At being locked up in his palace in the sky, at the computer now not working. Lucian’s locked it all down.
Yeah, sure. He isn’t keeping anything from me.
My stomach twists.
Maybe if Lucian didn’t starve me, I wouldn’t be chasing down every human that passes me. He’s making this worse, setting me up for failure.
Ugh.
There’s the bullshit blood in the fridge and the protein bars in the fruit bowl on the counter.
I snatch one up and with a growl rip it open with my teeth.
Fuck this. Fuck being his prisoner.
Taking a bite, I pick up a priceless-looking statuette and smash it against the wall. Then I take another mouthful.
I only become aware of the tremors when they stop and goaway. The lust for blood is receding, and while I know I’ll need to drink the real stuff eventually, right now the protein bars do the trick.
I hate that Lucian was right.
Finally, I come back to my own mind, and while I’m still angry, I can think. I take a breath. These mood swings are getting a little easier to deal with, and the urge for blood something I’m slowly learning to control, but I need to do something that’s away from the computer, just for a few minutes, so I go back into the vast main bedroom and rip off the clothes I chose.
Vittoria didn’t bring up just the pants and top. There are jeans, business clothes, dresses. I choose one of those, something so unlike what I normally wear, and it pleases me.
When I feel normal enough—or as close to normal as someone might feel under the circumstances—I make my way back to the study.
Even though I already checked, I pull open the drawers of his desk again, looking for anything that might look like a code for the elevator or a map for the emergency stairs.
Again, I find nothing.
“Fuck you,” I snarl. “Fuck you to hell and back, Lucian.”
I look down. The dress I’m wearing is sunny and bright, a pretty blue with yellow flowers, the type of thing not designed for someone who drinks the blood of the living. Or lives in the night.
The dress saystoothless.
I go to my discarded clothes from last night and search through the scraps of fabric. After Lucian and I had…whatever the fuck that was in the park, I had found Santiago’s business card in the mud and picked it up before Lucian noticed.
Now, I stare at it.
Blond. Handsome. Dangerous. A man who’s hungry for more.That was clear to me. A man who hates Lucian. That glittered in him when we spoke.
There are a thousand lifetimes laid out before me.
Do I want to be with Lucian forever?
There’s a small part that whispersyes. But I squash it into nothing. I think about being trapped up here forever, forbidden to hunt and feed like any other vampire, and forced to scarf down protein bars indefinitely.
That’s not a life. That’s torture. That’s hell.
Even if it comes with Lucian fucking me on occasion.
I want to explore my power. See what I can do with it.
I’ve scraped and clawed my entire life to be something, and now I have a chance to do everything I’ve always wanted to do. Maybe become an investigative reporter, a podcast host, or write articles for VMR’s new outlets.
But that’s only if Lucian will let me.
