by Rena Marks
Leo groaned and bucked wildly. Semen began to spurt in hot eruptions against my belly and over Julian’s hand.
I felt Julian’s cock slide into me and that was all it took for my overly excited body to slide into my own convulsions. The cock embedded tightly within me quivered as it spurted too and the three of us lay panting, and wet and slick with each other.
* * * * *
I'd bit as hard as I could and had ripped a small bit of flesh with my teeth. It was harder than I thought and had to yank my head forcefully, tearing a bit with me. Leo never uttered a sound, but as I realized the small chunk was in my mouth, I gagged.
“Spit it out. Don’t ingest it,” he commanded.
It must have been a dream.
I spat. And spat. And then I closed my eyes and began to button his shirt over the wound. It was oozing slowly so I used my hands to tear a piece of my tattered dress to make a small bandage. Hopefully it wouldn’t bleed through his shirt and alert our captors.
He struggled to sit up. I helped pull him upright by placing my bound wrists over his head and pulling his body toward me.
We heard footsteps descending down the stairs. I stared at Leo and felt my breathing quicken in terror at the thought of the man returning. He lowered his gaze to my lips.
“You’re bloody,” he growled.
I stared at him, uncomprehendingly.
He leaned toward me and licked the side of my mouth, his tongue warm and wet.
Strangely sensual. The door opened.
The man was there, unlocking the cage. I still had my bound wrists around Leo’s neck and he growled at the intrusion.
“Get up,” the man said.
“I’m too weak. Unchain me.” Leo taunted, his voice strong again.
“I have a better idea,” the man said. He pulled out his knife and placed the blade at my throat. “The slut gets it if she doesn’t get her arms off you.”
I looked into Leo’s eyes. Keeping eye contact with him made me brave. I smiled at him and my face felt flushed. I raised my arms slowly, reaching over his head and placing them in my lap. Leo didn’t move any further from me even though I’d released him.
“You’re a disgrace to humans, Councilwoman Romere. First the vampires and now the weres,” he spat out, more emotion than I’d ever seen in him.
Though with his blade was pressed against my throat, I leaned forward slightly and kissed Leo’s lips.
I was yanked back by my hair, the blade cutting against my neck. I felt a burn and then moisture trickling down. Leo’s eyes scorched with emotion as he glanced down at the knife. An unholy growl erupted from his throat.
“Stop.” A voice commanded from the doorway. Another human, obviously more in charge since the knife left my throat, and I was flung backward by my hair, landing on my side, with my head striking the concrete.
The other man entered to help and I saw the two of them struggle to lift Leo up and out of the cage. He fought with his hands chained and in the end it took two more men to wrestle him out.
I watched from my position on the floor and Leo’s eyes met mine as he was dragged to the stairs and out of sight.
So there were at least four humans here, I thought. It was more information than I’d gathered so far about the damn place.
They knew I was a city council member. I settled down to think about that.
* * * * *
Leo had been gone a long time when I was dimly aware of crying. A woman, crying softly. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the light. There were other empty cages around me and a woman was in one, sobbing piteously.
“Who are you?” I asked her.
“Don’t get too friendly,” The man from the wooden chair said. “She’s scheduled to be drained soon. I wouldn’t want you to get too lonely after becoming accustomed to her.”
Drained? Were these the murderers who were draining women dry? Were they leaving the bodies at the bar or doing the actual murders there? Perhaps I could get away if we were moved to Bang’s.
I studied the crying woman. She looked an awful lot like me, although her hair was fresher, cleaner. She was wearing my clothes. The clothes I had been wearing when I was supposed to pick Leo up from the airport.
The man was sitting on the wooden chair and looking at her hair also. He gave the wolf a look, and together they circled her cage. The woman gasped and shrieked as the wolf threw itself against one side. She backed too far away and the man waiting behind her grabbed her and yanked her back toward him. She screamed and screamed.
