Wicked Soul

Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

LIV

“W-Warin?” I gulped, hoping against hope there was still some shred of humanity I could reach behind those black eyes.

The sound of his name cut his growl short. He stared at me for another second. Then he shook the broken chain off his wrists and forced his gaze away from my blood as he turned his back on me.

“Tie me to the bars.” His voice, so silky smooth before, had turned rough and gravelly—as if he were speaking through an animal’s jaws. “Now!”

I jolted at the sharp c***k of his command. “H-how? With that?” I eyeballed the flimsy chain on the floor behind him. It’d been pretty pathetic before, and after the goons had taken pliers to it, I wasn’t even sure it’d reach around his wrists once.

“It’s silver—it’ll hold. Hurry.”

I wasn’t exactly keen on getting closer to him, but I had enough wits about me to realize that I was running on borrowed time. If the silver chain could really hold him, I needed to strap him down with it, stat.

Trembling as much from rampant anxiety as the steady drip of blood from my multiple lacerations, I scrambled across the cage floor to snatch up the broken chain. It felt too light between my fingers as I edged closer to the vampire. But he’d said it would hold, and I had to believe that… because it was pretty obvious it was the only thing that would save me from becoming vampire dinner.

I edged around Warin’s shoulder and reached for his wrists he’d already shoved through the bars. When my fingertips skimmed over his hands, a full body shudder went through him, and I jerked my hand away. “S-sorry!”

He didn’t reply, and he kept his head turned away while I fumbled with the chain. It was very short, but I managed to get it wrapped around his wrists and tie a tiny knot with the ends. As soon as it was done, I backed several steps away. “There.”

Warin’s shoulder moved in a deep sigh, and I realized he’d been holding his breath.

“Do vampires need to breathe?” I asked, confused at the memory of his completely still chest when I’d tackled him in an attempt to perform CPR earlier.

He turned his head to give me an incredulous stare over his shoulder.

“Right. Not the time,” I muttered. Our little vampire Q&A session was definitely over. Something about fighting off the urge to gorge on my blood probably didn’t lend itself to a presentation about vampire do’s and don’ts. I giggled, hysteria starting to edge in.

“You’re losing too much blood,” Warin said. He was probably right—there really wasn’t much to laugh about. With a strength of will, I forced myself to pull it together. I had to stem as much of the bleeding as I could—I might not be hemorrhaging, but goddess knew how long we’d be stuck in this cage.

With a determinedly set jaw, I began ripping strips of the bottom of my dress to act as gauze. My muscles burned from the effort, and I pushed back a wave of panic. I must have been bleeding more than I’d thought.

“You’ll die if we stay here.”

I glared up at him from tying a strip of my ruined dress around my left thigh. “Not f*****g helpful, dude! I’m trying to not have a panic attack over here as is.”

He muttered a word I didn’t grasp. Probably nothing particularly nice.

“Let me drink from you.”

My fingers stilled against the cloth scrap. “Um… beg your pardon?” Did he just… suggest I offer up a taste, in the middle of me slowly bleeding to death?

“Your blood. I haven’t eaten in weeks—I can’t break us out when I am this weak.”

I blinked. “You can… break us out? If you have my blood?” My voice was sounding about as skeptical as I felt. About zero percent of me wanted to get close enough to the still feral-looking vampire for him to sink those very sharp fangs into my flesh.

“Yes.” He turned around as much as the chain around his wrists allowed and looked me straight in the eyes. “Do you want to die in this basement, Liv?”

“No.” It came out as a broken whisper, because I knew he was right. Even if blood loss didn’t kill me, our captors would eventually return. My options were pretty much to either trust a vampire, or die.

I drew in a deep breath and walked back toward him, doing my best to keep my legs steady. Once I reached him, I ducked under his left arm so I could lean up against the bars and wedge my body in between him and his tied wrists.

“Don’t kill me,” I said as I leaned my head back against the bars, offering my neck. It was meant as a playful joke to ease the tension, but it came out as scared as I felt.

Warin didn’t answer. His gaze was glued to my b****y shoulder and chest, the darkness in it flaming from within. His fangs seemed to lengthen even further as he curled his lip back and inhaled.

I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, preparing for the pain.

But instead of sharp fangs piercing my skin, cool lips brushed over my chest. And then he licked me.

