Chapter 11
When I felt the hot angry wind blast through the bedroom door throwing away the chair I’d put under the latch across the room; I had a split second to regret not listening to Rachel. Then I felt icy fingers around my throat and stars began to dance in front of my eyes. As I was strangled to near unconsciousness I felt another long-fingered hand slide down the front of me, slipping beneath my neckline and cupping my small breast in a bloodless hand.
The familiar, terrifying power of Vittorio; the vampire that had taken me, along with a new fear bloomed in my heart. I would have preferred an eternity of torture at the hands of Nicholas, than one moment enduring the touch of the monster that held me. I grabbed at his hands, as frantic to get him out of my bodice as I was to stay conscious. I tried, but couldn’t scream, and the only sound that emerged from me was a gurgling, bubbling whisper.
Just as the darkness began to seep in from the edges of my mind; I managed to reach out for Rachel, the only vampire I thought might come to my aid. For just a moment; his hand slipped and I caught a ragged, gasping breath.
“Don’t bother calling for help. No one can hear you,” he whispered to me, clenching his hands tighter. I went limp and he released my throat and stood in front of me, staring down at me as I coughed and shook from fear. I was in trouble, but I was still conscious. It was a win for me and I searched the room for ways to exploit it. Near the fireplace were iron tools, but they were out of reach.
He grabbed the bodice of my gown and pulled me to a standing position. “I hate my brother’s Victorian sensibilities, quite frankly. But I do appreciate the ease of undressing a whore in a dress.” He pointed one clawed finger and sliced through the fabric, and I felt a swift burning pain followed by wetness; I knew he’d drawn blood.
“Someone will stop you,” I spat, shoving as hard as I could and rearing back to kick him in the knee as he held me inches above the floor. He slammed me up against the wall next to the fireplace. I kicked out wildly and spilled the set of tools, hoping they were close enough to grab if he dropped me. With one long arm, he grabbed the poker from the tools I’d scattered to the floor with my struggling and jammed it under the burning logs.
“Maybe, but not before I’ve had my fun,” he hissed, spittle flying into my face. “Do you really believe my brother would choose you over me?” He yanked on my dress and it tore like paper, falling away from my chest and stomach while the remainder hung off my back by my sleeves. “Ask Colette, if she can speak when she’s released from her coffin in a hundred years or so.” His mouth was on my neck as his hands wandered over me and I felt the prick of his fangs breaking the skin, forcing a shriek of sheer terror from me as I pounded on him with impotent fists, kicking and screaming like a crazy person.
Suddenly, he dropped me in a pile on the floor. I wrapped my arms over my neck and curled my legs in to protect my soft parts, still screaming. When another blow never came, I dared to look around. Nicholas and the black-haired vampire were grappling on the other side of the room. As I watched the slender vampire danced away from the master and sliced at his face with his claws, drawing blood. I glanced down and saw that the poker was still in the fire.
I grabbed it; not thinking; and my hand burned instantly from the heat of the handle. I forced myself to hold onto it and staggered at them. I raised the poker as high as the agonizing pain would allow. I stabbed it into Vittorio’s leg, high up on the back of his thigh. He yowled in pain and jerked away; taking the poker and layers of skin from my hand with him. Nicholas stood between us as I sagged to the floor. Nicholas motioned with his head and vampires flooded into the room and grabbed the other vampire by the arms and legs.
“Lock Vittorio in a cell,” he ordered, straightening his jacket. “Make sure you take the poker out first.” The male vampire closest to him nodded and yanked the poker out of Vittorio’s thigh. I gasped as I realized how deep I’d managed to impale him. I only wished I’d been able to raise my arm to the level of his heart.
Rachel stayed behind when the others left and Colette was close behind her. Her face was tight and even paler than usual; if that was possible. It was Colette who examined my hand, blowing cool air across the raw, bloody skin as the pain made me vomit bile.
“Colette. You’ve only just been released. Do not make me put you back before you’ve had a chance to feed.” She cringed and her eyes went to the floor.
“Her hand is so hot it hurts my skin. I was just trying to cool it.” I glanced down at her, kneeling so she was smaller than me, my hand cupped in hers as in supplication.
“I’m okay. It just hurts so, so much.” Colette glanced up at me, then at Nicholas.
“I can heal her,” Colette said softly. Her face was paler than I’d seen; so translucent I could clearly see the veins below her skin.
“No, Colette. You may not.” The master’s voice was stern but not angry. She backed away from me and Rachel put her to work; righting the furniture and making the evidence of violence disappear before my eyes. I wished they could do the same with my hand, which had started trembling uncontrollably once Colette let go of it.
“Leave us!” Nicholas’ bark startled all three of us equally and even as I cringed away from him, I saw Colette and Rachel draw back towards each other. “Stop cringing like beaten dogs and leave us please,” he added with a glance toward me. He held out his hand and I placed my good one in it, so he could help me to my feet.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked, my voice shaky and small.
