Chapter 8 Maeve
Maeve
“Why haven’t you eaten me?” I almost didn’t have the energy to speak. When Ciara looked at me, her eyes that dull red they’d become permanently now, I continued. “I mean, why haven’t you drunk all of my blood?” It would have been a mercy now.
At least, that was what I told myself.
“How many days…?” I let my question trail away then tried to lick my lips with a dry tongue so I could finish asking it. “Have they…have we…?” I sopped again as confusion disturbed my thoughts. I didn’t even know what I was asking now.
“I think four days.” She answered the question I hadn’t asked first. How fucking long had we been here? Four days.
Four? They were a blur. Sometimes people came in and shoved stale food at me. Sometimes they just came in and watched, like I was an experiment.
Perhaps I was. Maybe they were also wondering why I wasn’t dead. Which brought me back around to my first question.
“My blood…”
She nodded. “I know. Your blood.” Then she laughed. “I could eat you, if you liked. But I think my wolf wouldn’t be too happy. She’s holding out.”
“You don’t drink?” I had more half questions than full ones, it seemed.
She shook her head, then nodded, then just wrinkled her brow in confusion. “I don’t know how to answer that. I mean yes, I drink. But Jason is different. I don’t drink to kill. My wolf likes you. She wants to protect you.” She shrugged. “I’m not going to drain you dry.”
I huffed out a laugh. “But we might not be rescued.”
The corners of her mouth turned down and although she fixed that with a smile, her voice was smaller when she spoke again. “They’ll come.”
I didn’t have the energy to shake my head to disagree.
But four days? In the stories Ciara had told me in the first few hours we’d been in here, it didn’t seem like the new king of the vampires took four days to do anything.
She was a new vampire, but she wasn’t new to the supernatural world, so I’d trusted her judgment on that.
But with so long passing, maybe something had gone wrong.
A rescue attempt might have failed. Wouldn’t that just be my damn luck?
If my own damn curiosity really had finally gotten me killed because the vampires who were supposed to rescue me—the vampires I was so hellbent on proving existed—couldn’t even get their shit together for a rescue mission.
“So…” I tried speaking again. It was too much energy, but there was a lot more I wanted to know.
Only Ciara’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Shush.” She waved her hand in a keep it down motion, and fear clutched my chest.
Someone was coming. She always knew before I did. I automatically made myself smaller and closed my eyes. Well, nearly closed them. I could watch the door through a tangle of eyelashes if I kept my eyes open just the barest amount.
“What’s up?” I whispered the question when nothing happened immediately.
She looked at me. Company, she mouthed, and her mouth pulled into a flat line of displeasure.
That meant it was one of the oldest ones. The Ancients. She’d told me enough about them that they weren’t the unknown, anymore, but they weren’t any less scary for that. In fact, Ciara said there was still a hell of a lot the Duponts didn’t know about them, so maybe that made them scarier still.
It was like a whole bunch of ancient gods had returned to Earth and they wielded thunderbolts and controlled the seas. Humans had never seen anything like this before—and worse still, neither had the vampires who’d lived among us for so long.
No one knew how to deal with this new threat. Hell, humans hadn’t even dealt with the old one—the fact the paranormal existed in the first place.
And that was partly because no one had listened to people like me. How many times had I tried to warn them?
She tugged me to standing. “It’s not a good idea to just lie there this time.” Then she moved us into a corner and stood partly in front of me as the door opened and two of the vampires stepped inside.
An Ancient came in first, and power so fierce rolled off him that my knees buckled and I gripped Ciara’s arm for support.
Then another vampire stepped in behind him and the energy in the room changed. There was something beguiling now. Compelling, maybe. And a flutter in my chest…at my damn core. I drew in a breath that sounded like a gasp in the confines of the close walls.
And that was before I even saw him. I wanted to walk out from behind Ciara and offer myself to the vampire who’d just walked in. But that made no sense at all.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Ciara saw him before I did, and her head turned slightly to the side before she spoke again. “Why the fuck is he here?” She stepped back, sandwiching me more firmly between herself and the wall.
