LITMIR.BIZ

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in your life to the most unbelievably painful. It’s definitely one of the most terrifying. It’s hard to explain, but while any of those descriptions fit, neither describing it as pleasurable or painful does it justice.

      At first, it felt like exactly what it was–someone was jabbing sharp, pointy objects in my skin. It hurt. Before long, it changed, becoming something else. Something better, yet infinitely worse. Like fire in your veins and lightning down your spine, you can’t move, think, or breathe around the shock of it. It seemed to go on forever.

      When Peter reluctantly pulled away from my throat, I was left gasping for air, lying limply on the bed. Sometime during the course of feeding on me he’d let go of my hair. He backed up from me, wiping thin trickles of blood from his lips with the back of his hand. My blood. I thought I just might throw up.

      “No wonder Royce wants you. You taste good,” he said rather breathlessly, licking his fangs clean of their faint crimson sheen. I shut my eyes and took deep breaths, trying to stop crying and keep from being sick. I wasn’t being too successful at either of those things. My hands shook, rattling the chain between them as I lifted them to prod gingerly at my neck. “Too bad you’re such a pain in the ass.”

      I couldn’t move, and my hands were shaking too much to tell how badly I’d been hurt. Threads of mixed revulsion and pleasure were making it hard to concentrate. I had to be stronger than this. I needed to stop crying and think of a fucking solution, not lie back and sit here doing nothing. The blood making my fingers slick was proof enough that I desperately needed to do something about this. I just couldn’t find the strength to get up on my feet, and despite the deep breaths I was taking, I felt extremely short of air.

      Peter studied me for a time, not moving. “You haven’t been bitten before, have you?”

      I had to breathe deeper yet to keep from sobbing. I’d done enough breaking down. Telling myself that wasn’t helping much. I didn’t want to answer him, but he was shifting like he was going to touch me again. Before he could, I choked out an answer, though I couldn’t speak in much more than a whisper. My voice still cracked as badly as a twelve-year-old hitting puberty.

      “No, I haven’t.”

      He frowned, mulling something over. I could practically hear the boulders rolling around in that thick skull of his.

      “Don’t stand up too fast. You’ll feel dizzy for a while. It’ll pass.”

      Without saying anything else, he prepared to leave. Pausing in the doorway, he looked back at me. If I didn’t know any better, I might have called the look in those brown eyes regret. Made me wonder if there was some part of him that remembered what it was like to be human, to be afraid of monsters like him.

      Without another word, he walked out and shut the door quietly behind him.

      I twisted onto my side and gripped the covers of the bed tightly, trying to get my footing and stand up. In the process, I noticed a few drops of my blood had stained the covers. Retching, I turned away, standing up way too fast.

      My legs didn’t want to hold me. I went down on my knees and stayed there for a few minutes, gasping for breath while I tried not to pass out. My vision was blurred with more than tears. I hadn’t had any idea you felt this sick after being bitten by a vamp. After this little escapade, I’d never leave the house without my body armor ever again. If I ever saw my apartment again.

      I spotted my cell lying about five miles away across the room.

      Desperate to call for help before one of my captors came back, I crawled across the floor as swiftly as my numbed limbs would take me. Maybe Chaz would know what to do. He had connections in the supernatural community, so maybe he could find me. It wasn’t until I started dialing for help that I distantly noted I was badly shivering. Shock? Or cold from the blood loss?

      His phone went straight to voice mail. Shit, shit, shit!

      Who else could help me? Though I hated the idea of doing it, there was only one other person, Other, whatever, that I could think of who might have any idea where Max had taken me. I desperately wanted to call Royce and offer him anything, anything at all, to get me out of here. I never wanted to feel this way again. His phone number was still in memory.

      After a few rings, Royce picked up. “Shiarra?”

      Huzzah for caller ID. As much as it hurt my pride to ask for his help, I didn’t know what else to do at that point. Voice thick with tears, trying to keep quiet so Nicolas wouldn’t hear and investigate, I did something I never thought I’d be desperate enough to stoop to.

      “Please help me … Please, Royce, get me out of here, I’ll do anything, just get me out of here …”

      “Where are you? Did Max take you?” Cold anger radiated through the line. The only other time I’d heard him sound anything like this was right before he threw Peter like a football down the hallway at my apartment.

      I looked around again, trying to spot something, anything that might be of use. “Yes, but I don’t know where they took me. I’m in some kind of basement room, there aren’t any windows so I can’t see where I am.”

      “Okay, don’t panic,” he soothed, some of the anger trickling out of his voice. “Do you know how many other vampires he has with him?”

      “No. The only other vampire I saw was Peter. He sent some men after me during the day. He’s got a mage guarding the door. I haven’t seen anyone else since I woke up in here.”

      “A mage?” There was some surprise there. Magi and vampires aren’t known for getting along with each other. Nicolas didn’t strike me as the sort to play well with anybody, so maybe he was an exception. Hell, anybody might work for an Other if the price is right. I was living proof of that. “All right. Stay put, and try not to provoke them. I’ll see what I can do.”

      “Royce …”

      “Yes?”

      I hesitated. What could I say?

      He broke the increasingly awkward silence before I could think of something to tell him. “What else did they do to you?”

      For some reason it bugged me that he could read me well enough to know that I was scared and upset about more than just being kidnapped. “Peter bit me.” It took some courage to say it out loud. Even then, I couldn’t quite bring myself to speak over a whisper.

      “He bit you, did he? We’ll have to do something about that.”

      The flat, disenchanted tone of Royce’s voice was scarier than anything else that’d happened to me today, including being bitten. That should tell you something.

      What was I getting myself into? Hadn’t Royce stopped just shy of biting me himself last night? Maybe calling him for help wasn’t the fabulous idea I had thought it was. It stung when I realized that his little ploy to make me see him as the lesser evil in comparison to Max was working so well.

      Worse yet, Max walked in just then, Peter at his heels. His eyes narrowed when he saw the phone in my hand.

      I tried to get to my feet, to back away, but my limbs were flat out refusing to work the way I wanted them to. Max yanked it out of my hands with little effort, and he studied the screen briefly before putting the phone to his ear. A smile slowly curved his lips, one that would’ve been charming if it hadn’t been so evil.

      “Alec Royce. What a surprise.”

      Since I’m no Other with hypersensitive hearing, I couldn’t determine what Royce’s response was. He must’ve talked for a bit, because Max simply stood there, staring down at me with the occasional “mmhm” or “mm-mm” punctuating his end of the conversation.

      After a few failed attempts, I gave up attempting to stand. My legs were too rubbery and weak to hold me.

      Suddenly, Max started talking, his voice abrupt and harsh. It was unexpected enough to make me flinch. What had Royce said to him? “No. I know you had a hand

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