Existence Read online

  An open and scathing disgust washed away her disbelief and fear. “I’ll do no such thing! I don’t care who or what he is. He didn’t respect me or my life when he brought me here and I’m not about to lie back and let the monster suck me dry. Not a second time.”

  She might have offended sensibilities now, but she had no idea how much living the way I did changed a person. She also had no idea how far a human was willing to go to survive even while wishing for death. I arched an eyebrow. “And how do you intend to stop him?”

  She shook her head, her face pasty and eyes glittering. I mourned for her, or at least the girl she used to be. My master’s bite had already infected her. Soon she’d be craving the blood in my master’s veins more than she would a desire to escape. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the hunger pains would never cease, and that only sheer brute willpower overcame a perpetual state of being half starved.

  I blew out a slow breath, my belly cramping with both blood hunger and rejection for the food on the table. “We eat, or suffer the consequences.”

  Consequences that wouldn’t only involve my master drinking her blood. Now that my master’s infection was inside her, the moment he drank from her again, she’d succumb to her deepest sexual yearnings.

  I didn’t understand the science behind it, but I’d witnessed the event enough times to know what to expect.

  My dick stirred at the thought. But despite my physical needs, mentally, I hated that sex with my ‘playthings’ happened not because of a genuine attraction, but because they needed physical release almost as much as they needed my master’s blood.

  I took a seat and distracted myself by scanning the sumptuous spread. My belly gurgled, but not with appetite. It felt hollowed out at the unwanted calories I’d be forcing into it. I looked up at Maya with a half-smile and murmured, “Bon appétit.”

  Half an hour later, Maya pushed away her empty plate before I swallowed down the last mouthful of the breakfast spread. I would have devoured this food in my long-ago normal life. Now, it could have been sawdust.

  Maya stood, her face showing a little more color. The food had lent her some strength, but I gave her a couple of hours at most before she threw it all back up when fierce hunger overcame her. An unquenchable need for my master’s blood.

  Our master, now.

  I swept a hand toward a door at the far end of the dining room, opposite our master’s chambers. “There’s a shower through there. I’m sure you’d like to freshen up.”

  Once the hunger pains hit, a shower would be the least of her concerns.

  She sent me a scathing look. “I’ll only feel clean again once I get out of here.” She turned and marched purposefully toward the elevator. Her steps faltered and slowed. It was like watching a straight-backed and disciplined soldier morph into a wilted flower.

  Still, she got farther than any other of the previous women, despite the fact my master’s mind control was even stronger when combined with the influence of an infected bite. Maya got within a meter of the elevator doors when her whole body sagged and she stood trembling, unable to go even one more step.

  I sighed. She’d learned a hard lesson. Self-defeat and powerlessness were stamped all over her. My master didn’t particularly need to drink from his subjects to make them weak. The hopelessness and complete lack of control were soul destroying.

  I stepped toward her, but knew better than to touch. “Go have your shower, Maya—”

  She twisted toward me, her movements slow and methodical. “My name is not Maya.”

  It took great strength to move from the force field of my master’s mind control. She really was mentally tough and resilient. Every other woman had crumpled to the floor. I pulled in a deep breath then slowly released it, wishing I had the right to touch and console her. But I’d never have that right, not while I was in league with the devil. I cleared my throat. “Like it or not, it is now.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she whispered hoarsely. “What’s in it for you?”

  I blinked. Her words stung and shame suffused me. “I was brought here, the same as you. I didn’t choose this life. Didn’t choose to stay and become addicted to my master’s blood.”

  She looked…sickened. “So you’re a blood whore?”

  I inwardly recoiled. I’d never thought of it in that way, but that was exactly what I’d become. I’d fallen to the lowest of the lows, my willpower sucked out of me along with my blood.

  I crossed my arms. “You’re quick to judge. And yet you’ll be the same as me very soon.”

  Her voice shook. “That will never happen.”

