Chapter Four
Theo walked the same street he always found himself on when he slept. He glanced up at the moon as he waited, wondering if it was true that the crazies came out whenever it was full. He’d come down this same path every night for weeks, leaving the car in the parking area at the bottom of the hill. At nine, Leah’s class would end and the handful of dance students would exit the old school building, chatting and giggling together and meeting their parents in the car park. He walked past the teenagers, their usual exuberance making him smile. There goes Leah’s boyfriend. Wonder when he’s gonna propose. He caught snippets of their conversations. At least once every couple of weeks he heard something about himself. It usually made him laugh. Tonight he was too preoccupied to do much more than crack a smile.
Leah’s brother had found something out. Something that Theo couldn’t help worrying about. Mo wasn’t usually prone to exaggeration, but he wasn’t a shit-stirrer either. That didn’t make every word that fell out of his mouth the god’s honest truth. It just meant Theo had to be careful. He had to find out what the truth really was.
Leah wasn’t a good liar. It didn’t mean she couldn’t hide something this big from him if he never directly questioned her about it. It didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of hurting him. He paused outside the door to the building. The kids were gone from sight, down the hill into the car park.
The air was crisp, just cold enough to make him put his hands into his pockets.
His guts twisted up as he tried to imagine asking that awful question. He’d know if she tried to lie in her answer. He’d know the second he asked. His whole world was about to change. He couldn’t shake the feeling of that. The lying he’d done to himself on the way over, the insistence in his head that everything was going to be okay, all of that had just been trickery to get himself to come here and do what had to be done.
There was no use waiting another second. He walked into the building. The hallway was well lit, only the rooms with their dark windows in the upper quarter showed that most of the building was empty tonight.
He followed the corridor down to the dance hall, listening out as he walked. Was it here? Had she met him here? Was he one of the parents? Or the guy who locked up the building when she was done? Thinking of that was going to drive him insane. He had to stop wondering. It didn’t matter who he was. It only mattered if he existed.
The door to the studio was open. He stepped inside and looked around. Leah wasn’t in the room, but the door to the changing room was open. He could hear something.
He moved quickly toward the sound, before he could stop to think about it.
“Leah?” He called out her name as he stepped into the room.
The sight of his girlfriend half-dressed and straddling someone froze him in place. To be told something and to see it were two very different things. Anger rushed through him but he was too stunned to do anything.
The man she was writhing on was kissing her neck. Her eyes were closed and she was moaning and grasping at his shoulders.
Finally the shock loosened its grip and Theo left the room, afraid of what he might do if he stayed and confronted his cheating girlfriend and the sleaze she was screwing.
The wall of muscle that knocked him to the ground as he got to the dance studio exit door knocked the breath from him. As soon as he managed to get it back and suck in some air, he winced at the pain in his chest.
“What the hell?”
“You owe the family,” the big guy told him, grabbing him by the ankle and dragging him across the floor.
Theo didn’t know what the fuck was going on. His world was breaking apart and he was about to take punishment for something he didn’t understand. Nothing made sense anymore.
“What the fuck…” He kicked but the guy had an iron grip on his ankle.
“Wondering what’s going on?” He snorted. “I’ll bet you fucking do. Bet no-one ever told you what a fucking slut that little bitch of yours was.”
Theo struggled to catch his breath as the guy dragged him along the ground. Twisting and struggling against him didn’t work.
“Leah was given to my brother years ago. Then you came along and her family tried to renege on that arrangement. No-one screws the Blackburns out of what’s rightfully theirs.”
He tried to wrap his head around what the guy was saying but he didn’t understand any of it.
“Wait, what do you want?” Theo asked, getting ready to fight back as the guy let go of his ankle. It throbbed and Theo wondered if he’d broken it. The damn thing hurt enough for that to be true.
He smiled as he crouched down and grabbed Theo’s hands in his right fist. “I want for you to really see what it means for a woman to be owned by us. What happens tonight is on you. All of it.”
Theo kicked at the guy but he couldn’t free his hands and any strikes he managed to land didn’t make any impact. He growled in frustration as he tried to get out from under the grasp of the bruiser. A gasp pulled from him as the guy’s eyes glowed amber, blindingly brightly. The sharpness of his teeth as he opened his mouth had to be an illusion from the light. The light that Theo couldn’t really explain. It couldn’t be coming from his eyes. It had to be someone behind the guy, shining a torch right at Theo.
The pain of something cutting into his neck made him stiffen under the monstrous man. He was seriously in danger right now. He was going to die if he didn’t so something to stop it.
He couldn’t move. The pain started to blur his vision. His body numbed as his eyes fought to stay open. This was what dying must feel like.
It seemed like seconds between losing consciousness and regaining it. Theo found he could move, he wasn’t hurt or being pinned down any more. He touched his neck and looked at his hand. Nothing. He hadn’t been harmed. It all must have been a dream.
Except he was still inside the dance studio, only now, he realized as he moved that he’d been chained to the ground. The hoop on the floor was meant for securing equipment for gymnastics classes. It was solid. He yanked at the chain, a feeling of dread falling over him as he raised his head and his gaze fell on Leah.
She was standing in front of the man he’d seen her with, in the changing rooms. Her stare was empty and she did nothing as the man’s hands gripped her neck.
No! He was hurting her. Anger swelled inside, instinctive, and Theo’s mouth opened but his thoughts tangled and he couldn’t speak. He pulled at the chain, hauling himself closer. Leah made a strangled sound as the guy leveled his gaze at Theo. He was almost as imposing as the one who’d pinned him down before. It didn’t matter if he thought the guy was likely to smash his face inside out if he attempted to attack him. They were too far out of his reach to do anything.
“Let her go, you goddamned piece of shit!” Theo’s thoughts sharpened and exited his mouth viciously. “Let go of her before I make you regret it. Fucking put her down, now!”
The man’s eyes glimmered dazzlingly, stunning Theo as he remembered the other guy’s eyes doing the same. His stomach turned as his rage grew. Something was really wrong. This whole thing was messed up in the extreme.
“Enjoy your first meal. You’re ours now.”
The cracking sound before Leah’s body fell to the floor echoed through his head. Her blank gaze settled on him, her head slumped awkwardly.
Theo’s rage had him pull at the chain again as the man who’d just murdered his girlfriend left the room. He screamed into the hall, the sounds reverberating around him in fury. This couldn’t be happening. He hadn’t just seen what he had.
She was close now, enough to touch. He fell to his knees and reached out to stroke her hair. The warmth she exuded tricked him for a moment. She couldn’t be dead. There was no way.
The deception was what broke him. He wept over her body, in agony inconsolable over her loss. She hadn’t cheated on him. She’d been hurt more than once by those creeps, and he was going to make sure they paid for what they’d done. They’d never get to hurt her again.
He pulled her into his arms to hold her one last time. And that was when the whispering inside his head began.
Feed from her. She’s all yours. Better be quick now. You won’t like the taste when she’s cold.
The mocking, suggestive tone quickly changed into something more commanding, more solid. Theo shuddered as he lost control of his body. He watched himself pull Leah closer and yank her dark hair back from her throat. The way her skin glowed before him made panic spike inside but he still couldn’t move. He was locked away inside himself, a helpless spectator.
The feeling of biting into her flesh was horrifying, though the odd grumblings of his stomach were calmed at the coppery taste of her blood filling his mouth. He drank with a rush of conflicted emotions washing over him. He screamed inside his head, willing it all to stop.
A presence inside his head started to laugh. He knew then that this was just the start of a nightmare that would never end.