Despite my woozy state, my eyes flew open from sheer shock at the unexpectedly sensual touch of the vampire’s tongue flicking up along my collarbone. I stared down at his bent head, the messy, dark brown hair shielding what he was doing from my vision.

When Warin groaned low in his throat, apparently at the taste of my blood, I was suddenly thankful for my miserable state. I was pretty sure it’d be highly inappropriate to enjoy getting eaten.

He gave my collarbone and shoulder three long, slow licks before he paused, mouth hovering above my clavicle at the bottom of my first cut. “I need you to move behind me,” he rumbled. “Give me a moment. Then untie me.”

“Trying to fight off the urge to suck me dry?” I joked shakily.

Judging from the glare he shot me, I wasn’t as funny as I thought. Probably because I’d hit the nail on the head.

“Excuse me for trying to lighten the mood,” I muttered as I slid out from in front of him to hide behind his back.

He didn’t respond, and I focused my attention on not passing out while I waited for his self-control to strengthen.

“Untie me.”

At least the vampire sounded like he was back in control of himself again. I sent a silent prayer to my goddess and reached around his body to work the knot. It was harder than it’d been to tie it, partly because I couldn’t really see what I was doing and partly because my fingers seemed less obedient. The dripping of blood from the wounds on my shoulder and collarbone had slowed down after Warin licked them, but I was still not doing too great. It wouldn’t be that much longer until my need for a hospital visit became urgent.

“Look away,” I said when my fingertips slipped on the knot for the fifth time. “I need to see what I’m doing.”

Warin turned his head to the left, and I slipped out from behind him to his right side and bent over the chain. Now that I could see, it only took me two tries to get it loosened. Two seconds later, I pulled it off him with a triumphant smile. “There. Free vampire!”

The vampire shot me another “you’re either insane or high from blood loss” look, but instead of commenting, he crouched down—and then punched the floor.

The cement cracked like a broken plate under his knuckles.

I yelped and stumbled back against the bars when the floor shifted under my feet. Warin didn’t so much as glance in my direction. Instead, he grabbed a large piece of the broken cement and began digging. It took less than a minute before there was a large hole right up against the front part of the cage, next to the door. Warin tossed the chunk of cement aside and continued with his hands, scooping dirt up into an ever-increasing pile next to me at a pace no human could ever have replicated.

Once it was deep enough, he jumped in with all the grace of a panther and continued clawing at the side of the hole with his fingers. He’d scooped out so much soil only his legs were sticking out by the time I realized exactly what his plan was.

“You’re actually… you’re digging a tunnel. We’re legit going to make our grand escape by digging our way out?” My legs wobbled, and I sank to the broken concrete floor with a dizzy giggle. My head felt so woozy, images from old movies featuring files baked into cakes and Wild West cowboys flickered in front of my eyes. Warin didn’t answer me, and I decided it was probably a good idea to lay down and rest my eyes.

It felt like a second later when rough hands pulled on my shoulders. I jerked, and then squealed when the same hands dragged me into the hole. Dirt fell into my eyes, and I screwed them shut. The next moment, I was pulled by my shoulders through a claustrophobia-inducing space. Mass pushed in from all sides, and the smell of dirt surrounded me as clumps drizzled onto my face and body. I began to let out another squeal of protest, and promptly got a mouthful of dry soil.

I was pulled up through another hole, hacking and spitting dirt, before the distinct sensation of being lifted up into the air made me realize I was finally free.

Carefully, I cracked my eyes open to squint at the room. We were, indeed, out of the hole again, and judging from my view of Warin’s dirt-streaked face, plus the feeling of iron bands around my hamstrings and back, he was holding me, bridal-style.

“I can walk,” I croaked, wiping at my mouth with my arm to get the dirt out. Only my arm—and the rest of my body—was also covered in crumbled up soil, so all I managed to do was wedge more of it in between my lips.

The vampire let me slide to my feet, and I noticed the two ragged holes in the floor, one inside the cell and one outside where we now stood. Then my legs gave out and I landed in a graceless heap next to a mound of dirt.

Warin didn’t pay my swooning damsel routine any mind. He leapt to the door, kicked it once, and sent it plus the frame flying into the stairwell beyond. Then, in a blink of an eye, he was gone.

