A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(29)

Her captor led her to a small gathering of three men, two of whom she recognized as slaves who'd been bought before her - a skinny man in suit pants and wingtips and an Asian in basketball shorts and high-tops. The third was a big, blond wrestler type with hair that shimmered like Horace's and Susie's had, dressed all in white. A guard, then.

Still fighting to appear mindless, she noted that the other two slaves remained unfettered. And why would they bother to tie or chain them if they'd been enthralled? They wouldn't. Which was exactly what she'd been counting on. If she planned to make a move, she'd have to do it soon, before her new vampire mistress arrived. If that vamp moved anywhere near as quickly as the ones who'd attacked her and Zack, there'd be no outrunning her. Hopefully, the two guards didn't have that kind of speed, or she was going nowhere.

If she could make it behind the building across the street, perhaps she'd find alleyways to escape through.

She waited until the man who'd fetched her from the stage left again, no doubt returning to his vampire mistress. When the man in white turned away, Quinn took a breath for courage and took off, running as fast as her feet would carry her over the dirt-packed road.

Moments later, she heard the guard's shout and feared her escape was over before it had begun. But the big man didn't come after her, and she wondered if she might just pull this off after all. Her heart pounding in her throat, she darted down the nearest alley. It was lined with barrels and crates, boxes, and metal cylinders of all shapes and sizes. She considered trying to hide, but decided that way would almost certainly lead to capture. Ahead, the alley dead-ended into another. Once she turned the corner, she'd be out of sight of any pursuer. She might just make it!

But as she turned right into the connecting alleyway, she pulled up short at the sight of the woman standing there, as if waiting - the red-lipsticked, now-furious-faced vampire who'd bought her.

Holy hell. There is no outrunning these bastards! Not unless an errant sunbeam kept them at bay. The female stood a few feet away in her slinky dress, looking as if she'd merely run a few feet to catch a taxi instead of zero-to-sixtying it in high heels to catch a runaway slave. The woman moved . . . zoomed - there was no other word for it - closing the distance between them to snap a thick metal slave's collar around Quinn's neck before Quinn even registered the movement. She felt the heavy metal bite into her collarbones. A moment later, her mouth exploded in pain, blood tricking over her tongue. The bitch had slapped her across the mouth. Hard! Though she never saw the vamp's hand move.

The woman grabbed her arm and dragged her back to where the others waited, plus one more. Another female slave, a slender brunette, whom she must have just bought. The two big guards placed collars on all of them and fed a chain through the eyebolts of one collar, then the other, stringing them together. Quinn was last. The female vamp pushed Quinn forward, and she soon felt the clank of steel against her neck as she was chained to the others. Four across, the two men on one side, the two women on the other.

One by one, the female vamp unenthralled Quinn's companions. The woman gasped. The Asian growled. Wingtip remained perfectly silent. None of these three had been hysterical during the auction, as Quinn remembered. They'd all been stoic and quietly furious.

The two giants left, returning several minutes later, each carrying a brightly-lit lantern and leading three horses between them.

The humans eyed one another, but remained mute as the two giants and the vampire mounted. The bald guard rode around them, coming to a stop before the four slaves. "Follow me and make no sound. The more you cry out, the worse it will be."

His words chilled. With that cryptic statement, he started forward. None of them moved. Not until the first crack of the whip slashed down the farthest man's back, and he stumbled forward, dragging his chained companions with him. The other three hastily caught up, none wishing for a taste of that whip.

But moments later, Quinn heard the crack, felt the lick of stinging fire down her back, and clamped down hard against the cry of pain that clawed to get out. Over and over, the whip cracked, flaying the four of them equally. It didn't seem to matter what they did, whether they walked quickly or slowly, not even if they cried out as Wingtip had begun to do every time he was hit.

Quinn's back blazed, her cheeks growing damp with the tears she tried to hold back. Fury rode her, a need to grab the lash and beat its wielder to a bloody pulp, but she was collared to the others, unable to move except as they did. And even if she could move, she'd seen the vampire's speed for herself. She was helpless against her. They all were.

The bald man turned, something akin to sympathy in his dark eyes. "She's a pain-feeder. When she's sated, she will stop. If you anger her, she will continue regardless."

A pain-feeder.

She hoped to heaven Zack hadn't been taken by such a creature. More than a week he'd been trapped here.

The lash tore through her shirt, burning a strip of fire down her back for the fourth time. Quinn hunched her shoulders against the pain, squeezing her eyes closed against the tears she couldn't control.

Beside her, the other woman cried out as the lash finally broke her composure.

Block after block, they walked, in the heart of downtown. It was true dark, now, and she could see little beyond the light shed by the two lanterns. But twice she'd spied street names on the corners of buildings and knew they walked east on K Street, not far from the Capitol, for whatever good it did her.