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I smell incense. A familiar scent. Floral, woodsy. Someone’s cologne?
Can’t remember.
I’m shivering. It’s cold. Damp. Another smell underneath the incense. Musty. Stale. Like dirt.
Try to turn my head. Two strong hands prevent me. When I try to shake my head, to shake the hands off, the grip tightens.
“Don’t try to fight, A
Whose voice is that?
My mind struggles to penetrate the cloud shrouding my thoughts just as my body struggles to shake off the hands.
I accomplish neither.
Instead, those carrying me press closer, restrict my movements now with their bodies as well as their hands.
“She shouldn’t be struggling,” a voice nearby says. “She should be out. Did you do what I told you?”
“Yes. I gave her exactly the dose you prescribed.” That same familiar voice at my head. “You underestimated her strength.”
The feeling of fingers smoothing hair back from my forehead. “I don’t want her hurt. You promised me she wouldn’t be hurt.”
I want to scream, “Then why the fuck did you do this?”
But I know I’m the only one who hears. The shriek echoes and bounces in the void as if entrapped in a vault.
Perhaps it’s just as well.
I recognize the voice. Recognize the touch and smell of the hand on my forehead.
Bitter tears stream down my face.
The irony that one of my last thoughts before he drugged me was that I wanted to protect him.
Lance.
I stop struggling. I need a plan, need to gather strength.
The chanting grows louder. The procession comes to a halt. The hands lower me onto something cold and unyielding. My limbs are arranged, hands over my head and secured. Legs straightened.
Whatever I’m lying on is rough, where my back and legs rest there are uneven, jagged edges that bite into the skin. It’s worse if I try to move.
So I don’t.
Something is thrown over me. Something lightweight that floats on my skin like silk. Its touch makes me aware that until now, I was naked, exposed not only to the hands but the eyes of whoever bore me to this place.
Revulsion roils in my gut, bile rises in my throat.
I’m going to be sick.
No.
Swallow it back down. Turn the disgust into anger. Taste the bile and savor it because it is fuel for the rage.
The chanting grows louder. Exhortations to a goddess. Mari.
How do I know that?
The name is sung over and over. The chorus swells. More voices. More phrases that I shouldn’t be able to understand yet somehow, I do. Mari. The goddess of the earth. Protectress of those who rule in heaven, on earth, and below. Queen of the thunder and the wind and keeper of the storm. Beloved of her servants, those who surround her here, and her consort, Maju.
Maju?
The chant changes in tempo and pitch. It is Maju they call for now. Mari’s husband. Her mate. It is time, the words proclaim, time to fulfill the prophecy. Time to make heaven tremble and the underworld quake. Time to bring Mari and Maju out of the dark and into the light. Time for them to take their rightful place as rulers over all.
Time to consummate their love anew so the reign of the Sorginak can begin. Time for the lovers to reunite after five hundred years.
Lovers?
A hand lifts the veil, pushes it up from my ankles, gathers it at my waist.
No.
Something sharp, clawlike, traces a path on the inside of my thighs. It tickles and burns at the same time.
I try to kick out. Hands grab my ankles. Thrust something under my buttocks so my back is arched.
No.
Another hand circles my waist, pulls me forward.
It’s grown quiet around us—the chanting stopped. Now there are other sounds. Heavy breathing and lust-filled grunts. The smell of sex mingles with the incense. Those around us are pleasuring themselves as they watch.
Memories flood back. A year ago. In the backseat of a car. Donaldson hitting me until I blacked out. When I awoke . . .
A voice at my ear pulls me back.
“Don’t fight, A
I force myself to grow still under his weight. Force myself to endure the feel of his hands as they push the veil higher to cup my breasts. Still, I force myself to endure the feel of him as he pushes against me, as he pries my legs open with his own to receive him. Force myself to wait until my mind is clear. Until I’m strong enough.
I couldn’t fight Donaldson. Didn’t understand the changes wrought by our exchange of blood.
This isn’t Donaldson.
Concentrate. Gather strength. Feel as it coils inside me. Tighter and tighter.
He is trying to ram himself into me.
I tense muscles and squirm away.
He grows angry. He curses. His hands clutch at my hips, pull me back and up. He will not stop.
I will make him.
I call out.
First to Lance.
Only silence responds. A flickering ember of regret quickly extinguished.
Then to the vampire. To the animal inside me. I know she hears. She’s struggling. Frantic. Full of rage.
It happens.
The vampire bursts free of her drug-induced chains. Her voice, my voice, unleashes its fury in a primal scream that reverberates in the cave like a roar of thunder. My eyes fly open. This time, I see.
I pull at the bindings at my wrists. They rip away.
A cry of alarm goes up around me.
When he raises his head, Underwood’s eyes have only an instant to register surprise.
Only an instant before I’ve ripped out his throat.
Only an instant before I’ve drained him of every drop of his blood.
CHAPTER 30
Silence. Utter and complete.
I sit up, thrust away the leathery shell that was Julian Underwood.
My teeth are bared. My eyes sweep the shocked faces surrounding me. Twelve of them. Men and women. Stinking of sex and that cloying smell. Incense. Underwood’s cologne. The same.
They are all naked, the women with potbellies and sagging breasts. The men with flabby arms and shrinking members. When their eyes meet mine, they step back, press against the wall of—
I look around. We’re in a cave.
I look again.
Where is he?
“Lance!”
The name rips from the bowels of my belly, full of anger and the bitterness of betrayal.
There is no answer.
I jump from the rock bier on which I’d been tied. It is elevated, surrounded by candles—some sort of ritualistic altar upon which I was to be joined with Underwood.
For what purpose?
Is this the fate of the Chosen One? Is this what it means? My destiny was to be raped by a madman in front of a delusional sect of . . . I don’t even know what they are.
There is a woman standing at the head of the altar. She is clutching a thurible, the kind used in churches, by its silver chain. Incense curls up from the bowl, polluting the air around us. When her eyes meet mine, the thurible crashes to the floor. The incense flares and burns out.
I grab her by the throat before she can flee. “What are you?”
She blinks at me as if not understanding the question.
I shake her. “What are you?”
She goes limp in my hands. When I release my grip, she falls to the floor, her neck at an odd angle.