Page 27 of No One’s Daughter

​I chanced a glance upward and relief flooded through me as I saw nothing. No one. I was nearly at the bottom. I’d done it. I had managed to slip away from him.

​When my foot finally hit the cobbled street of the alley below, pain shot through me.

​My fangs and nails descended intuitively to the threat, but before I could even whirl my head around to see my attacker, my vision blurred then went dark and I slumped into someone’s body.

​I heard muffled talking but I couldn’t make out a word. All of my senses were shutting down.

​I’d kill whoever was doing this to me.

​It was my last thought before total darkness welcomed me, and I was gone.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ailsa

I WOKE TO the sensation of something cold and wet hitting my face, accompanied by a pounding headache that made me feel like my skull had been split clean in two.

​Water.

​That was my first coherent thought. I sucked in a sharp breath, coughing slightly as I dragged myself upright, fingers coming up instinctively to wipe at my face. Everything felt slow, thick, like I was moving through something heavier than air.

​“Oh good, you’re finally awake,” a baritone voice drawled, cutting through the fog. It was low and male, but I couldn’t quite place his accent. He wasn’t from here, not native at least, but I’d guess he'd spent a fair amount of time here. “Let’s make this quick, yeah? I have a long list of places I’d rather be right now,” he said—before I could even begin to get my bearings—twirling a pen as he looked over a file in his hand.

​I blinked hard, forcing my vision to steady as I tried to focus on him. He stood a few feet away, completely at ease. If anything, he seemed mildly irritated that I was somehow inconveniencing his day.

​He was tall, his build lean but solid—that much was obvious even beneath the well-tailored suit. Dark hair, slightly dishevelled in a way that looked unintentional, like maybe he’d ran his hands through it one too many times. He might have been considered handsome if it weren’t for his complete lack of warmth. His features were sharp and controlled and everything about him felt dangerous.

Then it hit me.

It was him, the vampire that had chased me down.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

​“What did you do to me?” I managed, my voice rough as I wiped the remaining water from my face, forcing myself to take in my surroundings properly.

A cell.

The realisation made me uneasy. “Who the fuck are you?”

​He scratched his chin absently, finally looking up from the file. His gaze dragged over me in a slow, unimpressed sweep. Whatever amusement I thought I’d seen before was gone now, replaced with boredom.

“I’ll be the one asking the questions. Now, why don’t you tell me who you are?”

​“Where am I?” I shot back.

​He let out an exacerbated exhale. “In a cell, I would have thought that was rather obvious,” he said, his tone flat. “Name?”

​“Fuck you,” I spat, crossing my arms. I sure as shit wasn’t going to answer his questions if he didn’t answer mine.

​He set the file and pen on the floor next to him and he crouched down in front of me. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared me down. His eyes were the most unique shade of brown I’d ever seen. It was like they were speckled with silvery grey. “Look, we can do this the easy way or the messy way.”

​I huffed, refusing to answer him.

​“Alrighty then,” he said, getting up. “So here’s what I know, your name is Ailsa Delaney, you live in that little flat on Victoria Street and work as a pastry chef at Brown’s Family Bakery. You have a decent taste in music and according to your birth certificate you were born on the ninth of November nineteen seventy-two, making you twenty-seven.”