Gripping the phone tighter still, Anatoly knew he had no choice here. For all his bluster, there was really nothing more he could do than cooperate. “Da, what must I do?”
He could practically hear the smile in Reed’s voice as he spoke again. “Come alone to the address that Mr. Markov provided. Give me a taste of your blood and I will release Maggie to you. Simple enough, yes?”
“My blood?” Anatoly was confused by the demand. He had expected him to ask for some obscene amount of money or something else that Anatoly was powerless to provide. “I do not understand…” It seemed too easy.
“I’m something of a connoisseur, you see,” Reed explained absently. “Not only are you a former man of the cloth, but you’re a vampire as well and that… intrigues me. Now, do you agree or not, Mr. Brusilev?”
“Da,” he replied without hesitation. There was no question. If a sample of his blood was all it would take to free Maggie, then Anatoly would provide it. There were rules for vampires sharing their blood, but none of that mattered. The price was minimal and the consequences of failing his lover were too great to even consider. “I am on way.”
The voice purred again, “Very good. I look forward to meeting you in person.” Then the line went dead.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Maggie awoke to the sensation of cold chains around her wrists and a throbbing headache. It felt as though her head were splitting open, and when she opened her eyes, the blinding lights did nothing to ease the pain. She didn’t know where she was or who had taken her, but she was determined to find a way out of their grasp.
Her first thought was of Anatoly and what he must be going through in her absence. Did he know yet that she had been abducted? Was he searching for her?
Whether he was or wasn’t, she knew she couldn’t just sit around and wait for rescue. She tried to see beyond the light, to take in her surroundings and look for something, anything, to defend herself, but the light was overpowering and turning her head side-to-side was especially painful.
She tugged at the chains, trying to gauge how much slack she had. They could potentially be used as a weapon against her captor, but she swiftly realized they were bolted to the floor. Each tug drove home the futility of her situation until she stopped fighting and laid on the cold slab of concrete, trying to assess her next move.
Slowly, carefully, she sat up and the change in position made her head swim. In just a few seconds though the throbbing agony abated somewhat, allowing her to determine that the blinding light was coming from overhead. Now that she was sitting up, she could more easily see.
Her body ached as she forced herself to her knees and then her feet, but she wouldn’t give up. The chains held her fast, clattering and clanking as she tried to move toward the edge of the room where darkness lurked.
Maggie’s instinct was to hide, wait for her captor, and spring from the faint shadows to attack him. Maybe in the scuffle she could lift a key or better yet, kill him before he killed her. Taking a life was never easy, but when it came down to her or him, she’d pick herself every time.
Unfortunately, there was just enough slack on the chains for her to stand and move within a foot of her original position. She couldn’t lift her hands above her waist, let alone hide outside the oppressive beam of light. It would make defending herself that much harder, but she wasn’t about to give up.
As she waited, pacing on her very short leash, Maggie tried to piece together who it was that attacked her in the parking lot. He had been unnervingly strong and fast, seeming to come at her from several directions, and yet she was certain there was only one attacker. He had also known things that only a stalker or a friend might have known, which made her wonder if this was the vampire they had been hunting.
She had no proof of that but held firm to the belief that she was dealing with some sort of supernatural creature. The thought didn’t sit well with her and a feeling of dread settled in the pit of her stomach.
Maggie gave the chains another tug out of frustration and shivered against the cold as well as her unsettling plight. There was no point in trying to think what she could have done differently, but as time wore on and the chill in the air grew more unbearable, she couldn’t stop herself from replaying the attack in her mind.
She was slowly driving herself insane when the creak of floorboards and the groaning protest of a door cracking open jolted her back to the moment. Someone was coming and Maggie was determined to get the drop on them!
Then a familiar voice came from the shadows nearby. “Oh, good. You’re awake. We’ll have company very soon I imagine so there’s little time for foolishness. Submit or I will make this experience very unpleasant.”
“Fuck you,” Maggie shot back, sinking into a defensive stance. She was prepared to defend herself to the death if necessary.
“Then we do this the hard way,” the voice spoke again, and there was no denying the pleasure in his tone.
Maggie had just enough time to brace herself before her assailant was once again on top of her. She had no recourse but to kick at him, hoping to knock him away, but he was inhumanly swift and caught her leg instead of taking the blow.
Before she could even try to tug herself free or act in any other way, the room was filled with a loud crack! as he broke her leg with minimal effort.
A loud scream tore from Maggie as the ground rushed up to meet her again. She landed hard on her upper back, but that pain was nothing compared to the sheer agony radiating throughout her left leg.
A cold chuckle sounded from somewhere above her, even as she fought to sit up, to fight back, to not give in. The world was spinning, her aching body struggling to obey her commands, and a sense of hopelessness was lodging itself in her gut.
“I told you not to resist,” he chided. His footsteps were slow and methodical as he came to stand directly over her. “It’s time you learned that actions have consequences, Maggie.”
Eyes glazed over with pain, she struggled onto her elbows, thinking to wrap the chains around his ankles and knock him off his feet, but no sooner did the thought cross her mind then he was acting again.
In a flash, he had her by the hair, pulling her up to her good knee. Maggie’s head throbbed with excruciating pain as he yanked her around like a ragdoll. Her struggles were futile, but she refused to back down and make whatever he was about to do to her easy.
In seconds, she was face down on the hard concrete, her cheek shoved against the cold ground with him on top of her back. She cried out, still trying to resist and he responded by putting his knee in the small of her back.