“Not nearly as angry as I am with myself,” he admitted. “You should have come down to supper with me.”
“I wasn’t hungry,” I argued lamely.
“Yes, I know.”
“He was… is, my foster brother.” I paused and cleared my throat, then looked Nicholas in the eye. “His parents took me in when a vampire murdered my parents. I was only three when it happened.”
“I’m sorry to hear of your loss.”
“A vampire tore their throats out and bled them dry while I sat in my crib, watching. Loss is not really an adequate word,” I corrected. The combination of fear, anger, and pain had my system flooded with adrenaline.
“. I understand your fear of us.” He replied. “Your brother saved Colette. I should have asked him sooner who hurt him. Colette’s thoughts can be difficult to interpret.”
“Some people are monsters and so are some vampires. I’m learning. I’ve always wondered why the vampire didn’t kill me too.” I confessed.
“You are special. You have laughable control over your psychic ability; but your raw power is enough that you broke through a shield built to be strong enough to keep me out, and sensed your brother.” He helped me up onto the bed and laid me back against the pillows, placing another one under my hand so it was elevated, palm up. “Perhaps you were able to make the vampire leave.”
“Could I do it again?” My voice was clipped, and he looked at me sharply.
“I could train you to, yes.” He sighed. “But first, I have to heal this. It could get infected and I need you healthy and whole.” Something in his voice made me nervous and I tried to pull my hand back, but his hand shot out; lightning fast and gripped me tight by the wrist.
“Please,” I whimpered. He released my hand and leaned over me, his hand on my stomach.
“I’m not going to damage you, but this might sting.” His hand slid up my bare stomach and over my breast and I gasped as pleasure surged through me, so different from what I had just experienced. I didn’t have time to register embarrassment before his leg went between mine and he pinned me at my hip. He pressed down so I couldn’t wriggle out from under him. His hand moved past my chest to my throat and chin; pushing my face away from him and baring my carotid artery.
“Oh God. Please, please don’t,” I whimpered and shook, the trembling intensifying as I felt his breath on my ear.
“I won’t take enough to harm you, I simply need to feed before I can heal you. I promise. Everything I take I will return to you.” His lips brushed my jaw and moved down to my neck and I fought the urge to pull him tighter to me. I felt torn between the pleasure of his closeness and the understanding that I was completely at the mercy of a creature that could take my life as easily as a thought.
There was a prick of fangs at my throat and his aura was so enthralling that all I desired was to give him everything he wanted. He chuckled and I crimsoned, realizing he was in my head again. His laugh was enough to bring me back to myself a little, but the pain in my hand still made concentrating on a psychic shield too difficult.
Hit bit down and I understood what David had been trying to explain. Pleasure rushed through me to places that I had never been touched. My hand clutched at him, holding him to me even as I begged him to stop. He moaned into my shoulder and licked over the place where he’d bitten me.
“I sealed the wound. No need to worry about bleeding,” he explained as he pushed up off me and I felt my throat for punctures. I could feel the two pinpricks, but my hand came away clean of anything but some saliva. He rolled up his sleeve past the wrist and sliced his skin open with one fingernail. I balked and pushed away; the euphoria of his bite replaced by revulsion.
“You can’t expect me to…”
“Drink. It will heal your hand. I told you I would return what was yours.” I gagged and shook my head. “You enjoyed it when I took it, I felt your body respond to me, even if I hadn’t heard your thoughts. Taking it from me will produce a similar rush. That’s how we get repeat donors,” he whispered. He lifted me and held me with my back against him. “Please let me heal you.” He lifted the narrow red stripe to my mouth and I flicked my tongue over it to gauge my gag reflex.
The tiny hit of his power on my tongue felt like I’d licked an electrical socket; if doing such a thing could make you high and aroused. I latched onto him and drew my tongue over him; using it to pry into the wound he’d made and then sinking my teeth into the flesh around it to push more blood out to my waiting mouth. I felt him grow aroused; pressing into my rear. For one heart-stopping moment I realized where the exchange could lead. Then I was alone. His wrist was gone from my mouth and when I glanced around, I saw the door pull shut, followed by a familiar click of the lock.
My head was light; the deep colors of the room were brighter to me. Even from across the room I could feel the fire’s glow, as though I sat on the hearth.
I curled up on my side and held my burned hand out in front of me. I rode out the after-glow of my first blood exchange and tried to ignore the lonely ache deep inside me; not for David, or for home, but for the strange creature who had taken me against my will and held me captive. It was a sickness to want to know him; not just about his kind; the man who had fought his own brother to protect me. I ‘d heard pain in his voice as he begged me to let him heal me. Those weren’t the actions of a monster.
The darkest feeling in me was the war between everything I had known before and my fascination with the emerald-eyed stranger whose tainted blood still coated my tongue with metallic sweetness and ran through my veins like fire.