flinch.
She barely breathed.
“Remember our walk? Remember the things we talked about? I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you.” I watched her face as I spoke, looking for any hint of reaction. “Maybe if I had been forthright, you wouldn’t have gone back to that club. Why didn’t I simply tell you? I guess I was sure you wouldn’t believe me—and you probably wouldn’t have, because it would’ve sounded crazy. Why would you have believed that? You didn’t know me.” I stroked her hand then locked my fingers through hers the way I had that night. “Maybe you did know me. Maybe you knew me right away. I felt like I knew you, for sure. I wanted you too much. I was scared. I ran away, and I’ll never, ever forgive myself. Oh, please, Cari, please…” I closed my eyes and let my head fall forward. I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t live in a world she wasn’t in—even if we weren’t together, just knowing she was out there making things better by breathing the air would be enough.
I could…
I could…
I could let her drink from me.
The idea dawned on me slowly.
It was dangerous, beyond dangerous. If I turned her, it was all over.
One of the league’s highest laws forbade us from turning humans into vampires without being sanctioned by the league itself. Of course, before the league, matters were different. But we still refrained from turning humans before they hit puberty. We weren’t complete animals, nor were we without a modicum of ethics. The league wouldn’t care I was watching an innocent die. That she had gone through so much unspeakable pain and humiliation, that she deserved to live. That I couldn’t live without her.
She would be on their Most Wanted List anyway, surely hunted. Certainly killed if they caught her. Would I only be prolonging the inevitable if I turned her? And what about me? I couldn’t imagine the punishment they would hand down for turning her. I
’d probably be killed, too.
Her breathing worsened. There was no way she could last much longer.
I didn’t have much time to make up my mind. If I could get her to drink my blood before she died, she would heal. I would save her. She wouldn’t die.
If she died after drinking, though, she would turn. I couldn’t wait. She was getting closer to death with every labored breath. I hoped it wasn’t already too late.
I remembered my own turning. How my body had changed, how terrifying the whole thing was even though my father guided me through it. Or tried to.
A brand-new vampire was almost uncontrollable. The strength that had coursed through me then was the scariest of all. I was powerful for the first time in my life, almost supernatural. She would be like that. If she turned.
I bit into my wrist and broke the skin. Blood started to flow. I held my arm out, through the bars, over her mouth. “Come on,” I urged as the blood dripped onto her slightly parted lips. “Drink, damn it. Drink. Drink before it’s too late, Cari. Please. Hear me!”
She didn’t move. Her chest was barely moving.
My eyes darted back and forth between her practically motionless chest and her mouth, where my blood flowed. Her lips didn’t move. I couldn’t tell if she was drinking or not.
No, she couldn’t be, or she would’ve started healing instantly.
“Cari!” I shouted. I had to wake her up. “Cari, please! Try! Drink! You have to drink!”
Tears were flowing down my cheeks again, tears of blood to match the blood flowing from me to her. I sobbed brokenly as I held my wrist over her mouth, pleading with her. I watched her chest, willing it to keep moving, keep rising and falling, keep her alive.
Until it stopped. Until she died.
“No!” I roared. I watched, hoping something would happen, some miracle.
Nothing.
She was gone.
It was too late. I waited too damned long.
She was dead because of me. I couldn’t save her. I slammed my head against the bars, my entire being screaming and raging and weeping brokenly as her lifeless body condemned me for being such a heartless coward.