Stale, cool air filled my lungs as my eyes fluttered open to stare at an ornately carved ceiling. Dull light emanated from the stone walls just enough for me to make out random objects. Expensive antique furniture surrounded me. Even the bed I lay in was cloaked with lavish, wine-colored silk sheets and adorned with an ornate mahogany headboard and matching end tables.

As luxurious as this bed felt, my fight-or-flight instinct instantly sprung up in my chest as memories of the night before came flooding into mind. I had to find a way out, a way back home and to Kiera. I was certain I was going to die, and I wasn’t prepared to face my demons, not yet. I immediately looked for a means of escape, but there were no windows and only one door. My heart sank.

One door meant one way in and one way out. But I had to try. If I was lucky, the man was still asleep and I could slip out undetected.

Flipping the covers off of me, I swung my legs over the plush mattress and quickly found my footing in the poorly lit room. I hadn’t taken but a step when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A dark figure sat in the corner, hiding in the shadows, watching me.

My sight finally adjusted to my surroundings. The flickering light had touched his face just enough for me to make out his features. It was the man who’d taken me, sitting there in silence. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just sat there, examining me from afar.

My hands trembled at my sides as I forced myself to find my voice.

“Where am I?” I croaked.

He crossed one leg over the other—a movement that I would have been swooning over if my mind wasn’t occupied by my possible demise.

“My home. On my private island, south of Fiji.”

He couldn’t be serious. It was impossible. I couldn’t have been unconscious long enough to travel that far. Could I? No, he had to be lying. But that wasn’t my biggest concern.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Because I decided not to kill you.” He said it so matter-of-factly that it was chilling.

“And the other woman? What did you do with her?”

“It’s been taken care of. Don’t you worry yourself about that.”

How could I not worry? I was stuck with a psychopath, and for all I knew, my fate was leading towards the same demise, if not worse, and I had no way of stopping it. I thought of some of the worst cases of abuse I had ever come across in my line of work. Women tied up and beaten, cut, and burned, mutilated in ways that made bile rise in my throat. I wouldn’t be able to withstand anything like that. I wished he had just killed me like he did the other woman in the restroom.

“What are you going to do to me? Are you going to rape me?” The question plagued me, but I had to know.

“I know that’s probably what you’re hoping for. But that’s not really my taste.”

My brows furrowed. “What?”

He held up my e-reader. He must have rummaged through my purse while I was unconscious. “It’s amazing what you humans come up with. An entire library in this tiny lighted box.”

You humans? Lighted box? “You’ve never seen an e-reader before?”

“I haven’t had a chance to look into all the latest innovations. But I have seen TV. Max loves it. He sits in front of it for hours, his tongue hanging out, his tail wagging.” He stared off as in lost in a memory, smiling wistfully.

Great! My future rapist is a dog lover. That’s nice.

“Given your taste in literature and your obvious physical attraction to me, I’m sure you’re hoping that your deepest, darkest fantasies are about to be played out. But no, that’s not why I brought you here.”

My blood boiled. Every part of me wanted to kill him. That condescending prick! I wanted to pounce on him like a lion would its prey and gouge his eyes out. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

He raised an inquisitive brow. “Really?” He flipped over my e-reader and began reading the novel I was engrossed in at the bar, continuing where I had left off. “ ‘No, Connor. As much as I love you, we can’t. I must save my virtue for the man who will someday marry me.’

“He swept her into his arms, ignoring her words. ‘I am the lord of these lands, and everything on them is mine, including you.’ He grabbed the hem of her dress, ripping it open in one smooth movement. Her supple breasts—”

“Okay!” I screeched. “Please stop.” My cheeks burned crimson. Hearing those words being read in his strange, unplaceable accent was too much for me.

“Really, Abby, you’re an incredibly intelligent woman. How can you read this tripe?”

My embarrassment turned to baffled rage. “Are you really sitting here, judging my taste in literature when your hobbies include kidnapping and murder?!”

He seemed nonplussed. “You do have a point.”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach in attempt to comfort myself. My fingers clung to the dingy fabric of the suit Kiera had lent me. “So what do you intend to do with me, then?” My voice sounded so small, like a frightened child’s. I wished I had even an ounce of Kiera’s strength.

“I intend to keep you and train you to serve me.”

“Serve you in what way?” He had just stated rape wasn’t his taste. He couldn’t possibly think he’d ever convince me to consent to sex with him. I didn’t care if he was the most dashing serial killer in all of history, which was plausible. It wouldn’t happen.

“In any way I choose.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then there is no use for you.” His words were cold. Like my life was next to meaningless. I wanted to cry.

“Why not just let me go? I promise not to tell anyone what I saw. No one would believe me if I did anyway.”

“And what exactly did you see?”

“You… killing that woman.”

“That’s not the whole story, is it?” He gave me a meaningful look, prodding at what I really knew.

I gnawed at the side of my cheek. I knew what I saw. And he knew what I saw. But it sounded utterly insane. I could be institutionalized for even thinking something so ridiculous. But his gaze never wavered.

“It… looked like you were feeding on her,” I whispered. “Like you were some kind of… but I know that’s impossible.” I shook my head in an attempt to clear my mind. “It’s not possible,” I stated again trying to reassure myself.

“There is more in heaven and earth, than what is dreamt of in your philosophies.”

My gaze found his, glaring at him through the shadows. Did he really just quote Shakespeare at me?

A smirk graced his full lips, unmoving. Waiting. But for what?

