Opening Chapter of Alpha Menz

By popular request from people who haven’t read it.

About this same time last year I was really struggling with the Kate 3, and I was stressed out to my limit.   This is the result of that stress.  Read at your own risk.

1

Karina took a deep breath.  “Jacob, do not hit Emily again.  Emily, let go off his hair.  Don’t make me stop this car!”

“Mom, he started it!”

“I don’t care who started it.  If you don’t be quiet right now, things will happen!”

“What things?” Melissa whined.

“Horrible things.”

The five six year olds quieted in the back of the van, trying to figure out what “horrible things” meant.  The quiet wouldn’t last.  Karina drove on.  The next time Jill called to ask her if she would chaperone a gaggle of first graders to help out with the school field trip, she would claim to have bubonic plague instead.

The trip itself wasn’t that awful.  The sun shone bright, and the drive down to the old timie village was down right pleasant.  But now, after the day of hay rides and watching butter being churned and iron nails being hammered, the kids were tired and cranky.  They’ve been on the road for twenty minutes and the lot of them had already engaged in a World War III scale conflict three times.  She imagined the other parents didn’t fare any better.  As the six cars made their way down the rural road, Karina could almost hear the whining emanating from the vehicles ahead of her.

They should have just gotten a school bus.  But Jill had panicked half of the parents over the bus not having seat belts.

Her cell beeped.  Karina pushed the button on her handless set.  “Yes?”

“How are you holding up?” Jill’s voice chirped.

“Peachy.”  Even with hands off, Karina disliked talking on the cell while driving.  Especially while driving five children.  “You?”

“I need to go potty!” Jacob announced.

“Robert called Savannah a B word.  Other than that we’re good,” Jill reported.

“I really need to go.  Or I’ll poop in my pants.  And then there’ll be a big stain…”

“Listen, Jacob needs to go potty.”  She caught sight of a dark blue sign rising above the trees.  “I’m going to pull over at the motel ahead of you.”

“What motel?”

“The one on the left.  With the big blue sign, says Motel Sunrise?”

“Where?”  Jill’s voice came through tinted with static.  “I don’t see it.”

“I don’t see a motel,” Megan reported.

“I see the big blue sign,” Emily said.

“Well, I don’t see it,” Jacob declared.

“That’s because you’re a dufus,” Emily said.

The exit appeared on her left.  Karina angled the car into it.  “I’m taking this exit,” she said to the cell phone.  “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

“What exit?  Karina, where are you?  You were right there and now you’re gone.  I don’t see you in my rear view mirror…”

“That’s because I took the exit.”

“What exit?”

Oh for the love of God.  “I’ll talk to you later.”

The paved road brought them to a blocky two story building.  Built so simply it looked crude, the building was covered with dark grey stucco.  Only one car, an old Jeep, sat in the parking lot.

Karina pulled up before the entrance and hesitated.  The motel looked like some sort of institutional building, a prison or an office.   It certainly didn’t look inviting.

“Now I see it,” Megan said.

Karina shook her head.  Something about the building just didn’t sit right with her.  It radiated an odd, almost menacing air.

“I have to go!” Jacob announced and farted.

Karina jumped out of the van and slid the door open.  “Out.”

Fifteen seconds later, she herded them inside a small lobby.  The woman behind the counter looked as odd as the hotel: skeletally thin, with long red hair dripping down past her shoulders.  Karina glanced at her face and almost marched back out.  The woman had eyes like a rattlesnake, no compassion, no kindness, no anger.  Nothing at all.

“I’m sorry,” Karina said.  “Could we please use your facilities?  The little boy needs to go to the bathroom.”

The woman nodded to the door on her right.  Charming.  That’s okay.  They just needed to get in and out.  “Thank you!  Come on, kids.”

She led them inside the hotel, glanced around and an older man blocking the hallway to the left.  Heavily muscled, with a face like a bulldog, he’d planted himself, as if he were about to be overrun by rioters.  His eyes watched her with open malice.  The kids sensed it too and clustered around her.   Karina didn’t blame them.

“Hi!” she said, ushering Jacob into the bathroom.

The man said nothing.

Minutes ticked off, long and viscous.  The man hadn’t moved.  The kids kept quiet under his scrutiny, like tiny rabbits sensing a predator.

