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He was better off dead, as much as I hated to think it.
“Come on, then. One last stop. ”
“No. ”
“You asked for this. You wanted to see your friends, I’m showing you your friends. ”
I turned my back on Maxime, not able to look directly at him anymore, the tableau too grim, too hopeless.
“I don’t want to see anything else. ”
“I think you’ll like this last one. ”
There was only one other vampire he might have who he’d assume I had an interest in, and that was my father. I’d never met Sutherland Halliston, and after this week I wasn’t sure I was ever going to meet him. But if I had any say in the matter, my first introduction to my biological father would not be in this madhouse. I wasn’t going to have that be my first and last memory of him.
“No,” I said.
“Does that mean you’re ready to show me what you promised?”
I nodded, choking back a new surge of bile burning the lining of my throat. “I’m ready. ”
“Good girl. ”
“But not here. ”
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He glanced over my shoulder to the suspended form of the vampire, then smiled at me. “I suppose that’s a reasonable request. ”
Back in his dining room I found myself staring at the seat I’d occupied during dinner. The tablecloth was still rumpled from where I’d placed my hands, and the chair had been knocked over when I fell out of it. It remained on its side on the Persian rug.
“Let’s see what you’ve got. ” He sat in his own chair and placed a small black fob on the table. It looked like a car starter, with a big red button in the middle, but I knew what it really was. He was showing me the remote detonator for my collar. Reminding me what was at stake if I tried anything funny.
“I need blood. ”
He snorted. “Nonsense. ”
“I need blood,” I insisted. “Maybe if you hadn’t broken my arm, I would have been fine, but it takes a lot out of a girl to rebuild bones in under twenty-four hours. ”
He stared at me, his gaze raking over my face, trying to read my intentions from there. I don’t know what he saw, because I was all out of emotions, and my face had to be as blank as the rest of me right then.
Maybe it was the lack he found to be a relief. I wasn’t angry; there was no maliciousness in my eyes. There was nothing.
I felt nothing.
Fingers were snapped, and a glass of blood was soon produced. I wondered how it was his people were able to bring the exact right thing without him ever asking for it, but I suspected we were being monitored constantly. Some eye or ear in the sky was keeping tabs on The Doctor and all his pet projects.
I drank the blood without coming up for air, wishing I could shatter the glass and lick it clean as Holden had done with the bag. That might come across as threatening though.
The pain in my arm dulled, giving me a break from the near-constant, stabbing ache making me want to gnaw it off. I felt lightheaded with the power from the blood, stronger than I had in days. I wasn’t strong by any means, but I no longer felt like a human orderly could best me.
I licked my lips, and they were full and soft. I wasn’t on the verge of falling apart anymore.
He hadn’t been lying when he said he knew how much blood a vampire needed to get by. I hadn’t been given a full pint, not like the day before. He’d given me a top-up, a little boost. It was enough for me to feel good, but not enough for him to have to worry.
If I’d been a vampire, that is.
The thing about my metabolism was it wasn’t the same as a vampire’s. I needed to eat more often than they did, but I didn’t need to eat as much. I could make do with less blood because I’d learned to run on less. Whereas a vampire might half-drain a human in one feeding, I could go a full day on one donor baggie. On a good day, anyway.
