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Slowly, not wanting to make the nausea worse—or risk vomiting, which would really mess with my sore ribs—I lift my head and look around. To my surprise, we’re not in a warehouse like I assumed. The floor is concrete, but it’s that posh polished concrete that people have started putting in their ultra-modern houses. Which is what this is. I’m on the floor in what looks like a theatre room, judging by the giant projector screen above my head and the half-dozen or so double recliners across the room. Against one of the side walls is a sideboard with a couple of wine bottles and a few DVDs on top. The walls and ceiling are painted deepest midnight blue, and I don’t see any windows, so either this room was purpose built—which in a new luxury house isn’t unlikely—or the windows were plastered over at some point. Either way, my only possible escape route is through the door, and Geoffrey’s between me and it. Not that I’d get far trying to run from a vampire, anyway.

Not unless I find a way to incapacitate him first.

Chapter 31

My heartbeat picks up at the mere thought of trying to disable a vampire, and Geoffrey notices. He swings around and stalks across the room to stand over me.

“What are you doing?”

Fuck. “N-Nothing.”

His eyes narrow. “Not planning to run?”

“How could I outrun a vampire?” I ask honestly. It’s a genuine question, but I’m happy for him to think it’s rhetorical.

He stares me down for a few seconds longer, then grunts. “Stay put, and I won’t have to hurt you. At least, not yet.”

Blood is pounding in my ears, but I force myself to breathe slowly. I need to stay calm. I need to think. Everything I’ve heard about Geoffrey paints him as the kind of vampire who’d happily hurt a human. Who’d happily kill a human—unless he needed them. It’s pretty obvious that he kidnapped me to get at Tristan, but the fact that I’m still alive means that his plan is more complicated than just hurting Tristan’s reputation. He’s going to use me against my vampire… I just don’t know how.

What I do know is that this has happened before and that Geoffrey knows exactly what happened to the vampires who kidnapped and murdered Benjamin. What makes him think that he’ll be able to get away with this when they didn’t? And why is he even bothering? What happened with Misha at the party last night proved that vampires respect the right of other vampires to protect their feeders. Geoffrey isn’t going to build support for Vampremacy this way—in fact, the opposite is true. Vampires will rally to Tristan and turn their backs on Vampremacy. So what’s the poin⁠—

Wait… weren’t the vampires who took Benjamin the ones who made Geoffrey? Has this got nothing to do with Vampremacy at all?

“I’ll be good,” I whisper. “Just… I don’t understand why. H-He doesn’t care about me. I’m just his feeder.” My own words slice into me, even more so because they’re true. Tristan will come because I’m his feeder, but I didn’t realise until now that maybe I want him to come for more reasons than that.

Geoffrey laughs, a low, mean sound, and I decide it doesn’t matter why Tristan comes, as long as he gets me the fuck out of here.

“You don’t understand why? What gives you the right to understand? Like you said, you’re just a feeder. Fucking feeders,” he adds. “You’re leeches. You’ve weakened vampires, destroyed our heritage and turned us from hunters to lapdogs.”

Great, Vampremacy rhetoric. Not helpful.

“You want to know why?” he snarls, so viciously that spit flies from his mouth and lands on me. Gross. “It’s your own fault! You parasitic feeders who’ll only contract for wealth and power. You Barale whores, who’ve spent the last three centuries selling yourselves to the highest bidders, whispering in influential ears, and creating a system that wipes out the birthright we deserve! Well, fuck you, feeder scum. We vampires are taking back what’s ours, and when we do, feeders will finally be put in their place—bleeding beneath our heels.”

He spins around and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving me to blink after him in confusion. I know Vampremacy advocates for a return to the “old ways,” where vampires hunt humans without regard for consent or whether they live afterward, but Geoffrey’s little diatribe made it sound like he thinks feeders created the current system. Like we manipulated vampires to get it instituted and maintained.

Plus let’s not forget that we prostitute ourselves for it. Did he mean that sexually or just in terms of exchanging blood for money?

It doesn’t matter. I still don’t know what Geoffrey thinks he can achieve by keeping me here. Tristan might be the regent of this region, but he can’t dismantle a worldwide system that’s been in place for centuries—and even if he could, he wouldn’t. Which brings me back to the question: Why am I here?

I stay put for a long time, until my arse starts to go numb from sitting on the cold concrete, but Geoffrey doesn’t come back. Eventually, I decide that if I’m going to be a prisoner, I may as well try to be comfortable, and painfully lever myself off the floor to go sit on one of the recliners.

There’s no clock in this room, so I don’t know what time it is or how long I’ve been here. I’m tired, but that could partly be from the shitty night I’ve had. It started off so well, too.

At one point I hear Geoffrey talking, though not clearly enough to make out the words, and I don’t hear another voice. Is he on the phone? Not to Tristan, or he’d come back in here to make me scream.

And then silence falls again.

Sighing, I slowly turn my head from side to side. The dizziness and nausea aren’t as bad, which is a definite win. Maybe I don’t actually have a concussion. I’m still sore all over, though, and sitting on the floor for so long has made me stiffen up. That’s not good. When Tristan gets here, I might need to be able to move fast.

Slowly, carefully, I get to my feet and start pacing up and down. My ribs hurt, and my knees, and my shoulder, and those pains don’t lessen, but the stiffness in my muscles does loosen a bit after a couple of minutes.

All that work is for nothing when the door slams open and I tense into a giant knot.

“What are you doing?” Geoffrey snaps when his eyes land on me.

“Nothing. S-Stretching my legs.” I stay frozen in place as he strides toward me.

“Planning to run?” He grabs my arm and yanks so hard, I feel the jolt through my whole body, stumbling as he drags me out of the room.