“Hey, psycho, if you wanted me to be your queen, why did you dump me in an alleyway?”
Then with an uncomfortable tug at his collar, he said, “You had a different reaction to the blood than I. When I drank the blood of the Original I changed, while conscious, in a relatively short time. You appeared to actually die.”
“So you decided, might as well fit a meal in?” I asked, turning my head to the side to present my scarred neck though it was veiled by my leather ties.
He shrugged, not seeming all that embarrassed. “If you’ll remember, we didn’t have dinner. I was starving by the time we made our exit. Waste not, want not.” Then he grinned. “Though I believe that my feeding on you has psychically bound us. It is why you have been able to hear my dulcet whispers in your mind.”
“You made me carve your message into my own hand with a steak knife,” I said, fully pissed now. I’d once worried the master vampire had started out like me and twisted into a hateful, monstrous bastard. But this sicko started out perverse and violent, and there was no possibility of my ending up like him.
Kneeling by me, he laid a hand on mine. I wished I could snatch it away, but I was shackled up good.
“Another note of reassurance to let you know I was coming for you. Ever since I learned of your rebirth, I’ve been desperate to get to you.”
“If you were so desperate, how come you didn’t come get me yourself?” I asked.
A woman’s voice answered for him. “Because he was trying to hide what he’d done.”
Qwynn stepped into the light of the cell.
“I knew your skanky ass was caught up in this!” I exclaimed, my shackles rattling.
Her arms were crossed over what appeared to be a number of black straps criss-crossing over her torso and breasts up to a collar that wrapped around her neck. If I didn’t know any better, I might think she was biting off my BDSM flavor from the Wolf Town Club.
Half her long, black hair was pulled up into a pony while her eye makeup was dark and seductive. Qwynn’s cat-like features were caught between annoyance and amusement. “I have to say, being chained up like a dog suits you.”
Then dropping her arms and turning to Crane, her annoyance flared. “You little snake. You tried to hide making a master from me. You will kill her at once, and never think to step out of line again or I’ll rip your head off.”
Crane was unmoved. He regarded her with cool boredom, as if she were nothing more than a silly, useless girl. I wondered if he was aware she was a goddess. The goddess of manipulative skanks, but to each their own.
“You need me,” Crane said in an even tone. “And you need me happy. If you kill me, all of the sekhors die, and you’ll have to start all over again. Except this time, you won’t have the element of surprise on the others. Can you really afford to kill me?” He walked over to my side and gripped the back of my neck with cold, clammy fingers. “What does it cost you to let me have a queen so that we can both serve you?”
Qwynn looked close to grinding her teeth, but I guessed she would never do anything so outwardly unattractive. Her eyelids lowered in a scathing look of disdain that would have frozen the blood in any man’s veins. “You made another master. Had you simply turned her, we would not be having this conversation.”
“I can control her,” he replied as if trying to appeal to his mother to let him have a puppy.I swear I’ll pick up after her, walk her, and feed her every day.
“Fat chance of that.” I snorted.
Neither bothered to look at me. “Prove it and you can keep her,” Qwynn said.
“Gosh, do you really think you’re old enough for such a big responsibility?” I taunted.
Releasing my neck, Crane crossed over to Qwynn, a grin on his face that made my insides turn cold. “I have just the method to demonstrate.” He clapped his hands, and one of the sekhors came forward, a bundle slung over his shoulder. He set the small human form on the ground, a bag covering their head, with hands and feet tied. Crane sauntered over to the newcomer, a smile on his face, then pulled the bag off as if performing a magic trick.
My stomach turned to ice as panic exploded inside me. The kid had a gag shoved in his mouth, tear-stained cheeks, and wide eyes full of fear. It was Jamal.
30
Galina’s envoys traced the sekhors quickly, but not quick enough to my liking. I wasted no time making my way down to the tunnels below the Strip. I’d texted Timothy and Miranda, telling them to meet me down there. Galina lent me one of her envoys to lead me to the sekhors, while she waited at the mouth of the tunnel for Timothy and Miranda. I didn’t know what we were walking into, but I planned to take point.
It was widely known that homeless people nested in these tunnels, and I passed by several cots, piles of clothes, and water-stained paperbacks. But my instincts told me these squatters had cleared out. More accurately, I sensed the death lingering in these tunnels. A perfect hiding spot for the master and his sekhors.
Careful not to make any noise as sound echoed down here, I followed the fluffy white Persian into the darkness.
The cat stopped to lick its paws and I realized Galina’s envoy would go no farther. My eyes glowed, casting light into the tunnel. Eventually, it opened up into a large space. A pile of drained bodies was left discarded in a corner.
“She’s not yours, you know.” A man’s voice echoed through the chamber.
Looking around, but seeing no one, I said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
