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Two full days without feeding, has taken a total toll on my new vampire body. My head feels like it has been hit with a bag of bricks, and my eyelids are fused together. Hunger burns me up to the point my skin prickles all over. I’m so weak, and there was no way I could resist when they were transporting me to this, what appears to be a clinic or hospital. I’m drifting in and out of a delirious rage. And now I regret not taking the blood from Selene, because I can’t fight at all.
I twist my wrist, stretching my fingernails out, but something is stopping me from moving. I yank both arms to hear rattling metal, and feel the leather restraints around my wrists. A cool air whooshes over my bare toes, and I can feel that my legs have been elevated. Shit. Where the hell am I?
I flinch and jerk. I need the strength to get out of this, or for the beast who took me over when awakening to return. I fought Adrien. I had so much rage with the never-ending hunger, and I need that crazy to come out right now.
I prize open one eye at a time, but I’m blinded by a glare of white brightness. My lungs expel a croaky scream, and I bounce around on the springy surface I’m lying on.
“LET ME GO. GOD!” My body stills with no energy left from my short outburst.
I bite my bottom lip hard, drawing a little blood. But the taste, the feeling, it does nothing to ease this intense ache and yearning inside me. I want to destroy something. Rip my nails down flesh and bone. It’s a pain worse than any torture, being starved of blood. It’s like the human flu tenfold, alongside a furious psychotic breakdown. I’m sick, burning up, and livid.
Taking a breath, I try to calm myself, but the brightness shining through my eyelids is a discomfort, and I still can’t see where I am.
“Selene... Selene!” I grapple against the cuffs on my ankles and wrists. “I need blood... Selene!”
“Now you want blood.” I hear her voice coming from behind me.
I strain my neck upward, determined that I shall see her. I blink hard, and my vision is hit with what feels like the flash of a dozen cameras. First I see her outline, then bit-by-bit, her facial features come into focus, directly over me. She’s smiling, now running her fingers over my hair.
“You should have fed from my slave. Unfortunately, now I need you compliant. You be still for the procedure. Then you shall have all the blood you crave.”
I jiggle my arms. “Just... just give me blood now.”
“Will you be the perfect patient?” she asks me.
I pull in my lips and bite down, growling and shaking my arms. She wants to take something out from my body that is unnatural. And whatever it is she plans to do, it won’t have the same outcome as Daniel. She’s waiting for my answer, nodding her head. She knows if I have the strength I will fight back. And now she’s going to use my need for blood, to blackmail me into giving her what she wants. She knows I’m desperate.
“I didn’t think so,” she adds.
I close my eyes then look down the bed. I’ve been dressed in white cotton pants and a t-shirt, and my stomach is on show, ready for Selene to take what she wants. I fidget and hiss through my teeth, but tire quickly.
“Are we ready to take a look?” My eyes spark open at the sound of Vincent’s voice.
I squirm, watching him approach the opposite side of the bed to Selene. He’s wearing a black suit with a white apron. He stands next to a machine, and I immediately recognise what it is. It’s an ultrasound machine.
“What the fuck are you going to do?” I bark then moan out, feeling the urge to vomit, but there is nothing in my body to throw up anymore.
Vincent lifts up a probe and squirts gel onto the end. He presses it down hard into my stomach. I wriggle and hiss.
“BE STILL.” Selene squeezes my cheeks. “Look Elizabeth.” She forces my head to face the screen.
I gasp in and out, looking at the black and white image, as Vincent moves the probe, pressing it down into my hip. Oh god, I can see something. It’s pulsating like it’s alive.
“Your ovaries are teeming with life,” Vincent says.
I flick up my hips and manage to grab the edges of the t-shirt I’m wearing. I yank it down, so Vincent is forced to remove the probe.
“We need to extract as soon as possible, before she has fully awakened,” Vincent says to Selene.
“What the fuck are you going to do with them?” I yell.
“Many unfortunate couples fail to reproduce. Like I gave you a gift. They shall have children of their own. With my chosen executives of course,” Selene says, full of pride. “Vincent, show her.”
Panting, I turn my head to see Vincent holding up a tube.
“This is my seed,” he says. “And we have many more samples in our store.”
“You’re sick,” I yell. “You’ll kill them!”
“Possibly. But I am here to take the little ones under my wing. They are my family after all.”
Vincent moves a long cylinder tube onto the trolley next to me, pulling off the lid. An icy fog floats out from the stainless steel. He turns back to me with a cotton swab, and coats my stomach with iodine. Now the sickness intensifies, and I retch, vomiting up some old human blood. I can’t let them do this, but I have no way to stop them.
“Elizabeth,” Selene snaps, probably because I’ve puked on her feet. “Do it now, Vincent.”
Vincent lifts up a scalpel from the trolley, and presses the tip of it into my skin.
“NO... NO!” I cry out.
“We need her still,” Vincent grumbles.