Karina knocked on the door gently.  “Come on, Jacob.  Let other kids have a turn.”

“Almost done.”

Karina waited.  The man kept staring at her.  Gradually his face took on a new expression.  Instead of staring her down, he was now studying her as if she were some odd object.  That was even more disturbing.  Karina fought a shiver.

“Jacob, we need to go.”

She heard the toilet flush.  Finally.

Jacob emerged from the bathroom.  “I washed my hands,” he informed her.  “Do you want to smell them?”

“No.  Does anybody else need to go?”

They shook their heads.  Emily hugged her leg.  “I want to go home, mom.”

“Excellent idea.”  Karina led them down the hallway.

The man took a step to the left, blocking the doorway.

“Thank you for letting us use the bathroom,” Karina said.  “We’ll be on our way now.”

The man leaned forward.  His nostrils fluttered.  He sucked in the air through his nose and his face split in a grin.  He didn’t smile.  He showed her his teeth.  They were abnormally large and sharp, triangular like shark teeth and definitely not human.

Ice skittered down Karina’s spine.

The man took a step forward.  “You ssshmel like a donor.”  His teeth took up so much space in his mouth, he slurred the words.

Karina backed away, herding the kids with her hands.  She wished she had a can of mace or a gun, some weapon in her purse other than Kleenex, pocketbook and cell phone.  “Let us out.”

The man advanced.  “Rishe!  The woman ishh a donor.”

“Help!” Karina screamed.  “Help!”

“No help,” he assured her.

The kids began to cry.

Maybe this is a nightmare, flashed in her head.  Maybe she was dreaming.

“Mom?” Emily clutched at her.

Dream or not, Karina couldn’t let him get a hold of her or the kids.  She kept backing away to the door behind her, with the stairway sticker on it.

“Let us go!”

He kept coming.  “Rishe!  Where are you?”

The wooden wall on their right exploded.  Shards peppered the hallway, knocking the man back.  Stunned, Karina stared through the gap into the lobby of the hotel.  The red-headed woman jumped over the counter and ran at her, her face twisted into a grotesque mask.  The skin on her neck bulged, rolling up, as if a tennis ball slid up her neck into her mouth.  She spat.  Karina saw a flicker of something dark.  Pain stung her side.  She glanced down and saw a long thin needle, like the quill of a porcupine, sprouting from her stomach.  She ripped it out.

Something hit the woman from behind, arresting her in mid step.  Her mouth gaped in a terrified silent scream.  Huge claws clutched her neck and twisted her head off.  The body fell and beyond it Karina glimpsed a thing.  Huge, dark, inhuman, it stared back at her with malevolent eyes, its very existence so at odds with everything Karina knew, that her mind simply refused to believe it was real.

An odd odor reached Karina, like copper warmed by the sun.  The thing stepped over the woman, its gaze fixed on her.

“Run!”  Karina turned on her foot and dashed down the hallway, herding the children before her.

The man with shark teeth rose slowly, pulled a wooden shard out of his eye, tossed it aside, and with a deep below charged into the lobby through the gap in the wall.

A snarl answered him, a promise of pain and death.  It whipped Karina into frenzy.  She swiped the smallest child off the floor and ran faster to the heavy door barring the stairs.  She jerked it open.  “Up the stairs, go, go!”

They ran, whimpering and sobbing.  They should’ve been screaming but the same terrible fear that drove her chased them up the stairs.  Instinctually they knew that to stop was to die.

Karina slammed the door closed, looked for something to bar it, but the stairway was empty. Her side burned, the pain spreading up and down as if her skin caught on fire.  She ran after the kids.  The boy in her arms was stone-heavy. They reached the top of the staircase and crowded on the landing.

Below something clanged.  Here it was again, the scent of hot metal burning her.

Karina wrenched the door open.  They burst into the upstairs hallway.  She scanned rows of doors, hit the nearest one, but it was locked.

Another  – locked too.

Third – locked.

This is a nightmare.  It has to be a nightmare.

A vicious snarl chased them.  Emily screamed, a high pitched shriek that could’ve broken glass.   Karina grabbed her by the hand and dragged her down the hall, to the single window.   “Follow me!”

Karina grasped the window latch and jerked it up.  The effort made her head swim.  She stumbled, caught herself on the window sill, and forced the frame up.

