Chapter Three
Reyna screamed.
From the pain and the shock and the needles that had been in her arms…and the blood. She gagged at the sight of it.
Harrington’s hand closed over her throat as he pushed her roughly back against the chair. Her eyes locked onto his, and she remembered exactly who was standing over her. Exactly how much she had fucked up.
“You are not invincible here, Reyna. You are not actually a queen of this domain. You are here at my whim, and you will find that if you do not cooperate, your life could become much more unpleasant. Do you understand?”
She choked out a garbled, “Yes.”
He removed the pressure from her throat, and she coughed and sputtered as air filled her lungs again. That was going to bruise.
Harrington swiped a finger over one of her open wounds, then brought it to his lips, tasting her openly.
For a clinical man who saw a scientific process in all their interactions and treated her more like a treasured pet than anything, she had never seen him so…
wild. It was the only way to put it. Even when she had been furious and screamed and cried in the beginning, he had sat calmly by and watched it all as if it were a television show. Some melodrama he could dissect later.
But this was the monster behind the facade. His true nature. The vampire.
“You may be a very rare match, Reyna, but that does not mean you are irreplaceable. Right this moment, the Blood Census is registering people all over this nation. The city is already complete, and soon it will cover the nation, then the world,” he said menacingly. “I will find more of you yet.”
Harrington sneered down at the wounds he’d created. “Clean her up.”
The nurse hurried forward to clean and bandage the wounds.
She elevated Reyna’s arms to help clotting, but Reyna ignored her, still staring after Harrington.
He’d moved to the sink and was sterilizing his hands as if that one drop of blood he’d gotten on his finger was contagious in some way. He was adamant in his cleanliness.
Her arms throbbed. She couldn’t believe she’d lost her cool.
This meant that she’d probably need to have another venom IV to replenish the blood.
Reyna had to close her eyes and breathe deeply at that thought.
She couldn’t handle this another time. She couldn’t handle being here another day.
She was clinging to survival, and she felt like she was finally cracking under the weight of it all.
“Let’s go,” Harrington said.
“Go?” Reyna asked, opening her dark eyes to stare up at him.
“Yes. Now. I have something to show you.”
Reyna stood on shaky legs. She hated to let Harrington see her fear, but it was all over her. Oozing out of her pores and filling the room.
She straightened her spine and forced herself to walk toward him. She might fear him, but she wouldn’t cower. She only had her defiance left to hold on to.
“I’m ready,” she said with all the power still left in her body.
Harrington opened the sliding door. She took one last look over her shoulder. The nurse’s face was a mask, but Reyna saw her own terror mirrored in the nurse’s eyes. It was reassuring in a way she hadn’t expected. Maybe she didn’t want to be working here any more than Reyna did.
Reyna had decided to work for Visage out of necessity.
Her brothers had been working doubles at the factory in the Warehouse District an hour outside of the city.
She couldn’t get a job without a college degree, and she couldn’t go to college because they didn’t have any money.
So, she had been just another helpless mouth to feed.
In desperation, she had joined Visage to help her brothers.
When she had started, she’d expected it to be more like…well, this. Degrading, humiliating work that she should be ashamed of. Instead, she’d gotten Beckham.
She closed her eyes for a second as the name crushed her heart. No, she couldn’t think about him right now. She needed to be on. Harrington was offering her an opportunity. He just didn’t know it yet.
With her head held high, Reyna exited the sterile room and followed on Harrington’s heels.
She marked every turn they made through the winding corridors.
She had no clue where she was exactly. Until now, she’d only seen the two rooms in the entire facility, and she couldn’t have even guessed that it was this sprawling.
But the space must have been the size of several large warehouses. What else did he keep here?
Harrington stopped in front of a giant steel door. He held one hand behind his back as he swung that insufferable cane in a circle with the other. His suit was crisp and presentable—he had taken some care with his appearance today. What could be happening in the outside world to have him dress up?
“Here we are,” he said, clomping the cane down noisily. “This is a special ward. I like to keep interesting projects here.”
Interesting. Projects. Oh no. This wasn’t going to be good.
“Would you like to see my project?”
Of course she didn’t want to see his project. But he expected her to say no. So she couldn’t.
He laughed when he saw the indecision written on her face. “Ah, my little queen, it’s not a trick question.” Her nickname was back in the building. “Let’s take a look.”
Harrington entered a fifteen-digit code in a blur, then put his eye to a retinal scanner, pressed his fingerprint onto a pad, and had to be identified with facial recognition software before the door opened. Talk about secure.
Beyond was a long hallway, and lights flickered on one at a time down the row. Reyna entered after Harrington, and the door closed with a soft metallic snick behind them. He stepped up to the first door on the right and typed in a different sequence. The opaque wall suddenly turned into a window.
“Tinted one-way glass,” Harrington explained. “We can see in, but she can’t see out.”
“She?” Reyna whispered.
“Meet B,” Harrington said.
Reyna’s saw a woman facing the window as she stood in the corner of the room, staring up at the ceiling.
She was tall—very tall for a woman. Her hair was short and black, chopped haphazardly with no care for appearance.
She wore a black bodysuit that showed off her fit physique.
Her hands were at her sides, and she was talking to herself.
“Is…something wrong with her?”
“Why don’t we find out?” he asked with that cruel smile of his.
“Oh no…I don’t think…”
But he was already pressing a button. “B.”