Squashing me, actually. She must have forgotten her strength, again. She was like an immovable object, a slab of stone someone had positioned in front of me, and I struggled to draw a full breath.
“Ciara. You’re too close.” I pushed against her with my palms, but she was solid, a deadweight. “I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry.” She threw the word over her shoulder as she moved away. “He doesn’t belong here.” Again, she seemed to be speaking to the Ancient who’d entered the room first.
“I disagree.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard one of them speak, but their voices always made me shiver.
They chilled me from the inside. “We make the decisions here, or did you forget? And we appear to have a little stand-off in this room, so we’re fixing that.
If you have no use for the virgin, we certainly do. ”
I gasped louder this time and immediately regretted that I’d made Ciara step away.
A shield would have been welcome, because really?
My sexual status was on full display now?
My face heated even though I had no embarrassment over it.
It was just no one else’s business but mine.
And certainly no business of anyone I wouldn’t have told myself.
The chuckle that emanated from the ancient was raspy. “Oh, we know everything, my dear. We’re simply surprised that you haven’t yet been devoured.” He chuckled again before his tone changed as he addressed Ciara again. “Now step out.”
Ciara didn’t move.
“You’re still only young, despite your connections. I suggest you do exactly as we tell you.”
With a strangled yell, Ciara flew from in front of me before hitting the wall on the other side of the room and sliding down it.
“What the…?” My fingers curled at the base of my throat.
Ciara hadn’t moved on her own, and she hadn’t been dragged. The Ancient in here with us was capable of magic. I remained where I was, unwilling to seem reluctant or disobedient but unsure what was expected. If I hit a wall at the same speed as Ciara just had, I’d be broken.
“If we hadn’t already agreed, Francois, I’d be tempted myself.”
I looked beyond the Ancient staring at me with hunger and some degree of curiosity in his gaze, trying to ignore that he saw me as a food source.
At the edge of the room, Ciara stirred and sat up, putting her back to the wall, but I didn’t look directly at her, didn’t check to make sure she was okay. Instead, I looked at the second vampire in the room.
Looked at him like I’d hot-glued my gaze directly to his body.
He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. His eyes captured and held me…like I was drowning in impossibly pale blue depths. He almost looked related to the Ancient, but he was so much more vital. The blue of his eyes was darker and held more fire…a glimmer of something…madness.
Yes, that was it.
Francois… the mad prince.
I’d seen him before, of course. The time Ciara had named him as vampire and before that…when I watched footage of a man held in a magic spell outside an exploded apartment.
Ciara was right. Why the hell was he here? And why couldn’t I tear my gaze from him? I glanced over his clothes, almost wishing for X-ray vision. Everything was exquisitely tailored, and everything clung to him in all the right places, even if it did look a century or two out of date.
History had never been my strongest subject—something I was starting to regret now that I was dealing with beings so old—but the style suited him.
“Don’t just stand there.” The Ancient grabbed my arm, and I yelped as his fingers curved around me like iron bands, grinding against my bones and pinching my skin.
Francois hissed, and his eyes narrowed as they flashed red.
I shuddered at the expression of his hunger. But there seemed to be more there than simple appetite. I didn’t get to look for long, though, as I switched my attention to keeping myself upright instead of merely being dragged in whatever direction the Ancient was headed.
Ciara started to yell behind me, but the sound became muffled when the Ancient waved his arm and the wood door slammed shut behind us.
I twisted and tried to pull away before gritting my teeth. “I can walk fine on my own.”
But Francois continued like he hadn’t heard me—except his grip tightened slightly as we ascended the narrow staircase back to the first floor.
The subterranean feeling dropped away as the decaying grandeur of the rest of the house replaced it.
Even the air smelled different up here. The dampness was gone, replaced by a drier mustiness, like old trunks filled with historical clothes or pages of leather-bound books, their spines broken and unreadable.
He led me to a doorway, and suddenly we were in the heart of modern day. The future, even. A state-of-the-art television graced one of the walls, and someone had spent a lot of money in here, furnishing it with expensive but comfortable-looking seating.
I swallowed, my mouth dry as I stopped looking at the décor and finally noticed the inhabitants.