My body twisted and buckled. Each time I fought my way to my feet, I was immediately brought back down, until I finally succumbed from lack of breath.
Silver satin ballet slippers stepped into my line of vision, splattering mud against my face. “Relax your hold,” the dark-haired witch from the compound whispered quietly. “Your master doesn’t want Celia to die. Yet.”
The whip around my neck loosened enough so I could pass air, but not much. I protruded my claws and cut through the leather strap. I rolled back, only for a second whip to cut off my breathing again the moment I struggled to my knees.
My head spun from lack of oxygen, and tears blurred my vision. The whip loosened once more and my hands were roughly bound behind me. This time I was too breathless and weak to act.
So were my sisters. Mud soaked their clothes, and they bled from their mouths and noses. They must have been squashed by the weight of their bloodlusters. Zhahara had been huge. Four males, all bigger, all hungrier, all deadlier, danced eagerly from side to side, smacking their lips and drooling as they held my sisters like dolls. They couldn’t wait to eat.
Us.
Taran swore under her breath, cringing every time her vamp’s tongue extended near her jaw. Shayna kicked futilely. Emme whimpered and shut her eyes tight. A large contusion swelled across her crown. She’d banged her head. It would take time for her body to heal her and her mind to act. Time we didn’t have.
The witch’s head angled as she regarded me, her coal-colored eyes filling with hatred. More hatred than should have been possible for someone who didn’t know me. “Come, my children,” she said, her voice oddly childlike considering the darkness surrounding her. “Your master is waiting.”
Oh, great. Time to meet Daddy.
I was half dragged through the mud. The infected vamp holding me laughed each time I stumbled to my feet. Each time I rose, I grew stronger. Each time he yanked on his hold, I grew angrier. And each time he laughed, I knew he’d die.
And that I’d be the one to kill him.
Misha’s gut-wrenching screams made my head snap up. So did the currents of power drifting from the threshold of the demolished door. The vamp holding me hissed. “Why isn’t he dead yet?”
Yet?
The vamp tugged me harder through a large kitchen where entranced women bustled at tasks on countertops and busied themselves over simmering pots. Their eyes glazed over from hypnosis. Chunks of skin had knitted over their horribly mauled wrists and necks, perspiration giving their grotesque pallor a sickly glow. These women teetered on the edge of death. Yet the force driving their efforts compelled their frail bodies forward.
Vegetables steamed in pots, rolls baked in the oven, and lamb roasted in the rotisserie. The aroma of food would have sickened me, considering the state of the women who prepared it, yet the scent was barely noticeable over the escalating fragrance of vampiric power and Misha’s tormented bellows.
A tremendous surge of the energy caused the vampires dragging us down the dark wood-paneled corridors to pause. God, it was so strong it pressed like a wall against my chest. I coughed and gagged, desperately trying to draw a full breath as we crossed into another room.
We entered a tremendous antechamber decorated à la Museum of Natural History meets ghetto bizzaro. A chandelier fashioned from dinosaur bones and lit with candles hung from the center of the wood-beamed ceiling, illuminating the virtual gallery of ancient relics. Gaudy furniture made from animal skins and accented with leopard-fur pillows had been pushed out to create space within the two-story-high room. Stuffed animal heads from elephants, bears, wolves, to freaking zebras were fastened to the walls between the tapestries and paintings in thick brass frames. Armored knights encased in giant glass boxes stood on either side of the marble fireplace. It seemed like a stressed-out museum curator had thrown up in here…a demented, cruel, and masochistic curator.
Misha’s four remaining vampires were fastened to the large wooden beams by chains. The hum of the metal told me they’d been reinforced with magic. The witch had too much power. She definitely topped my “needing to die” list.
Misha’s family hissed with rage, fighting against the chains. Tears stained their blood-smeared cheeks. They barely noticed us enter for how badly they hurt for Misha, cringing with each roar from their master’s pain. Their hatred could have singed the pillars. They wanted to spill blood, and, as the bloodlusters watching the show parted like a curtain, I very much wanted to give them the opportunity.
All I could see was the vampire’s bare, muscular back as his arm sliced across Misha’s chest with a cursed gold dagger. But his crew-cut blond hair gave him away.