He laughs again, this time with more mirth and less cruelty. “We are vampires, Elina. This is what we do. It’s our nature. It will be yours soon.” His fangs drop from his gums and he roughly bites the neck of the woman he is still buried inside. I still can not see her face, but he sucks deeply and she shudders under his touch.
Pulling his teeth from her neck and climbing off the bed, he comes to stand in front of me, his cock jutting out ahead of him. He gives me a slow perusal, lingering on my lips, before looking into my eyes, and I refuse to give into his trap by looking at his naked body.
“Come with me, we will talk in my office.” Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, he steers me toward a door in the corner. I glance back over our shoulders and spy Cindy climb off the bed before making eye contact with me. Guilt and shame color her cheeks.
Another person who is not a friend in this mansion-prison.
The inside of Nicolas’s office is exactly what I expect from the psychopathic vampire I have come to understand he is. The paintings lining the dark walls are macabre in their scenes of bloody massacre, fang-toothed cherubs, and monsters dragging people into the pit. The floors are covered with plush black carpeting, an aggressively large mahogany desk fills the entire center of the room, and dark leather chairs and a sofa create a sitting area near a black marble fireplace. There are floor to 10-foot tall, floor-to-ceiling windows behind his desk, overlooking the courtyard, showing vampires milling around. There is a tall painting above the fireplace showing Nicolas and Genevieve on a country estate, rolling hills behind them, a dog at their feet. They are wearing regency era clothing, a small tiara on Genevieve’s head. The moon hangs heavy behind them.
I tear my eyes away. While I quickly surveyed the office, Nicolas has gotten dressed in dark wash, distressed, denim jeans, with a grey evening shirt he leaves unbuttoned. Sitting behind the grandiose desk, he gestures for me to take one of the chairs stationed in front of it. I sit, my bare feet sinking into the carpet.
“So, Elina, I guess you saw the gift I left for you?”
The word ‘gift’ is such a manipulation of the circumstances. Leaving me a file that exposes every lie that I have been told my entire life, a file that changes everything I know about myself and my future, was never about kindness or benevolence, it was always about control. He is parsing information out to me as he sees fit, on his own timeline to keep control of me and our situation.
“I did,” I agree genially. It’s too soon to reveal how unsettled I am. How unsteady he has made me. “How did you know about this?”
“Do you think that half-breeds are not recorded in the archives, like everyone else? Ezekiel decided to take a human to bed,” he sayshumanwith a level of hatred I was unprepared for, “but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t keep track of the offspring. Just because your sire was extinguished like the coward he was, doesn’t mean we would never find you.”
What does he have against human-vampire bonds?
“I meant, the archives say the child was lost in the war. Why? If you, and the rest of the remaining Devereaux, knew this whole time, why does it say that?”
“Because,crepulsculien, the rest of them don’t know. Only Genevieve and I do, we discovered the record of your birth while looking through old paperwork buried in Ezekiel’s belongings. It wasn’t widely known who your mother was, or your name, so it was easy to lose you.” He watches me, his eyes alight with an emotion I don’t quite recognize. Almost excitement, but more frenzied somehow, like he has it all figured out and the rest of us are along for the ride.
Tilting my head, I ask him, “What is that?Crepulsculien? Claudel has been calling me that.”
“It means ‘twilighter’ essentially, there isn’t a translation. It means someone born between. Not of the light. Not of the night. A hybrid.” He says the last bit bitingly as though I am somehow to blame for my own existence. “Now, back to the question at hand. Bond with me. You will be queen. It seems you have a thing for vampire princes.” He laughs at me as I narrow my eyes.
“No.” I will not bow to him and I will not tie my eternity to him.
“Have it your way.” He snaps his fingers and two large vampires in black suits enter the room behind me. One of them grabs me by my arms and lifts me to my feet while the other one tilts my head back and bites me, pain searing through mybody at the point of contact. I whimper as my knees buckle and he rears his head back, screaming, as the man holding me tightens his grips on my arms, yelling to figure out what happened to his partner.
“What the hell is happening?” I hear Nicolas exclaim as he rounds the desk. I can feel the blood running down my neck.
“The bitch has some sort of protection charm,” the man on the floor tells them as he claws at his throat. Nicolas turns his hazel eyes on me, and drops them to my neck, to the pendant hanging between my breasts.
“Oh, he loves you does he? He must, to have gotten you such strong protection. We will get rid of that.” He calls out for someone named Stephan who enters the room through the door from the sex room. “Remove that from her,” he tells him pointing at my neck.
I thrash and scream in the iron grip of the vampire holding me. “No, don’t touch me! I’ll take it off, don’t touch it!” I twist to try and get free. The man holding me only tightens his hold until I feel bones grinding under my skin, threatening to break under the pressure.
Stephan reaches up and grabs the pendant in his fist, yanking until the chain gives way.
“Toss it in the fireplace,” comes Nicolas’s order.
“No, Nicolas, please. Just give it to me,” I beg.
“Sorry, little princess.” He rubs his hand down my cheek. “The time for you to ask me for anything has passed, you had your chance. Take her away.” Turning from me, he walks over to his desk and relaxes back into his chair.
The man holding me drags me from the room, defeat starting to truly infiltrate my soul. Instead of taking me back to what I have come to accept as my room, I am taken to a different room altogether. The type of room that makes meshudder in fear, my heart races as we enter and a trickle of sweat runs down my back.
It looks too much like the dungeon room at the Velvet Tomb. It’s not so archaic—no stone walls but the cement floor with the drain, the shackles mounted into the concrete, and the metallic smell in the air all indicate exactly what this room is. Fear strikes me, raw and electric, and I feel my heart rate accelerate, forcing the blood through my veins and drawing the attention of the vampires in the room.
My captor pulls me toward the wall, circling my ankles and wrist in manacles, holding me in place, at the mercy of the four vampires, three men and one woman, who line the room. I’m trembling and can feel my knees weakening. I sag against my restraints, too tired and overwhelmed to stand any longer.
“The prince says you belong to us, little princess.” All of the vamps gathered in the room bare their teeth at me, long fangs on display, as they stalk toward me slowly. Tears stream down my cheeks even as I try to remain strong.
“Let’s see if you have any signs of your vampire nature peeking through, shall we? Jon, how should we test her?”
