Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2)

by Rosemary A Johns

  But I can’t write the memories tonight. I can’t relive them, in case… Twice in one day would be too much - for both of us.

  Maybe we’ll save the eye opening for tomorrow.

  MAY 19

  I know I promised I’d write down the nasties yesterday, but it was too hard.

  I was all set to write: I had the buttery cream of these pages spread open on the dining room table. I’d touched the sun and gone through the daily ritual of counting the Manx, which were hiding in the valleys. I’d sat squarely at the table. Yet, fountain pen in hand, I couldn’t put down a buggering word.

  I didn’t want to remember. Instead, the only thing I felt was numbness. Like death.

  But today…bollocks to it.

  A memory can’t hurt – if only I sodding believed that.

  Cold. Black. Silence. I was blind, deaf and dumb.

  I drew in panicked breaths through my nostrils: no smell but the stink of leather. I struggled but I couldn’t move.

  I flexed my fingers: metal was cutting off the circulation around my wrists, dragging them behind my back so tightly my shoulders were wrenched. My legs were bent back, tied by the ankles to my wrists.

  Starkers. Chained. Gagged. And in a leather sensory deprivation hood.

  I was royally buggered.

  Every sensation was amplified because my senses had been stolen: the pain, hunger for food (but above all else blood), raging tempest-warring in every cell, dehydration, waves of dizziness, thundering of my heart and nicotine cravings. I was sweating from them - sick with them.

  I didn’t know who’d captured me or why, only that they were First Lifers and had taken my fangs like bloody trophies. That was the first time you bastards made me bawl like a kid; it wasn’t the last. Our fangs aren’t simply the method by which we feed. They’re our strength – defence - our very evolutionary uniqueness. Our personhood.

  Steal them and you steal our Soul.

  To begin with, I dreamed up everything I’d do to the wankers, who’d bagged me. Then, as time passed and I grew weaker and more exhausted, all I could think about was who’d come and release me. I was still leery of what these First Lifers wanted, but the fear I’d been forgotten and left to rot was greater.

  Daft git, right? What did I know of Cain Company training?

  I don’t know how long I lay there in that hood. I wept, until the wetness stiffened the leather, making it scratchy over my peepers. Time had no meaning. I had no existence. I was floating in a dislocated world. I lost myself somewhere then.

  I left any hold on the thread of reality. I was visited sometimes by my dead papa, who’d hold up a photographic plate to examine, as he praised…you are a miracle. A human camera. My little Light…sometimes by my 1960s London Blood Lifer family: Aralt, Donovan or Alessandro…or by Kathy. My beautiful Kathy. I never wanted her to leave me, but she faded too.

  The hood would always be scratchy after that.

  Kathy had been out on the moors under the moon, holding my hand and whispering…never you mind what…but had begun to melt back into the endless void of black, when I startled in terror: something was touching my leg.

  It slid down my calf.

  I screamed at the shock of it, but the yell was swallowed by the gag.

  I was shaking. I’d never felt so vulnerable.

  The slide of the freezing chain, snake-like over my ankles, sawed to the bone, as it was removed.

  Then there were fingers at my throat…

  Bloody, buggering, sodding hell…

  The light was so bright in the small cell, when the hood was wrenched off, that I reckoned my retinas had been scorched. I screwed my peepers shut. Tears leaked down their sides.

  The smell hit me as hard: an assault of mould, oak floorboards, dust and an intense citrus, underlined with cedarwood - aftershave..?

  I felt the gag being loosened and taken out; my jaw muscles had been held open for so long I almost begged for the gag to be put back in. I warily moved my jaw from side to side, before opening my peepers again.

  For a moment, I still couldn’t see. But I could feel a man’s manicured hand caressing my cheek. I flinched back.

  When I squinted through the painful haze, I barely stopped myself from laughing: a First Lifer was crouched in front of me, considering me like a teenager, who’d been allowed to look after his parents’ prized schnoodle for the weekend. With his black framed glasses and tailored grey suit, seeing my captor was like discovering I’d been kidnapped by Mr Poncey Corporate himself, rather than the beasts I’d nightmared in the long blackness. Until he spoke. ‘How’s it going, leech? You’ll make a pretty little whore.’

