Desire the Night(2)

When he awoke the next night, he was in chains, the beautiful woman was gone, and an emaciated, gray-haired hag was collecting his blood in a jewel-encrusted gold cup. He had been imprisoned in this wretched cage ever since, held captive by strong silver chains that drained his strength and weakened his preternatural powers.

It hadn’t taken him long to figure out what was going on. The woman who had beguiled him was a witch who had cloaked her ugliness in the guise of a young siren. She had been searching the world over for a vampire and Gideon had walked blindly into her trap. With his blood, Verah had regained her youth and beauty and now she sold his blood to anyone who could pay the price. Some paid in cash, some in gold, and some in humankind, hence the females that were brought to him from time to time.

Gideon glanced at the woman cowering beside him. When Verah had first brought her to him, she had been robust, her blue eyes bright, her fair skin luminous. Now, she was pale, her eyes sunken and shadowed with fear, her hair stringy and unkempt. The witch brought the woman water once a day, but no food. Why waste sustenance on one who was doomed?

Gideon swore softly. He didn’t want to hurt the woman or deprive her children of their mother, but sooner or later the urge to feed would become uncontrollable, the pain of resisting excruciating. Even now, the frightened pounding of her heart stirred his instinct to hunt. The scent of her blood flowed warm and red in her veins, promising instant relief from the agony that engulfed him.

Sooner or later, he would have to feed, and when he did, he would take it all. Perhaps it would have been more merciful to have killed the woman the first night Verah had brought her to him instead of letting her linger, her dread growing as she waited for him to strike.

In an effort to resist the inevitable, he rested his head on his bent knees and closed his eyes. How long had he been imprisoned in this place? A year? Two? He had lost track of the time. There were no windows in the cellar, no way of knowing whether it was summer or winter. The floor beneath him was always cold.

He closed his mind to the woman sobbing beside him. Women. They had ever been the cause of his troubles, from the mother who had abandoned him when he was thirteen to the treacherous female who had stolen his mortal life and turned him into a monster.

Verah was simply another in a long line of women he had foolishly trusted. Morbidly, he considered the fact that she would most likely be the last.

A deep breath carried the scent of the poor doomed creature who shared his prison. She was destined to die, whether by his hand or Verah’s.

He groaned softly as pain clawed at his vitals. He had spent the last five nights resisting the urge to feed on the woman. Each evening, the agony inside him burned hotter, brighter, like a fire that could not be quenched. His fangs ached, his veins were shriveling, starved for nourishment, for relief. Relief that lay curled up in a tight ball on the far side of the cell. He could feel her watching him surreptitiously, taste her fear as she waited for him to sink his fangs into her throat.

The hunger growling inside urged him to take her, to put an end to the physical torment that racked his body and the mental anguish that tormented the woman.

Muttering, “Forgive me,” he dragged her into his embrace and put both of them out of their misery.





* * *



Chapter 2

Kiya Alissano spoke softly to the frightened dog quivering on the examination table. The Rottweiler stilled immediately, its liquid brown eyes suddenly filled with trust instead of fear.

“I don’t know how you do it, Kay,” Wanda Sandusky said. “I tried to calm that monster down for ten minutes with no success. One word from you, and voilà! She’s practically asleep.”

“I guess I just have a way with animals,” Kay said, scratching the dog’s head. And it was true. From the time she had been a little girl, animals had trusted her—dogs, cats, birds, deer, squirrels, horses, even snakes.They never ran from her, never showed any fear which, all things considered, was pretty strange. It was a definite advantage in her job, though.

“A way? Girl, it’s more like magic.” Wanda glanced at her watch. “Since you don’t need any help in here, I’m going to lunch. I told my mom I’d meet her over at the mall around noon if I could get away.”

Kay nodded. Wanda wasn’t only a co-worker, but her best friend. “Bring me back a Coke, will you?”

“Sure thing,” Wanda called over her shoulder as she closed the door behind her.

Kay stared after her friend, wishing she and her mother shared the kind of relationship that Wanda and her mother had. Wanda went out to lunch with her mother every week or so. They went shopping together and texted back and forth and did a dozen other fun things. Of course, it wasn’t Dorothy’s fault that she and Kay didn’t do fun things together. Her father rarely let her mother leave the compound. It still amazed Kay that he had agreed to let her go away for a year.