“Is this a punishment, Lucian?”
“No,” he breathes. “I was trying to save you. Just like I am now.”
“Saving me for me, though? Or for you?”
His body stiffens. “Don’t make me change my mind, Monty.”
That’s my answer. Right there. I pull free from him and stumble away, but my legs wobble and give out. I hit the ground hard. On my hands and knees, I rock back and forth. “I don’t understand. I-I feel so weak and yet so strong at the same time. How is that possible?”
“The bullet that hit you has been absorbed. Your organs have repaired, rewired, and every cell in you works on a different level,” he says.
Confusion and haziness swamp me, along with an inexplicable cramping in my stomach.
“As I said, you’re going through big changes. And you have too much of my blood in your system. Too much power. It’s temporary but it’s dangerous,” he says, watching me. “I’m sure the hunger, the blood lust, is telling you to murder half of Tenebris City. As much as you may not think so now, you’d regret it later. So you’re in here for your protection. When you’re no longer a danger to yourself and others, we’ll talk.”
Lucian turns and walks to the door.
After all that, he’s…he’s not going to feed me?
I crawl toward him. “Lucian, please?—”
He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t turn back. He walks out and the door shuts behind him. A beep sounds and a lock snaps into place. Then the lights go off.
I scream.
Chapter
Two
Lucian
“Fuck.” I drop my head against the door.
What have I done?
“Saving me for me? Or for you?”
I can’t answer that because…because I really don’t know. I want to say it was for her, but when the memory of her bleeding out resurfaces, my heart clenches painfully and I know my selfishness drove me to give her my blood.
“Locking her up is for the best,” says a familiar voice behind me.
Straightening, I turn away from the soundproofed room I just locked the woman I love inside and face the woman who stands as my equal within the company, the one who opposed turning Elliot from the start.
Her arms are folded, and there’s a triumphant expression on her face.
I run a hand over mine. “You aren’t helping, Vittoria.”
“You never listen to me,” she says with a biting tone. “If you had to turn her, you should’ve let me do it. It would’ve been an easier transition for her.”
The thought of someone else’s fangs in Monty makes something ugly stir inside me. Jealousy isn’t a vice I’ve ever possessed. When you live as long as I have, you get used to sharing lovers or having multiple ones at once. What humans may see as taboos aren’t taboos for us.
But Elliot isn’t someone I want to share. With anyone.
“You’re not forming your own army,” I say to her. “I forbid it.”
She goes to the small monitor that shows surveillance of the room. Vittoria sighs and picks up one of the protein bars on the table. She tosses it up in the air, snatching it with ease. “I don’t require your permission to turn humans. And I have no intention of building an army.”
I raise a brow.
