Wicked Soul (Ancient Blood #1)(6)
There was a clanking of keys on the other side of the heavy metal door, and then the lock clicked open.
The same two men who’d kidnapped me entered the room. One of them had a mop and a bucket in his hands, the other a large plastic sack. I paled when I realized they’d probably been meant for disposing of my body and wiping up any leftover bodily fluids.
“Well, would you look at that?” Mop Guy said when he caught sight of me by Warin’s side. “You’re still alive, huh? What’s the matter, vamper? She not your type?”
Sack Guy barked a laugh. “Could’ve sworn I saw him eyeballing a rat the other day. "Oh, well. Guess we should let you use the can, then."
I stared, entirely taken aback by this turn of events. Nothing about these guys had given me the impression that they’d stick to the Geneva Convention, to put it mildly. “Oh, uh…” I didn’t like the sly look that passed between them, but I was pretty thirsty and could use a trip to the bathroom. Pushing aside my unease, I stepped over to the cage door. “Thanks.”
“No problem, darlin’,” Mop drawled. He leaned his tools up against the wall and reached into his pocket for the key. “Come on, vamper. Don’t let the pretty girl wet herself—at some point you’ll get hungry enough, and you’re not gonna like her soaked in her own urine, are ya?”
Warin’s face remained stoic as he slid his wrists through the bars. I looked on, puzzled, until Sack pulled a long metal chain from the wall and sauntered over to Warin with a mocking smirk.
“There’s a good bloodsucker,” he jeered while he wrapped the thin chain around Warin’s outstretched wrists. “Not so fucking cocky now, are ya? Dumb fuck.”
“Cocky” wasn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe my vampire companion. He’d remained remarkably placid since waking up with a stranger trying to perform CPR on him mid-nap—even the goon’s insults didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. I eyeballed the thin chain around his wrists and wondered why they’d think it offered them any safety if he decided enough was enough. It was wrapped around his wrists multiple times, but so thin I was pretty sure even I’d be able to snap it if I was motivated enough.
“Come on then, girl,” Mop said, jingling the keys in the lock before the door slid open. “Let’s leave those two to it.”
I stepped out of the cage, but hesitated when I saw Sack grab a wooden stake from the wall before he turned back to Warin with a sadistic smile on his bloated face.
“What are you doing? Don’t hurt him!”
Both goons turned toward me, incredulous.
“Don’t hurt him?” Sack repeated in an imitation of my worried tone. “Don’t hurt him? Would you listen to the deadwhore!”
“You got any idea how many of our kind he’s hurt, you stupid cunt?” Mop growled. “How many humans he’s sucked dry? You’re a fuckin’ race traitor. Just wait until he gets hungry enough—we’ll see how much sympathy you have left while he’s tearing you apart.”
“He’s just a kid, you sick fucks!” I snarled, giving Mop a shove so I could push past him and wedge myself in front of the tied-up vampire and Sack. “Don’t. Hurt. Him!” I didn’t exactly have a plan for how I was going to keep the two men from hurting him—or me, for that matter—but I hoped my bravado would at least make them reconsider.
“Liv. It’s okay. Go.”
It was the first Warin had spoken since the men entered the basement, and he sounded so… calm. I glanced at him over my shoulder, unable to comprehend how he could possibly still be so damn Zen. He was the one tied up and about to experience torture-by-stake, for fuck’s sake!
Piercing blue eyes met mine, and the commandment in them nearly made me lose my balance. Something in that gaze pulled on me, like a vortex. “Go with him.”
I blinked, too stunned by the weird sensation of floating as much as his seemingly insistence that I leave him to his fate. “I… are you sure?”
“I am. Go.”
I shook my head to clear it and turned back to the two goons. Sacks’ stake was aimed at my chest now, and I suppressed a shudder. I might not be allergic to wood, as the urban legend suggested vampires were, but I had no doubt I’d take getting stabbed in the heart with a stake about as well as your average movie vampire. Shoulders slumping in defeat, I stepped around Sack’s pointed weapon and back to Mop.
He greeted me with a rough shove in my back, making me stumble across the basement toward the door.
“Ungrateful whore,” he sneered as he followed me out the basement and up the stairs. “We should’a let you piss yourself.”
He led me all the way up to the first floor, which seemed as neglected as the living room, and pushed me into a small bathroom.
“You’ve got two minutes” he said, shutting the door behind me. Apparently he had enough manners to let me pee without an audience.
A quick look around the moldy bathroom explained why—there was no lock on the door and the small window had been boarded up, allowing only a few cracks of light to enter. There was nowhere for me to escape, and nothing I could use as a weapon.
I did my business as quickly as possible, attempting not to touch any surfaces in the process, and drank from the tap until I was no longer thirsty.