29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Josh

F ear. Pain. Blood. So much blood.

Darkness. Endless darkness stretching out forever. I fall into it willingly, hoping it will take me away. Make the pain, and fear, and blood disappear forever.

I am gone. I am no longer me.

But then suddenly I'm back.

The darkness lightening into a fuzzy gray fog. The pain returning. Gnawing at my belly like a pack of trapped rats, burning in my throat like an angry swarm of wasps. Everything hurts. Every fiber of my being is filled with pins and needles. Like a limb that has fallen asleep, only it's my whole body.

And I hunger. I need .

Sounds start to filter in through the haze. Voices, garbled and nonsensical to my overly sensitive ears. Hunger. Pain. Blood.

The scent of blood permeates the air, with every stuttering breath I draw in. But it is old blood. Dead blood.

I need. I need.

Power surrounds me. So much delicious power. And so much thrumming life fills the room. I lunge upright, drawn toward the hum of a familiar aura, and the rush of the powerful blood in his veins. Safety. Sustenance. Home.

My teeth hurt. The man doesn't push me away as I grab him violently, sinking my nails into his skin. Fangs burst from my gums. They sink deep into his warm flesh, stealing his lifeblood. Taking his power inside me. I whine, high-pitched and animalistic. So hungry. Starving. Starving for sustenance. For power. For life. For him. For home.

Magic flares around us, flames that will burn me to ash. Hands tear at me, trying to wrest me from my meal. But there is only the blood rushing hot and powerful over my tongue. Only this. They won't take it from me. The magic washes over me again, settling against my skin this time from the outside. A different magic. Hot. Burning. Compelling me to lift my head. I'm ripped away from my meal.

I thrash, lashing out with tooth and claw. Kicking, and biting, and contorting like a wild cat. But the magic weighs me down, it presses in on me like a grasping fist overpowering my will until I'm held still, kneeling with my arms at my sides, my head bowed as I instinctively gasp for breath I no longer need.

A new scent reaches me, and I struggle again, overwhelmed by it. Delicious and feminine. Familiar as the other. Where is she? I lift my head and the omega is standing nearby, her crystalline blue eyes wide and unseeing, her expression blank except for a small crease between her brows. "He's in pain," she says, her high, clear voice even, and her posture and the tilt of her head carrying the confidence of a queen. "He needs more blood."

"You need to go," another voice commands. This one lower, less tense. "And take Robin with you."

My head pounds. My vision goes black around the edges with each too-slow throb of my heart. These words should mean something to me, but they don't. There is only hunger. Blackness. Hunger. Pain. Hunger.

"Fuck, he needs blood," an unfamiliar voice. But something in me tells me he is like me. Alike, but unalike. A threat to my meal? "The stronger the better," he says over my hissing. "Don't kill him yet."

Don't kill me? I will kill him. Kill them all. I will… no. Kill me. Please kill me. Free me from this hell.

Hunger doubles me over in pain, but the tight grip on my arms keeps me from folding forward around the punch in the gut.

"Sadavir needs to leave," a husky voice says. Too calm. Laced with danger. "Get him and Ruya out of here. If it's strong blood he needs, mine is the strongest in the room."

Arguing ensues. I don't follow it. I follow the sound of that husky voice and the scent of incense I force my eyes to focus, as my vision clears, narrows to one single point. As the tall, willowy woman moves toward me. Graceful. Self-assured. Power radiating from her in waves. "Now then," she says in a soft, but dangerous voice. She's a predator. Like them. Like me. "I'm going to give you a very generous gift." Glowing golden eyes meet mine and I shudder. "Do try to remember this when you're no longer insane, hmm?"

Then a wrist is thrust in front of my face. The skin is pale and smooth, the blood thrums beneath, strong and perfect, calling to me. I expect my captors to hold me back. For this to be another sick joke to fuel the pain. But I sink my fangs in, and another mad whine escapes my throat. Her blood is so rich and powerful. Like the man's had been. But this time, it burns going down. Like molten lava flowing into me, but… pleasant. I could feast for days on this strength.

It's the last thought I have before darkness takes me again.

*****

I woke up with the most absurd thought filling my mind. I know who I am. I am Josh.

I opened my eyes and looked around the room. Then I immediately squeezed my eyes shut tight again. My room at The Fox. My new temporary home. But everything is too bright. Too loud. I have the worst hangover ever… and I don't even remember drinking.

Memories come rushing back. That one thought was all it took to have me sitting up with a lurch, my eyes springing open despite the brightness that assaulted me. I certainly did remember drinking. Just not alcohol.

