“When I send you blood tomorrow,” he whispered at my ear. “You will drink.”
In my dream, I flipped him off, but he’d already pulled on his clothes after folding mine neatly and setting them at the foot of the bed. Then the warden was gone. I didn’t even hear the rattle and slam of the door.
The screams continued after that, but I drifted on a lazy river of sensation. I barely twitched when the sconces lit, marking a new day. Replete and flushed with energy and vigor, I was like a cat who wanted to stretch out in the sun.
Except there was no sun.
And I was still in prison for the crime of being impossible.
I was a succubus, but a vampire turned me after he drained me to the point of death.
Idiot.
When I woke, I was living yet not. I was a succubus, yet also a vampire. My favorite outfit had been trashed, and my best shoes broken. My creator also panicked and fled, sticking me with the hotel room bill.
Do you have any idea what it costs to clean blood out of carpet?
Worse still, when I went to the city’s vampires for some assistance in finding the asshat who’d fucked up my life, I ended up here.
In prison.
Yep.
So if you wanted to know how I got here, that’s it.
For the last two weeks, these four stone walls have housed me and the warden—he told me to call him Dorran—has been my only visitor. He wants me to feed. But I don’t survive on blood alone.
I wish I didn’t need the blood at all.
Four times now, he’s had to force the issue.
Totally worth it by the way, because I won’t touch that bagged stuff, and if the only way to feed my lust was to get him to show up, then I still wouldn’t touch the bags.
I shifted against the bed, aware of every scratchy inch of the blanket and the uncomfortable, almost slab-like surface the too thin mattress covered. Nothing else here offered even a little bit of pleasure. Dorran, on the other hand, definitely filled a need.
Lazing through the day, I barely rose by evening to clean myself up at the sink and to get some water to drink. I could actually eat real food, not that they brought me any.
When the bags of blood arrived through the slot in the door, I was already back to leaning against my wall, dressed in the drab gray with my damp hair drying slowly. At least I could wash.
Instead of thigh-high boots, I decided I’d shop for jewelry tonight. Even if I was almost full to the brim, I wouldn’t be opposed to my sometime visitor.
It gave me something to do while I wasn’t allowed to rot away in here.
The funny thing was, if they didn’t want the world to know about me, why would they want to keep me alive?
Why not just stake me or burn me alive or something?
Hell, cut off my head. Chop chop, and we’re done.
Rolling my eyes, I jerked my attention back to virtual shopping.
My name is Fiona MacRieve. Always good to remember that part.
I was a succubus.
Or I used to be.
Now?
I didn’t know what I’d become.
But as long as they planned on keeping me alive, they better hope they could keep me in here, because my lust for vengeance grew by the hour, and I could feed on that, too.
Just saying.