by Maya Daniels
“Where in the fates’ name am I again? This is getting ridiculous!” she mumbled, just as she heard the low screech of a door opening somewhere behind her.
She smelled him before he even walked through the door. Unable to control herself in the rough state she was in, Artemis hissed as she swung around, looking for the vampire. Her eye locked on grey ones full of anger and malice. There was hunger there, too, sending her rage to a new level of crazy. Without thinking, her body lifted and shifted to her other form and she looked down from her height to find the vampire backing out of the door, pure terror written all over his face.
“Aww, are you going to run now?” she mocked him. “I thought I was locked in here because you wanted to play.” Pouting and tilting her head, Artemis baited him, trying to get him to come closer. If only she could get her hands on him…
Her trick might have worked, judging by the anger that made his eyes burn red, but there was a barely perceptible movement outside the door and that scent of a musk, from something she couldn’t name that they used as a weapon on her, hit her full force. Her body shifted back to her human form on its own accord and she dropped to her knees, panting. Something was terribly wrong with her. It was either the iron, the weapon they used on her or being summoned through a portal in her human form. That was her first time passing through a portal like that, and it was the most logical conclusion. A thud was heard a second before the door opened fully, and the vampire was shoved inside the area where they kept her, stumbling and flailing his arms to stand upright.
Raphael saw the young vampire trying to get inside the garage that he’d had to use to keep the cage. Maybe he should’ve stopped the youngster, but curiosity got the better of him and besides, he wanted to see the reactions of both the vampire and his prisoner. He heard her awaken and talk to herself but had waited to see if he would find something useful in her mumblings. When the coward tried to run, he grabbed the kid by the scruff of his neck, and after smacking him into the wall, Raphael shoved him inside the garage. Taking a deep breath and putting his hands in his pockets, Raphael walked in as nonchalantly as he could manage. He was dying to see her again. She was terrifying in her shifted form, but as a human? He felt spellbound by her and her beauty. Even battered and bruised, she was the most beautiful woman he had seen in his long life. That contrasted massively with the terror he felt from the enormous insect she could turn into and with the knowledge of what she is capable of. Still, he found himself pulled as if by an invisible thread towards her.
“Lurking in the hallways like a creep,” he mumbled, admonishing himself as he walked through the doorway.
“I was just checking that everything was good and secure here.” Misunderstanding Raphael’s words, the young vampire started explaining himself while trying his best to ignore the woman on her knees in the cage, glaring daggers at them with only one eye. It was quite impressive.
“I’m sure you were.” Raphael’s voice was soft; his words cultured. He noticed her shivering at the sound of his voice, and for some reason it made him feel good. I really am thinking with my dick! What the hell is wrong with me?
The woman seemed to forget all about the other vampire. Her eye was tracking Raphael, and it made him realize how focused and good her instincts were. She knew he was the more significant threat, so he held all her attention while she dismissed the less-powerful male in the room.
Artemis watched the bloodsucker walk inside, and she couldn’t help but admire the masculine beauty before her while she hated herself for even noticing it. His dark brown hair was cut short at the sides but left longer on top, styled nicely to stay off his forehead. Green eyes stole glances her way, making her heart skip a beat each time they made eye contact. There was a tightness around his mouth, making his full lips look firm. Dressed in some fancy clothing, his jacket was pushed aside, revealing a button-down shirt stretched over impressively firm chest as he kept his hands in his pockets. Shiny black shoes poked from under the pants that were hugging his thighs and backside like they never wanted to leave his body. Artemis glared at him, more because she was angry at herself. This was her enemy, and she should be plotting his death, not looking at him as a male and admiring his perfection. And he was perfect. It must be that scent messing with her mind, she decided. This was not normal behavior. It took her a moment to realize that he was talking to her.
“What is your name?” Raphael asked her, unable to help himself.
He didn’t receive an answer. She didn’t break eye contact or move a muscle. Still kneeling on the floor, she stared unblinkingly at him. Raphael tried to look for any clue that she was nervous, or possibly even scared about being locked in a cage, but he found nothing of the sort. Not so much as a muscle twitched on her feminine body.
“I know you understand me, I’ve heard you speak before today,” he tried again, and this time he got a reaction.
Her good eye widened subtly in surprise but narrowed down at him suspiciously a second later. Raphael winced internally at his big mouth. He didn’t want her to know he’d been there when she met the witch. Not yet, anyway.
“You spoke when you got to this realm and again when you woke up,” he said, trying to remedy the situation since he couldn’t pull the words back.
The narrowed-eye look didn’t waver. Then in a split second, her eye jerked to the side and back towards him. It made Raphael realize he’d forgotten all about the other vampire. Before she could blink, he had the young vampire by his neck and pushed his face between the bars of the cage.
“Is this what you want?” he asked her, not letting go of the wiggling vampire who was yelling, begging to be released. What a blubbering fool, Raphael thought to himself.