  …Whore…?

  My insides curdled. My dry throat had tightened, but I forced my swollen tongue to throw back at the tosser, ‘Nothing little about me, mate.’

  Instinctively, I ducked.

  The wanker, however, merely pushed his glasses up his neb and smiled; I noticed his mouth only curled up at the left, as if only half of him shared the joke. ‘I’m not your mate; you’re nobody’s mate, seeing as you’re a slave. And me? To you, I’m Sir.’

  ‘I’m not a slave. And I never will be – mate.’ I’d barely finished the sentence, however, before I saw Sir reaching for the black leather hood. I could see it looming, like so many more days of torture, towards me. My heart was pounding. I was giving these quick, frightened gasps. Sir had only just started to pull the hood over my peepers, when I heard my own tear-filled voice beg, ‘Please…please don’t…please Sir…’

  The descent of the hood paused, leaving me in excruciating blackness. Disgusted with myself, I felt shamed. Then the hood was lifted, and I was blinking in the light again.

  Just as fast, Sir forced open my mouth, pushing the gag back in to my muffled screams, as my jaw bruised. ‘Until you learn some obedience, little leech.’

  Yet mixed in with the rage, fear and humiliation?

  Gratitude.

  Because Sir hadn’t put the hood on me again.

  Sir left me alone after that.

  I wasn’t trussed up at least, except for my arms. I could sit up and rest against the decaying wall of the…cellar..? There was nothing in it, not even a mattress. I had to lie on the freezing floor, with my sore, atrophying muscles. I took to only turning my nut the minutest of degrees, so I could count the manky mould spores, which blossomed black across the ceiling, to play rainbow number games.

  Christ knows how long I was in solitary.

  There was no window, at least, there had been once, but it’d been bricked up. Now there wasn’t even a trickle of daylight - or moonlight - to judge whether I should be awake or sleeping, even under the bright, relentless lightbulb. Normally, the call of the night would’ve told me, but that sensory deprivation hood had buggered up my senses. The cell must’ve been soundproofed because I couldn’t hear a dickybird.

  By the time I heard the locks clang open and the click of Sir’s black Oxford shoes, I was too weak to even raise my nut off the ground and could’ve kissed them; I’m not sure I even mean that figuratively.

  ‘Now don’t start and make trouble, and I can get this off you.’

  I blinked, hoping Sir took that as agreement.

  He must’ve done because he drew the gag out of my mouth.

  I groaned.

  ‘There, there,’ Sir shushed me, as if comforting a kid. He gently massaged my jaw; it felt blinding but sod it, did I hate myself right then. ‘Look you, what do you need, little one?’

  There weren’t bleeding words for what I needed. When Sir had first taken the hood off me, I’d have thrown back some defiant response (probably involving his severed head on a silver platter, cheers mate), but now I could barely concentrate or swallow, there was only one word record spinning through my brain, ‘Water.’

  ‘What do you say?’

  Sir’s fingers continued their patient massage.

  I struggled to work out what he wanted from me. My voice cracked, raspy from disuse, a
s I managed to whisper, ‘Please may I have water.’

  ‘Sir.’ I don’t know why that final step was so hard. I only know it was. Maybe if my imprisoner hadn’t looked like such a Mr Poncey Corporate, I would’ve found it easier. I should’ve known, however, that it’s the darkness underneath you have to watch out for. I hesitated. The moment Sir stopped massaging, I knew I’d cocked up. ‘Someone’s not thirsty today.’

  ‘Sir,’ and then I added quickly, as if the repetition would help, ‘please may I have water, Sir.’

  ‘Why are you leeches so stupid?’ Sir’s voice was ice cold. It triggered my fleeing instinct, but I couldn’t even crawl away. ‘No food or water today. We’ll see if your attitude’s improved tomorrow.’

  Wanker.

  I was so bleeding thirsty the next day I did my whole begging routine - please may I have water, Sir - with no hesitation.

  You’d have reckoned I’d performed the greatest circus trick, the way Sir prattled about good little leeches. Next up the reward - water in a pipette. Sir squirted it into my mouth, whilst he stroked my throat because I’d lost the ability to swallow.

