A Wind of Change (A Shade of Vampire #17)(26)

My eyes widened in terror as he loosened the woman’s chains and she leapt on top of me. Baring her fangs, she dug them right into my neck, in a different spot where Michael had drunk from me before.

I groaned, my body stiffening as I seized up in pain.

I’d experienced needles and injections before, but these vampire teeth felt so thick compared to them, and they dug so deep into my flesh, I worried that they were going to hit bone.

I wanted to scream out, but I remembered Jeramiah’s words and so I bit my lip.

“Don’t suck!” Jeramiah said.

He must’ve done something to hurt the female vampire, because she moaned and stopped sucking so hard.

“Release now.” Jeramiah spoke again.

A freezing cold substance shot into my neck. Pain lit up every nerve in my body, and all my limbs began to shake.

What is happening to me?

“Enough,” Jeramiah ordered, clanking the chains, and Faye pulled away from me.

I found myself staring up at Jeramiah and Michael, who were looking down at me, but soon their faces were a blur. Everything was a blur. I could barely even form a coherent thought. All that I was aware of was the pain now coursing through my veins and the coldness, the biting coldness that seeped right through to the very marrow of my bones.

My mouth felt dry and my heart began beating so fast I thought that it would give up. It felt like my windpipe was closing and I could barely breathe.

Something touched my face—an ice-cold hand. Michael’s perhaps. “You’re going to be just fine, River,” he said.

Cold tears streamed from my eyes as pain washed over me in waves.

I’m going to die.

I’m going to die.

And yet hours passed and I didn’t. I still hung on in that strange place between consciousness and darkness.

There was no way I could have guessed how much time passed. It could have been hours or it could have been days. Moments merged into each other, passing in one long stream of pain and torment.

It was only once the trembling started to subside that I found pieces of myself again. I found it easier to think, easier to be aware of what was going on around me, and once my vision had returned, my breathing became more even.

But the coldness, the bitter coldness… it never left me. It seemed to have settled permanently in my bones. Into my very being.

I didn’t understand what had just happened to me, but as strength flooded back to my limbs and I was able to sit up, one thing I knew for certain:

I was no longer the River I’d known.

Chapter 11: River

Aside from the aching cold, my senses were surrounded by a myriad of stimuli. I could hear noises in other rooms around the atrium that I hadn’t heard before, pick up on a variety of scents I hadn’t detected before, and my eyesight felt ten times sharper.

I stood up from the bed and stared at myself in the mirror. My tan skin looked dull and pale. Too pale. My turquoise eyes had an odd vibrancy that hadn’t been there before. I bared my teeth, fearing that I was about to see fangs… but they looked normal.

Michael got up from a chair in a shadowy corner of the room. He approached and I caught sight of him in the mirror as he placed his hands on either side of my waist.

“What am I?” I whispered, moving away from him.

“You are a half-blood… my half-blood.”

“What is a half-blood?”

“Come with me,” he said, ignoring my question. “You need to warm up. Since you’re not fully a vampire, your body needs some heat or it can become very uncomfortable. You feel the cold, unlike us.”

I was still in a daze. I couldn’t even find it in myself to object as he took my hand and led me out of the bedroom, down the corridor toward the room he had kept me in before. The sauna. He stepped inside with me, fiddled with a panel of dials and buttons, then closed the door. The room began to heat up quickly. I stopped shivering so much, and the deep ache in my bones subsided a little.

I had so many thoughts fighting to burst out at once, I didn’t know which to ask first.

“Why did you do this to me?”

“I understand that it’s a shock now,” he said. “But you will come to thank me for choosing you as my half-blood.” He leaned in and brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. “I promise.”

“Your half-blood?” I breathed.

“My half-blood.”

I stood up and moved away from him. “What is this tattoo you placed on my arm?”

“We all have them.” He rolled up his sleeve and showed me an identical brand on his right upper arm.

“Did you etch this into me?”

“That’s not important. What is important is that you listen carefully to what I’m about to say. If you want to survive in this new body of yours, you’ll need to learn to depend on me. I can show you how to live without pain, and how to enjoy your life.”

I backed away as far as I could from him in the wooden room.

“There are certain rules,” he continued, “that you are designed to abide by. My rules. If you disobey me, very bad things can end up happening to you… and your sister.”

I choked up. “You have given me no proof that she’s even still alive.”

“I’m telling you that she is still alive. And she will remain alive and well, provided you do as I say.”