The air about her had grown scalding-hot.

Door thumped.  Kids screamed, and she knew the terrible dark beast had made it into the hallway.

She grabbed the nearest kid and hurled him onto the fire escape, then the next, and the next.  Little feet thudded, running down the metal stairs.  Emily was last.  Karina clutched her daughter to her and climbed out on the stairs.

A black van waited below.  Several men stood by the van.  They had the children.  They stood there silently, watching her, while the children screamed, and suddenly she knew that they and the beast inside were allies.

A growl washed over her.

The world gained crystal clarity, everything painfully vivid and sharp.  Slowly Karina turned.  Her daughter hugged her, her breath a tiny warm cloud on her neck.  The metal rail of the fire escape dug into Karina’s back.  The thudding of her heart sounded so loud, like a sledge hammer.  Each breath was a gift.

She saw the thing emerge from the darkness.  Slow, it solidified from the gloom, one gargantuan paw on the windowsill, then another.  Enormous claws scratched the wood.  It climbed onto the windowsill and perched there, a mere foot from her.  She stared into its eyes, inhaled its scent, and knew with absolute certainty that she was going to die.

The thing opened its maw, revealing huge fangs.  Its deep voice issued forth in a single mangled word.  “Donor.”

“Are you sure?” asked a male voice from below.

The beast snarled.  Karina snapped back, shielding Emily with her hands.  Her legs gave out and she fell to her knees.

“My lady?” said the voice from below.

A man climbed the stairs toward her.  His face was preternaturally beautiful.  “I have a proposition for you, my lady…”

His voice faded, replaced by gloom and feel of cotton against her body.

I agree.

Karina raised her hand, sat up…  A bed.  A nightmare.  That is all.

Her heart thudded in her chest.  She rubbed her face and her hands came away slick with cold moisture.

I agree.  I agree to what? What did she agree to in her dream?

Karina frowned and pushed free of the blankets.  She felt a strange sense of wrongness, as if there was something very important she was missing.  Something vital.  A small lamp waited on the table next to the bed.  She flicked it on and a cone of soft electric light illuminated the room.

The bedroom wasn’t hers.

#

Karina sank onto the bed.  “Emily?” she whispered.  “Emily?”

No answer.

She was alone in a strange bedroom.

There could be a rational explanation for this.  There had to be.  She just didn’t know what it was.

I agree. An echo of her voice from the dream.  She had a terrible suspicion the bedroom and those two words were connected.

Her clothes were gone.  She wore underwear and a thin white tanktop.

A pair of carefully folded sweatpants lay on a chair next to the bed.  Karina pulled them on.  She had to find Emily.

The door swung open with ease and she found herself in a hallway.  To her right, a pool of electric light colored the wooden floor and the rug.  Quiet voices carried on a soft discussion.

She followed the light and stepped into a kitchen, blinking against the bright glow.  Three men sat at the round table in the center.  They turned to look at her.  The one sitting farthest from her wore the beautiful face of the man from her dream.  His name surfaced from the depths of her memory.  “Arthur.”

I agree.

Arthur nodded to her.  “Ah.  You’re up.  Why don’t you sit down with us?  Henry, please get a chair for Lady Karina.”  His soft intimate voice caressed her almost like a touch.

A tall man with a shy smile rose and held a chair out for her.  So oddly domestic, all three drinking tea.  Nobody startled by her appearance.  Clearly she was expected.

Karina sat.  “Thank you.”  The automatic response rolled from her lips before she even realized it.

“You’re welcome.” Arthur said.  He leaned back with a quiet elegance, artfully posed without putting any effort into it.  His hair was soft, black, and brushed back from his perfectly sculpted face.  His eyebrows were equally black and so were his eyelashes, long and soft like velvet.  They framed big eyes, crystalline blue, distant, and gentle. Angelic, she thought.  He looked like an angel, not the plump cherub, but an angel who roamed freely in the sky, possessed of heart-wrenching beauty and terrible power, staring into the bottomless sky for so long that his eyes had absorbed its color.  He was mesmerizing.

“Would you like some tea?” he asked.

“Children…?”  Emily, she wanted to ask.  But her instincts warned her to keep the name of her child to herself.

“Safe,” he said and she believed sincerity of his words even though she had no reason to do so.