She watched Raphael’s face for a moment as if judging his sincerity or his sanity. Just as Raphael thought she would stay motionless like a statue, she struck like lightning. One second she was on her knees sitting docile while glaring at him, the next she had the young vampire around his neck and twisted his head three hundred and sixty degrees. Raphael opened his mouth to tell her that vampires can’t be killed like that, but he left it hanging open when she twisted again and separated the head from the body without breaking eye contact with him. Thick coppery blood sprayed all over both of them and as he watched her bathed in blood, something primal awoke in him. He realized he wanted her more than he had wanted anything in his immortal life—and here she was, ready to kill him the first chance she got. The irony was not lost on Raphael, and then she spoke, making his gut tighten in response.
“Artemis. That”—a wicked smile lifted the corners of her plump lips—“ is my name, bloodsucker.” A voice out of his wildest dreams purred at him as she lifted her arm and wiped the back of her hand over her mouth.
Raphael wondered for the umpteenth time if it had been way too long since he looked at a woman for more than quick relief. Maybe that was the reason why he wanted to open the cage door and bury himself so deep inside her that he’d be hard pressed to distinguish them as separate beings. Still, eyes locked with hers, he was trying very hard to stay calm and collected instead of acting on his desires. Artemis hadn’t moved, either. Standing close to him, only the iron bars separating them, assessing him.
“Raphael.” His name slipped from his lips, making a shiver run down her spine at the sound of his voice.
Artemis watched him, unable to move away or turn around, even when the iron bars were slowly leaching out her power. It bothered her greatly that she felt more towards him than just hatred for his kind. What was it about him that made her stomach churn and her legs to want to shift uncomfortably in his presence? She stayed where she was, afraid that if she moved she would give away her weakness. That scent that was making her dizzy was much stronger, now that he was almost in arm’s reach.
Slowly, as if expecting her to bite his hand off, he reached through the bars and ran the back of his fingers gently over her face. Instinctively she flinched at his movement and his hand froze, but she didn�
�t miss the twitch of the corners of his lips. It made her furious with herself.
“Who did this to you?” Reluctantly, Raphael pulled his hand back.
She didn’t answer him, and he wasn’t expecting her to. At his words, she retreated farther into the cage, still tracking him with her eye. The other looked painfully swollen, and Raphael wanted to do anything to make it feel better so he could feel her beautiful eyes on him. He shook his head at his thoughts, making her frown.
“So, you’re going to just sit there and not talk to me?” With a sigh, he took a step back, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and started wiping the blood off his face. “I need answers, and it seems you’re the only one that can give them to me.” Looking down at the cloth in his hand, he grimaced. Tossing it to one side, he tilted his head to look at her before looking away again. “And you will give me the answers I seek.”
Retreating even further into the darker part of the cage, Artemis tracked him with her eye, silent as a shadow. Knowing it might be useless but still unwilling to just give up, Raphael started walking around the cage in hopes she would say something if he weren’t looking at her directly. It was a difficult task, since his eyes seemed to go to her automatically, as though they were beyond his control. It was almost as if he feared she might disappear if he took his eyes off her for too long.
“Why are you killing my kind? Why come now, after so many centuries have passed that your kind is simply a myth in this realm?” He looked at her from the corner of his eye before looking down at his shoes.
Still she said nothing. Raphael could feel her eyes on him like a caress, making all his senses hone in on her, yet she stayed silent.
“I see this will take time.” His words were soft, almost as if he were speaking to himself, not to her. “But time is all I have, and I have plenty of it.” Turning his head her way, he smiled sadly.
Raphael’s words made Artemis’s mind whirl with questions of her own. She knew she wouldn’t voice them, but they gnawed at her, making her feel as though her stomach would empty itself where she stood. The loudest and most persistent one, that kept echoing in her head, What is it about him that is so different from the rest of his kind? bothered her the most. She shouldn’t feel curiosity when it came to vampires. They had killed her mother and banished her kind. She only had hatred for them. Repeating it like a mantra, she silenced the questions and strengthened her resolve. She would bide her time and strike when he least expected it. When she killed him, all the issues that were making her doubt herself would be gone. With a slight tilt of her lips in a barely-there smile, she slowly sat down on the floor, and lifting up her knees, she leaned her arms on them. She can do this. She is stronger than all of them combined. Her smile grew as his frown appeared, pulling his eyebrows down on his handsome face.
“Somehow, that smile doesn’t promise answers,” he mused out loud, one side of his lips lifting slightly, and a soft, uncontrolled chuckle escaped her.
Raphael was going to say more, but a commotion outside the door made him turn his head sharply in that direction, and Artemis went on full alert. Confusion clouded her mind seeing him react almost as if he were protective of her, but that couldn’t be true. Maybe he was worried about himself. If there was discord among the vampires, she knew she could use it to her advantage in getting out of here. With each passing moment the iron was draining out her strength, and regardless of how strong and stubborn she was, Artemis knew it wouldn’t be long before she would be unable to run even if a chance presented itself. He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but the slamming of the door being flung open stopped him and made her spring upright in her prison.
“Ah! She’s awake!” Claude walked in, all arrogant, glaring at her with disgust written plainly on his face.
“Why are you here?” Raphael glared back at him, knowing that any chance of getting Artemis to talk had been lost with Claude’s dramatic entrance.