I wanted more information, but I couldn’t think of what to ask. He’d already told me his plan for me. That I was to be a pet. Used in whichever way he found fit for the day. It made my stomach turn. Why couldn’t Kiera just leave me be in my solitude? He was obviously intelligent. He got away with me in the midst of dozens of people. Granted, most were drunk or high. Or both. But out of all those people, not a one noticed. He clearly got his murder cleaned up. Was he part of some weird vampire gang? Did they just rummage around through town preying on weak, damaged women who wanted nothing more than to feel comfort of a man for the night? This stranger clearly had many tricks up his sleeve. Then it dawned on me.

“Can I ask what your name is?”

A glimmer of a smile touched his lips. “Julian.”

I waited for more, possibly a last name. Where he was from, maybe. But there was nothing. Just Julian.

“Okay, Julian,” I said. “Can I ask how you knew my name?”

His slight smile grew into a devilish grin. “I know many things.” His voice was low and intimidating.

If he really could hear my thoughts, it would make sense for him to know. But that left me confused. I didn’t recall having ever thought to myself in third person.

“I even know how to read a name on identification.”

Sarcasm? Really? During all this talk of me being his slave and killing and murder, now he decided to show a bit of humor? Unbelievable.

I needed space from him. To get a chance to clear my mind and focus on what I was going to do. On what I could do.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

He pointed towards an opening in the stone wall. Just beyond the opening I could make out a sink, a mirror, and the edge of the toilet.

“Where is the door?”

“There is no door,” he stated and sat back in his chair, his fingers lacing with each other as his gaze drew darker as he watched me.

I glanced from the opening back to him. “Are you going to leave, then?” I asked. Surely he wasn’t planning on sitting there and watching me use the toilet.

Silence.

Clearly, I was wrong. The sadistic pervert had every intention of watching me, listening to me as I relieved myself.

I clung to myself tighter, my stomach churning with disgust and made my way into the bathroom. The space was large and open with thick fur rugs separating the cold stone floor from my bare feet. Beside the toilet sat a massive, footed tub. Fresh towels hung from a brass rod on the wall, and every toiletry a woman could want sat on the sink and the delicately carved shelves hanging next to it—all of them new and unwrapped. He had prepared the room for someone, and my guess was that this guest wasn’t aware of their stay.

I unfastened my slacks and slid them down as far as I could without exposing myself to my peeping Tom. Knowing he was on the other side of the wall, knowing he could hear me, made the simple act of relieving myself a complete and utter humiliation.

Unwrapping a bar of aloe-scented soap, I lathered my hands in suds. A futile act in trying to wash away the filth I felt beginning to creep over me. I stared at myself in the mirror, convincing myself that I could face him again. But when I re-entered the room, the man, creature, whatever he was, was gone.

I looked around the room for something that could help me. On the far side of the room was a large wooden wardrobe that took up most of the blank slate wall. In one corner was a small vanity dresser that matched the bed with a large oval mirror that reached down to the floor with drawers on either side. Glass shelves held an array of antique, colored perfume bottles, and a backless stool with a cream-colored cushion sat in front of it. In the opposite corner was an elegant wooden table with a matching, intricately carved wooden chair with a plush fabric seat, the one Julian had been sitting in, no less.

Maybe I could break a leg off and stake him with it. Did that even work? I supposed if he was misleading me and really was just some deranged lunatic of a man, it’d certainly work. But he was so fast. No human could move like that. He had ripped the stall door off its hinges and tossed it aside like a used tissue. There was no way he was misleading me. Whatever he was, it wasn’t human.

Shaking the sinking feeling that had washed over me, I prayed the end tables had something. Though I knew the answer, I had to at least try.

I grasped the brass handles and pulled the top drawer open. Nothing. I moved on to all the remaining drawers on both end tables and found the same.

There had to be something. The true size of this room was massive for how closed-off and small it originally seemed. It couldn’t have just one door and a bathroom.

The bathroom.

I ran back to the restroom. The darkness had clouded my depth perception and I bumped into the wall and stumbled into another. I quickly searched the room in hopes for a window that I may have missed. To my dismay, I found nothing but the same slate-gray walls as before.

Maybe I was missing something. This room was so large but so poorly lit, maybe there was a hidden door in the wall or behind the wardrobe, even. I scorned myself for even thinking of something so fictional. But what I wouldn’t give to have a magical wardrobe to get me out of this hell I found myself trapped in. Figuring it was worth a shot, I slowly scaled along the frigid walls, lightly tapping to hear for any hollow spots and feeling for misplaced seams.

Like I had figured, my fiction-fueled mind had gotten the better of me. I found nothing. I was drained mentally and wanted nothing more than to clean myself up a bit and maybe get some rest, seeing as I clearly wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I approached the lavish, dark wooden wardrobe that almost reached the ceiling. It made me feel small and childish, looking at something so large and ornate. It truly was a beautiful piece. At this point, I had given up looking for a means of escape for today, and all I had hoped for was to find some sort of clothing to change into. The club attire I had on had developed a musk to it that I was none too pleased about.

Opening the doors, I was hopeful to find even a set of pajamas to change into, but instead my heart leapt into my throat. No clothes hung on the metal rod, but what I found had fear panging through my chest all over again. Where there should have been clothing dangling from coat hooks, I had discovered a stash of different sizes and styles of whips, gags, cuffs, and a few things I couldn’t even identify all neatly organized on hooks, racks, and hangers.

Oh, god. What was he planning on doing to me?!