Chapter One
Waking up on the cold hard floor wasn’t an entirely new experience for Skye. She remembered being in Haven the night before, being plied with their famously delicious Mud Slides by a very hot, very interested guy. She remembered dancing and she remembered the heat of his hard body as he scooped her into his big, muscular arms. The kiss, she couldn’t seem to recall. He’d stared down at her for what seemed like forever, and then... She groaned and pushed herself up. The bathroom floor felt weirdly slick under her hands. Had she thrown up? She grimaced at the thought of that, she wasn’t together enough to even think about cleaning up right now. Her head was swimming. She’d definitely gone past her limit the night before. When she took a good look around she knew something was really off. Her vision was totally messed up. There was no way she was seeing what she thought she was.
Sitting up, she closed her eyes tightly and rubbed every trace of sleep out of them, along with the last of the mascara she apparently hadn’t bothered to take off the night before. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes again. Nope, something still wasn’t right. She got to her feet and walked to the bars in front of her. They were cold in her hands. She shivered, rubbing at her bare arms. The top and skirt she was wearing were perfect for a night out, not so much for whatever freezing layer of hell this was.
She touched her wet hair and realised she felt slightly damp all over. She glanced at her arms. The wet patches on her skin appeared to be water. As relieved as she was that she hadn’t puked her guts up, she was too stunned to properly appreciate the small mercy. Her gaze whipped around the cell. The tiled floor under her feet was wet, just enough to give her shivers now that she noticed it, with a big drain in the corner. When she glanced upward she saw there was what looked like a showerhead embedded in the ceiling.
She groaned. “What the hell is this?”
When she turned to her left she could see a row of cells just like the one she was in, each of them with people in them, most of them inert; sleeping, she wagered. She pulled at the bars, unable to find a way to open her cage, and unwilling to believe that any of what she was seeing was real.
“Don’t do that,” a girl in the cage next to hers said quietly. “The guards don’t like it. Some of them will use any excuse to hurt you.”
Skye’s eyes flitted to the guy across the room, sleeping in a chair with his feet up on a desk. A ring of keys dangled from his belt. She looked at the girl.
She was leaning against the back wall of the cell, long, dark hair mostly covering her face as she slowly turned her left wrist about, right fingers tracing her skin.
“How long have you been here?” Skye flinched as the girl scraped a sharp fingernail down her wrist.
The girl shrugged, her dark eyes trained on the bead of blood that swelled where she’d split her skin. “A few weeks, months, who knows? They don’t feed us regularly so it’s hard to tell. I got one of the good ones. He agreed to make me his shade so they can’t let one of the others drain me.” She sighed softly. “I’m his.” She bent her head and licked the blood from her arm slowly.
Skye shook off the disturbing image, zeroing her attention in on what the crazy girl was saying instead. “What are you even talking about?”
“Vampires,” she whispered. “Don’t tell me you live in White Oaks and you don’t know about them. Don’t make me laugh.”
Skye stared at her. She’d gone stark-raving mad, obviously. Though, those little bloody holes in her neck did look kind of like a vampire bite. “So, what’s a shade then?”
“I’m like...his property. I know it sounds bad, but it’s awesome really. I get to leave when he does. With him.” She spoke in hushed tones, her gaze flitting to the guard and back again. “It means I won’t die in here. Like some of the others.”
Skye was shocked into silence. The thought of dying in this cell made her chest tighten. She was only twenty-three, she’d barely lived, and now she might die? She swallowed. It couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it. She’d do anything.
The crazy girl had started to chew on her nails.
Skye rested her head against the bars between them.
“Hey,” she whispered.
The girl looked up.
“How do I get one of the good ones?”
“You just have to hope,” the girl said, with a shrug of her shoulders. “You won’t know who they’re taking you to until it happens.”
Great, Skye thought, my life is in the hands of fate.