Page 24 of Fall into Place

No. This was too crazy. She couldn’t step across that line—she had to go back. She’d just tell Octavia what happened, and maybe they could try again? Or figure something else out? It was time to get the hell out of here.

Except that the second she turned her back on the darkness, she felt a blunt object crack across the back of her head—like a thick stick, or a baseball bat. Stars exploded into her vision and she staggered from the pain, stepping out of the safety of the sunshine—and as soon as she did, she felt an arm around her neck and heard a low voice in her ear.

“Aren’t you a long way from home?”

She tried to answer—or fight, or do anything useful—but her body went rigid in a state of absolute terror and panic. There was too much pressure against her throat. She felt her consciousness slipping away, and then everything went black.

—

The first thing Tess registered was the sound of voices, hushed and arguing—arguing about her, she realized quickly. She heard the sound of rushing water, but she had the distinct impression she wasn’t outside. She was sitting, and her wrists and ankles were bound with rope. All around her were the most mouthwateringly delicious smells, roast meats and fragrant stews. Tess was desperate to open her eyes and see what was going on, but given the conversation, she thought it might be wise to play dead a little longer.

“I know you’re joking right now.” A man sighed dramatically. “We’re all starving, and you’re not going to let us feed?! You’re doing us dirtier than Charles did Lady Di, and you know I don’t say that lightly.”

“You are not starving—you’re literally attending a feast,” a woman replied wearily. “You do not like the food you have. There is a difference.”

The woman’s voice lilted with an accent Tess couldn’t quite place, though it sounded African. Was that Nantale, the leader of Callum and Octavia’s clan? Was Callum here too?

“If we keep her alive, we can feed on her indefinitely,” a man with a cold voice interjected—Tess was almost certain this was the same man who’d grabbed her from the bridge. A shiver ran down Tess’s spine. She knew there was a chance that she’d be killed on this island, but to be held captive and used as a human blood bag for months, years, even decades on end?

“Fool.” The woman with the accent clicked her tongue. “Thinking only of your most base desires.”

“I’m a vampire,” the cold-voiced man replied unapologetically. “My desires are what define me.”

“And do you not desire to leave this isle, Tristan?” The woman was dangerously quiet. “Did it not occur to you that the sudden arrival of a human from our old world might herald an opportunity to return there? Or would you rather drink from just one neck for as long as she lives, waiting your turn like a pauper on a bread line?”

Tess tried to be still, but her pulse was thrumming beneath her skin. In Blood Feud, Tristan was known as the most violent member of Callum and Octavia’s clan—if he was the one who grabbed her, she was lucky she wasn’t dead already. But if Nantale wanted Tess alive, then Tess had a fighting chance.

“What if we, like, used a syringe?” a girl asked. “To portion out the blood.”

“Omg, that’s so smart,” another girl agreed. “That way everyone gets a little! So balanced, you’re such a Libra.”

Tess clenched her jaw to stop herself from reacting—that was Antoinette and Angelique, the rude teen girl vampires! Tess loved them!! She was dying to open her eyes and get a look at everyone—but not if doing so would lead to her literal death, which still seemed very much on the table.

“Come on, Nantale,” the dramatic man wheedled—Tess was pretty sure he was Hamish, a fabulous queer vampire who loved pop culture. “You don’t really think she knows a way off the Isle, do you? And even if she does, what’s the harm in us having a little teacup full of blood while she tells us?”

“Why don’t we ask her right now?” Nantale suggested casually. “She’s been conscious for several minutes.”

Fuck! Tess thought. Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!!!!!!

In the silence that followed, Tess could almost feel everyone in the room turning toward her. She summoned every shred of courage in her body, every memory of standing on the subway telling some drunk guy to fuck off, and opened her eyes.

There was so much to take in, it was hard not to gasp. The room was spectacular, just as it had been described in Blood Feud—a cavernous, circular great room with turquoise stone walls inlaid with gold, a paneled glass ceiling, and intricate white marble flooring forming a latticework over water thick with bulrushes and lotus flowers.

But nothing was more overwhelming than the other people in the room. Because Tess was seated at a banquet table with at least a dozen vampires.

They were all ages, races, and sizes, and dressed in all different manners—but they all had that same look as Octavia—the otherworldly glow to their complexions, the self-possession, the unmissable, confident air of stone-cold killers. And despite the table laid with all manner of decadent foods, they were looking at Tess like she was dinner.

Say something, Tess urged herself. Say anything!

“Hi,” she managed weakly.

Motherfucker. She was surrounded by vicious monsters and all she could say was hi?!

“Hello.” Nantale offered a small smile. She was exactly how Tess had pictured her from Blood Feud, elegant and statuesque, with dark skin and black hair twisted back in an elaborate series of braids. Her exploits were the stuff of legend: As a human, she had been a gender-fluid spiritual medium, one of the most powerful in the history of the Lugbara people. In modern times, she’d be called trans, but that term didn’t exist in her culture and time; the duality of her identity was believed to be the source of her power to walk in both the human and spirit worlds. As a vampire, she was one of the greatest warriors the world had ever known—she was arguably the strongest vampire on the Isle, the commander of this clan. And now she was eyeing Tess with a sort of…bemusement?

“I take it you’re not a witch,” Nantale said.

“Oh, no.” Tess nodded with understanding. “Just a regular human. That’s why you bound my hands?”