Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(9)

Hopeful.

Dominic had come through. He'd actually done it and the realization only made me long for him more.

Um, long for him? I stopped short and checked myself. What the heck was I saying right now? Holy shit, get it together, Jemma!

I shook my head as though the gesture could dislodge the foreign thought from my brain.

It's just the bloodbond, I told myself. Just my mind playing tricks on my heart again. I repeated the truth over and over like some kind of twisted new-age mantra. I needed to remember that, to hold onto it like a life preserver.

Dominic was a vampire and I, a Slayer. We were not friends. We weren’t anything. Any feelings I may have been feeling for him weren’t real. They weren’t true. I knew that. I believed it.

And yet every time I blinked my eyes, there he was in the background again, making himself known to me; beckoning me towards him.

Okay. Fine. Whatever. It doesn't matter right now, I convinced myself as I crawled back to my corner on the ground and pulled my legs up to my chest again. At least there was hope now. Something to hold onto.

My plan was in full effect and it was going to work. I was going to build up enough strength to fight my way out of this hell hole and get back to Trace. So what if things with Dominic got a little fuzzy along the way? It didn't mean anything. It was all temporary anyway. At least that's what I kept telling myself. The important thing is that Engel would not win. I was going to have the last laugh...

He just didn't know it yet.



The next few days weaved into each other like a tapestry of bland, maddening colors, broken up only by the brilliant moments when Dominic would sneak down to the dungeons to see me. I found myself counting down the minutes, the very seconds until I could see him again. At first, I thought it was just my loneliness talking, my isolation propelling me towards him and his unique brand of medicine. But as the days went by, I wasn't so sure anymore.

His face seemed to flash through my mind almost incessantly, even when I didn't want to think of him. Even when I tried to force myself not to. Nothing was safe from him. Even my prized dreams of Trace slowly became replaced by dreams of Dominic. And, eventually, it didn't even seem to bother me anymore. After all, it was those precious moments with Dominic that made it possible for me to withstand anything here.

Even being drained by Engel on a daily basis.

Unfortunately for me, things on that front went from bad to worse. When Engel realized that the bloodbond between us wasn't forming fast enough, he decided to step up his game. His daily feeding turned into two. And then three. Each one growing more and more erratic. More and more desperate. And with every new feeding he inflicted on me, Dominic had to match him—and then one-up him—turning my days into a blur of unconsciousness and semi-conscious states.

Dominic continued to sneak food down to me, but on most days, it just wasn’t enough. I needed more to be able to heal quick enough to withstand the drainings. More food. More sleep. More everything. Sadly, there wasn't enough of anything in this godforsaken place. There were several occasions where Dominic had asked me if I wanted to drink from him to be able to heal faster and quickly rebuild my strength, but I staunchly refused. I knew Revenant blood had powerful healing capabilities, but I wasn't sure what else it could do or what the consequences of ingesting it would be. For all I knew, a sip of it would turn me into the very fiends I hated most.

And that was a fate worse than dying.

“Why must you be so stubborn all the time?” he asked me on one of his nightly visits.

“I'm not being stubborn, Dominic. I just...don't want to.”

He narrowed his eyes, examining me. “What are you afraid of?”

I didn't answer. I wasn't sure how to word it without offending him.

“Ah, I see.” There was something that passed through his eyes. Something akin to sadness, but it disappeared almost as quickly as it showed itself. “You're afraid of becoming like me,” he concluded when I didn't respond.

“Well, yeah. I mean, no.” I shook my head and tried again. “I just don’t want to take any more risks.”

He nodded, steeping in my words. “There are worse things than Turning, you know.”

“Yeah, like what?” I asked doubtfully.

“Like not existing at all.” His dark eyes bore into me as he watched me fidget under his intense stare. “Like spending the rest of your days in this dungeon.”

Just the thought of it sent a cold shiver down my spine. “That may be true, but I don't plan on either one.”

His lip twitched at the corner as though it wanted to sprout a smile. “I'm quite certain you don't, angel.” After a brief moment, he added, “In any event, your fears are unfounded. You'd have to die first.”

“What do you mean?”

“After ingesting my blood. You would have to die in order to complete the transformation, and since you cannot die with the Amulet on, you're safe from turning into this.” There was a definite tinge of offense in his tone.

I lowered my eyes. “Still, I’d rather not.”

There was a pause of silence that seemed to go on forever.

“Suit yourself,” he finally said and then crooked his finger, motioning for me to come closer to him.

I already knew what was coming. After all, it was my favorite time of the day. The absolute only thing I had to look forward to in this desolate wasteland.