He rose, took a small blue mug from the shelf behind him, and poured steaming tea into it from a large kettle on the stove.  He set the cup in front of her.  “Please drink.  It will steady your nerves.”

She looked at the cup.

He drank from his own cup and smiled in encouragement.

She picked up the cup and took a sip.  Green tea.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She looked about the table.  The man who had offered her the chair, Henry, sat to her right.  He was tall and whiplash lean.  His face, serious with somber intelligence, lacked Arthur’s magnetism, but its sharp angles drew her all the same.  His tawny hair was short and cut close to the scalp, but still showed a trace of a curl.  His green eyes regarded her and she read pity in their depths.

The man on her left was model pretty.  Strong masculine jaw, deep, dark blue eyes, high cheekbones, a mane of golden wavy hair dripping down to below his waist, hiding half of his face…  His eyes flashed with wild humor.  He gave her a wink, grinned, exposing even white teeth, and tossed his hair back.  An ugly scar ripped his left cheek, almost as if something had taken a bite and his flesh didn’t heal right.  She fought an urge to look away.  He reached for her hand…

“Daniel,” Arthur’s voice gained a slight edge.  “That’s extremely unwise.”

“Just because she didn’t scream, when she saw your face doesn’t mean you get to touch.”  Henry refilled his cup.

“Please forgive Daniel.  He doesn’t mean to be rude.  He’s just forbidden to speak for the time being.  Your tea is getting cold,” Arthur said.

“He tends to cause problems when he speaks,” Henry said.

Daniel gave her a smoldering smile.

She faced Arthur.  “What did I agree to?”

Arthur sighed.  “I see.”

Henry leaned forward.  “Perhaps we should mend this.”

“Yes.  The sooner, the better.  Lucas might return and that would make things considerably more complicated.”

Daniel laughed softly.  If wolves could laugh, they would sound just like him.

Henry held out his hand.  “It’s easier if you hold on to me.”

Karina hesitated.

“You do want to remember, don’t you?” Arthur asked.

She put her hand into Henry’s.  Long warm fingers closed about hers.  The world tore in two and she was back on the landing, cradling Emily.  Her whole body burned with terrible ache.

Arthur leaned his head to the side, looked at them for a moment, and plucked Emily from her arms.

“No!”  Karina struggled to hold on, but her hands lost all strength.

Emily didn’t kick.  Didn’t scream.  Her face was completely blank.  Arthur turned and handed her to someone behind him on the stairs.

“My daughter!” Karina tried to crawl after her but her body refused to obey.

Arthur touched the hem of her black top and edged it upward.  His fingers touched her stomach.  Pain pierced her and she cried out.

“Ah.  Now see, this is not good.”  Arthur shook his head mournfully.  “All of this must seem terribly confusing to you and our time is short, so I will keep the explanations simple.  This is the house where monsters live.  We are the killers of monsters.  I suppose that makes us also monsters simply by necessity.  I don’t know why you’re here.  It’s probably a pure coincidence.  An unlucky roll of the dice.  You and your children were caught in the crossfire.  One of the monsters poisoned you with her throat dart.  The wound is fatal. You’re dying.”

Fear shot down her spine.  She didn’t think she could have gotten more scared, but his tone, that patient, pleasant, even tone, as if he were discussing lunch, made her tremble.  The beast had paralyzed her body with fear, the poison crippled it with pain, but this man had shackled her mind.  It’s real, she realized.  It’s happening.  It’s happening to me right now. God, please let Emily be okay.  Please.  I’ll do anything.

“I can smell your fear,” Arthur said.  “It rolls off your skin.  A better man would feel discomfort at your pain.  But I’m not a good man.  I feel nothing for you.  We rarely have to deal with innocent bystanders and when we do, we strive to send them back unharmed, not out of some altruistic impulse, but because we dislike attention.  If you hadn’t been injured, Henry here would wipe your memory and the six of you would be merrily on your way.  As is, however, you will be dead in the next thirty minutes.”

The words refused to leave her mouth.   Karina strained and forced them out.  “Why are you talking to me?”

His ice-cold smile made her heart jump.  “I’m talking because I’m about to offer you a deal.  You have something we want, my lady.  Your body has a genetic predisposition to producing certain chemicals one of us desperately needs.  Your genotype isn’t unique but rare enough to make you valuable.  That’s why you found this place and that’s why the yadovita took the time to poison you instead of fighting for her life.  Listen carefully, my lady, because I won’t repeat myself.”

