Blood Match (Blood Type 2)

But the history books read that Visage brought the world back from the brink. They registered the vampires. They paid humans—blood escorts—to allow vampires to drink from them. Killed two birds with one stone.

Except Reyna knew that Harrington would never be satisfied staying where he was. He would never rest until he had all the power centralized with him.

But first he needed a match, which was where she came in.

All those nights ago, Harrington had kidnapped her for her specific and very rare blood type, Rh null negative. She had none of the Rh antigens that were found in 99.9 percent of people in the world. A true universal donor. And unluckily for her, she matched Harrington.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d had her only city friend, Everett, betray her. She didn’t even know if he had ever been her friend or if he had been conning her from the beginning. She’d been so naive to think he might actually be friends with her. Worst of all, he’d taken her and left Beckham without answers as to her disappearance.

She slammed her hand onto the tile wall in frustration. She hated thinking about this. Hated it! But the shower was her only solace. One of the few places without cameras. She couldn’t be helpless anywhere else.

Even waking up to screams irritated her. It ruined the mask she had carefully constructed these long eight weeks.

She needed to get a grip. That dream had gotten to her.

It wasn’t the first she’d had.

It wouldn’t be the last.

But it had been the most vivid. It was the furthest they had ever gotten. It made her ache for him. And she couldn’t do that here. Beckham belonged in a compartmentalized shelf in her brain where he could keep her alive and make her stronger but didn’t interfere with the person she had to be.

With new resolve, she got out of the shower, dressed, and slicked her still-wet hair back into a ponytail. Time to get this day over with.

When she walked back into the one-room cell, the human nurse was already waiting for her.

“Miss Reyna,” the woman said.

She wore the crisp white Visage nurse uniform that had made Reyna cringe the first time she’d seen one at the Visage hospital all those months ago on her first day as a blood escort. The only color on the outfit was the blood-red V logo. A sight that still made her feel sick.

“I’m ready.”

“You should eat first. You know that you get dizzy if you don’t eat breakfast,” the woman admonished.

Reyna wanted to snap back at her to stop trying to be her mother. Her mother had died just over a dozen years ago when she was eight years old. Her deadbeat uncle had taken her and her brothers in for three years before the economy had gone to hell in a handbasket. Then it was ten years alone with her brothers before desperation had pushed her straight to Visage. Straight to this new hell.

But she didn’t voice any of her thoughts. She kept her face blank. “Sure.”

She sat down and ate the food that had been carefully selected for her nutrition. A perfectly balanced diet and a healthy amount of exercise was forced down her throat regularly. Though no one cared how much iron she pumped. There was no chance of her overpowering a vampire.

“Ready,” she said, pushing the tray aside.

“Don’t forget your water.”

Reyna snatched it off the table and carried it with her toward the door. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Of course,” the woman said with a bland smile.

She’d had the same nurse twice a week for eight weeks. Not a single change in all that time. Reyna didn’t know a thing about the woman. They spent an hour together every Monday and Thursday for one of the most unpleasant experiences of Reyna’s life and she didn’t even know the woman’s name.

The door to the room slid open silently and Reyna held her breath. Every time it opened she envisioned herself slipping out and running away undetected. It was a pipedream. Still she clung to it.

She followed the nurse out of the room and took a right down the hallway. When she’d first arrived, she’d tried the exact thing that she’d just been considering. She’d made it three feet before a shock wave ran up her arm and she fell forward flat on her face. Some hugely muscled vampire had picked her up with one arm and deposited her back in her cell.

He’d laughed in her face as he shut the door and told her about the device they’d implanted in her arm to prevent the very thing she’d attempted. As if it wasn’t enough to have vampires guarding her. They had an invasive thing put into her arm.

So, no running away for her.

When they arrived, the room was white and sterile. The sight of it still made Reyna shake with fear. Needles. This room meant needles.