by Sofia Daniel
My shoulders relaxed. Maybe I could play along with the hunters until I got a chance to escape. “What about absorbing other frumosi?”
“That is non-negotiable, I’m afraid.” He pressed his lips on the crown of my head. “We do not absorb our brethren lightly.”
He ran his huge hand down my bare back, making me cringe. Then he snatched it away and drew back, the absence of his weight on the mattress letting me sit straight.
“I disgust you.” This wasn’t a question.
Turning to the figure in burgundy leather, I gulped. His armor clung to muscles that bulged like an ox’s, and his ridiculously feminine eyes and lips looked bizarre on that colossal face. His only attractive feature was the ringlets of golden hair tumbling down his shoulders, but they suited a little girl. It was hard to imagine any woman not finding him revolting.
Pushing down my emotions, I said, “You’re my great-great-something grandfather.”
“We are barely related.” Radu raised a massive shoulder.
I dipped my head and gave it a gentle shake. “I’m sorry, My Lord, but I see you more of a rescuer and a father figure.”
Radu didn’t reply for a long time, and my stomach dropped. Men never enjoyed rejection, and I couldn’t imagine one like Radu appreciating a reminder of his age.
I opened my third eye, but his chakras shone so brightly and so wide, I couldn’t see anything else of the man — not even tentacles of magic racing toward me as punishment for my insolence.
Drawing my shoulders up to my ears, I waited for him to strike.
“Very well,” he said with a sigh. “You will change your mind in time.”
My shoulders loosened a fraction, but it was too early to relax. I would never change my mind about Radu. Not just because I found him and his hunters revolting but because I planned on escaping this boudoir the moment I got a chance.
“Will you join me for dinner?” he asked.
“I’m not very hungry.”
He leaned close and pressed another kiss on my head. “I’ll send for a companion to bring your bloodroot and keep you company.”
A jailor.
As Radu’s heavy footsteps clomped to the door, I stared at the man’s broad back and shuddered. He was as wide as Raphael, Dante, and Nero squeezed together. How on earth did a mammoth like that expect to have sex with a woman my size?
At the doorway, he paused and gave me a gentle smile. “Perhaps tomorrow, you will feel ready to identify the Stryx brothers.”
I nodded.
He stepped out and let the door click shut. I scrambled around the bed, looking for traces of my school uniform, but they were gone. The miserable bastard had stripped me of everything, including my underwear.
I couldn’t feel any signs of being penetrated, but if I stayed in this maniac’s bedroom, it was only a matter of time before his hands and mammoth dick would wander to my side of the bed.
Large, ornately-carved wardrobes stood at both sides of the room. I rushed to the left and flung one open. It contained multiple suits of armor, mostly leather but some chainmail. I ran around the bed to the other side of the room and opened that wardrobe to find a rail crammed with summer dresses and cashmere cardigans.
These had to belong to Miss Margolyes.
The door opened, and panic lanced through my heart. I spun, clapping an arm over my chest and a hand over my crotch to find Zarah hovering at the doorway.
Her mouth formed a perfect O.
“Do you mind?” I snapped.
Her cheeks pinked. “Lord Radu didn’t tell me you’d be naked.”
“Turn around!”
“No.” She raised her chin.
Irritation fizzled across my skin. “What?”
“Lord Radu told me you needed watching.”
“I don’t think he meant for you to gape at me while I got changed. Turn around and give me some privacy!”
Zarah stormed into the room with her fists clenched. “You can’t make me do anything.”
I ground my teeth, wishing I wore at least a pair of panties, so I had a free hand to slap across her face. “It’s common decency not to watch girls get changed.”
“And I’m tired of you bossing me around.” She bared her teeth. “It started the moment we met. You made me feel like shit for not trying to escape the back of the van, then you nagged and whined when Micalla and the others took an interest in me.”
“But they were feeding on your blood!” I shouted. What the hell was wrong with Zarah? She’d re-written history and made me the villain.