She stared at him, committing each word to memory.

“The creature behind you requires your blood.  He will feed on you.  His venom will counteract the poison that’s killing your body.  In return, he will consume antibodies your body will produce.  You will give yourself to the house of Daryon.  You will let the beast feed on you.  You will live in the quarters of our choosing.  You can never leave.  You can have no contact with the outside world. For that we will spare your life and the lives of the children.”

The thing on the windowsill let out a low whine in anticipation.  That…  That would feed on her.  Forever..  Oh dear God.  I can’t do it…  I can’t…

Arthur leaned forward, his face showing no emotion beyond the pleasant, calm composure.  “Think carefully before you answer.  I don’t offer this deal to you because I like you or because I’m moved by some noble emotion.  I do it because we need you.  What I propose won’t be pleasant for you.  You won’t enjoy it.  In fact, many would say you’re better off dying now.”

Fog gathered on the edge of her mind, threatening to smother her.  Karina clawed on to reality, trying to remain conscious.

“My daughter…”

The beast growled on the window sill.

“He guarantees her safety,” Arthur said.

“The children…will be returned to their families?”

“Yes.”

“I agree.”

A gentle hand seized her mind and pulled her through time and space to the reality of the round table and hot tea mug in her hand.  She looked at Arthur.

“Emily?”

He smiled, a flat curving of lips without any emotion.  “She’s at the main house for the time being.”

A door banged.  Footsteps echoed through the house and a man walked into the kitchen.  Tall, corded with muscle that bulged his T-shirt, he dwarfed the doorway.  He gave an impression of coiled power, a whirlwind of violence, locked into a shell of a body and barely contained.  Dark blond hair fell on his face in long strands.  It was a hard, aggressive face of a man who killed for the living.   His eyes glanced at her: an odd shade of hazel, almost green.  She met his gaze and froze.  Like staring into the eyes of a tiger.  Death.   The stare promised death.

The recognition sparked in the hazel irises and flared into rage.

He lunged forward, inhumanly quick and hit the table with his palm.  She jerked back.

“Get your hands off of her!”  His voice rippled with a snarl.

Henry raised his hands in the air.  The man grasped the chair, Henry still on it, and tossed it aside.  Steel fingers locked on her elbow and pulled her up.  He swiped her off the floor with ridiculous ease, locking her in the crook of his arm, and snapped like a rabid dog.  “Mine!”

“We have no intention of taking her from you.”  Arthur sipped his tea.

“Don’t any of you fuckers touch her!”

She flailed in his arms, trying to break free, but it was like trying to push back a semi.

“You must forgive Lucas,” Arthur told her.  “He tends to be overprotective of his food.”

A familiar scent of heated metal invaded her nostrils.  Panic squirmed through her.  She fought harder, but her feet kicked only air.  He carried her away out of the kitchen back to the bedroom where she had awakened.

Chapter 2

Arthur refilled his cup.  So soft.  Alive.  Alluring.  What an enticing woman.  Her reactions had been muted, a post-effect of being put under, but he realized she wouldn’t stay so placid.   Perhaps, it would behoove Henry to keep her calm.  But then again, Lucas would view that as an infringement on his property, and he had no desire to infuriate Lucas.  The man was difficult to steer in his rage.

Beasts of Daryon tended to bond with their donors, driven by the simple physiological need to guard the key to their own survival.  Given a choice, Arthur would have preferred Lucas’s donor to be a middle aged, overweight deaf mute male.  Failing that, he would have settled a submissive older woman.  Instead, there was Karina.  She demonstrated willingness to physically defend others without regard for her own wellbeing.  Strength, in all incarnations, was a quality Lucas actively sought in his relationships.  Of course, Lucas would want her.  No force on earth, not even his command, would compel him to give her up now.

She could still die.  Arthur hoped that wouldn’t be the case.  Donors were too rare to be freely available and his schedule was rather full at the moment.  Finding her was a truly fortunate coincidence.

“What do you want me to do about the child?” Henry murmured.

He’d ordered Henry to wipe the child.  She was brought to school with the rest of the children.  He’d reasoned that the child’s father or her grandparents would be preferable to the life in Daryon household.  He felt Karina would see the wisdom of it, once she encountered Lucas.

