LEXINE DROVE PAST Michelle’s house one more time, knowing it was hopeless, before going home. She only had about an hour and a half before sunrise, and she was on duty with Sterling the following night.
She almost kept driving after reaching her destination but did a double take when she saw that Michelle’s car was in her driveway. Even better, Lexine recognized the other two vehicles parked on the street.
Lexine screeched to a stop, parking crookedly across the street, and set a foot outside her door before she even had her vehicle in park. She flew up the walkway and pounded on Michelle’s door.
When Michelle answered, she obviously hadn’t been expecting Lexine because she looked shocked and then guilty. Then, she smiled like she was happy to see the other vampire.
“Let me in,” Lexine said.
Michelle laughed nervously as she opened the door further and stood back. “Of course.”
Lexine marched through the house until she found the rest of the group in the kitchen. Everyone was there—Dani, Steve, Analeigh, and Mathis—except Lucas.
“Would you like to explain to me what in the hell happened the other night?”
“What are you talking about?” Dani asked with her eyes wide, feigning innocence.
Lexine saw right through it. She was a Guardian after all. She had been trained to spot bullshit a mile away.
Lexine crossed her arms. “Don’t pretend like you guys don’t know what I’m talking about. Or is there another reason you’ve all been MIA for the last few days?” She dropped her arms and pointed to the group. “You promised no one would get hurt.”
She heard footsteps behind her and turned around as Michelle was hanging up her phone.
“Lucas will be here in five.”
It hadn’t taken Lexine long to learn that Lucas was the leader of this band of misfits, which was terribly annoying at times. Yes, Dante was her leader, and the king and queen were technically in charge of all of them, but she and her fellow Guardians could still make decisions on their own and were independent in their own way. These vampires wouldn’t take a piss without asking Lucas for permission.
“Of course. You guys can’t talk to me without Lucas present.”
“Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll get you something to drink,” Analeigh, the quiet one of the group, said.
“Yes, good idea,” Steve, her boyfriend, said.
“Fine,” Lexine said, pulling out a chair at the table.
Everyone else sat around the table for eight and tried to make friendly conversation, except for Analeigh, who was at the kitchen counter, making Lexine a drink. She could tell they were all nervous, as they should be. They had royally messed up the other night, and Lexine was a Guardian. By vampire law, she should be locking these people up.
Analeigh brought over Lexine’s drink and set it in front of her. It was alcoholic, so she almost refused. But, with vampire metabolism, it would take a lot to get her drunk, and she wasn’t on duty until sundown that following night. She might as well enjoy it.
When she’d gotten involved with them months ago, she had been angry and hurt from Dante’s lack of interest in her. She was still in love with him and hated to see him with that stupid crap-shifter, but she was a little less angry now. She had fully supported her new friends’ idea to protest the new vampire-shifter truce. She’d even given them information about how to avoid the Guardians, but the plan had been that no one would be injured.
Her new friends continued talking about some lame-ass movie, trying to get Lexine to join in, but after a few one-worded answers, they stopped trying to engage her. After a few minutes, Lexine started to feel really drowsy. She hadn’t slept as much as she should have the last few days because she was worried, but this was bizarre. She felt like she had twenty pounds sitting on each eyelid, and her vision was going blurry.
“Are you okay, Lexine?” one of the females asked.
She couldn’t tell who had asked.
“I think it’s working,” one of the guys said.
Lexine tried to tell them that she wasn’t okay, but her words came out muffled and didn’t make any sense.
Lexine picked up on footsteps coming from the front of the house.
Then, someone said, “Lucas is here.”
That was the last thing Lexine heard before she slumped over onto the floor and hit her head.
Lexine awoke, lying on her back, with a splitting headache. She tried to roll over but was unable to move. She opened her eyes to see that her hands and feet were each chained to the corners of a bed.
She had no idea how long she’d been there. The shutters were all closed in the room, which meant that it was probably daylight. But was it the same day, or had more days passed?
“You’re awake,” a voice said from the corner, startling Lexine.
She didn’t say anything as she watched Lucas rise out of the seat and move closer. Her first instinct was to lash out and demand to be let go, but she knew that would get her nowhere. She had to be calm and try to appeal to him, and she had to gain as much information as she could in the process.
“How-how long have I been here?” Her throat was dry, and the words came out hoarse.
Lucas looked at his watch. “About five hours.” He dropped his arm and smiled. “You should have only been out about two hours or so. Analeigh gave you a little more sedative than normally recommended. She was afraid it wouldn’t work.”
“Is that why my head hurts?”
Lucas laughed. “Oh, no. That’s because you hit your head when you fell.” He shrugged. “Everyone thought you were faking it to get the upper hand, so no one bothered to catch you.”
Assholes.
“What is going on? Why am I tied up?”
Lucas grabbed another chair that was against the wall and pulled it closer to the bed. He sat on it backward and casually said, “Because you’re no longer useful to us, and you’re starting to become more of a pain in the ass. You seem to think that you’re in charge because you’re some bitch Guardian.” He bared his teeth, and his eyes turned frosty. “You seem to have forgotten that this is my group. I’m the one in charge. We don’t need your ugly cunt telling us what to do.”
Lexine almost shrank away from him. But she couldn’t let him see that he really scared her; although he could probably already smell her fear in the air. She needed to think of something else. Like how she couldn’t believe that she’d actually been interested in Lucas at one point. How could she have had sex with this guy and not known that he was so horrible?
Once again, the nice, well-mannered Lucas, the one she’d originally known, returned. “Now, I think the two of us need to get something straight.”
