Chapter 3
Three
Mina
My eyes were hot and gritty as I yawned and stretched. I still had on my dress from the ceremony, and my limbs felt all loose, and… mmm …really nice. Rolling to my side, I opened my eyes.
I blinked as my heart slammed so hard into the back of my ribs that my lungs emptied on a sudden burst. No . I shook my head, trying to clear it.
I didn’t understand. Had I dreamed it? All of it?
I shoved back the quilt and lunged from the bed. Sprinting to the window, I threw back the curtains and gasped. A cement block wall was several yards from my window. I wasn’t back home. This wasn’t the view from my childhood bedroom.
I turned back, taking in the entire room again, from the sheer pale-pink lace that hung behind the curtains to the cotton candy–colored quilt and throw pillows, to the fluffy fuchsia rug beside the bed—it was the same. It was all the same.
Every piece of furniture: the walnut dresser and side tables. The salmon desk beside the window that matched the walls. The wide pink-and-white striped armchair, the one Nero had sat in last night while I’d fed from him—it was all exactly the same.
I pressed my hand to my stomach when it clenched violently. Oh gods . What the hell was this? Why had Nero done this? I rushed to the door, gripping the handle, turning it, yanking it, but it was locked. I was locked in.
He’d locked me in!
I paced away and back, then tried it again, and again, but there was no getting out. Panic choked me, and I pounded on the door as hard as I could. “Let me out!” I screamed the words over and over until my throat was raw.
Stumbling back, I finally collapsed on the floor, the layers of my pink tulle dress puffing out all around me. I ran a shaky finger over a drop of dried blood on the skirt, Nero’s blood. My bonded had locked me in here.
The sound of the lock turning echoed through the door, and I lifted my head as it opened, swiping the tears from my cheeks as Nero walked in and shut the door behind him.
He stared down, regarding me impassively. “What are you doing on the floor, Mina?”
“Why did you lock me in here?” I wanted him to tell me something, anything, that made a liar of the voice roaring in my head.
His gaze slid over my face, and the intensity of it made me want to squirm. I quickly climbed to my feet, not wanting to be so weak, so vulnerable in front of him, and his gaze continued down my body in a way that lifted goose bumps all over me.
Finally, his violet eyes slid back to mine. “Feeding from me has altered your appearance. Your cheeks are pink and your lips are like rubies. Your blond hair shines and your lavender eyes are much brighter.”
Was he trying to pay me a compliment? “I…uh…thank you. But you haven’t answered my question.” I crossed my arms. “Why did you lock me in here, and…why am I in a replica of my bedroom?”
“Standing there in your pink dress, in this pink room, you look like a little doll,” he said, again not answering my question.
He called me that, he’d called me little doll several times now. It didn’t feel like a compliment. And I didn’t like it. Not at all. “And that’s what you want?”
His head tilted to the side in a way that was all predator. “Is it not what you want?”
“To be locked in this room? To be held prisoner in a twisted replica of my childhood bedroom?” I stared at him in shocked horror. “Of course not. Why would I want this?”
“What did you think would happen?” he asked, and I thought I might detect a touch of genuine curiosity in his voice.
“I don’t know…definitely not this.” I chewed my lip, trying to think, to come up with a way to get through to him. “My mother said… She said that we would…that you would…”
“What?”
Humiliation burned my face. “That we would mate after we fed from each other. I assumed that’s what we would do.” Then afterward I would finally have some freedom.
He closed the space between us and dispassionately swiped a tear from my cheek. “And you want that? Why?”
“I don’t, but the fates chose us for each other, right? There has to be a reason for that. I have to believe there’s a reason for that, for this…this…” I bit my lips together.
“What? What is this?”
My pulse was frantic, but I couldn’t hold the words back. “A nightmare.”
He studied me. “I’ve given you everything you could want. All your favorite things. Your books, your clothes, all your most treasured possessions, little doll. I believe after you have recovered from the shock, you’ll grow to enjoy your life here.”
“Here? In this room?”
“Yes.”
“This is where you belong, Lalka, my little doll. Only you.”
His words from the night before came back to me. He liked me here. He’d visited me in my room, every birthday from the age of sixteen because he’d gotten some kind of twisted gratification from it.
I didn’t know what that was, but it was enough that he’d wanted to recreate it. I was a…a thing, an object. An amusement.
He’d created a doll’s house for me, his little doll, trapped so he could watch me, enjoying my pain and fear while I pounded against the door, desperate for release. The freedom I longed for would never be mine. I’d left one prison, only to be taken to another.
“This is twisted, Nero. You have to know that?”
“Is it?” he said, but he didn’t want an answer. He didn’t care. He curled his fingers around the side of my throat, his thumb pressing against my wildly fluttering pulse. “You’ll get used to it, Lalka.”
We weren’t mated, but we were blood bound, which meant for me the suffering he’d caused me with every one of his visits was over. But if we remained unmated, he would be the one to suffer, he had to know that.
Maybe I should hold my tongue, this male was so incredibly cold, capable of anything, but right then I couldn’t think of anything worse than the circumstances I found myself in now, so I didn’t hold back. I let the temper that my parents often scolded me for loose. “And you’ll need to get used to the pain I promised you,” I said. “You don’t want me as your mate? Fine. Just know that when the pain is more than you can bear, and you’re begging for me to take it away, I won’t. I wouldn’t mate with you now even if my life depends on it. You don’t want me? No, Nero. I won’t have you.”
The muscle in his jaw tightened. “Is that right?”
“Yes, and just so you know, I will find a way out of here. I will leave you, and I’ll never come back,” I fired at him, then gave him my back and walked to the window, staring at the brick wall across from me.