Unfortunately, the child had no family aside from her mother, and he realized now Karina wouldn’t let her go.  An unfortunate oversight on their part.  It had to be corrected.

Arthur drank his tea.  “Daniel.  Retrieve the child and bring her to the main house unharmed.  Do this, and I will let you talk.”

Daniel grinned, pushed the chair out, and strode from the room.

“Is it wise?” Henry wondered.

Arthur sighed and sipped his tea.  “Are you questioning my judgment, Henry?”

Henry looked into his cup.

#

Lucas dropped her on the bed and went to lock the door.  “Stay away from Arthur.  He’s a sick fuck.”

He turned and strode toward her, enormous, overwhelming by his sheer size.  She shrunk back until her spine hit wall.

He looked her over, a long lingering stare that made her want to cover herself, frowned, and ducked into a door on the left.  Water gushed.  Lucas reappeared with a tall glass of water and handed it to her.  “Drink this.  It will help.”

She drank.

He sat on a chair across from her and pulled off his socks.  Only now she noticed that he didn’t wear any shoes.  He balled the socks into a clump and tossed them into the room from which he’d brought the water.  He rose, shrugging off his T-shirt.   Breath caught in Karina’s throat.  His legs were long, his waist narrow in comparison to his vast shoulders.  His lines were almost perfect.  As he squared his shoulders, muscles rolled under his skin, forming hard ridges.  He didn’t move, he stalked and prowled, like a huge predatory animal, menace cascading from him in waves together with the hot metallic scent.

Her memory thrust Jonathan before her.  Her husband had been handsome and well built, an average-sized man.  Lucas could’ve snapped him in a half and wouldn’t have given it a second thought.  He’d just toss the broken body aside and continue on his merry way.  She had no chance.  In a physical fight, Lucas would break her.

“Drink,” he said.

She forced some water down.  Her throat had gone dry and she drank more.

Instantly Lucas gathered himself.  His gaze fixed on the door.  His body tensed, his expression alert.  His feet gripped the bare floor boards, his legs bent lightly, ready to launch him into a leap.  Muscles bunched and knotted across his shoulders and back.  His arms lifted slightly, spread wide, fingers of his big hands apart, like talons, ready to clench and crush.  His eyes ignited with a hot hungry fire.  Poised like this, he was barely human.

Someone’s knuckles rapped on the door.

“What?” Lucas growled.

“Do you want the sedative?” Henry’s voice asked.

Lucas glanced at her.  “Do you want to be drugged?

“No.”

“You heard her.”

Footsteps retreated.  Lucas eased, relaxing slowly, muscle by muscle.  He glanced at her with his light eyes and she shrank from his gaze.

“How much did they tell you?” he asked.

“I know what I agreed to.”  She hesitated.  “Are you…?”

“I am.”

She tired to reconcile the beast and the man, and couldn’t.  That dark grotesque creature was huge, twice as big as Lucas.  A horrible meld of ape, dog, bear – Karina struggled for a comparison, a point of reference, and could find none.  Her memory was fuzzy.  She remembered fangs and baleful eyes, and massive shoulders sheathed in dark fur.  How was it possible?  Her mind refused to admit that thing existed.  But her body felt Lucas near and knew the beast was real.

“Are you a vampire?” she asked.

“No.”

“What are you?”

He sighed.  “I’m a mongrel.  Beast of Daryon.  I’m just me, I don’t have a myth or a legend or some cute explanation.”  He took her half empty glass and went to top it off.  “I don’t actually need your blood to sustain me.  I require the antibodies your body produces.”

“Antibodies to what?”

“My venom.”

He handed her the full glass, rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and held the palm to her face.  The odor of hot metal hit her nostrils and she drew back.

“That smell means I’m hungry.”

He was too close.  The cup trembled in her fingers.  God, she was scared.  It took all of her will not to scream and run.  “Will it hurt?”

“Yes.  It’s not like vampire movies, where the vampire bites the woman, she moans softly and comes all over herself.  No rapture.  No climax.  Just me chewing on you.”

He took her by the chin, lifting her face, peered into her eyes, and leaned forward.  She tried to scramble away, but he grasped her shoulder, keeping her still.  His lips touched her forehead.  “Fever.”  He grimaced.  “Your eyes are still bloodshot.”