He calmly took his switchblade and hacked off a chunk of hair. He threw her back into the cage where she huddled, sobbing with loud, gut-wrenching sobs.
“Don’t get those clothes dirty,” he snarled at her and then turned toward me with the knife. I was wiser with the wolf games and I stood directly in the center of the cage, unmoving. He unlocked the cage and stepped inside. The wolf came to the doorway, blocking my escape.
Though I was aware I could fight, I was weak. He would overpower me easily. Or the wolf would. Instead, I stood still and let him take a chunk of my hair. As he left the cage and locked it behind him, he held the two chunks together. They were very similar. He stared at the hair, obviously thinking about something.
“Hold out your arms.”
I held them out, wearily. My arms were a mass of scratches, some scabbed, some fresh. There were deep bruises and where my wrists were bound, rope burns. Before I could even think, he sliced my forearm. I yanked my arms back instinctively, although it was no more painful than the rest of my cuts.
“Hold out your arms,” he commanded again.
Silence reigned as I contemplated this. Even the sobbing woman was quiet and curious.
I held them out. He trailed one of the chunks of hair in the blood of my arm. The bottom half of the hair, so that the color was still distinguishable as mine but anyone smelling the blood would also be able to tell it was mine. The hair soaked up the blood like a sponge. He pulled out a little box and put the bloody parcel into it. My arm was dripping and the box was white, so I think he thought it was be more dramatic to have more drops of red blood marring the white surface. He held out the box and I allowed my arm to drip into it. It dripped in several spots before it finally clotted.
The man threw the other woman’s hair onto the ground and took the little white box containing my hair and blood and left.
It was peaceful while he was gone. The other woman and I slept. When we awoke, we talked and kept each other company. Her name was Miranda, and I asked her if she knew why they’d captured her.
“No. I met a woman at a bar… My friends and I hang out at vamp bars. We went out back so she could have a little blood and I woke up here,” Miranda told me.
There was silence as we both chewed on the chunks of food that were left in our cages. Food appeared sometimes as we slept. Sometimes we were woken up and sometimes we awoke on our own to cold meat, chunks of cheese or hard, stale bread.
“What vamp bar do you go to?” I asked her.
“Bang’s.”
I looked at her. “Well, we have that in common then. I wonder if the woman you were with made it out?”
“I don’t know. I think someone came at me from behind. And I don’t know why they dyed my hair. It was brown before.”
“They dyed it to look like mine. He was comparing the colors while you were crying in your cage.”
“Oh, I know who you are! You’re the girlfriend of the owner. They’ve been looking for you for a couple weeks.”
“Two weeks? I’ve been here for two weeks?”
“Yes.”
Two weeks. What had I been doing for all that time? My best guess is sleeping. That was the only way it could have passed without me realizing it.
I heard a door open upstairs and the man returned with the wolf. Miranda and I stayed still as if he wouldn’t notice us. They walked to her cage and she began moaning as they unlocked the door. Her moans turned to shrieks.
; She was dragged away and I never saw her again. I was alone but more tormented this time. Losing Miranda did something to me, something that couldn’t be repaired.
Don’t pity me. The feelings at losing Miranda, weren't sadness as much as guilt. I was relieved and disgusted with myself over it. Miranda was being dragged to her death instead of me, and my heart pounded gratefully. My arms and legs tingled with adrenaline as I realized I would live another day.
Then the shame washed over me, and I huddled in the middle of the cage. I cried and then I slept. There was nothing else to do.
Suddenly I was poked awake. The man did nothing else. I grew weary again and felt my head bobbing down to my chest. I was roughly poked again.
“I get it. I understand. You don’t want me to sleep.” There was no answer. My head bobbed.
I yelped as I was poked once more. What did I do to annoy him? Blink? This new game went on for hours. I was exhausted. Finally, he tired and left. However, the wolf remained and picked up where the man left off. I would start to fall asleep and the creature would snarl and howl to wake me up.
