Page 38 of Sold to the Dark Vampire Prince

Her phone pinged again, signaling that a bank transfer had come through. When she clicked to review it, she saw the amount was twice what she’d been promised.

Shoving her phone in her pocket, she hurried down the road towards home, fighting the fresh tears that were threatening to form.

This was Alex’s way of telling her goodbye. She understood that. But he wasn’t making it any easier, saying they could never see each other again, while finding ways to quietly take care of her.

Somewhere off in the distance, a deep boom sounded, the force of it enough to rattle her chest even from miles away. Dani looked off to the east, where a dark plume of smoke was rising. She quickened her steps.

Her phone vibrated again.

Evan: Where are you?

Dani: Half a mile from the first checkpoint, maybe a little more?

Evan: Hurry.

Dropping her phone into her satchel, Dani began to run. The road leading out to the shipping facility was mostly deserted but for a few delivery vans, all of which refused to stop when she begged for a lift into the city. She could hardly blame the drivers. They were monitored remotely by camera and picking up hitchhikers was a fireable offense.

It turned out it was better no one had picked her up.

As soon as she neared the city outskirts, she saw the road had been barricaded off. A mob wearing masks had forced several of the trucks to stop. As Dani watched, the drivers were pulled from their trucks at gunpoint. Another team was busy cutting the locks off the back compartments with bolt cutters.

“Get this van to the border crossing,” a male insurgent ordered. “We won’t have long before they redeploy.”

Dani hesitated, not wanting to approach the mob, but knowing there was no other way back into the city. Ava was alone, and would no doubt be scared. If looters came to the apartment—

No, she couldn’t think like that. Ava knew to keep the door bolted until she or Evan got home. This was hardly the first time the city had descended into rioting.

Keeping her head down, Dani approached the mob. When she got within twenty feet, she raised her hands to show she was unarmed.

“That’s close enough,” one woman barked. “Didn’t you get the order to shelter in place?”

“It must not have come through. I was just finishing my shift. There’s a dead space where we don’t get any signal. They sent me home with no pay because I was sick and was making too many errors.”

“Of course they did.” The woman snorted. “Work us to the bone for pennies, then take every last one of those pennies so they can live in their gilded palaces, drinking fae wine every night.” She squinted into Dani’s face. “Why do you look familiar?”

Dani kept her eyes cast downward. “I just need to get home to my sister. Please, she’s only ten and she’s sick.”

“She’s the prince’s sanguine,” a man called from somewhere back in the crowd. “The one Alexander Visconti bought. Her face has been all over the media feeds.” His eyes traveled all over her body. “Wonder how much he’d pay to get his whore back?”

Dani felt ice flood her veins.

Within vampire society, blood thralls were sometimes given privileges those in the regular human castes were not. Access to better housing. Extra food rations. All of this was in addition to the payments that came from selling blood, which were not inconsiderable. This led to most of them being ostracized the moment they returned home.

Sanguines were treated as addicts and whores by much of the human population, sellouts who were betraying their species. And since most sanguines were young and female, angry male voices sought to silence them, insisting they should have found other options when their families were starving and about to be put out on the streets.

“I don’t want any trouble,” she said carefully.

“Whores like you who sell yourself to the leeches are the reason they keep getting stronger.”

Dani wanted to laugh at this, even knowing it was a mistake to antagonize an angry mob. “You actually think if the auction houses ceased to exist tomorrow that the vampires would stop taking human blood?” When the man’s jaw hardened and his cheeks reddened, she continued. “We both know perfectly well that they wouldn’t. They’d just take it by force.”

“Spoken like a collaborator whore who’d rather suck off the oligarchs and spread her legs for the vampire prince because she thinks she’s too good for the hard-working men who keep this city safe.” Rage flared in his eyes. “We’ll get the leeches to listen to us in the end. Even if we have to burn this sector to the ground.”

Strong arms grabbed Dani from behind. Someone ripped off her satchel, laughing as they began pawing through it.

“No, please don’t. Just let me go." She struggled, fighting to get her hands free, but with her gloves on, she had no hope of making skin to skin contact. Her power was too weak to work without it.

The female rebel pulled out her phone. “What’s your code?” When Dani remained silent, she narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, so don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”