His presence pressed on her like a physical burden.  Karina closed her eyes.   She sat there, world shut out, and pretended that everything would be okay even if every instinct assured her it wouldn’t.  She had to survive and adapt.  She had to do whatever was necessary to get her daughter back.

When she opened her eyelids, he waited for her with a synthetic cord in his hands.  She hadn’t heard him move.

“To keep you still.”  He moved toward her, uncoiling the cord.

No.  Laying there tied up and completely helpless, while he drank her blood would be too much.  “That’s okay,” she said quickly.  “I won’t change my mind.”

He kept coming.

“I won’t change my mind.”  Desperation put steel into her voice.  “I’ve agreed to this to save my daughter.  They’ll let me see her after you feed.  I won’t run or fight.”

He halted.

“Arthur said I would stay here for as long as I live.  That means you have to feed frequently.  Might as well start it right.”

Lucas gripped the rope.  His biceps flexed, writhed under his skin like a living thing.  He snapped the rope apart.  She winced.  “If you’re trying to intimidate me, it’s too late.  I’m already as scared as I can get.”

“I’m not trying to scare you.”  He rolled the section of the rope into a tight wad, wrapped the end about it several times, tied it, and dropped it in her lap.  “To bite down.  In case it gets too rough.”

He sat next to her.  “Arthur isn’t in charge of your daughter.  I am.  I guaranteed her safety.  Both of you belong to me.”

He leaned to look into her face.  She expected rage, hunger, some violent emotion, but instead she saw only steady calm.

“I promise you that no matter what happens between you and I, your daughter will be safe.  I will never use her against you.  Everyone is afraid of me, and she will never be bullied or mistreated.”

She stared at him in surprise.

“You wanted to start this right,” he said.  “We can do that.  Let’s be honest.   I exist for one purpose only: to protect the House of Daryon by killing our enemies.  I’m a predator and my body knows that you’re my prey.  Your fear is exciting.  Try not to be so scared.  Don’t struggle.  The more you flail about and whimper, the more excited I’ll get.  If you get me excited enough, I’ll chew up your veins, and be fucking you in a puddle of blood.  I take it you don’t want that.”

“No.”

“Then stay calm.”  He nodded at cord in her lap.  “You sure you don’t want to be tied?”

“Yes.”

He stretched out on the bed, took her by the waist and pulled her down, flush against him.  They lay side by side, her butt pressed against his groin, her back tight against his chest.  Like two lovers.  Jonathan and she used to lay like this after sex.  The perversity of it made her shiver.

“Lay still.”  His arms pulled her tighter to him.   The hard shaft of his erection dug into her butt.  She tried to edge away from it.

“Don’t worry.  I can’t help it, but I won’t molest you.  Unless you keep rubbing your ass against me.”

She stopped moving.  The odor was overpowering now.  She cleared her throat.  “I feel lightheaded.”

“You’re breathing in my scent.  Your body’s reacting.  It will speed things up.”

That explained the shirt coming off.  “Do I need to do anything?”

“Just lay there and endure.  Your body needs my venom.  I’ve bitten you already to kill the poison, but you got just enough to keep you alive.  You’ll need more before all of the poison is gone.”

She brushed her hair from her neck, exposing skin.  No point in drawing this out.

A low laugh answered her.  He spoke into her ear, his voice a warm touch on her skin.  “You ever watch hockey?”

“No.”

“There was a goalie on the Buffalo Sabers team.  Clint Malarchuk.  Steve Tuttle was trying to score a goal, and as he charged at the crease, a defenseman grabbed him from behind and swung him up.  Tuttle’s skate caught Malarchuk’s neck.  A shallow cut, only severed the exterior jugular.  Blood sprayed on the ice.  In seconds the entire crease was red.”

For some reason she couldn’t understand, his quiet voice steadied her nerves.  “Did he survive?”

“He did.  Had the skate cut a bit deeper, he would’ve been dead in two minutes.”  He gathered her even tighter against himself.  “The neck nuzzling is fun, but the pressure within jugular would expel blood so quickly, I’d kill you.  It’s hard to get a donor.”  His finger traced an outline on the vein on her neck, sending electric shivers along her skin.  She wished he hadn’t done that.

