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Run.
I turned my head from side to side, seeking an escape through the nightmarish fog, but it was too late. I was surrounded.
My nostrils flared at their scent. Earthy and good smelling like all vampires. They could even amp up their scent to entice and befuddle humans.
But I wasn’t a human, and the scent made my hair stand on end.
“So young…” A vampire swam out of the darkness, eyes glowing blue. His teeth elongated. He latched onto my throat.
No.
Pain shocked me awake. My eyes shot open.
It wasn’t a dream. The vampire had his mouth on my neck, his teeth in my vein. His body pressed mine to the wall.
Not Étan, my panicked brain registered. I couldn’t see the man’s face, but his dark hair was silvered at the temples, and he was slimmer and a few inches shorter.
I drew a lungful of his earthy scent and almost vomited.
I cursed and bucked against the concrete, trying to throw him off. But there’s not much that can dislodge a feeding vampire.
“Calm yourself,” he said in French against my throat. He stroked my nape.
“Fuck. You.” I thrashed against the wall like a wild man. Trying to bring my knee up. To smash my head into his. To hurt the S.O.B. any way I could.
He sucked harder.
I scrabbled against the air and tried to pull my wrists from the cuffs. Right then, if I could’ve chewed my hands off like a trapped animal, I would’ve. Anything to escape. To fight.
A wave of dizziness hit me. He’d taken too much blood from my already depleted body. Shadows crept over my vision, and I blacked out.
When I came to, he was still drinking. I went stiff with horror.
Don’t pass out. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
Conscious, I had a measure of control. At least, in my head, I did.
Unconscious, I was nothing but the slab of meat they were treating me as.
Another wave of dizziness swamped me. My stomach churned. My eyes closed.
Stay awake, damn it.
I tried to open my eyes, but I’d lost control of my eyelids. I was still fighting to open them when I fell backward into an endless tunnel and the darkness took me under.
9
RIDLEY
I couldn’t stop thinking about Zaq. How was he? Had they released him from the wall?
I told myself it wasn’t my problem, that they could fuck with him as much as they liked as long as they didn’t actually kill him before it was time.
But that was a cop-out, and I knew it.
The morning after my visit to de Froulay’s lair found me back on duty in the ops room. The moment I was alone, I turned up the lights in his cell. Zaq had either fallen asleep or passed out. His eyes were closed and he hung like a rag doll from the silver handcuffs.
I zoomed the video cam in on his right wrist. The silver had burned deeply into his skin. If he didn’t wake up and take the pressure off, the cuffs would fuse to his wrists.
