The Billionaire’s Baby(41)

And then the warmth of Nia next to his head was gone, and then everything went black for Ellis.





Chapter Four





When Ellis finally came to consciousness, he was in a dark room where even his most keen vampire eyes struggled briefly to make out his surroundings. The room was small, he could judge that much, and must've been thrown together as a shoddy dark room to keep him safe from the sun's harmful rays.

And he was not alone.

The flash of a braided head ducking away from him alerted him to that fact, and with a complete disregard for the fact that the person was hiding from him, in an instant he ran quickly forward, taking the form into his desperate arms with a relieved cry that cut short almost before it had left his lips.

The girl in his arms was not Nia, as he'd originally thought, it wasn't possible.

Her braid was much too neat, her hair was much too brown, she was much too tall, and when she glanced slowly over her shoulder at him he noticed her eyes were blue and not green – and there were none of Nia's telltale childish freckles.

"Who are you?" The vampire demanded, gripping hard onto her arms to keep her from breaking away, eyes darting around the room for his absent redheaded companion.

The stranger only began to sob softly, making strange squeaking noises that Ellis guessed were her attempts at speaking while she practically choked on her tears.

"M….m….m….my….waaaaaahhhhhhhh-"

Ellis clamped his hand hard over mouth, frustration making his right eyebrow twitch angrily.

"Just say the name for now." He hoped it wouldn't take her another ten minutes just to get that much out.

He needed to find out why she was in with him in the first place. Surely George and the soldiers weren't so stupid that they would put him in a small, boxed in area with only a defenseless girl when he was in need of blood.

Unless that was their plan. Which, he supposed, would explain her incessant crying.

"I see you found your snack." A calm voice called from the corner.

Ellis whirled, not releasing the sniveling girl, eyes landing on the golden pair of George's own, who had slipped in through a side door.

"So it was on purpose, then." The vampire replied.

George simply nodded, staring carefully at his perfect nails.

"Nia…where's the girl?"

"Safe. Unfortunately you're running too low on blood to be of any use to us, so feed up and in an hour or so we'll move you to Nia's location."

Then he slipped lightly through the door behind him without another word, the sound of a lock turning echoing in Ellis's ears.

Ellis silently looked down at the girl who had begun shaking and sobbing once more in his unrelenting arms.

The vampire had no choice. Nia was his goal right now, and if he had to work with George to get to her, then he would do just that.

He hesitated for only the briefest of moments as her braid brushed against his cheek before he bit into her neck, sucking her dry in only a few minutes.

Never before had he so heavily despised a feeding. Ellis did not like to be forced into anything.

Then, in disgust, he threw the limp body away from him, ignoring the lifeless thump her body made against the floorboards as he turned his back to her and walked away to wait at the door.

He could break down the door, he was positive. Running his fingers across the ragged wooden edges of the door, feeling how thin and frail it was, he was tempted to break it just to show off that he could.

So why would he choose instead to wait for an annoying, loudmouth, short, frustrating, potato growing – ah, never mind – he would definitely wait to get her back.

With a smirk that tightened his pale lips into thin, hard lines and made his onyx eyes seem even colder, he leaned back against the wall beside the door. Slowly, he slid down to sit on the ground as his head fall unceremoniously against the wall.

In boredom, he silently began counting the wooden planks in the ceiling as the compacted dirt and mud which had been so unartfully mashed together between the timber pieces sprinkled down onto his face and got into his eyes and made him think only of sweet, cinnamon colored freckles.

It was hours and hours later, Ellis felt, when he finally heard the lock click once again, the door swinging open and bumping up against the vampire's outstretched legs. He stood tiredly, and with a yawn and a slight sweep over his face to remove the dirt, turned to look at George.

George smiled at his dirt smeared face, neither man sparing a glance at the body still laying on the ground in front of them nor paying attention to the red stickiness on the floor that clung to the bottoms of their shoes and made a funny, suction cup noise with each step they took.

"Where are we going?" Ellis asked as they walked slowly from the room to the outdoors, where the vampire could see the faint hinting of light from between the trees.