  No blood or food. But I guess that would have been greedy, you know?

  From then on, I was still chained, but it seemed to amuse Sir to tie me down differently each time, like I was a bleeding BDSM doll.

  Sometimes it was just one ankle. Others my whole body from my neck downwards - all interlinked - so the smallest move choked me. When Sir found me half bloody throttled, he stopped my water ration, until I’d learnt my lesson.

  As I lay there, hardly daring to breathe, I fantasized that anyone but Sir would come through the heavy dark oak door.

  I daydreamed Blood Lifers, trapped the same as me but leading a rampaging breakout. Or a stunner of a First Lifer - Sir’s sister or cousin – would find me and (shocked by Sir’s cruelty), rescue me.

  Occasionally that fantasy ended in my newly grown fangs sinking into the First Lifer’s throat… But I hadn’t been fed in…I didn’t even know. If I’d had the strength, I’d have fed on my own arm.

  No one else, however, came through those oak doors. Only Sir.

  When you’re on your tod like that - your whole world revolving around one other person - it makes you dependent. I was reliant on Sir for everything, even for releasing my cramping limbs each day.

  Sir would unchain me. Straighten each limb. Then rub and massage with surprising gentleness. He’d manipulate me anyway he liked, before binding me up again. Sometimes even more restrictively.

  On those days, once Sir had left me alone, I’d feel like I’d dived headfirst down the blackest well. Nothing was real.

  Other days, however, when Sir would free me from all but the lightest chains, it was as if I could breathe at last. I wanted to babble my thanks and I’d only just manage to keep in the words. I’d still grin pathetically.

  Sir would smile, running his hands down the length of my body, before patting me on the nut and calling me a pretty leech.

  At last came the day Sir unchained me altogether, leaving me sprawled in the centre of the cell.

  I was leery of the reason for Sir’s unbuttoned jacket, rolled up sleeves…and the red-and-black hide riding crop, which he’d looped by its handle over his wrist and was tapping ominously on his leg.

  ‘Kneel.’ Sir stared at me through his thick glasses, as if he believed a month or two under his loving care was enough to break me down to the level of a mutt. Not. Sodding. Likely. For the first time, Sir frowned. That was dead worth it. Even when he strode behind me and with a heavy swish – crack – above riding crop landed hard across my too thin spine. I cringed. But I didn’t budge. ‘Kneel.’ Crack – left shoulder blade. My peepers watered. Sir had taught me too well about staying still under pressure: how’s that for irony, you sad bastard? Sir marched in front of me, pressing the flexible leather tongue of that wicked riding crop under my chin and forcing me to stare up into his furious gaze. ‘You really are a bad, worthless thing, aren’t you, boyo? If it weren’t for me, you’d be at the Estate. You’d be Mr Cain’s to play with - that’s Master to you. The Estate’s not nice like this. Master’s not kind. You think your life’s hard here? Then you just wait, I say the word and get you sent to the Estate. Then we’ll see what you will and won’t do, little slave. Now, let’s try this again.’ Sir took one careful step back. ‘Kneel.’

  I didn’t move one sodding muscle.

  Then in a whir, as if transformed by my rebelliousness into a shadow man lurking underneath his skin, Sir snarled. He hurled the crop aside and leapt at me.

  I didn’t see the gleam of the shiv, with its curved red-and-black handle, until its point was pressed against my naked chest - right over my heart. I closed my peepers. The point pushed through the skin with a sharp prick.

  ‘You whore, slut, bitch…’

  I gasped at the pain, shuddering as Sir skewered me. And then twisted.

  Go on, I thought, sodding do it. Then I’ll be free.

  I opened my peepers, however, because when I was done in, I bloody well intended to stare my killer in the eye.

  Shocked, I realised Sir’s mug was almost touching my own. He was scrutinizing my flickers of expression.

  When I met Sir’s gaze, we stayed like that for a long moment, in a surreal tableaux, whilst his inner demons seemed one by one to settle back into the box, from which they’d escaped, and the feverish fire died down. His peepers were once more cool and clear. The bloke I knew as Sir was back behind the steering wheel.