Sadavir. I bit Sadavir. And… Robin? My memories are choppy and broken. Flashes of events that happened while I was disconnected from myself. When I no longer knew who I was.

"Oh, you're alive." The cool, silky baritone brought me back to myself and I turned to find the pixie-cross staring at me from across the room. He stood from his seat in an old, overstuffed chair and took a few steps closer. "Your snake boy will be overjoyed," he said, his voice flat. But I knew enough of him by now to know that his coldness toward me probably wasn't personal.

"I…" My voice cracked and I held a hand to my throat. Yukio rolled his eyes, grabbed a glass of water from the bedside table, and handed it to me. I drank deeply, then tried again. "I'm alive," I murmured. "I think."

He arched a black brow at me as he took the water glass and set it aside. "By some definition, I suppose. How are you feeling? Bitey, still? I'll call the others. But not until I know you're able to keep your fangs to yourself. You've been a bit… rabid. Especially with Ruya and the Alphas."

I took that all in, then sat with it. How was I feeling? I couldn't even begin to fathom how to answer that. I was a vampire. I thought. And I had apparently attacked my friends. The man I loved.

"Is it real?" I asked stupidly. Then I waved a hand limply to indicate myself. "This isn't just some bad dream? I'm really a… a…?"

"Vampire?" Yukio supplied helpfully. "Leech? Fang-banger? Blood sucker? It sure seems that way."

I sighed, my shoulders sagging. "Of course. Thank you."

His sigh echoed my own. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Why did they make me babysit? I'm terrible at this emotional crap." He looked down his slightly upturned nose at me, his dark blue eyes unflinching. "You're a vampire. But you're not dead. Which is an improvement over a couple hours ago. Suck it up."

I swallowed hard, trying not to start crying, or something equally embarrassing. "Yes, of course."

That earned me another sigh. "Don't fucking cry. I'll go get the others. They are way better at this shit than I am."

"Thank you, Yukio," I whispered. "And thanks for this. For sitting with me. For… trying."

He marched over and grabbed my half-empty water glass and disappeared out the door, muttering something about how the water was warm and it needed ice, and something about tea and rare steak.

I sat alone in my bed, staring down at my hands. They didn't look like the hands of a monster. Someone must have washed me. Last I recalled, I was covered in blood. From Acacia and her guards feasting on me from what felt like a million cuts inflicted with the sorcerer's athame and the vampires' brutal fangs, while I screamed for mercy. From someone forcing my jaws open so the vampire queen could drizzle her blood into my mouth. From attacking Sadavir, and drinking from the dragon alpha who barely tolerated us in her court as it was.

My hands shook. They looked so bland and normal. Human hands with long fingers and square nails. I squinted when I realized that only the oldest of scars remained. The skin on my arms was too pale and just a little too smooth. Not human.

I ran my tongue around my mouth and found the sharp points of my fangs. Putting my hands over my face, I sobbed silently. It was all too much to comprehend. I hated vampires. Loathed Acacia. And now I was one of them. And worse than that… I was hers.

Ah, you're finally sane enough to follow commands, her voice said in my head, like needles poking into my free will, filling my sense of myself with holes. I shuddered. That's right. You belong to me, she purred. You always will. You should have known better than to run away. But you're more useful to me where you are now. And less likely to die or run off again now.

"Fuck you. Get out of my head!" My voice was rough and broken, carrying an edge of panic that I hated.

I knew how vampires worked. I had been a slave who looked after the twisted vampire queen's menagerie long enough to know what was happening. There was no way to undo the damage she had done. Not only was I now a vampire myself, but I was hers, bound more firmly to her as my maker than I ever had been as a human with blood ties.

"What do you want?" I whispered to the empty room. "I won't hurt Sadavir. Or the others." I would kill myself before she could make me do them harm.

Her laughter echoed inside my head, bright and childlike, but full of malice. I've got bigger targets than the mentally impaired snake. You are my messenger, she said smugly. And my spy. And you can't escape me. Power flowed through our cursed bond, and I was unable to stop it as it settled into me. I command you not to kill yourself or in any way endanger our master-servant bond , Acacia's voice whispered in my head, carrying the weight of the magic that corrupted my soul.

I hissed in dismay, felt the weight of the command, the compulsion. As her creation, I wouldn't be able to disobey her commands. I wouldn't be able to find a way out of this nightmare.

Now that's out of the way, let's talk about the terms and conditions of your continued survival—and that of those disgusting unaligned trash you've been living with….