Sighing and removing my shirt, I picked up my phone and sat in the chair.
“Yes, sir?” asked Davlov.
“He’s in lust. I want to take him home. Get me a car here by five am.”
“Of course.”
“And Dav?
“Yes?”
“Only you in the car. The rest of the guards are to surround it, but are to keep away from us. They follow at a discreet distance only. And they don’t touch him—ever.”
There was a slight hesitation. I understood it. Davlov had been with me for a significant part of my long life, and I’d never ordered my guards to keep their hands off one of my guests. Besides, Dav wasn’t just my second, he was my friend, my family. He knew me better than anyone, and his lack of trust in others was as profound as mine. I didn’t trust anyone, even the people I intermittently kept at my home as a warm body to fuck. My guards were always prepared to kill them or anyone else they thought was a threat to me.
I had no idea if Dav thought my order irresponsible, nor did I care. Shane was vulnerable right now, and the last thing he’d want was a bunch of males, whether they were my guards or shifters, seeing him beg me to fuck him.
“Consider it done. And, Bal?”
“Yes?” My oldest friend was one of the very few people I allowed to use my chosen name. No one else ever dared, unless they were invited.
“I’ll see that no one touches the fledgling. Made or not, I’ll see he’s safe. Always.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me, and a heavy weight that I hadn’t realised was there lifted from my shoulders. “Thank you, old friend.”
The line went dead.
I went to the corner of the room where Connor had put a small fridge and stored some blood bags. The blood was for me, not Shane. I didn’t ask where it came from. I didn’t care. It wouldn’t be a Made’s, or infected with the virus, and that was all that mattered.
I’d just finished my second bag when Shane lifted his head, his irises entirely red and swirling with the blood I’d gifted him. Something primal stirred in my chest at the knowledge that I’d marked him in that way, and that everyone else would know it. He’d carry my scent as long as I was the only one to feed him.
“More,” he snarled, his sharpened canines elongating.
Smiling, I obliged, slicing open my wrist and holding it over his very kissable mouth. I’d have to deal with my raging hard-on soon, but I was enjoying this experience far more than I ever had in the past. Watching Shane come apart under my touch was something I doubted I would ever tire of experiencing.
4
Sorcha
I bitmy fingernails for the hundredth time in the last hour. Most nights, I didn’t sleep well, which was why I heard Davlov crunch over the gravel drive, his footsteps light and fast. A few seconds later, the mechanism of the garage doors whirred and an engine purred to life. I hurried to the window and glanced out, watching as Dav expertly manoeuvred one of the armoured SUVs out and sped off into the night.
My heart rate ticked up. I was alone in the Count’s castle. Elliot was on guard duty patrolling the corridors, but no one else was around, not even the creepy-assed butler. It would be easy to leave, to run from the powerful supernatural who’d basically kidnapped me from my last vampire household and deposited me in his. Most of the time, it felt like he’d taken me out of one gilded prison and put me in another. My huff echoed around the silent room. Yet that wasn’t true at all. He was more my saviour than my gaoler. Being left alone when I could easily escape saidit all. I wasn’t really a prisoner—I just had nowhere else to go, and he knew it.
I stared at the scars that peppered my bare arms, my fingers running over the raised skin. It was ugly. I was ugly. Marked in such a way that every supernatural would know what I was, or at least, what I had been. A human blood slave. Vermin. The lowest of the low, not even considered a part of vampire society. I’d thought I was a vampire, and that my loving parents had arranged a high society wedding for me to a vampire lord. I’d been groomed for it since I was a small child. Bitterness coated my tongue. My husband had soon disillusioned me. I was one of many human females, taken at birth, kept ignorant of the real world, and groomed for vampire society as a blood and sex slave, but not a common one. No, an exclusive one whose blood wasn’t tainted by alcohol, drugs, sex, or fast food. I had been ‘pure’, and he had taken great pleasure in making me impure in front of a room full of vampires. Once he’d taken his fill of my body and blood, he’d locked me in a room and only brought me out on special occasions to do his bidding. Occasionally, he’d let a chosen few of his upper-class friends feed from me, too. He hadn’t shared my body at first. No, he was selfish enough to want to keep that for himself. Until his attention was caught by yet another unfortunate girl who’d been lied to her whole life.
I hurried out of my room to the window that gave me the best view of the long, winding driveway. In the darkness outside, the SUV’s red taillights disappeared between the avenue of large trees and into the night. Stinging from where I’d bitten my nails to the quick distracted me from wondering where Dav was going. I sucked on my fingers to ease the discomfort, not that it worked for longer than a few seconds.
The alcove I stood in was situated directly above the front door and gave me the best view of the driveway that led from the castle to the main road. I plonked myself on the window seatand brought up my feet, sitting with my back against the old oak panelling as I studied the view. It must have looked grand indeed when horses and carriages were the transport of the rich and powerful. Don’t get me wrong, it still looked grand, but I couldn’t help but conjure pictures of those long-ago times. It was what this place did; it fueled my imagination, mainly because the atmosphere in Balthazar’s castle was old and full of ghosts and memories. I suspected most were his. The shiver that ran through me had nothing to do with the cold. How many people had been imprisoned, tortured or killed in Dundean? How many bones were beneath its foundations? Balthazar Rossi had never been cruel to me, but I was under no illusions that he was a kind vampire. Such things did not exist. I had no idea how old or powerful he was, only that even my rich and influential ‘husband’ had been scared enough to not challenge him when he stated he was taking me.
I sighed and dropped my head back against the wood. It was one of my favourite things, sitting in the various window seats of Balthazar’s home. Seeing the hills rolling away on one side and the forest on the other gave me a sense of freedom that I’d never had before. Even if it was an illusion, I loved it. But I couldn’t sit here letting the minutes of my life tick by, waiting for the Count and Shane to return. As much as I didn't want to, I missed them, both of them, even moody Balthazar.
My days were mostly quiet, and with nothing to do but explore the grounds and the old castle, I’d mapped it out until I knew nearly every blade of grass and bump in the walls. Well, all except the dungeons, which this castle had to have. There’d been no sign of an entrance anywhere.
Still, I had nothing else to do at the moment except look. I usually worked in the Count’s club on the weekends, but he’d not taken me there since Shane had arrived. He’d ensured Shane’s survival in his own coolly detached way, and I definitely saw aspark of something other than ice in his eyes when he studied Shane’s efforts to walk independently.
When Shane had first made his way downstairs, I’d been scared of him, but he steadily grew on me. He was a giant, and I knew he could crush me in one big hand if he wanted, despite being so weak, but he’d been nothing but kind. It broke my heart to see the shadows that lingered in his eyes. Shadows I recognised.
Around me, the silence pushed in, broken only by an occasional creak. Dundean seemed filled with a creepy kind of energy and had been deathly quiet for the past twenty-four hours since the Count and Shane left. It was as if all the ghosts trapped here pushed against the veil of invisibility that concealed them.