  Then Sir wrenched the shiv back, and I yelped, plugging my hands over the wound.

  ‘I’ve decided,’ Sir pushed up the glasses on his neb, oblivious to the bloody marks, which he’d left behind, ‘to let you live.’ Such terror and now instant salvation spun me out, until there was nothing left of my emotions but fragile glass. Sir was calm again, playing with the crimson shiv, like it was a stress relief toy: maybe that’s all I was. ‘But it’s time you show me some gratitude, isn’t it? Seeing as I’ve saved your worthless life.’

  Confused, I didn’t answer.

  Immediately, the shiv was back, worming its way into the previously burrowed hole, which was still oozing precious blood I didn’t have to lose.

  In frustration and pain, I scrabbled at Sir’s hands. ‘Yes Sir. Yes Sir. Yes…’

  The shiv was pulled out. More blood lost. This time I couldn’t keep my balance, collapsing on my mush.

  The clicking of Sir’s shoes, and then he was gone.

  Leaving me, my broken body and my bloody over vivid imagination.

  The next time Sir came visiting, he wasn’t wearing his grey suit jacket, the two top buttons of his pale blue shirt were undone and he’d washed in more citrus aftershave than usual.

  I was lying on my side, in the far corner of the cell, enjoying the freedom from the chains for once. When I saw Sir, I turned my back on him. I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

  I heard Sir settling down next to me on the wooden floorboards. Followed by the sound of something being unscrewed.

  Blood.

  I was turned round and facing Sir, panting and glassy eyed in desperation, faster than I reckoned I was still able to move.

  Sir chuckled. He was holding a thermos flask of blood: it was pigs’, but beggars can’t be choosers.

  My gaze flickered to Sir’s mush, then to the blood and then back again. Sod it, he wanted me to kneel, I’d bloody kneel.

  To my shock, instead my thin body was lifted gently onto Sir’s lap.

  I was too caught in the scent of the blood to protest. It filled every cell, craving and hunger-crazed thought of me. The world could’ve descended into a fiery Apocalypse, and I wouldn’t have looked away from that bloody manna. The hunger was worse now the blood was in front of me, than when the starvation had seemed like it had no end.

  Sir’s manicured fingers were stroking my hair. ‘You really were a stupid leech for making me so angry, then I get so I can’t help it.’ I w
inced when Sir brushed over the injury in my chest, which without the regenerative power of blood, hadn’t healed. ‘It’s not as if I want to hurt you, but you’re so bad, you make me do it. But if you’ve learnt your lesson…’ Sir dipped his fingers into the thick blood, holding them up in front of my lips.

  Smash – that was glass me shattering.

  So are these Approved Cain Company Training Methods?

  In case you want to rate this one’s effectiveness, it stripped away one more layer, infantilising me to a level of dependency, which I felt to my core.

  Did I even hesitate to suck the warm blood from Sir’s fingers, over and over, as evidence of his growing excitement at the suction poked me in the arse?

  Or course I sodding didn’t.

  I was being starved. I sobbed as I fed but I sucked up every drop, licking between Sir’s fingers, as he shuddered at the sensation.

  ‘There’s a good boy,’ Sir crooned, ‘don’t cry, I’ll make it all better.’

  I was nothing but blood: intense, powerful, bubbling and tripping through my damaged body.

  I only noticed what Sir was cooing in a singsong voice, as a girl talks to a new doll, when he screwed the top back on the thermos. It wasn’t nearly enough even for a single feed with my shrunken belly. I could’ve started bawling, like a real baby, when Sir’s words penetrated the fog. ‘…You’ll wear this always as a sign of what you are. Who you belong to.’ Sir was slipping a silver ring onto the finger of my left hand, as if we were in a wedding ceremony. Mortified, I saw the word S.L.A.V.E stood out in hard relief. ‘Your new name came to me last night: slave shadow. A small ‘s’ because all slaves must know their place. Only Masters have true names. That’s who you are from now on. My shadow.’ Sir patted my arm paternalistically.

  For the first time, I felt owned. My past had been wiped clean.

  I was nothing but property, which could be rechristened.