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I lifted my chin and glared at him with the best approximation of defiance I could muster. I was so weak a toddler could have taken me out in hand-to-hand combat, but I’d be damned if I was going to let him make fun of me.
“You must be wondering why I’ve brought you here. ”
“No…shit…Sher…lock. ”
“Ah. ” He clucked his tongue and wagged one finger at me. “That language. So unbecoming a pretty girl like you. While you are with me, there will be some requirements of you. My house, my rules, is that not the American saying?”
I’d have raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t have the muscular strength to spare.
“You will not swear while you are here. ”
“Fuck…you. ” It didn’t have the venom I was hoping for, but I think I managed to get the point across.
The Doctor snapped his fingers, and a young man wearing blue hospital scrubs came in. He carried a black object in his hand that looked like…
My eyes widened, and I struggled to get across the floor but only managed to tumble sideways and drag myself a few pathetic inches. The guy in scrubs ignored my attempts at biting him as he affixed the black object around my neck. Once it was secured, he left without so much as a backwards glance.
I was wearing a collar.
That pissed my inner wolf off to no end. Too bad she didn’t have the energy to help out in this situation.
“Very good. Where were we? Ah yes. There is to be no swearing. ”
My brain said, Don’t do it. Don’t do it. He’s not bluffing, don’t be an idiot.
“Go…fuck—”
My swear was cut short by a scream. A shock of electricity tore through me with such vigor I thought I must be dead. It stopped after less than a second, and had I not already been slumped on the floor, there would have been no way I’d have stayed upright.
I wheezed, gasping for breath, and the pain continued to steal through my body like a shock wave. My hands and legs moved involuntarily as the electric current animated them, then everything went still except the rise and fall of my chest.
“I think you can now see I’m quite serious. ”
The heat of electricity was replaced by the cold fingers of fear, and I trembled, looking up at him from the floor, all my fighting spirit oozing out and seeping down the drain.
“Are you ready to talk to me now in a manner befitting the lady you are?”
“Yes. ” That one syllable hurt. I closed my eyes against the pain, willing my body to shut down. How could I be in such agony and still be conscious? Didn’t scientists claim the body would induce a coma-like state to protect the psyche from pain?
So why was I still awake?
This was too much. Too much.
I tried to cry, but there wasn’t enough blood in my system to allow it, making my eyes ache and a migraine bloom behind my sinuses.
“You’re going to play nice, aren’t you?”
I wanted to nod, to save myself from the pain of speaking again, but my head was listless and unresponsive. “Yes,” I said, once I understood movement wasn’t going to happen.
“Good. ” He clapped his hands, and the sound was louder than a shotgun. “I’ll be back for you in a few days. ”
I was more animal than human when he returned.
It had taken more than a day for me to be able to sit up, and I’d only managed to prop myself back into the corner. With each new sunset I got weaker, and I was beginning to suspect I was sleeping well after moonrise.
How much longer could I do this before I stopped waking up altogether?
A full-blooded vampire could last centuries being shackled and starved, and I now understood why it was the perfect punishment. I could feel my vitality being leached away with each new evening. Strands of my hair were beginning to fall out whenever I touched my head, so it was a small favor I was no longer able to lift my hands that high.