Her bottom lip trembled. “I can’t even avenge myself on those girls because you and the Stryx brothers killed them.”
Tendrils of transparent magic streamed out from her chakras.
I stepped back, heart racing from scared to panic. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done the moment the vampires dumped you in the back of the van.”
“Wait!”
“No, I won’t.” She advanced on me, her green eyes blazing. “Why do sluts like you have all the luck with men?”
My eyes bulged. This wasn’t Zarah. She had never expressed an interest in becoming the consort or concubine of any male vampire. Had Radu’s interest in her caused her to form a crush?
“But you don’t even like men!” I choked out.
“Never got the chance.” Her face twisted with disgust. “Not with you around flaunting yourself at the Stryx brothers. I kissed Dante’s foot, and he never even noticed me, not even when I had bite marks on my neck.”
My mouth opened and closed. There was no sane response to a comment like that.
“And now you’ve seduced Lord Radu—”
“Nothing happened,” I said.
“But you’re going to,” she snapped. “It will be last term all over again. You sitting with the best man in the room, lording it over us, while the other girls get scraps.”
“Zarah.” I shook my head. “It’s not like that.”
She snarled, snaking tendrils of magic through the air. “It won’t be. I’ll see to that.”
My stomach plummeted to the marble floor. She was going to absorb my life-force, just as she had absorbed Kat’s. As soon as that thought flickered through my mind, a realization hit me upside the head.
Raising both palms in the air, I said, “Zarah, wait. I think I know what’s happening.”
Her tendrils danced around my body, barely skimming my chakras. “Go on. Tell me.”
“It’s Kat. You took her magic, and now you’ve taken her hatred of me.”
“Don’t be stupid.” One of her tendrils smacked me on the shoulder.
“Think!” I yelled. “You’ve never lusted after boys before. That time the Stryx brothers approached you half-naked, you were terrified.”
She shook her head. “They just took me by surprise.”
“You weren’t trying to look. And you offered them your blood, not sex. Kat’s the one who hated me for becoming their concubine, not you.”
“Maybe I’ve hated you all along.” One of Zarah’s tendrils rubbed against the hand covering my crotch.
My shoulders stiffened. I couldn’t prove that Kat’s essence had poisoned Zarah, and there weren’t any other hunters to confirm my theory, let alone stop her from feeding on my life-force.
Zarah licked her lips, and the invisible transparent tendrils of magic quivered. “What would happen if I absorbed you? I would have all your potential and more. The spark that turns men into lapdogs in your presence.”
“You’ve got it all wrong.” I shook my head.
Radu and the Stryx brothers only found my magic attractive because of what it could do for them. It was never about me. But I couldn’t make Zarah understand.
“Lord Radu would favor me!” Zarah giggled.
“Don’t do this,” I said. “Please.”
Her eyes hardened. “You’ve left me no choice.”
A tendril of her magic thrust into my solar plexus, sending a
spike of pain through my diaphragm. I screamed and tried to wrap my hand around it, but it slipped through. Yellow magic flowed from my chakra to Zarah’s, making her eyes glow electric blue.
“You taste delicious. Not bitter, like Kat.”
“Stop!” I cried.
Zarah’s tendril pierced my heart chakra, and she sucked green magic into her body. “Oooh! You’re such a love-bunny. What happens if I suck your sacral chakra? Will I become horny, like you?”
I closed my eyes and tried to fight back. My hands hovered over the streams of stolen magic, and I pushed my power into them the way I had done when Dante had tried to take my menstrual blood.
A fizzle of magic filled the air, and Zarah screamed. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done when you set me up at the end of the first term!” Still keeping my eyes closed, I burned one tendril of her magic and then another. And another.
Zarah withdrew her magic back into her body. “You’re such a bitch!”
“So are you!” I lurched forward, the power of sunlight streaming through my hand, and slapped her hard across the cheek.
