by Ella M. Lee
I couldn’t stop thinking about our kiss for the entire trip. I snuck glances at Ren and remembered the press of him against me. It kept me sane, thinking that I’d made an impression on him, a positive one. Thinking that maybe his care and concern could get me through this somehow.
Please, please let me get through this.
I didn’t know who or what I was praying to, only that I wanted to see what happened on the other side with Ren, and with myself.
Just before we pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned diner on the side of the road, Ren slid his hand into mine and squeezed, sending an affectionate pulse of emotion down the thread. I caught the concerned look in his eye and the uncomfortable shift of his shoulders and knew this was goodbye for now.
I swallowed, suppressing my fear as Ren parked his SUV among the others, as he stepped out of the vehicle in his fine black suit, as he had conversations I couldn’t hear with the traders.
After what seemed like far too long with my heart pounding and aching, Ren came back to the car. He opened the passenger door and dragged me out. He took both my hands in his, and a small rip of his power ran through me. The thread between us recognized what he’d done from the last time—removed any traces of his demon scent from me.
He hauled me unceremoniously to the gruff, blond vampire in charge of the trade.
Ren’s silence was a palpable thing as the blond looked me over carefully and said, “Deal.”
He motioned two other vampires forward and they grabbed my arms. “The third truck,” he told them. “This one is going to Shaw.”
I only had time to throw a single, desperate glance over my shoulder toward Ren. When our eyes met, the thread went taut between us. He didn’t move, didn’t change his expression, but I felt him brush against our connection, passing along a tumult of emotion. Apology. Encouragement. Luck. The hint of what felt like a smile.
I wrapped a mental hand around the thread, almost as though I could hold onto those feelings and make them stick with me, but they faded nevertheless.
Off, the tiny voice commanded, and it almost seemed like it felt sorry for me as I set my face into an expressionless mask and bit back burning tears.
Leaving Ren was like leaving the sun and crawling back into the darkness. Was it the same for him?
We’d never tested the bond at a distance, but it didn’t weaken as I was driven farther south in the back of a three-row SUV. For a while, I was the only human in the car with three vampires, but we stopped several times and more girls were brought in. There were four of us by the time the vehicle crawled down the long driveway of a white plantation house, all female and pretty and under thirty.
Only one of us was crying, and it wasn’t me.
I studied the property, trying not to look too interested. Ren had shown me a basic map of the area, indicating where Shaw’s land came to an end. The house itself was surrounded by treacherous swampland that extended for miles, filled with animals and traps, and the surrounding towns were all owned by vampires. That was why humans weren’t caged here—there was nowhere to run.
The house itself would’ve been pretty if I didn’t know it was owned by vampires. Two stories and white, with a huge annex jutting out the back and several surrounding guesthouses, it loomed regally in the darkness. Weeping willow trees and azalea bushes crowded the area, with dim ornamental lights and fountains scattered through them. I spotted large, lit sculptures in the gardens as well.
Shaw likes beauty and art, I reminded myself.
Ren and I had gone over how to present myself. I needed to be well-behaved, demure and cowed, but not hysterical. Shaw didn’t like hysterical. He preferred vacant and broken, so I was going for an “I am now beyond all this” vibe. I unfocused my eyes and slumped my shoulders and tried to make it seem like whatever spirit I’d possessed had been beaten out of me quickly and easily.
The four humans were guided in a single-file line through the front doors and made to stand in a row in the grand entranceway. Marble lion statues flanked a central staircase. Golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Huge renaissance paintings decorated the walls.
There was a commotion at the top of the stairs—hushed arguing in the shadows—and a moment later, Shaw himself glided toward us. He looked just like his picture, just as deadly, just as stern, just as powerful. Cassania lingered at the top of the stairs in a red ball gown that glittered like fire.
There was still a chance this could all go poorly for me. Shaw could decide right here that he didn’t want me. I could be thrown off the estate, given to a lesser vampire, killed immediately. A million things could go wrong. I clung to the thread, nervous.
In response, I got question ping after question ping, interspersed with reassurance.
Shaw stopped in front of each of us, studying our faces. I was third in line.
“Yes,” he said about the first girl, in a deep, rough-hewn voice.
The second girl was crying, whimpering softly. When he stood in front of her, she dropped to her knees and clutched his hand. My whole body went rigid. No, don’t—
“Get rid of this one,” Shaw said, flinging her hand away so hard that he’d probably broken her wrist.
I didn’t turn my head toward her as she was dragged away down the hall behind us, still crying.
Shaw stood in front of me. I tried to calm my breathing. Tried to look down at my shoes vacantly, like none of this mattered.
“Yes,” he said finally, and I had to stop myself from sagging in relief.
I didn’t even hear his assessment of the last girl in line. My ears thumped and roared and rang as I tried to get my heart to slow.
A vampire grabbed my arm and led me down a different long hall lined with doors. He opened the third door on the right and shoved me inside, slamming it shut behind me.
I looked up. The room was small and plain. Wooden floor, tan walls, no windows. A closet, the door currently ajar, and a large beaten-up dresser with a mirror sat opposite two twin beds.
