Chapter Fifty

ELEIRA

I come to in a dank and frigid place deep beneath the earth.

Immediately, I sense a presence nearby. I open my eyes and see James.

He’s leering at me from across the room.

“Finally,” he says. “I was beginning to wonder how long it would take you to rise.” He strolls toward me. I shy back, then remember my resolve and steady myself.

He touches my cheek, then traces the back of his fingers down my neck. “Sleeping beauty,” he murmurs.

I want to recoil, but I won’t give him the pleasure of seeing how he affects me.

Suddenly, all the memories of the fight come back. “Raul!” I gasp. “What did you do to him? What—”’

“My brother is in good hands,” James says. There’s a note of… bitterness… in his voice? “I must say I find it disheartening you inquire about him and not me.”

“You’re a monster,” I spit.

“Oh, and you will be one too, quite soon, my dear.”

I try to move my arms but they’re bound behind me tight.

“What is this place?”

“You’re in my room,” he says. “In my Father’s coven.” James brings his face close to mine and takes a deep breath. “He would be so pleased that I brought him a witch.”

I try to snap at him but he smoothly steps back. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing that you’re incapable of giving.” James smiles. “Ah, I think I hear our guests.”

Sure enough, a few moments later, the door opens. The woman vampire from the airfield comes in. She has a silver chain wrapped in her arms. She gives it a tug, and Raul stumbles in, growling at her in anger.

Then he sees me. “Eleira!” he exclaims. My heart blooms with joy at seeing him safe and unharmed. And the strangest sensation of nerves settles into my stomach. I’ve never felt its like before.

“What a happy reunion this is,” the woman vampire says. She closes the door, and all four of us are locked in. “Forgive me. I should introduce myself. I’m Victoria—”

“How could you?” Raul is staring daggers at his brother. “How could you betray us?”

Victoria gives him a nasty look for cutting her off. But James speaks.

“Betray you? No, no. I saw a better way. For too long you and I and Phillip have been tied to Mother’s apron strings. This grants us freedom. This will give us true power.”

Raul scoffs. “You’re blinded by ambition. Mother is keeping Phillip hostage. She’ll kill him if Eleira doesn’t return by the next full moon.”

My heart sinks. Is that the reason he came for me? To save his brother? To bring me back, and enter me in… The Hunt?

James, give him credit, is taken aback. “She wouldn’t—”

“Oh yes,” Raul says. “She would.”

“Enough of this,” Victoria hisses in annoyance. “We’re here to do one thing. Let’s get on with it.”

James seems energized by her command. He grabs my neck, and I cry out. Raul dashes toward me to help. He doesn’t get more than half a step before Victoria yanks him back by the chain.

“None of that,” she says. “We need the two of you apart.”

She pulls him to the far opposite wall, where two pegs are embedded in the rock. She hooks the chain on, even as Raul struggles against it. She makes it look so easy, manhandling a grown vampire like that. Not to mention that Raul is so much bigger than her.

Could she be a witch? I wonder. Is that why he cannot fight back?

After a moment of snarled curses and grunts Raul’s arms are spread to either side of him like he’s being crucified. Victoria pulls on the chains, and Raul’s feet leave the ground. He’s hanging only from those pegs.

My own struggle against the hand hanging around my neck seems feeble and pathetic in comparison. James holds me as easily as if I were a child.

Raul starts to rage against Victoria.

She slaps him.

“You be quiet,” she snaps. “Or next time, I’ll take it out on your beloved.” She looks at me.

Beloved? I wonder.

“Now,” Victoria pulls a table up between us. Onto it she sets a series of four medieval goblets. “Four chalices,” she explains. “And four of us. What a striking coincidence.”

James has a knowing smirk on his face. Raul is scowling but quiet. I’m just confused.

“We all know blood is key to our power,” Victoria continues. “And that blood, when imbued with the proper elements, can transfer that power.”

James’s eyes take on a greedy sheen. He grips my neck tighter.

Victoria looks at me. “We need you to be strong for what is to come. Your current human form… it just won’t do. I can see from your eyes the transformation has begun. But we need to expedite the process.”

“No!” Raul gasps.

“Silence!” Victoria barks. “Another word out of you, and I’m not kidding, I will hurt her. Or don’t you think,” she asks sweetly, “that I can sense the allure of her blood too?”

Victoria nods at James. “Bring her forward.”

I cry out as James pushes me to the table. He grabs my wrist and thrusts it out. Victoria withdraws a small, silver dagger.

Before I know it, she slashes my wrist.

I scream. Blood pours out. James forces it over the first of the chalices. It fills the cup. Raul struggles like crazy against his bonds, trying to break free. But the silver is impossibly strong.

Yet the scent of my blood enrages him. He yells and screams and throws his body forward. He fights the chains like a demon trying to break out of hell.

James, at the same time, goes absolutely still. His gaze latches onto the blood pouring from my wrist as he moves it from one chalice to the next. I can tell it takes his all to hold back.

The precariousness of my situation hits me with full force. I’m alone in a room with three vampires. Human blood is their weakness. Mine has, for whatever reason, extraordinary appeal.

And I’m bleeding freely before them.

The only one who seems unaffected is Victoria. And yet… and yet the way she licks her lips, while watching me bleed, it’s…

Terrifying.

My heart is beating so hard in my chest that the sound is all I hear. There’s a long, tense moment as the last of the cups is filled. Victoria’s eyes are on me.

And then she says, “Enough!”

As if a spell is cast James is flung backward. I’m free, but only for a moment. Victoria speeds forward and clamps a gauntlet over my wrist. It stems the blood flow.

All three vampires visibly relax. Raul goes still, but keeps panting. He directs a haunted glare at Victoria. He purposefully avoids my eyes.

James returns and brings me back to the far wall.

“My turn,” Victoria says. She uses that dagger to prick a finger. Into each goblet goes one drop of her blood.

She motions James over. “Now yours…”

Each time a drop of vampiric blood mixes with mine in a chalice, a loud, violent hissing sounds. There’s a ritualistic, dark quality to the way the ceremony is being performed. It makes me ill at ease.

“Finally,” Victoria turns to Raul. “It’s your turn.”

“No!” he says. “No, I will not let you! No—”

“Oh, brother,” James interrupts. “You speak as if you have a choice.”

The dagger flashes. Raul’s forearm is cut. Victoria brings the goblets one-by-one to him, and holds them by his elbow to catch the flow. His blood joins ours in the bowls.

“And now we wait,” she says.

Raul continues to bleed. I don’t know why he’s not healing. But as more and more blood flows out of him, he starts to sag and weaken.

He turns his head to James. His eyes are rolling in his head. “Please,” he implores. “Don’t let her do this.”

James looks at him. I think I see the briefest flash of pity in his eyes.

Then he laughs. “You think I don’t want this as much as her?”

“Want what?” I scream. I’m as helpless to change anything as a newborn lamb, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want answers.

James clamps a hand over my mouth. “Shut it,” he warns.

“I know you have good in you,” Raul implores. “Deep down. I know you do. Don’t forsake us all!”

“Forsake you?” James sounds livid. “I asked you to join me, brother! I have not forsaken anyone. It is you who’s turned his back on me! And for what?” He glares at me. “For some snivelling teenage girl? Please.”

“Enough!” Victoria claps her hands. “It is done. The fusion is complete.” She looks at me, and her eyes positively shine with lust. “Now, the real fun begins.”