  “You won’t be able to stop it. It’s a compulsion. A need.”

  She lifted her head and crossed her arms, any and all vulnerability shoved aside. “I’ll fight it and your master with everything I have.”

  I admired her spirit, but it wouldn’t last long.

  I exhaled heavily and said nothing more than, “We’ll see.”

  I glared at Alexander, while my belly gurgled sickly and pinched with hunger, despite the huge meal I’d devoured minutes earlier. “Where is your master now?”

  “In his private chambers.” His expression stayed neutral, as though he forbade his thoughts to dwell on the evil of the monster who sustained him. “In the heat of the day he sleeps. At night, he scopes the city from his chambers for his next quarry.”

  Before I could ask exactly how the vampire knew which victim was next, he added, “The perfect combination of our blood type and hormones apparently reveals itself through auras only vampires can see.”

  Alexander was so matter-of-fact, so careless that his master spent his time looking at potential humans, I wanted to slap some sense back into him. He had to be brainwashed and conditioned to the lifestyle he now lived. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—think that any other scenario was possible, and that he liked this way of living. Not that it could possibly be called living.

  Alexander was doing nothing more than scraping out an existence.

  I glanced around the huge, open living and dining room, and the pristine stainless steel kitchen that looked as if it’d never been used, along with the big black leather lounge. Little wonder. There was no television—not even a radio, from what I could see.

  Bloody hell, what does Alexander do up here aside from worship the bloodsucker? A mental image filled my mind of Alexander pacing the floor, even as I realized his master ensured he was mentally locked away from the world as much as physically. He was little more than a prisoner in an ivory tower.

  I squashed a surge of sympathy for the man. I wouldn’t allow tender sensibilities to blind me to the truth. He was living with the devil and I had no doubt that at least some of the vampire’s evil had rubbed off on him. I kept my tone bland. “Then I guess he’s not expecting me to live all that long?”

  Alexander shrugged. “My master likes to cover all bases.”

  I shuddered with revulsion. It didn’t take much of an imagination to understand that the bloodsucker ensured a perfect donor didn’t slip past his notice.

  I pushed away from the elevator. My muscles suddenly unlocked and I stumbled. It was like being released from a force field. When Alexander once again fastened his hand around my arm to keep me from falling, I jerked out of his grasp at the electric current of awareness. It was bad enough I was drawn to him. I refused to let him touch me and reveal an even deeper awareness.

  Yet if I’d met him outside this building and under normal circumstances, I would have been fascinated by him. I couldn’t even conceive what he’d seen up here, what he’d lived through.

  I sucked in a ragged breath, reminding myself not to feel sympathy for him. I wouldn’t justify his way of living. “You mentioned a shower?”

  He nodded and I walked stiffly past him before opening the bathroom door. Snapping it shut behind me, I leaned weak-kneed against the cool wood. Of course, there was no lock on the door, but I wasn’t stupid enough to imagine the vampire who’d kidnapped me w
ould have any trouble breaking it down.

  He’d certainly had no trouble carrying me away from the alley where he’d found me. A shortcut I’d taken on my way home to the train station from a late shift at work.

  I shivered. Both at the memory and at the monster who’d forcibly brought me here. Was the bloodsucker even now aware of my every movement? Did he have enhanced hearing and senses, or was that just in the movies?

  I tugged off my clothes with jerky, uncoordinated hands. Hell, my whole body trembled and shook, flushing hot and cold. I gripped the towel rail and took a long look at my reflection.

  Fuck. I look like shit.

  Men had always found me attractive. A face and body, nothing more. They’d run if they saw me now. Perhaps the vampire would be turned off, too?

  Yeah, except he wouldn’t simply let you go. He’d dispose of you. Dump your body in a river or dumpster. And no one would even know or care that you were gone.

  Shivers racked my body now, my eyes glittering wildly, my face shiny with sweat and my hair tangled even in its ponytail. I looked physically sick and mentally…deranged.