I was slowly going insane. Lack of sleep was making me crazy, and I was beginning to hallucinate. Aware of the delusions, I wondered how long it would be before I wouldn’t realize I was hallucinating and began to believe the craziness in my mind.
My ex-husband arrived. Didn’t I attend his funeral? I tried to shake my head to clear the vision. Trevor was still there. I hung my head in shame as I realized I was skinny again. The muscles I’d earned over the last few years had wasted away to nothing. I was no longer physically fit, and therefore no longer able to defend myself. As I was looking down at myself, he hit me across the face. I flew across the cage, hitting my head against the bars.
“You should be one of those right now,” he said, motioning toward the watching wolf. “If you were, I wouldn’t be dead. You can’t do anything right, can you? I told you. I told you, you were theirs.”
I whimpered as he kicked me in the thigh. The wolf looked on eagerly, trying to stick his head into the bars to lick at my blood.
“You’re dead. You’re not here,” I muttered.
“Does it feel like I’m dead?” he hit me again, and pain exploded behind my eyes.
Then there was nothing. The lights went out as I slipped into nothingness.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Suddenly, I was cut across the thigh with a knife. Had any real time passed? The man was back, and my ex was gone.
“No, no, no,” he tutted. “We can’t have any sleeping, can we? Maybe I should let the wolf take a good bite out of you. We’ll see if you can still turn into a wolf queen with all that vampire magic in you. Maybe you’ll mutate into some new creature? What do you think?”
I didn’t answer but shrieked as he poked me with the stick into the cut he’d just made. I backed away from him and got too close to the back bars of the cage.
I whirled when the wolf snapped his teeth, nearly taking a chunk from me. At the last possible fraction of a second, the creature pulled away from my skin, missing me entirely. Its eyes looked up at me, oddly human. There was a realization deep inside them and a look of fear. The first look of fear I’d seen in the animal.
The man laughed, missing the wolf’s reaction, and poked me again. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from yelping. But I was so tired, and I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about the wolf’s strange eyes or about being tortured. I slowly began to rock, my consciousness disappearing into my ravaged mind. I rocked and hummed, a little tuneless song that just materialized out of my head. The rocking became faster, and I concentrated on the rhythm as it comforted me.
I don’t know what happened to the man or the wolf. They disappeared and I wasn’t aware that they’d left. I also wasn’t aware of how much time I’d spent hiding in my mind, rocking myself protectively.
Now, maybe finally, I could sleep. It was all I wanted, all I needed. Did I dare?
I heard crashing in the walls. They were probably starting another game. I squeezed my knees to my chest. I didn’t know if I could take it. I was sick of the dark, sick of being hungry, sick of peeing in a cage. Sick of being taunted and poked and hurt and I couldn’t take it anymore. Not anymore. I rocked myself again, hugging my knees. Not anymore.
I wanted to sleep. No more. No more taunting, no more growling. I want to sleep. I rocked. Rocked. I want sleep.
I heard voices. It had been so long since I’d heard voices. I knew it was a trick but it sounded like Julian. Faintly and so far inside the walls. Is it inside the walls of the dungeon, or inside the walls of my skull? And Anna. Nicki. Lily. Johnny. I began chanting their names as I rocked. I wouldn’t be afraid anymore.
“Julian. Anna. Nicki. Lily. Johnny. Julian. Anna. Nicki…”
“Leah! It’s Johnny. It’s us, sweetie. We’re here.”
“She can’t hear us. She’s in some kind of trance.”
“Look at her. How can she still be alive? She’s so frail.”
“How much weight do you think she’s lost?”
“She’s got open wounds, some of which are infected.”
“We have to take her to a hospital.”
“We can seal her cuts.”
“There’s no time. Dawn is approaching. We have to drop her off at a hospital before it hits.”
“She looks bad.”
“Get Julian.”
“He’s rounding up everyone upstairs before they're able to escape.”
I heard creaking and then crashing. The door to the cage was open. No, it’s another trick. I began to shriek.