She flew back several feet and yelped. “What is this?”
“Me giving you a taste of what it feels like to prey on the weak!” I slammed my fist into her face.
Zarah’s head snapped back, and blood poured from her nose. “That fucking hurt!”
“It’s supposed to.” I kicked her in the stomach, making her double over.
Harsh, wracking sobs filled her chest. “Why?”
“Oh, shut up.” I threaded my fingers into her lank hair and threw her into the wall.
She landed with a smack and fell into the floor. “You bloody bitch.” Transparent tentacles as thick as her arms emerged from her body. “Now, you’ve done it.”
Baring my teeth, I stepped back. “If those touch me—”
“You’ll die!” Her tongue darted out to lap at the blood pouring down her nose.
“Think for a minute.” I raised both palms, trying to make her calm. “You don’t want to do this.”
Strings of transparent magic shot out from my fingertips. They might have been tiny tendrils. I didn’t know. Didn’t have time to examine them, but I needed to do something unless I wanted to end up a naked husk devoid of color.
Zarah’s thick tentacles crept toward me, as though they were too heavy to fly through the air. I continued backing away until my hamstrings hit the mattress, and I scrambled up, taking higher ground.
Crying like a five-year-old about her broken nose, Zarah pulled herself to her feet and swayed. The tentacles made their slow ascent up the side of the bed, making all the blood drained from my face. If one of those things so much as touched me, it would siphon my life force faster than I could react.
“I’m going to kill you,” she snarled. “Then I’ll hide your body.”
“You’d have to be able to lift it first.” I kicked her hard in the face, making her fall back into the open wardrobe.
My heart flip-flopped. Now was my chance. If I showed mercy on her, she’d come back at me twice as hard. The Stryx brothers had told me Zarah needed killing. As had the onion woman, but each time I let her survive, it had backfired.
And showing her an ounce of mercy by walking away would result in my eventual death. Maybe not right away and maybe not tomorrow, but Zarah would return to finish the job she had started.
“You’re going to give back the life-force you’ve stolen.” I raised my hands and let the tendrils of magic surge toward her. They pierced through her chakras, and yellow light raced toward me.
The emptiness in my solar plexus refilled with the magic she had taken. Letting my eyes flutter closed, I inhaled a deep breath, savoring the return of my life-force. Next, the tendrils sucked orange magic from her sacral chakra. I furrowed my brow. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I needed the green magic she had stolen from my heart.
“Please!” Zarah flapped around like a caught fish. “Stop.”
I clenched my teeth and tried to pull my magic away, but they remained embedded in Zarah’s body.
Footsteps echoed close, and the door slammed open. I raised my head and twisted around to find Justine sauntering toward us, her incomplete face stretched into a grin. “You’ve decided to become one of us, then?”
“No!” I cried.
She tilted her head to the side and rocked forward. “Look at you, absorbing Zarah like a natural. Lord Radu was right. You’re a prodigy!”
“But I don’t want to—”
“Pull your tendrils back, then,” she said, her voice filled with mirth. “You can’t, because you thirst for power, just like us.”
I yanked my arms back, but the tendrils remained hooked into Zarah’s floundering body, and streams of light entered mine. Red, violet, indigo, blue, and finally green.
Zarah’s soul-star chakra flickered like a broken lightbulb, and then it died, just as the color leached out of her skin and hair.
The tendrils pulled themselves back into my fingers, and I fell onto my knees, staring at my traitorous hands.
“You’re one of us now,” said Justine. “A Radite.”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s in your nature.” Justine patted me on the shoulder. “Embrace the power. Slake your thirst. Some of your classmates aren’t cut out for becoming hunters. That black girl with the braids is failing. I’ll let you absorb her when she stumbles.”
The older hunter walked back toward the reception area of Captain Tanar’s suite. She paused at the door and winked. “I would suggest you strip Zarah of her uniform, but you’re twice the size of that runt. Put something on and join us for dinner. Lord Radu would be delighted to see you feed on your first vampire.”
