The hotel. Something about the pool, and synth, and then babies.
She remembered the heaviness of the bag’s handles cutting into her fingers as she walked back to the hotel. She remembered busy thoughts of making an appointment with a healer in a few months to get her IUD removed, and to look up how vampire pregnancy worked. She remembered her heart soaring at the joy the future held. She remembered speeding up her steps when she thought of how ecstatic Harlan would be when he finally woke.
And then she remembered, with terrifying clarity, a hand closing over her mouth from behind. The sensation of being dragged, kicking and screaming, into a damp alleyway came next. A bloom of foul smelling chemicals had seared her nose and throat for just a moment before her vision swam, faded, and eventually blacked out.
Cold sweat slicked her palms as a mixture of terror and guilt assailed her.
She wasn’t a rulebreaker, but it had seemed like such a small thing at the time that she waved away the consequences of doing something she knew her vampire would disapprove of. What was a five minute errand? It wasn’t like when she stayed after dark on the estate, or stealing, or putting one of her brother’s m-grid hackers in her car so she could break the speed limit. It was just a run to the grocery store to get Harlan something he liked.
And yet it landed her…Where?
Zia forced her heavy eyelids to open. She squinted and tried to peer through her curls without showing any obvious signs that she was awake, though all her squirming would have already given her away to anyone looking.
She vaguely remembered waking up once before and being afraid — very afraid ofsomeone,though her memory was patchy. Whatever they used on her had left her groggy, weak, and nauseous.
Bile crawled up her throat as her eyes bounced around the room. Was she alone? Instinct said no, but even with her improved night vision, she struggled to make out shapes in the shadows.
From what she could make out, she was being held in a small room scattered with black leather furniture. Huge abstract paintings hung on the walls, and low music filtered in from hidden speakers. She was sitting in a chair, and in front of her was a low, glass table covered in an elaborate planter full of lush ferns, moss, and the tiniest of blood red miniature roses.
Across from the table was a half-moon shaped leather booth. It was strangely made. The back was tall and curled over, creating something like a shell that hid the occupants from sight if you stood at any other angle than the one she found herself at.
It took her several passes to see him there, watching her. The drugs made her sight swim, but the moment her eyes snagged on the twin night-glow eyes hidden in the darkness, her blood turned to ice.
Animal instinct took over. That wasn’thervampire.
“You have a lovely heartbeat.”
Zia flinched. Fight or flight instincts threw all thoughts of pretending to be asleep out of her mind in an instant. She jerked backward until her head hit the high, padded back of the chair. Her arms and legs, she quickly discovered, were locked in place against the chair with silver cuffs. Magic hummed against her skin, hot and foreign. No matter how hard she pulled, she couldn’t move an inch.
Recognition hit her. She knew what these restraints were, though she had never seen the real things in person. Patrol used them to subdue criminals, and she’d glimpsed schematics for similar sigilwork on her brothers’ work tablets once or twice.
Her father and brothers worked in m-tech research and development for the EVP. They were part of teams responsible for fusing magic and tech to make thingsjustlike these cuffs — specially crafted metal restraints that could stand up to the strength of beings more powerful than her and inlaid with wards that could only be deactivated by the one who set them.
While Zia yanked fruitlessly, she prodded at the magic netting that she could feel pressing against the skin of her wrists. She was not an expert like her father, but she was well-versed in sigilwork. It was her most powerful skill, though she rare used it. If she could unwind the wards—
Except therewasno unwinding them. In a painfully simple failsafe, the designers of the cuffs had made it so the wards could only be accessed through skin contact with the outside of the metal.
Another genius failsafe? The more she prodded at the magic, the heavier the metal became. Zia was forced to stop her meddling when the cuffs began to cut into her skin, making her struggling even less effective.
“Oh hush. Don’t go thrashing around like that.” The voice was oily in its sweetness. Almost acoo.
Zia’s chest rose and fell fast as a man emerged from the booth. He stood up slowly and stepped out of the shadows with one hand tucked into his pocket and his other dangling casually by his thigh. His thumb moved restlessly over a heavy gold ring on his middle finger.
Julius had never been described to her, but she knew with absolute certainty that it was the second son of Dora Amauri that stared out at her with those glowing green eyes. The only father figure Harlan could claim — and a monster.
He was pale, with a lined face and hair that had clearly been black once, but was mostly white now. Despite his advanced age, there was still a handsomeness to him, a vitality in the breadth of his shoulders and the set of his mouth, that was utterly destroyed by the terrible vacancy of his eyes.
There was nothing there. No heat. No hatred. No glee or worry or even lust. Nothing. Meeting his gaze, Zia got the dizzying sense that she was standing at the edge of a cliff over a black abyss, and that the abyss wanted nothing more than to swallow her whole.
“Ah, that’s my favorite sound,” he purred. A grin broke out across his face — an awful, empty smile that did little more than show off the points of his fangs.
Julius prowled forward until he was barely a foot away from her chair. Instinct demanded she hold perfectly still, as if doing so would stop the predator from noticing her. Her heartbeat was like a fist banging against the inside of her ribs.
“I’m very sorry about all this.” He casually took a seat on the edge of the low table and rested his wrists on his knees. Still, his thumb twirled that chunky gold ring. “I really do hate to make such a fuss, but Harlan has always been a stubborn boy. Never would do what he was told unless he had good enough incentive.”
She had no idea what to say to that. Anger made her skin flush, but terror tied her tongue into knots. She knew exactly what kind ofincentivehe spoke of. Harlan told her about how he would withhold synth from him as a boy, how he would use basic things like blankets, sleeping inside,showersas both punishments and rewards forgood behavior.
She flinched back when Julius reached out to brush hair out of her eyes, his fingers skimming over a bruise she didn’t notice until he pressed on it deliberately. When a hiss of pain escaped her, his smile stretched into a thousand-watt grin. “Do you know who I am, little bite?”
