Bound by Flames

As soon as I had ripped the glove and tape off my right hand, I bent and started on my ankle restraints. During his faux rapes, I’d paid attention to how Maximus had uncuffed my leg. The locks didn’t require a key and the latch was a fairly simple, smaller-case H shape. Once I had it lifted in the right direction and then turned, the clamps on my right ankle opened. Five more clamps later, and I stepped away from the wall at last.

If I’d still been human, I would’ve fallen to the ground from muscle atrophy, not to mention tissue damage from being in the same cramped position for weeks. As a vampire, my body adjusted almost instantly. I wanted to whoop with victory at finally being free—and good Lord, I wanted some clothes!—but I didn’t have time for any of that. I needed to recharge so I could fight for my life.

I was halfway across the room to the electrical socket when the alarms went off.

Chapter 16

Above the screech of sirens, I heard one of the guards yell, “Perimeter breach, unknown vampire.” Vlad was attacking now, so the guards would be coming for me! Panicked, I dove toward the socket. My velocity caused my right hand to ram through it, electrocuting me instantly. Voltage surged through my body, the effect similar to my first bellyful of blood after being starved. My eyes rolled back and I began to convulse as my cells felt like they were exploding from the overload of unbridled, delirious energy.

I hadn’t pulled electricity from a socket since before I turned into a vampire. Back then, it had felt like a painful shot of adrenaline. Now, it felt like I’d just been struck by a lightning bolt containing pure, ecstatic power.

I couldn’t see the guard who ran into the room, but when he grabbed me, I held onto him with my legs, free arm, and teeth, still shuddering from the raw, addictive bliss shooting into my body. The electricity I absorbed like a desert drinking in the rain proved too much for the guard. With it transferring into him from my unbreakable grip, he screamed over and over, now fighting to get away from me instead of trying to harm me.

Then I wasn’t just the recipient of the voltage: A wild, unknown part of me started yanking it out of the socket in large, greedy gulps that drained the wires in the next few moments. Still, it wasn’t enough. Like a vampire rising undead for the first time, I was filled with a mindless, insatiable hunger that nothing except rampant gorging would satisfy.

I threw the guard aside, so consumed with need that I barely noticed him smacking into the wall like a rag doll. Then, my vision hazy, I followed the power I felt pulsating beneath the stone walls outside my room. When I came to the socket in the hallway, I shoved my hand through it, crying out in relief at the new surge of electricity. In moments, however, that dried up, too, and my whole body burned from the pain of denial.

I would have kept mindlessly seeking out the next power source if not for the emotions that blasted over mine. They surpassed even my ravenous need, filling me with rage such as I’d never known. That rage cleared away most of the haze that had filled my vision, and I saw Harold, my torturer, try to run by me. I grabbed him, letting out a howl of vengeance as I unloaded my voltage into him. Part of me didn’t want to release the energy; I wanted to hoard it until I was bursting with it, but the frenzy riding my emotions told me I had to kill anything that moved and I had to do it now.

When Harold exploded from the force of too much electricity ramming into him, I threw his remains aside and sought out new prey. Screams rang in my ears while freezing shadows seemed to merge with solid shapes around me, making it feel like I was walking through an icy, nightmarish tunnel. The tiny part of my mind that was still rational urged me to hide, not to grab each guard I saw and unleash a dizzying surge of electricity into him, but I had to kill. Tear. Rip. Burn. Leila. Leila. Leila.

“Leila!” a hoarse voice shouted behind me.

I whirled, seeing those hideous shadows part to let a far darker, larger figure pass. Fire haloed the form, making it appear demonic, while my emotions flared with a crescendo of relief-soaked rage that was so powerful, it shattered me. I fell, first hitting the wall, then a pain of scalding arms that swept me up against a body that felt like fire encased in stone.

“Go,” a feminine voice yelled. “Get her out of here!”

The haze that had descended on my mind lifted enough for me to see as the dark figure flew us through the hallway. The guards that were still alive made no move to stop us. Instead, they were on the ground, their bodies violently contorting as what looked like hellish shadows tore into them and through them, all while emitting deafening, high-pitched shrieks.

The rest of my mental haze lifted as the psychotic rage that had filled me abruptly vanished, leaving me with only my own emotions. That’s when I fully realized whose arms I was in, and a sob tore past my lips.

Vlad!

I didn’t say his name out loud. I couldn’t speak past the sobs that kept clogging my throat, but I didn’t want to start crying. If I did, I didn’t know when I’d be able to stop, and we might not be out of the woods yet.

Somehow, he wrapped a cloak around me while flying us so high up that I had to close my eyes to keep from getting sick. Then, he plummeted down to set us on a hill about a mile away from the train station. With the higher elevation and my enhanced vision, I could still see what was going on, and I watched with disbelief as the grayish figures I’d first thought were shadows tore through the perimeter guards like translucent sharks. More filmy figures sprang up from the ground, joining the gruesome melee. I wasn’t surprised when some of the guards stopped moving and the creatures abandoned those now-shriveling bodies for whoever was still alive. I was only shocked that creatures without solid form could be so lethal.