Chapter 11
My eyes widened, and I staggered back, gaping at the woman standing in the doorway. The look on what was left of her face radiated satisfaction.
My mind wound back to the strange conversation we’d had on our journey from the alpha’s cabin. She had asked me what I thought of Zarah. At the time, I thought she had been looking for ammunition to make me look like a traitor. But what if she had been sowing the seeds for me to attack her? To absorb Zarah’s stolen life force and become a monster… Just like her.
“You set me up, didn’t you?” I whispered.
Justine folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t flatter yourself. If you didn’t want to become one of us, you could have screamed for help.”
“Would you have come running?” I asked.
She grinned. “What do you think?”
I swallowed back the bitter taste in my mouth. Of course, she wouldn’t. This had been one of those sink-or-swim tests. If I hadn’t developed the skills necessary to defend myself, then Zarah would have drained my life-force and left me the dead husk instead of her.
“I’m glad you prevailed,” she said. “Radu only elevated that little rat because she knew the location of the academy.”
“Oh.” I searched my heart for signs of guilt or sorrow, but all I felt was self-disgust.
Justine shook her head. “Our lord is far too kind.”
My legs shook, and I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed. “But you all but warned me to stay away from him.”
“That was before you had proven yourself.” Justine placed her hands on her hips and gave me a wide smile. It might have been welcoming if she wasn’t such an obvious psychopath. “Now, you’re one of us.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” She walked through the room, her single eye fixed on me. “I saw you drain Zarah of every single ounce of life-force, down to the marrow. You enjoyed your power. Reveled in it.”
“No.” I shook my head for emphasis, my voice trembling with a combination of resignation and dread. “You’re wrong.”
As Justine approached, I flinched away, but she peered into the wardrobe and pulled out a black dress decorated with embroidered, silver stars. She studi
ed it, dropped it to the ground, and turned back to the rack of clothes.
My gaze flickered down to my fingertips. The tendrils had disappeared. I would have thought I’d imagined the whole episode, but Zarah’s inert body lay on the ground, her colorless eyes staring at me with accusation.
After several moments, Justine pulled out a plain, black dress and threw it on my head. “Get dressed.”
I pulled the garment onto my lap. “Why?”
She rolled her eye. “Unlike Lord Radu, Renée, and Zarah, I prefer not to ogle naked girls, even if they enjoy parading themselves.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I shoved the black dress over my head. It was a little too short and loose around the bust, but I’d just killed a girl and turned into a monster. Ill-fitting clothes were the least of my troubles.
“What happens next?” I asked.
“Radu will probably want to train you himself.” She turned on her heel and strolled toward the door. “You’re free to go wherever you like, terrorize whomever you wish, but Tanar is mine.”
“It’s not like I want him.”
She smirked, as though my rejection of Captain Tanar was some kind of victory to add to her vendetta against the vampire. “Have your tantrum, take time to come to terms with your new status. You’ll soon realize that no one will accept you but us.”
She stepped through the doorway and gave me a jaunty wave.
“I can leave and go wherever I want?”
“That’s what I said.” The door swung shut.
There wasn’t any point in opening my third eye. Whatever I had absorbed from Zarah had changed my vision so that energy now mixed in with my regular sight. It was like staring into a busy room. Everything was available to the naked eye, but I needed to focus to see whatever I wanted.
Justine walked through the living area toward two hunters who stood in the hallway at either side of the door. I blew out a shuddering breath. She had planned this. Had she told Zarah to consume me so that I would fight back? Did Radu know? Maybe he was irritated with me because I found him disgusting.
My shoulders sagged. I stepped over Zarah’s body, walked to the wardrobe, and pulled out a burgundy cardigan. After a pause, I waited for something to flare—horror, guilt, remorse, but nothing came. Had I become cold-blooded like Justine?