A human girl was sitting on the left bed, staring at me with wide brown eyes. “Hi,” she said tentatively. “I’m Hannah.”
I swallowed. The right-hand bed was empty. I sat on it. “I’m Ari.”
I touched the thread gently, sending a glimmer of positivity and affirmation down it.
I’m in.
Chapter 32
Hannah was seventeen. She’d been on Shaw’s estate for three months and with vampires for another three months before that. Despite that, her brown eyes were sparkling and aware, and what I could see of her golden skin was unscarred. She didn’t look like she’d been abused too badly. I hated to be selfish, but that might bode well for my mission here. Maybe if they hadn’t abused her, they wouldn’t abuse me.
I told her my cover story. I’d been with vampires for the past year, mostly traded around without a long-term owner. That way, I could be vague about names and places and dates.
“What time does the sun rise and set here?” I asked.
“At 7:10 a.m. and 5:15 p.m., give or take a minute,” she said, raking a hand through her dark hair. Her voice was clear as a bell, light and tinkling. Another thing about her that didn’t sound broken.
Had I sounded like that six months ago? It had taken nearly that long before Franklin broke me completely.
The pit of my stomach writhed. I saw far too much of myself in Hannah, and I hoped she wouldn’t end up like me.
“Are humans allowed out during the day?” I asked.
“Only inside the main house,” she said. “There are no guards, but the windows and doors are locked and barred, and there are…dogs outside, during the day. I watched them tear a woman apart once. She thought she could leave.” Hannah picked at her fingernails. “Bad idea.”
I tried to keep from looking interested or excited. Locks and bars would be no problem for me, nor would murderous dogs. If I could find the dagger, I could get it out by day, and Ren had no problems with sunlight.
“What
about night?” I asked. “Can we leave this room?”
She gave me an incredulous look. “Sure, but why?”
“To…look around?” I asked, realizing how dumb that sounded.
She shrugged. “There aren’t any rules for movement. You can eat from the kitchen if there’s food. You can walk around. But if a vampire sees you…they can, you know, do whatever they want. That’s the rule above all others. You catch someone’s attention and…you’re theirs. The only vamps inside the house are Shaw, Cassania, Weston, and the ones Shaw likes. I think that’s Tomas, and Vicki, and Roman right now.” She shrugged again. “It’s hard to keep track, and sometimes they have guests.”
“Do you just stay in here, then?” I asked.
“Mostly,” she said. “Eat during the day, avoid vampires at night. It doesn’t really matter. Roman likes me. He’ll come get me when he wants me. But I don’t want to catch the attention of the others, especially not Weston or Tomas. They’re the worst. Roman is…well, whatever.”
Hannah’s eyes unfocused, going as vacant as mine had earlier, and I knew she used that trick, too. We all did. Turning off. How else were we supposed to get through it?
“Does Shaw ever call for you?” I asked.
“Nah,” she said. “He doesn’t care. He has his hands full lately with Cassania. She’s been picking fights with him. I don’t know why. I don’t think he’s fed lately. Sometimes he keeps one or two of the girls at his side, but he rarely drinks from them.”
I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I’d need to get out of this room to search for the dagger. I could cast my senses out a little, but this house—and property—was huge. I’d need to hunt, and do it quickly, without drawing attention from a vampire. Shaw had paid decent money for me, or so Ren had implied, but vampires were unpredictable. If one fed on me and got caught in the bloodlust, they could kill me easily. Or I’d have to make the choice about whether to kill them first.
I tugged the thread. I miss you, I tried to tell it. I had no idea if that sort of sentiment could be sent, or if Ren knew what missing felt like well enough to interpret it.
Ren had woken me from another bad dream the previous night, holding me and comforting me and stroking his hand through my hair as I trembled, and I tried to hold onto that feeling of him.
Someone cares about you, at least enough to hold you in the dark while you cry, I told myself, and that felt infinitely better than the crushing loneliness and isolation that had come before.
Ren’s response down the thread, when it came, was difficult to interpret. I tried to sort through the emotions, to pick words or intentions out of them. Finally, the best I could come up with was a single sentiment.
Soon.
Chapter 33
I’d stupidly not asked Ren if he had the ability to sense vampires. There’d been so much to learn and digest and dig up about these new powers that there hadn’t been time to think of every helpful trick or contingency.
I tugged at the thread, digging. I need vampire sensing.
I looked around for the correct channel, the correct piece of knowledge. Give, I instructed.
I didn’t like rooting around in our connection, but Ren didn’t seem to mind. I felt his burst of curiosity and confusion then he seemed to grasp what I wanted. He guided me to the right skill and pushed it forward. I grabbed at it.
Awesome.
I cast out my new, shiny vampire-sensing net. It felt like woven tendrils of power that I could throw out around me. When that power found a vampire, it drew my attention like a ping on some supernatural radar. It didn’t go far enough to cover the entire house, but it could give me some warning of what was around me. Better than nothing.
I didn’t feel any of them nearby, except the guard at the front door.
I stood up.