“If not the neck, where then?”

“The arm works well.”

“Can you… get on with it?”

“Not yet.  The longer we wait, the less painful it will be for you.”

His body was hot against hers, his heat seeping into her.  His scent enveloped her completely now.  Her head spun.

“That’s it,” he prompted.  “Go limp.  It’s easier on both of us that way.”

“I’m scared,” she told him.

“I’m sorry.”  The undercurrent of violence that laced everything he said muted a hair.

“What will happen after you feed?”

“You’ll pass out.  It’s like giving blood except faster and messier.  Your body will go into shock from my venom.  If you survive, you’ll get used to feedings.”

“I might die?”

“Yes.”

“This just gets better and better.”

“Life’s a bitch.”

The room crawled.  “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“If this is your dream, you’re seriously fucked up.”

“Who are you…  all of you?”

“You ask too many questions.”

He pulled away from her, turned her arm to him and bit into the soft flesh just above the elbow.  Pain laced her.  Her body tensed in response, but he had clamped her down and she could barely breathe.

It hurt.  It hurt and hurt, but worse than pain was the awful sensation of gnawing teeth and the prickly heat squirming its way up her arm.  It spread into her shoulder and fanned, claiming her body.  She wanted to break free, to get away, but Lucas held her tight.

Karina let herself sink into the pain.   Gradually it eased into a steady ache.  Her limbs relaxed.  She tried to think of something else, anything else, of Emily, of Jonathan, of being far away in a different place.   But the reality refused to recede.  And so she lay there and waited it out, her entire body humming with a distinct unusual pain, until her dizziness blotted out the world and she slipped under.

#

Lucas nuzzled her thin neck.  Feverish.  Not too bad.  She was healthy.  And clean.   The blood work from the main house showed no abnormalities aside from poison.

She just lay there and let him feed.

It was never like this.  Milder had to be sedated for the feeding.  After him, there was Galatea.  He had to tie her up.   Every time.  She had resented her role, loathed being restrained, despised him, and yet pulled him into her bed and when they fucked, she drained him so completely, he felt blissfully empty, as if he had poured not only his seed, but his pain into her.  She took it all, reveled in it, enjoying the power she wielded over him.  He wasn’t a fool.   He knew she was driven by revenge, but he came back to her, again and again, an idiot thirsty for a poisoned spring.

And now he had Karina.

A soothing cold spread through his veins, melting the needles of pain that prickled him in the aftermath of the transformation.  Funny.  He had survived for four years on injections, shooting himself up every couple of days, but the synthetic antibodies never failed to soothe the ache.  They dulled it, but it still gnawed on him, until he became convinced it would grind him down to nothing.  Her body barely had a chance to develop any antibodies, yet even this tiny dose brought relief.  He had forgotten what it was like not to hurt.

Lucas breathed in her scent.  The memory of the chase through the ravager motel danced through his mind.  He wanted to chase her again.  He felt drunk.

Lucas slipped the narrow strap of the tanktop off Karina’s shoulder, baring her left breast.  Bigger, fuller, softer than he had expected.  He slid his palm over the mound, brushed the nipple with his thumb.  Her body tightened in response, the nipple erect against his fingers.

He slid his fingers under the waistband of her sweatpants, pulled it up, and looked at the triangle of her white underwear.  His cock ached.  He wanted to mount her and thrust it into her.

So what was stopping him?

He slid his hand up, to her slightly rounded stomach, stroking her gently, trying to puzzle it out.  Had he tied her up, he would’ve fucked her by now, of that he was certain.

Trust, he realized.  She held up her part of the deal.  It had cost her.   She cried toward the end, once her grip on her consciousness slipped.   Silent tears that left wet tracks on her cheeks.  That arm would be sore as hell tomorrow.  Provided the fever didn’t rise, the poison didn’t kill her, and there was a tomorrow in her future.  He wanted her to live, but there was nothing he could do to help her.

The feeding had cost her, but she lay there and let him do his thing, as she had promised, and she expected him to hold up his end of the bargain.  And the bargain didn’t include the fucking rights.  She made that crystal clear.

He tugged her tanktop in its place, covering her up, and pulled her to him, sliding his arm over her.  She was his.  She would take away his pain and he would guard her in return.  He had to keep the bargain.