“Why? Did I interrupt something?” Claude snapped at him. “I can hear everything from across the place. It didn’t seem like there was any conversation going on. Just you talking to yourself. And her killing more of us!”
Raphael searched Claude’s face as hundreds of thoughts rattling in his head. This was beyond any obnoxious behavior he had ever seen or expected to see from his friend. Something very wrong was going on, and it bothered him to know that he would need to pull it out of both of them. Raphael knew he had to play this slow and smart if he was to get any answers, so straightening up, he smoothed his features and smiled at Claude.
“That idiot got what he deserved, and she is not much forthcoming, as you heard.” He chuckled as if it were a joke between them. “Maybe my pretty face rendered her speechless, huh?” Smirking at Claude, he turned his head towards Artemis and flinched internally at the wariness he saw in her good eye, focused solely on him.
“You have a point at that one being a waste of immortal life. And yeah, everyone does say you have the prettiest face. That’s true.” Relaxing his aggressive stance, Claude chuckled along with him “The ladies always had a weakness for it.” A burst of laughter echoed around the garage.
“It’s useless to keep trying now. Let’s go and leave her to rethink her options.” Walking up to Claude, Raphael slapped him on the back before turning him toward the door. “We’ll come back later when she realizes that talking is her only hope of getting out of here alive.” Winking at his friend, he pulled him out the door.
Reaching behind him, Raphael grabbed the door and pulled it closed. He didn’t miss the hatred burning like a thousand suns in Artemis’s eye, aimed directly at him, before he left.
She needed to get out of this place. Artemis knew this better than she’d known anything in her long life. The bloodsuckers were messing with her head, and she was feeling herself crumbling slowly. Three days. It had been three days that they’ve kept her in this iron cage. Raphael hasn’t returned for longer than few blinks of an eye to ask his stupid questions, and when he didn’t receive answers, he just sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose and walked away. She had no intention of giving him any answers. She kept asking her own question, about where her arrow was, but all he would tell her was that it was safe. It would never be safe until it was in her hands, but she didn’t tell him that. Her strength was slowly seeping out of her body and the injuries were not healing as fast as they usually would. This iron cage might very well be her tomb. Artemis was aware she needed to find a way to escape, but no opportunity had presented itself so far.
Sitting on the hard floor with her arms draped over her knees, she kept picking at the scab on her arm. It was courtesy of the iron bars, when she’d tried to pull them apart before falling unconscious for her efforts. She’d been lucky that no one had walked in, and Artemis now knew how stupid it was to do that when anyone could just walk in and drain her of her blood while in that state,. Not that they hadn’t tried to take her blood. Twice a random vampire had stepped in when they thought she was sleeping, but it hadn’t ended well for them. The blood staining everything around her, as well as her clothing, was the only evidence that those things had even existed before she got her hands on them. The iron weakened her, but she was still stronger than they were.
The creaking sound of the door opening alerted Artemis that she was no longer alone. Ignoring the noise, she kept picking at the scab while watching the form of whoever it was walk in from the corner of her eye. At first she thought it was Raphael coming again with his ridiculous questions. Her heart fluttered in her chest before stopping for a second. This one was leaner, not having so many firm muscles that she hated, because her eyes kept tracing them. That in itself got her to stiffen her shoulders, that whoever it was noticed, because a menacing chuckle sounded from the door.
“You know who the treat is, don’t you, bug?” The condescending tone made Artemis turn her head slowly towards the vampire. “You don’t stiffen like that when Raphael comes here.” He laughed out loud at her glare.
> She watched the bloodsucker—Claude was his name, from what she’d heard Raphael call him. With his hands clasped at his back, he walked around her cage, looking at his feet with occasional glances her way. He didn’t say anything more, and she was quite happy to stay silent. It wasn’t like she had anything to say to any of them anyway. Claude’s presence, however, was making her uneasy. After that first day when they’d brought her here, Artemis had not seen him—until now. She tracked his movement with her eyes.
“So let's try this my way, shall we?” Claude stopped few feet away from her prison, making her lips curve in an evil smirk while he glared at her.
“Come closer, why don’t you? So we can try whatever it is that you want while we’re face to face, huh?” Artemis's husky voice made Claude visibly shiver. Cocking her head at his reaction, her smirk grew. “You like it when I talk to you!”
“There is not one thing I like about you!” Claude snapped at her, his eyes turning amber and casting shadows around them. “Don’t get lulled into a false sense of security here, bug! Raphael can’t protect you from me. I am his king, and he will obey my orders!”
“Yet here I am, oh mighty king,” she mocked him, while murder was written on his face at her words. “Alive and safe from all your orders. Why do you think that is?”
“We need to know what your people are planning. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll start talking. You have until sunrise. After that, I’ll try my luck with the one that was with you when we pulled you here through the portal. I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to talk.” A sinister glint was in Claude’s eyes as he watched for her reaction.
“He’s still alive?” Artemis kept her voice sounding bored, hoping Claude would not notice that she was holding her breath, waiting for his answer.