Fuck to being still. I writhe around and feel the scalpel being driven deep into my flesh. But Vincent loses his control and the scalpel slips, sliding across my entire stomach.
“SHIT,” Vincent growls, lifting up his bloody hands.
My blood spills and pools beneath my body. I can feel my existence draining away from me, just like when Adrien gave me his bite. But this is different. I don’t feel any peace now, only a numb terror, like I’m trapped under an icy lake, drowning.
The door to the room suddenly flies open, creating a current of forceful air. I tilt my heavy head to see a tall male enter the room. He’s wearing a suit, and on his face he wears an eerie disturbing rage. I stare right at him, and he at me.
Selene takes a wary step back. “Father.”
I widen my eyes. This is the first time I have seen Demetrius Valt, and I’m unsure whether he’s a part of all this.
Demetrius closes the gap Selene created. “You have betrayed me. You have betrayed us all.”
Oh god. Is he here to help me?
“You stupid relic,” Selene says. “You have no idea what I have done for your world. You took my mother’s life. Then you took mine. This is going to reverse what you did.” She hushes for a moment, as a fear of her father spreads across her face. “Listen, please,” she begs him. “We are on the very edge of evolution. A world in which we will have freedom. The world you took away from me.”
“Dhampir children.” He smirks. “Can you not remember how uncontrollable you became? So I took that away, and now you want that power back. What do you plan to do Selene, in this bigger better world of yours; feed from the dhampir? They are not beings you can take from. That lesson was learnt by our kind centuries ago. That is why I saved you.”
“You failed to save me. You destroyed me,” she declares with passion. “As you can see.” Her hand gestures around the room. “Times have moved on.”
Demetrius begins to anger, his skeletal features strain. “You have become greedy Selene. You have deceived me, and others on your journey for power. You will stand down, or suffer the punishment.”
“Why would I do that?” She grins sadistically, and her black haze flits, trying to take down her father.
They scuffle loudly, knocking over furniture, creating a whirlwind of cold air as they fight. Demetrius gets free from Selene. He grabs her collar and flits, slamming her back hard against the wall to lift her up by the throat.
I yank on my cuffed wrists, hissing as Vincent repositions himself over my abdomen.
“GET AWAY FROM ME,” I cry out.
“Shut up,” he growls.
He plunges the scalpel back into my stomach. This time there isn’t any precision or care. He’s cut me fully open.
I hear distant noises outside. Metal colliding. Grunting and banging. Adrien is here, I can feel him.
Unless Demetrius kills Selene right now, I know that my son is still in danger. Selene isn’t stupid, Daniel will be being watched. She gave me an ultimatum, and now her plans are going up in smoke.
“You... brought... friends.” Selene chokes.
“Oh yes. Adrien is not happy with you.” Demetrius slides Selene higher up the wall. “Lucky for you, I am here to take you home. But not before everything you have done has been destroyed.” His eyes land on me. “Not a trace of this left, do you understand?”
Selene claws at her father’s wrists. “I... I won’t let you take this from me.” She nods her head at Vincent. “This is the future... Father.”
Suddenly, Selene is out of her father’s hands and across the other side of the room, ready to fight again.
Another sharp penetrating pain slices across my belly. I growl and howl out as Vincent’s hands go deep inside me. I can feel him prodding and tugging at my womb. I heave in air, as a different kind of agony rips through me. What Vincent is trying to remove is fighting back, and pulling deep down on my spine.
“It’s nearly over, Elizabeth,” Vincent’s faint voice echoes.
I tilt my fading vision to the side. I can smell my existence pouring out from me. And the sound of Vincent pulling me inside out, makes me pray for death.
Demetrius and Selene are still at loggerheads, but I don’t care anymore. I’m frozen, waiting to fall asleep.
“Do not make me kill you Selene,” Demetrius yells.
“No, allow me!” Oh god, it’s Adrien.
My body comes to life with a sudden sharp burst of energy. I angle my head back as far as my neck allows. I blink again and again, fighting to focus through the white light. I see Adrien pinning Selene up against the wall, as Demetrius grabs at his back. Selene is fighting, but she is no match for the anger of his sang. He’s being driven by his devotion to kill her, once and for all.
I swallow and strain my vocal cords, trying to call out his name. If I’m going to die, I want his face to be the last thing I see.
Choking on cold blood, I whisper, “Adrien... Adrien.” But my words are not heard as he drives his blade into, and through Selene’s neck.
“NO!” Demetrius’s unnerving cry lingers in the air.
My eyelids close slowly then re-open, to see another figure racing into the room. Nathan. His pupils are black and hands are bloody. He lets out an almighty animal like roar as he tackles Vincent to the floor. Both my husband and best friend are here fighting for me. Not with each other, but side by side. How ironic.
My body jolts one last time. My lungs are drowning, and I... I can no longer hold on. I allow myself to fall into a silent agony.