Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
I think he is lonely, actually. Being ancient isn’t easy. In comparison with him, I am basically new. I think that is why he likes me.
“Do you want me to bring your mate here? Do you want him by your side?”
“No,” I say. “Nobody alive belongs here.”
Dom’s brow lifts. “You are unhappy, even though you have been spoiled. I have bought you the prettiest dresses, and am feeding you the finest food. Speaking of food, you’ve barely touched your acorns, oysters, and snails.”
“It’s not exactly to my taste,” I say, risking rudeness. “I prefer red meat.”
“You prefer living flesh,” he says, flashing his canines. “Just as I prefer fresh blood. You are so much like me.”
I am not like him at all. He projects his cruelty and his carnality and a dozen more terrible traits besides. He wishes to see me become even more like him over time. That is why he spends so much time doing what he considers to be instructive.
“I am going to make you happy, Anya,” he says. “If it is the last thing I do.”
The words are probably supposed to give me some sense of comfort, but coming from those cold, dead, compelling lips, all they do is send a shiver of pure fear down my spine. I am all too well aware that they’re more of a threat than a promise.
He looks at me with that glittering gaze.
“I think it is time I showed you something,” he says. “I need for you to appreciate your position here for what it is. You are not the only one of your kind, but you are the only one who is this impossibly spoiled. Come with me.”
Those last three words are not a request. They are an order. My body follows them, as it always does when he commands me, without question, and without an option.
CHAPTER 14
Alexei
The address on the card leads me to a largely windowless building cast in concrete at the edge of an industrial center in a city that barely deserves to have a name. It is a dull, uninspiring place, which is saying something given the communist architecture that dominates so many places like these.
I could not care less about the beauty of the buildings, but I am aware of my surroundings. This is where my mate has been kept, perhaps. Unless, of course, this is the trap Piotr supposed it to be.
I check the address again. The building fits in this terrain, but it is hardly a place where an ancient vampire could be given his due. This is how their kind have to live, hiding in ugly places, and doing ugly things.
There’s a heavy metal door at the entrance, reinforced with iron or steel. It is not open when I try it, and I have no intention of knocking. It opens under the encouragement of a shotgun, which I happen to have tucked under my arm. I have no idea how that got there. I am making decisions without really being aware of them at the moment.
The interior is dimly lit, but that does not matter to me, of course. I can see quite well in the dark. I can also smell Anya. For the first time in weeks, I have my mate’s scent, and it is an intoxicating, heady, rewarding thing.
“Anya!” I shout her name.
I hear a little sound in response, not as though someone is being quiet, but as if someone is trying to be heard through heavy walls and dungeons. That is all I need. My senses are as sharp as they have ever been, entirely focused on the one thing that matters to me in the world: my mate.
I chase up through the stairs and passageways of the vampires’ lair, aware that the things are around me, but staying clear of me. This is almost certainly a trap. I know it, but I do not care. Anya’s scent is fresh and vital and she is here. That is all that matters.
“Anya!”
“Alexei!”
She calls out to me through a door, which I shatter into slivers with the impact of my body, making it burst off the hinges and out of the frame.
Finally, I see my mate.
She is dressed most strangely. Her hair has been curled, and bows have been tied into it. She is wearing a pink puffy silk dress that makes her look like my grandmother’s toilet paper covers.
“It wasn’t locked, you know,” she says. “I just couldn’t move. He won’t let me.”
I run to her and wrap her up in my arms, feeling her body against mine with the greatest of relief. She is stiff against me, not because of her own reluctance, but because the damn vampire is still exerting influence, even now, with her in my arms.
“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m okay,” she assures me. “Now that you’re here, everything is okay. I told him this was ridiculous, but he insisted.”