I sounded like a child throwing a tantrum, but it was all I had. Rejecting him, when he’d already rejected me, was the only weapon I possessed.
The sound of the door closing, the lock engaging a moment later, had me spinning around.
A highly ineffective weapon.
He’d left without a word.
How could you wound when your target was incapable of feeling pain?
I didn’t see Nero for two days after that. A male who said little, named Pretender—an odd name, if you asked me—brought me food.
No, I hadn’t been in here that long, but I already felt as if I were losing my mind.
My only escape was when I slept. I climbed into bed now and turned off the lamp. Then I stared at the ceiling because I didn’t even have anything new to read. All the books on the bookshelf were identical to the ones I’d had in my bedroom at home, all books I’d already read. He truly thought of me like some kind of doll frozen in time and space. As if I didn’t exist outside of his yearly visits.
I’d never encountered anyone like him, which wasn’t so surprising, I suppose, considering I’d been locked away for the last five years, but still, I’d met old vampires before. None of them had been as twisted as Nero.
The sound of the lock turning, slowly, carefully, reached me in the darkness, and I held my breath. I knew it was him, instantly. I gripped the covers, about to jump out of bed, but then froze as the door slowly and silently swung open.
I kept my eyes closed, waiting, listening, while I felt his gaze burning into me. Had he changed his mind? Had he realized he’d made a mistake and he wanted me to be his mate, after all? Did I even want that anymore?
Anything has to be better than the situation I’m in now.
But the silence dragged on. He made no move to come closer, and he said nothing. He just stood and watched me like he had the times before at my parents’ house.
He hadn’t changed his mind.
He hadn’t come for me, he’d come for whatever it was he got out of being this close to me. This room, my prison, it was all about recreating his past visits. Only this time, I wasn’t suffering, there was no intoxicating pain for him to revel in.
There was fear, though. So much of it. I was confused, alone, and now that I had a taste of just how disturbed Nero truly was, the fear was deeper than ever before.
He wanted that, didn’t he? He wanted me to be a good little doll, to lie in my bed, squirming and afraid, to feed the ravenous beast inside him delicious morsels of my terror.
Well, I refused to just lie here. Despite how afraid I was, I wouldn’t give him permission to treat me this way. I wouldn’t play along with this…this twisted fantasy of his.
Taking a steadying breath, I opened my eyes and lifted to my elbows. His violet eyes glowed in the darkness and locked on to mine.
“Lie back down, Mina. Close your eyes,” he said, his voice strange, tight.
I forced myself to stare back. “No, I won’t do it.”
He moved quick, so fast, I didn’t see him coming. One moment he stood across the room, the next he was leaning over me.
“You belong to me, little doll. You do as I command.”
“I will not.” That’s when I noticed the strain on his face. “You’re in pain.”
He bared his teeth and leaned closer, his lips just a breath from mine. “Yes,” he said softly. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve felt true agony, Mina? Since I’ve felt deep satisfying pleasure?”
I shook my head, my breath shaking.
“Centuries.” He licked his lips. “I got only a small taste of it, just once a year, when I allowed myself to visit you, but that was nothing compared to this.” He hissed low, and it morphed into a low groan. “Nothing like this.”
Oh gods, he liked it. He liked the pain. But maybe after centuries of nothing, of feeling absolutely nothing at all, even pain would be welcome?
For a moment, just a second, I actually felt sorry for him. I shoved the feeling down, because how I handled this situation would dictate how he treated me in the future. Or maybe it would have no effect on him at all. How could a man who hadn’t felt anything emotionally and, by the sounds of it, physically for centuries understand that what he was doing, how he was treating me, hurt? That it was causing the kind of damage between us that could never be repaired. That if he had a change of heart, that if he decided he wanted more from me, that I might never be able to forgive him?
It seemed impossible, but I had to try. I had to try to understand him, to make him understand me.
I looked up at him, still so close. “You don’t enjoy feeding? It doesn’t make you feel good.”
His gaze dipped to my throat. “It had ceased to…” The tip of his tongue peeked out, sliding along the seam of his lips. “Until I tasted you under the blood moon.”
I nodded slowly, trying to decide the best way to say what I wanted to say. It was hard to think with him so close, with his massive body looming over me like a starved predator. I struggled to get the words right. “Don’t you want to keep experiencing that? Don’t you want more? To feel more? If you let me out, if we spent time togeth—”
“No, little doll, this is enough.”
I glared back at him. “I don’t believe you.”
“Lying would require me to care about your thoughts and feelings on the matter. I’m incapable of that. Whatever romantic notions you’re carrying around in your head, you need to squash them. This is where you’ll stay because this is where I want you to be. This is all I will ever want from you.”
My fear twisted with anger as it reared up inside me. “Well, this is not enough for me , Nero. How could this ever be enough for anyone?”
“These are your new circumstances. You need to get used to them.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “And from now on when I come into your room at night, you will lie still and silent, do you understand?”
He couldn’t be serious. “No. I won’t—”
His fingers slipped around my throat, not tight but with enough pressure to shut me up. “I have been very accommodating, Mina. I’m not known for my kindness or my patience.”
True paralyzing fear gripped me as I looked into his icy gaze, followed by a wave of complete and utter hopelessness.
“If there is anything you need, ask Pretender and he will get it for you. When you need to feed, tell him, and I will come to you during the day…but at night, when I am in this room, you do not speak, and you do not move, do you understand?”
I was frozen in place.
“Nod, Mina. Nod that you understand what your bonded requires of you.”
It was hard, but somehow I managed it.
His eyes glittered, his fingers slipping away, finally releasing me, then he walked out, locking the door behind him.