Crimson Covenant (Onyx Assassins 1)

In a flash, he gripped my arm, yanking me across the floor as far as my chains would stretch. I flailed, my instincts roaring that if I could just get a hold of him, I could sink my fangs into his flesh and drain—

The serrated blade dragged across my forearm, ripping the skin and muscle apart like the busted strings of a seam. I screamed, hissing and spitting as the pain flared to an all-time high.

“You don’t have to tell us,” he yelled over my wails, digging that blade in for another pass. “We’ll find it. We’ll find Alek. And when we do?” He tilted his head, his eyes churning with hate and fire as he made another cut in my arm. “We’re going to carve him up, worse than this. We’re going to dismember him until nothing is left but a head to hang on my mantle—”

I saw red.

My body roared and surged with a reserve of power I didn’t know existed. I yanked with my good arm, the chain springing free from the concrete with a groan.

Kyle stumbled back, scrambling on his ass as I swung with a speed he couldn’t follow.

My knuckles burned with a delicious satisfaction as they cracked across his smug face, his head whipping to the side from the impact. Before he could recover, I grabbed his neck.

“Threaten my mate again. I fucking dare you,” I hissed, clutching the flesh, relishing the delicate feel of it beneath my fingers. God, it would be so easy to snap. One thought. Half a thought, and he’d be dead. And that angry, dark thing inside me begged and ached for me to do just that.

But I needed to get out of here. And Kyle was the only—

A sharp pain bit into my belly, and I stumbled back, my fingers shaking around the knife embedded there.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I hadn’t watched his hands. I’d been so drunk on my power, lost in my bloodlust, that I hadn’t checked his hands.

“Bitch,” he spat, and then he was on top of me, hands pinning my shoulders to the floor as my very lifeforce leaked out of me. So much blood. How much could a vampire lose without replenishing it before they died?

Kyle straddled my hips, his weight feeling so much more with each pulse in my veins trickling out of my body. Black spots peppered my vision as I glared up at him, the chains, the weakness in my limbs not allowing me to shove him off.

“It’s a shame,” he hissed, almost a whisper as he ran his hands down the sides of my arms, my ribs.

Acid clawed up my throat, disgust recoiling my insides as I tried and failed to move.

“You were so hot as a human,” he said, shaking his head and sucking his teeth. “I kept asking Valor to introduce us, but she refused. Does she know what you did to yourself?”

I shook my head quickly. “I haven’t seen her since,” I said, not wanting to implicate her, but what the fuck was wrong with her family? If she knew…would she be in this cell with me? As a prisoner or as a torturer? I hated that I didn’t know—

Kyle shifted, pressing himself harder into me.

I managed to move, but it wasn’t enough. He barely budged.

“Yes,” he said, eyes wild. “Fight back. I love a challenge.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks as his grip tightened, as he sank his fingertips into the open wounds on my forearm. I screamed, trying like hell to kick him off, but I was so fucking weak.

God, I needed help. Needed blood. I was so out of my element. If I escaped—no, when I escaped—I was going to have Alek train the shit out of me. Alek, Ransom, Lachlan, Benedict, hell, even Hawke. I would test myself against all of them, because this? This helpless feeling? I could not, would not be put in the position again.

That icy cold prickling pinched every inch of my skin, my instincts flickering in and out as each heartbeat slowed my power, my responses, my everything. I’d tried and failed to call Alek through the bond too many times to count. Something about the way this facility was built, or perhaps just the loss of blood, had weakened me so damn much.

Kyle laughed, using his free hand to push back the sweat-mangled hair from my face. “I would’ve fucked you when you were human,” he whispered, his lips at the shell of my ear. “But now? Now I’m just going to take you. Prove to you fangers that you’re nothing but a void to fill.” He shifted, plunging his hand between us, right between my thighs.

I screamed again, thrashing with what little strength I had left—

“Enough.” The masculine voice cut through my screams, and Kyle leaped off of me like he’d been burned.