“Don’t touch me!”
No one touched me. So I rocked and rocked, my head on my knees. I was humming a little tune about sunshine when I felt someone, crawling along their belly, lick my leg. I stopped rocking. The lick actually felt good, a little warm. Tingly. Healing. Someone else licked me, on another cut. It too, felt good. I didn’t protest and soon there were licks everywhere. Quick, little tingly licks, over the cuts. The exposed back of my neck, my arms, my legs, my feet.
“It’s getting smoky. We need to get her out of here.”
I was grabbed and held tightly against a muscular chest. I screamed, kicking out. “We have to mesmerize her.”
“She can’t. She’s a human servant.”
“Damn. I forgot. Where is Julian?”
It didn’t matter because colors were beginning to fade. Then my entire vision swirled around, like I was in a tunnel. The center of the tunnel was dark and comforting and I relaxed into it.
Chapter Thirteen
I awoke in a hospital, the antiseptic smell a dead giveaway. I was lying on my side, away from the light that shone in a bathroom. But I was facing a window and I saw sunshine on the other side. My eyes felt swollen in my stiff face. Machines blipped, a constant white noise. I wondered how I slept at all. In the midst of all my musings, a nurse watched.
She was matronly, a little on the heavy side, the white of her uniform making her naturally dark skin look even darker than it was. She smiled and the white of her eyes and teeth glowed against that dark skin. Her curly black hair was streaked with white.
“Hi, sweetie. I’m Nurse Houston. You’re finally awake. You been asleep so long, and your friends are so worried about you.”
“Friends?” I croaked.
“Yes. You know, your friends who come later in the day? When the sun goes down?” she added conspiratorially. “But I’ll tell you what. I’d donate some blood myself to be that close to those hunks. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Not everyone is as open-minded as me though, honey. Good for you that I’m your nurse.”
“How long will I be here?”
“Let me go fetch Dr. Killian to explain things.”
She left the room and I looked at the sunlight filtering through the mini blinds.
Dr. Killian was short and bald, with one entire eyebrow that went across his forehead like a fringe. Wire framed glasses perched on his nose, and he twitched about on his spindly
legs. Sticking a thermometer in my mouth, he grabbed my wrist, looking for a pulse. Good thing I had one.
“Good news is, not too many broken bones. Just your left collarbone, one rib, and your right arm. Strangely, you didn’t need many stitches on your arms or legs. Just on your back. We can’t figure that one out.”
I might have explained about the vampire licks, but I couldn’t speak around the thermometer.
“Black eye. Swollen face. It’s not real pretty, but you’re alive. A lot of those women kidnapped by vampires weren’t as fortunate. You’re also dehydrated and half starved. We have you on an IV drip. Oh and as soon as you feel up to it, there are a couple of police officers outside who have some questions.” He laid his hand on my arm to give me comfort. “You’re safe now. They’ve been posted in the hallway.”
I nodded. Silly man. Policemen wouldn’t keep vampires or werewolves away if they were truly after me.
Officer Gearman and his partner Oser were waiting outside my room.
“Ouch,” Oser said. “How you feeling?”
“Like hell.”
“We found the burned-out house you were being held in. There’s not much left that survived the fire. I was wondering if you could give us a description of your kidnapper,” Oser grimaced. “Not much left of him to identify.”
“He was mid-forties, dark hair, slightly graying. Had a pet wolf. No distinguishing scars, seemed to like torture. The only other person I really saw was another victim held in the cage next to me. Miranda.”
“Did he feed from you?” Gearman asked.
I frowned at Officer Gearman. “Feed? He wasn’t a vampire, he was human.” Both men looked at me intently.
“Are you sure?” Gearman asked.
“Yes.”
Oser turned to his partner. “Maybe it’s a copycat? We know that the actual murderers were vampire, not human.”
“Makes sense. With the way that body was flung about, it must have been a human and much weaker than whatever ripped him apart.”