The woman’s head snapped forward. Her dark eyes were otherworldly. They didn’t scream “fear me” like Harrington’s did. They screamed unpredictable and wild and dangerous.
B took three calm steps to put herself in front of the window. She bared her teeth, revealing the sharp fangs. “The sky is green today.”
“You can’t see the sky, B,” Harrington told her.
“The work will burn with you in it. Roses are red and violets are bleeding. Death and destruction taste like your whispers.”
Reyna’s eyebrows rose dramatically. What the hell had Harrington done to this woman?
“I brought you a friend,” Harrington told her.
“A tasty morsel. A pet pet pet. Sometimes the doorknob sings show tunes. Tell it to stop.” Then her eyes glazed over and she covered her ears. “Stop! Tell it to stop!”
“Oh my God,” Reyna whispered.
“God has nothing to do with it.” Harrington pushed the door open, dragging Reyna behind him into the room. Harrington wouldn’t let her get hurt, right? He needed her. He needed her blood. She was valuable.
But then he shoved her forward so she came face-to-face with B. Fear bit into her stomach, making her queasy. Holy shit, he couldn’t do this.
B sniffed the air all around Reyna, assessing her. Then she slowly circled Reyna, prowling as if she were a lion on the savannah about to take down her prey. Reyna stood very still. She didn’t even breathe. Her lungs constricted as sweat beaded on her brow.
“You smell familiar,” B said. “Have we met before?”
“No,” Reyna whispered on an exhale. She couldn’t believe she’d even gotten the word out. If she thought she had fears before…they were nothing compared to being next to this erratic, unpredictable predator.
“Oh yes, we’ve met. Underground and up on high. Beneath and within and deep under your skin.” B leaned in and ran her nose up Reyna’s arm. Reyna shivered in fear. “You smell wrong.”
Reyna swallowed hard. She had never been told that. Usually vampires told her she smelled amazing, like the nectar of the gods. She didn’t want to smell wrong to this creature. She wanted to get as far away as possible. She didn’t need to be bitten to have fight-or-flight kick in.
“Toy?” B asked Harrington.
Reyna’s eyes widened as she faced Harrington. He smirked at her as if to say This is what your life could be. Reyna shuddered. Dear God, no. She didn’t mask the fear; she let it seep out of her in waves. Oh God, there was worse. There was much worse than the life she had been leading.
“Would you like her as a toy?” Harrington asked B.
B grasped both of Reyna’s arms, and then she tore off the medical tape and gauze. Reyna cried out as her wounds reopened.
B inspected the wound clinically. “She’s broken. You brought me a broken toy.”
“B,” Harrington said.
“She’s broken in here, too,” B said, thrusting her hand at Reyna’s heart. It landed with a soft thump. Reyna grunted and took an unsteady step backward. “Shattered and empty. Worms and maggots. Festering blistering aching.” She tilted her head and then giggled. “Destroyed.”
Reyna was repulsed by the words, repulsed by B. Harrington was teaching her a lesson she didn’t want to learn.
“Harrington,” Reyna said softly.
His smile was deadly. “See?”
“Yes,” she croaked.
“Broken!” B yelled and then suddenly shoved Reyna hard.
She collided with the glass, her head smacking against it roughly. She gasped as tears welled in her eyes and she slumped to a heap on the floor. Her head pulsed with pain.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. B was going to kill her. The frenzied look in B’s eyes revealed how gone she really was. Harrington was holding her back, but Reyna didn’t want to wait to find out. Her head felt like it was the size of the room as fear propelled her to escape this nightmare.
“I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her!” B screamed, trying to claw her way past Harrington. “She can’t have it. Doesn’t belong to her. I’ll take it all back.”
Reyna had nearly made it to the door the moment Harrington lost his grip on B. She lunged forward, landing like a cat on all fours above Reyna.
“No. No, stop,” she shrieked, clawing at B’s face.
B used one hand and held her down, exposing her fangs, and then sank them into Reyna’s arm.
It all happened in slow motion. The feeling of adrenaline pumping through her system. The vamp venom she hadn’t gotten earlier from the IV flooding her bloodstream and taking over. Tears streaming down her face as B drank her blood. The terror and disbelief and pain.
B was forcing herself on Reyna to drain her blood against her will. At least as an escort she had chosen this. She had accepted it as her fate. And Harrington…he took the blood without her consent, but this was…this was worse. This was hell. This was actual hell.
Just when she thought it was over, an electrical shock pulsed through them. She and B screamed. B fell in a heap on the floor, twitching and shaking. Her head cocked to the side, her eyes wide and wild.
Reyna pushed away from B, clutching her arm and shaking from head to toe. It had stopped. He’d stopped it. She had thought that was the end. She didn’t care how he had stopped it, just that he had.
Harrington stepped over B. “What a pleasant demonstration.”
Reyna curled in on herself. Her body was trembling involuntarily, and her heart stuttered in her chest. Harrington’s shadow covered her frame.
She skittered farther away from him, pressing her aching head into the glass.
She needed to be away from here…far away from here.
But Harrington would never let her go. He’d never leave her alone.
She was going to be kept like this forever.
He tipped her chin up so she had to meet his keenly intelligent eyes.
“You have been living in privilege. You think that there is nothing I could do to you that hasn’t already been done, and you are wrong.
I need your blood, but only your blood. I don’t need your mind.
I don’t need you happy. I certainly don’t need you living in luxury.
This is your fate if you continue to displease me. ”