That’s what I got for being all “independent female, can walk herself out of the creepy basement.” Gritting my teeth, I got to my knees before my head began to swim. I decided to not brave my feet again and began crawling toward the now very much open door.

I made it to the new hole in the wall and grimaced at the pile of broken metal and wood I’d somehow have to climb over. Then a pair of leather shoes and black-clad legs landed on the rubble right in front of me with a thud.

I looked up and saw Warin staring down at me with a blank expression.

“Turns out I can’t walk,” I said, grimacing at the pangs of pain from the cuts on my thighs. Getting dragged through a hole and then crawling across concrete was apparently too much for my impromptu bandages. “Do you mind giving me a hand before you disappear into the night?”

The vampire jumped down to the bottom of the steps, bent down, and scooped me up as easily as if I’d been a toddler. Then the world blurred with motion, and g-force pressed my body tightly against his for a short second before he stopped.

I blinked the blur from my eyes, slowly recognizing the upstairs living room in the crappy house we’d been imprisoned in. Two motionless bodies lay on the floor. When I looked closer, I recognized the nearest corpse. It was Mop. His head lolled at an unnatural angle, neck broken.

I gulped, but before I could even process the gruesome scene, Warin kicked open the door leading to the outside. Cooling wind brushed aside the warm summer air as he leapt into the night. Broken soundbites and blurry flickers of light passed us by. He was running so fast my eyes couldn’t track our surroundings.

I closed them tightly and buried my face in Warin’s shirt to avoid throwing up from motion sickness. At least this was faster than an ambulance.

When he finally stopped several minutes later, we were standing in the driveway of a large McMansion, surrounded by impeccably manicured bushes and a trickling fountain. It was such a vastly different neighborhood than any part of Chicago I’d ever been to before that I only managed to gape up at the fancy building in confusion. It wasn’t until Warin, at a human pace this time, walked up to the front door and rang the bell that the surrealism of it all gave way to more practical concerns.

“I think I need to go to the hospital,” I said.

“I’ll take care of you,” he said, his voice still gruff like it’d been after he was tied up. At least he wasn’t staring at the blood soaking my shoulder and chest anymore. “I just need to feed first.”

I blanched. “Uh, I don’t think I have enough blood left for you to—” My stammered protest died when the door opened, revealing a pretty blonde woman.

“Warin! Thank the stars! We thought you were…” She quieted, her eyes zeroing in on my disheveled form. And then, from behind her pouty, red lips, her fangs lengthened into daggers as her pupils blew wide.

Panic pulled on my hazy mind at coming face to face with another predator when I was already too weak to fight, but Warin simply shouldered past the woman as if she hadn’t just gotten a fang boner in the middle of greeting him.

The entry hall was exactly as magnificent as you’d expect from a mansion like this. White marble floors spread out into a wide staircase leading upward, accentuated by black and gold accents around the two open doors on either side.

Movement caught my eye as Warin stopped in the middle of the open room and put me down next to a slim marble pillar. I clutched it tightly to keep on my feet and watched as my savior-s***h-potentially-still-murderer turned to the three newcomers spilling out from one of the open doorways.

From behind us, the blonde woman joined them.

“Brother.” A tall man with auburn hair and eyes as piercingly blue as Warin’s stepped forward, clasping Warin’s shoulder. “Have you been hiding in a grave again? You’re filthy.”

“Aleric,” Warin acknowledged the redhead. “It has been so long. What brings you here?”

“Your loyal subjects were certain you’d been kidnapped,” Aleric said, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “They requested my aid in retrieving you.”

Warin c****d a dark eyebrow and turned to look at the three other people in the hall. He didn’t say anything, but his displeasure was nearly palpable, even to me. After a moment, he returned his gaze to Aleric’s. “There have been disappearances in my territory. I investigated. I apologize for my subordinates—they should not have disturbed another Ancient unnecessarily. But if you’ll excuse me. I will need to feed. We will catch up later.”

Aleric’s blue gaze flickered to me. “Your snack seems to be leaking.”

Warin spared me a single glance. “Bring her to my bedroom.”

And then, as if that wasn’t the creepiest thing to say, he walked off, leaving me alone with what I was now very sure were four vampires.

They all stared at me, fangs lengthening, as if I were a doe who’d accidentally waltzed right into a lion’s den.

Only the rushing in my ears drowned out the steady drip of my blood hitting the marble floor.