Prologue
Sebastian
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Her voice was soft, placating as if she knew I was working on pure instinct, and she knew I was all but a feral animal cornered.
No, but I’m going to hurt you.
Gods, her smell.
My mouth watered at the very idea of how good she’d taste, how thick and rich her blood would be as it covered my tongue and slid down the back of my throat. My stomach cramped painfully, this stinging sensation covering my arms and legs, my fingers and toes.
My vision cleared for a fraction, my gaze now latched on to the side of her throat, where I could see her jugular throbbing.
I squeezed my eyes shut and threw my arm over them, the limb feeling like it was filled with lead.
She came closer. My fangs were aching, and every feral, predatory part of me told me to drain her dry and become stronger.
She touched my arm and I snapped.
She was so good, better than anything I’d ever tasted, the sweetest wine. I flattened my body against hers and nearly groaned at how soft and feminine she was.
Her blood rushed through my veins, and I felt my strength rise up tenfold, growing and growing until it roared in my head.
And still I drank my fill, swallowing mouthfuls at a time. She struggled against me, but I was too greedy, too hungry to stop.
I moaned. She was tiny, soft.
She was…
Oh fuck.
I ripped away from her and panted, leaning back on my haunches to stare down at her. My heart was beating overtime, her blood rushing to every part of my body and knitting, healing me from the inside out.
With each passing second my vision became clearer, crisper. I could see every minute detail in the dark cave, every little detail of her.
She had long, dark red hair, big green eyes, a splattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and pouty red lips that were currently pursed as if she was… pissed.
And with each passing second, her horrified expression turned to one of anger. She lifted her hand and touched the side of her throat, and I lowered my gaze to stare as she pulled her blood-covered fingers away.
I touched my fingers to my lips, looked down at the digits, and a harsh noise left me as I saw that red covered the pads.
I’d just… I’d just attacked my female. I damn near fucking drained her dry.
Chapter
One
Ada
This was it. This was my chance to escape this hellhole.
The entire room shook, debris raining down from the ceiling as the guards stationed in the viewing room I was chained up in started barking orders to each other.
I smirked as I saw their holy-shit-what-the-hell-are-we-supposed-to-do-now looks cross their faces.
When they all drew their crazy-ass, futuristic-looking weapons and filed out of the room, I tugged on my restraints.
“Hey, assholes,” I shouted before the last human left.
He looked over his shoulder, and I tugged on the mystically protected handcuffs, silently pointing out the obvious.
“I’m kind of strung up like a sacrificial lamb here, buddy.”
The cuffs and chain kept my arms above my head and my back pressed to the stone wall. When he didn’t make a move to help, I made a frustrated sound in outrage.
“You’re seriously gonna just leave me like this when the damn place is falling down around us?” Of course I didn’t think any of these pricks gave a shit about the Otherworld creatures they kept here aside from how much money we could bring in.
But I at least hoped they saw letting us die was not in their best interest.
The human bastard left without another glance in my direction.
“You asshole,” I screamed and kept pulling and tugging at the chains until they dug into my flesh and blood dripped down my forearms.
The room seemed to shake all around me, ceiling panels crashing to the floor and cracking open, dust and dirt filling the room until I was coughing and blinking back tears.
Gods, how I wished the ground would open up and swallow me whole right now.
I lifted my head and glanced above me at the chain and pulley system they’d rigged up to allow me a couple inches of slack.
Just enough to watch me squirm as they tortured me, because it got the spectators off.
Another boom ricocheted, followed by the room shaking and an insanely bright flash of unnatural light. There was the sound of shouting and gunshots spilling into the room, and I felt adrenaline rush through my bloodstream.
Over the last year of being imprisoned by these worthless assholes who called themselves the Assembly, I’d learned to use my sarcastic, ultra-bitchy personality to keep my sanity and give them shit.
It was the only way I’d survived this long. Because if not, the pain and horror they’d inflicted on me would have changed the person I was.