  My belly cramped, as though a giant fist had reached inside and squeezed hard. I gasped, clutching at my middle.

  What has that leech done to me?

  I spun away from my reflection and reached for the tap lever, opening the spray full pelt and adjusting it to scalding before I stepped under its heat. The water could have burned away my skin and I wouldn’t have noticed. Every molecule of my body was snapping and snarling with need.

  I. Would. Not. Succumb.

  I squeezed my eyes closed and focused, single-mindedly centering on anything but the yearning tearing me apart inside. Building walls around my emotions where nothing could reach me.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised when it worked. Lord only knew I’d had plenty of practice. I’d withdrawn into myself and slipped into my own world enough of times in the past. Locked myself away as my mother shot up yet again, or screwed another man in the bedroom near to mine in order to score her next hit.

  How many times had I blocked out the grunts and groans, the hiss of a junkie rush, and gone someplace else in my mind? Until my apparent complete disregard of my mother’s drug dependency and lifestyle had caused her to send me packing.

  It was only after she’d died from an overdose that I’d wondered if she’d sent me away to protect me. Not because I retreated into my own mind. I hadn’t seen her final downfall, hadn’t had to fend off the johns she’d fucked for money.

  The bathroom door crashed open. I jerked back, crossing an arm over my breasts as I covered the triangle of my pussy with my other hand.

  Alexander stood staring at me, at first in confused relief, then for a fleeting moment, in undisguised lust. My shocked gasp was more from the stirring of my own desire than the hunger in his eyes. “Get out!”

  He didn’t move. “What the hell is going on with you?” he muttered. His frown dulled the glint in his stare by the barest amount. “Why aren’t you screaming for my master’s blood?”

  A sudden cramping pain knotted in my belly, as thought he’d reminded me of a base need. I resisted pressing a fist against my midsection and focused on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. I stared back at him. “Get out,” I repeated coldly.

  He dragged a hand over his face, weariness evident in his pinched features. “If only it was that simple,” he conceded softly, making me aware he too wished he really could walk away and never come back. Making me also aware he wasn’t wholly brainwashed. He didn’t just crave his master’s blood—he craved freedom too.

  I quashed any sympathy for him, like he’d quashed any for the victims his master had ruthlessly exploited and killed. He didn’t deserve my pity or my compassion.

  He exhaled roughly and placed neatly folded clothes on the basin. “Something for you to wear.” He stared at me again, as though I was a beautiful mystery he’d yet to solve. Then his eyes dulled, sadness radiating from him as he rasped, “Master will be pleased with you.”

  I gaped. And as he closed the door behind him with a decisive click, I screamed out, “Master can go fuck himself!”

  Chapter Three

  I watched the zombified chef stack the empty dishes and cutlery onto the food trolley before he wheeled it back into the elevator. The huge guard who’d acted as the lookout at the doors then stepped inside with him.

  I felt almost as indifferent when the doors closed behind them. I’d long ago been rid of any desire to escape. Even less so now that my thoughts were centered on Maya. I ran a hand over my face. She was a little more than a stranger and yet she was already worming past my defenses, already making me long for things I could never have.

  A relationship. Mutual desire. Love.

  I’d experienced nothing close to those yearnings for my other playthings. I frowned at the word I’d adopted so easily from my master. They hadn’t been my playthings. They’d been women with mothers and fathers, with families who would never know what fate had befallen them.

  Perhaps it was best they didn’t.

  Guilt shafted through me. It was those same women I’d experiencedlittle more toward than physical release, along with a vague despair at what I’d become. But survival was all I had known. I couldn’t afford to get attached to someone I’d likely lose all too soon.

  Like Maya? a cutting voice asked.

  I blew out a slow breath. Though Maya’s strength of mind was impressive, I had no doubt she’d soon fully succumb to my master’s demands. She wouldn’t live through the ordeal much longer than the other women who’d been abducted and taken away from the world they’d known. Except, if she did outlast the longest survivor of four years, how much deeper would my feelings for her grow?

