Page 36 of Auctioned Virginity
“You’ve caused us quite a bit of trouble. First cutting off our blood supply, and second, stealing our creature. Either one of these would be a death sentence, but both? Well, we might need to get creative. Death, I think, is too easy.”
I avoided glancing at Jaz. She couldn’t help me. At least not yet. Katsuro was out of the picture, and I had no idea if the others would find me in time to save me. I had to save myself, because I could well imagine what sorts of things this man might have in mind for me, and none of them were good. If it came down to it, I’d make him kill me, but I hoped my magic and my friends would come through in time.
The vampire stalked toward me. I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. Their endless depths promised pain, and worse, but they held me, and I was unable to look away. Something whispered in the back of my mind, telling me it wouldn’t be so bad to submit, but a greater part of me screamed a warning.
“On your knees, bitch,” the vampire whispered in his smooth, oily voice.
An apple tree sprouted between me and the vampire’s deadly gaze. I focused on it, forcing it to grow, to spread, to save me from this creature.
With a shout of rage, I jerked myself away from the vampire.
He snarled and his fist lashed out, catching me across the jaw and sending me tumbling backward over the couch.
My neck ached from the whiplash motion, but at least he hadn’t broken my neck.
“I suppose we’ll have to have other sorts of fun together.” He’d regained his composure, and I managed to get back to my feet in time to see Drake whisper something to the vampire.
They turned and left without another word. I glanced around but Jaz was gone, too, leaving me alone with an unconscious Katsuro and Nimbus.
I had to save Nimbus, no matter what, so instead of curling into a ball and crying like I wanted to, I sat on the floor and focused on apples.
The sharp pain of my hair being yanked on jerked me out of my meditation. I snapped my eyes open but didn’t fight back. The same man was holding me, and he didn’t look happy about it.
Before I could change my mind, he twisted my arm up behind my back.
“Just watch. The master wants to play with one of his new toys.”
“How very Renfield,” I muttered under my breath.
Either he didn’t hear, or he ignored the comment.
The same vampire as before sauntered into the room, the oily grin on his face as he surveyed us. Me, basically helpless in his servant’s grasp, Katsuro unconscious on the floor, and Nimbus trapped in that awful cage.
“You almost made it, too,” the vampire said. “He almost escaped with his magic, but we were just in time. These things are too dangerous to leave wild and on their own. There’s no telling what mischief they would get up to.” He waved at Nimbus.
While I hadn’t exactly avoided looking at my poor cloud puppy, I hadn’t spent any great time viewing his prison. I knew it would take magic to free him, so I’d focused on that.
I was forced to look now. As before, he seemed peaceful, but that golden leash attached to his collar, that thing, was evil regardless of how pretty it was. That was the thing I needed to destroy. If I could get that, Nimbus would be able to escape the cage, regardless of how clever it was. I suspected it was more to keep people from stealing the nimbus than it was to prevent him from escaping.
How he’d gotten away all those weeks ago with a leash still attached, I might never know.
The apples on my mental apple tree hadn’t fully ripened yet, but we were out of time. I found the threads of magic that bound Nimbus and started picking at them.
The vampire turned toward the cloud puppy and took a step closer. I guessed it was that toy he wanted to play with.
I needed to distract him. I didn’t want anything to happen to Nimbus, and we needed to get him away.
“You know, it’s polite to introduce yourself when you’re torturing someone.”
“Is it?” He turned back to me, his smile gone from oily to downright malicious.
The first thread on the leash unraveled, but there were so many more to go.
The creature stalked toward me, grabbing the front of my shirt, and slowly bunching it up into his fist before jerking me out of his minion’s grasp.
“You can call me Master.”
I snickered, more to piss him off than because I was amused. Terror turned my limbs to ice and curled through my gut, but another strand unraveled in Nimbus’s golden shackles, and so I kept at it.