“That you’re going to kill me?”
Lucas shook with a full-on belly laugh. “God, no. We’re not idiots.”
“So then, what? You’re going to keep me locked up here? Because I’m on duty at sunset, and they’ll know I’m missing if I don’t show up.”
He waved his hand, as if she were being silly. “You’ll be back to do your job. You might be a little late, considering you’re stuck here until sundown, but you’ll be back.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Thanks for asking, Lexine. Yes, I would love to explain it to you.” His eyes and voice lost all humor again. “You work for me now, bitch. I’m the one who calls the shots, and I’m the one who gives orders.”
Lexine wasn’t just going to sit by and do whatever this crazy nut said. He must have forgotten that she was a Guardian and had the power to lock his ass up.
“Okay,” she said sarcastically.
“Michelle!” Lucas shouted so loudly that Lexine jumped.
There was a knock at the door, and then Michelle entered. She wouldn’t look Lexine in the eyes.
“Michelle, why don’t you tell Lexine what will happen if she turns us in?”
Michelle pulled a tablet from behind her back and hit play. There was a picture of her, her parents, and her brother, Lennox. This appeared to have been taken just the other day when Lennox and she were visiting. They knew where her parents lived.
But that was okay. Once she told Dante and Lennox and the others, they would put her parents in a safe place.
“Uh-uh-uhh.” Lucas shook his finger at her, as if he knew what she was thinking. “We’re not done yet. Keep watching. And, more importantly, keep listening.”
Next, she saw a video of her ranting and raving about how much she hated the shifters. She had said it all when she was very angry, but hearing it now sounded horrible. When she had said that she wanted to hurt them, she hadn’t really meant it. She had been venting her hurt feelings.
After that, the screen went black, but there was still sound. There were conversations about what they were going to do to stop the vampire-shifter truce, and it was very damning evidence. Some of it wasn’t true, especially when they talked about upping the actions to violence. The tape had been edited to make it sound like it was her idea.
The last thing the video showed was her parents again. This time, they were in a windowless room, pounding on the door and yelling for help.
Lexine was furious, and she tried to fight off her chains, but they were too strong. She fought until she exhausted herself, and she lay there, panting and watching her poor trapped mom and dad.
The recording ended, and Lucas clapped, like he was at the theater or something. It was creepy. “That’ll be all, Michelle.”
Michelle left the room, and Lucas looked at her.
“So, now, you know that your parents are guests of ours. As long as you cooperate, they will be taken care of. And if you don’t…” Lucas ran a finger across his throat. “And, if you don’t care about your parents and still go to your precious leader, I have plenty of evidence to damn you to the Guardians. It’s your word against ours.”
“It’s a lie,” she bit out.
“Now, now, Lexine. Some of it is, and some of it isn’t. But that doesn’t matter because your friends will all believe it.” He raised an eyebrow. “Now, will you help us?”
What choice do I have? She couldn’t let anything happen to her parents. Anyway, who would believe me? She was partly guilty after all.
“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth. “But how am I going to explain where I was today?” She bet that he hadn’t thought of that.
Lucas laughed again, but it was eerie and sent a chill down her back.
“Steve, Mathis, it’s your turn.”
When the other guys entered the room, Lucas got out of the chair and shoved it out of the way. The three males stood around Lexine, and she was filled with dread.
“Hold her down,” Lucas said.
“No, no, no,” Lexine chanted, afraid they were going to rape her.
Steve lay across her lower body and legs, and Mathis held down an arm and turned her head toward him. Lucas grabbed her other arm. She tried to see what he was doing, but he put a hand on her head and held it away from him.
She was completely unprepared for their next action. Lucas struck her neck, taking her blood in large gulps. Lexine tried to fight the guys off, but it was no use. With the chains and three against one, she couldn’t defeat them.
What was worse was that she started to cry. Lucas might not be sexually assaulting her in the way that regular humans thought of, but vampires normally did not steal blood from other vampires. They only took what was given freely. Lucas was blood-raping her, and Lexine feared she was going to throw up. Now, he would be able to sense her whether she wanted him to or not.
After Lucas was finished and after he’d taken more blood than he should have, he licked her wounds closed, taking more time than he needed to seal them. When the guys let her go, she looked over at Lucas and shot daggers at him with her eyes. She didn’t care if she had tears running down her face.
Lucas was licking his fangs and lips. “God, you taste good. I knew you would.” He looked up at Steve and Mathis. “This cunt wouldn’t let me drink from her when we were fucking.” He looked back down at Lexine. “Looks like I got what I wanted after all.”
Lexine spit on him, and Lucas slapped her.
He grabbed her face and squeezed. “Don’t you ever try something like that again.”
Lexine wasn’t stupid enough to repeat the action, but she didn’t look away from his eyes. She would not submit to him.
Lucas let her go and looked at the other males. “Okay, guys, you know what we have to do now.”
Mathis pulled out a pair of scissors, and once again, Lexine was scared.
“Lie still, and you won’t get hurt,” he said.
“Don’t baby her, Mathis,” Lucas said. “Just cut off her clothes already.”
It took all three of them to hold her down again in order to get her clothes off, leaving her in her underwear and bra.
“Go ahead and fight. The sweatier you are, the more you’ll sell it,” Lucas said.
Then, he unzipped his pants, and the other guys followed suit.
Lexine closed her eyes, not wanting to watch. She was already so tired from struggling and from blood loss that she didn’t know if she could fight much more.
This was just going to be another way to discredit and degrade her.