“Where are you going?” Hannah asked, and her tone had an edge to it.
“I’m going to look around.”
She shook her head. “You shouldn’t.”
“I’ll be back later.”
She gave me the ghost of a smile. “I hope.”
You’re ignoring the girl who knows more than you? the nagging voice in my mind said. Where did all this confidence come from? The demon prince?
The voice was being reasonable, but I didn’t have time for reason. I had a job to do. I’d had Ren by my side before, but now I was alone. Just me and whatever cleverness I could summon.
The house was silent as I slipped out the bedroom door. I looked to my right. The doors lining this hallway were likely rooms for humans. I was willing to bet the vampires all lived and congregated on the second floor.
I slipped down to the entranceway and took a look around. Art everywhere. Marble, and gold, and bronze statues. Paintings on the walls. The floors were all gleaming parquet. The curtains on the tall, narrow windows were voluptuous, dark velvet. This place screamed opulence.
Right off the entrance hall was a series of three sitting rooms, all different from one another, and a large library at the far end of them. Beyond that, a massive kitchen with pink granite and copper pots and pans. A separate pastry room and pantry stood off to the side, and it overlooked a dark expanse of grass and gardens out the back door, and swampy, foreboding trees farther in the distance.
Two human women were sitting in the kitchen when I got there. They stopped talking and we stared at one another, assessing. Finally, the thinner of the two—dark skin, dark hair—beckoned. I crept closer.
“Maggie,” she said dully and pointed to her pale, freckled, red-headed companion. “Jess.”
“Ari,” I said.
“Food?” Maggie offered, but her vacant gaze told me she didn’t care about me or anything, halfway into broken nothingness.
“No,” I said.
I made to walk away, to leave them to whatever they’d been doing, but Maggie touched my wrist. “You’re new.”
“Yeah,” I said, surprised.
“Usually…usually they start picking around midnight. If they’re going to at all. Unless you’re the kind who’s hoping for a bite, you probably want to hide.”
I gave her a grateful nod. “Yeah, okay.”
I went to look at the pantry, to get an idea of what sort of food they offered their humans. Mostly packs of junk food and cans. I already missed Ren’s fridge filled with mangoes and strawberries.
This was all very new to me.
I only had rumors, quick conversations with other humans, and observations by which to judge this situation. If I was correct, the vampires here likely had favorite girls, and would go to them when they wanted blood. The royals and other old vampires didn’t have to drink frequently, but they probably did—just for fun.
Ren had called Weston sadistic, and Hannah implied Tomas wasn’t much better. If they were the type I was thinking of, they took girls more often, and tortured them for sport while they drank.
None of the three humans I’d met so far had visible signs of abuse. That made me think Shaw had rules about markings. Or maybe rules about treatment. I’d have to learn what they were.
Or maybe it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to be here long enough to care.
Freedom, the tiny voice whispered, and I could almost taste it. Part of me was hopeful enough to believe I could find the dagger in one day and be done with it.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
I opened the door that led from the mudroom to the back porch and froze as I stepped through the door.
I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I’d accidentally let my vampire-sensing net slip away.
And now I was face-to-face with one.
Chapter 34
He wasn’t one of the royal vampires, thank god. Not much taller than I was, with sandy hair, pale skin, and bright hazel eyes, he looked like a Roman emperor with his chiseled jaw and aquiline nose.
The door banged shut behind me, and I tensed.
“Jumpy,” he said, taking a step closer with graceful, dangerous movement
s.
I shut down automatically. Looked at the ground with unfocused eyes. Stood quietly with shoulders slumped. Wiped any sort of personality off my face.
If I was lucky, he’d walk around me and go about his business.
His fingers brushed my cheek.
I didn’t move.
He leaned in closer, bringing his nose to the skin just under my jaw, inhaling deeply. A shiver of fear ran through me, a tremor that tightened my chest. I braced for the sharp agony of his fangs in my throat, the burn of his claws piercing my skin. How had I been stupid enough to screw this up in my first hour here?
But he pulled back. “Name?”
“Arianna,” I whispered.
I caught his cruel, taunting smile out of the corner of my eye. “Oh, he’ll like you, Arianna.” The vampire walked through the door behind me.
Immediately, I pulled up my net, but he was the only one I sensed, stalking away toward the library.
I sagged, dropping to my knees on the wooden slats of the porch floor. The wood was worn and splintery, the white paint on the banisters peeling slightly due to the humidity. The garden beyond the porch was misty, and the swamp beyond that foreboding.
The thread pinged once. Okay?
Okay, I fed back, unable to bring myself to say anything else.
But my mind lingered on the vampire’s words.
Who would like me? Shaw? Well, perhaps it would be a good thing if I could get upstairs, get close to him. Maybe I’d sense the dagger and be done with this miserable errand.
Speaking of the dagger…
I cast my mind out, looking for it, trying to feel for the tenor of it, that foreignness that pinged in me like Ren often did.
Nothing.
Apparently, this wouldn’t be so easy. I could cover the house in the daytime, with the vampires safely asleep, but what if it was outside? What if it was buried or put in a place a human could never get to?