  I paced back and forth. Usually I was resigned and numb to whatever my master devised, but now I was worked up and restless. I hardly knew Maya, and yet already she affected me on a level I could scarcely comprehend.

  I paused as the bathroom door thrust open and she walked through it with her chin tilted as high as her ponytail and her eyes flashing. She wore the moss-green wrap dress, soft white cardigan and low-heeled sandals I’d chosen for her from the closet of the guest bedroom. My master kept a good selection of apparel for his donors, mostly seductive wear that would titillate my senses. Maya’s outfit was the most demure I could find.

  I resisted licking my lips. I wouldn’t think about the matching cream underwear set I’d chosen. Instead, my breath caught at her alert gaze and rigid jaw. My pulse accelerated at her natural grace and elegance, which were irresistibly seductive.

  “Where is your master?” she demanded.

  Maybe she wasn’t charming, but damn if I didn’t find that even more appealing. Even so, I frowned. Did she think she could demand an audience with him? “He’s in his chambers. You cannot disturb him there.”

  “Why not?” Her eyes narrowed. “Is he asleep now?”

  There were no clocks in the nest, just the same as there were no calendars and no news from the outside world to keep me informed. I’d even been reduced to using my fingernails to scratch out a tiny mark beneath the tabletop for every day that passed. I automatically glanced out of the window to guesstimate the time. The sun had climbed high in the sky. It was a few hours shy of midday. I nodded. “Yes.”

  She inhaled sharply and stepped closer to me, staring into my eyes. “Then now is the perfect time to escape.”

  I couldn’t stop a bark of mirthless laughter. “You can’t be serious?” At her furrowed brow, I sighed and said, “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “But you do, right?”

  I frowned, hating the direction the conversation was headed. In my previous life, I’d been a lawyer, a fearless go-getter, ready to take on the universe. In this life, I knew better. I was a realist living in a powerful vampire world. My reality was having my blood sucked out right along with the breath in my body if I showed even a sign of disobedience.

  She s
wung a hand toward the elevator. “When the chef next comes up with our food, we’ll get into the elevator and out of this building.”

  I gave her points for courage. But she wasn’t thinking straight. Not one bit. “You’ve already tried to escape once today, and failed. Remember?”

  That wasn’t even to mention the security guard, who’d been chosen specifically for his brawn and lackluster willpower. No captives would escape via the elevator.

  She didn’t seem deflated. If anything, her mind ticked over all the faster. “How deeply does the bloodsucker sleep?” She blinked. “What would you need to overcome his mind control?”

  Her enthusiasm and belief almost buoyed me with hope. I suppressed the emotion. She knew nothing. Her blood addiction hadn’t yet kicked in and made her dependent…a slave to my master.

  But it would soon enough.

  I squeezed my eyes closed, fighting against a surge of rebellion. But it grew inside me, a dark shadow that’d been hovering out of sight, snapping and snarling, just waiting for the right moment to emerge. The same shadow that I had no doubt Maya had glimpsed. She’d read me all too well, and known exactly how to bring it out of me.

  Warmth flowed through me and centered in my groin. She was more skilled than a lawyer in the courtroom. Not that I disagreed. With her by my side, this might truly be the one and only time we could escape. Before my master again drank from Maya’s veins and the excessive intravenous bacteria from his fangs wiped out any remaining scrap of her willpower.

  Even if she by some miracle fought the infection, the moment my master fed her a drop or two of his blood, she’d be an addict just like me.

  My stomach cramped and I pressed a fist against the gnawing, ceaseless ache. “I can’t go anywhere,” I croaked hoarsely. “I’d die without my master’s blood.”

  She marched toward me, face drawn but determined, eyes flashing. “That monster is not your master. You’re not his trained dog, nor are you his slave. Whatever life he’s forced you into is no longer relevant. You can fight this…fight him.”