“It takes too much.”
“Cannot regenerate the bloodletting.”
“Bloodletting?” I asked, alarmed. I rushed to the fabric containing her and tore it apart. It ripped easily, falling onto the cold mausoleum floor with only a whisper of a sound. She was swathed in a few layers so it took me some time to get through it all. “Come on,” I urged as I tore. “Please be alive.” The first thing I uncovered was her chest. It was unmoving, but that was to be expected. She was still dressed. I took both my hands and split the last layer of cloth straight up to her neck. There was a loud zzzzzzip as the fabric fell apart in my grasp.
A still, bone-white face stared back.
Her eyes were closed and there were heavy dark spots sunken just above her cheekbones. She was so still she appeared to be dead. I had to remind myself that was still normal.
“The arm.”
“Must take it out.”
“It’s hungry.”
“Blood fills the walls too quickly.”
What walls? I didn’t hesitate. Her arms were each wrapped separately. I tore the cloth completely away. One of her arms was hooked to what looked to be a tiny silver funnel. Where it touched her skin, a patch had burned away completely. It was oozing thick red blood. Anger bubbled up inside me so fiercely it took all I had not to bellow my rage and alert everyone within a twenty-mile radius. I reached over her body and tore the funnel from her arm. It burned my fingers, but it didn’t register. As I did, a plastic tube I hadn’t noticed flew with it, breaking from wherever it had been secured, spraying blood all over the room.
“What the hell was that?” I yelled, jumping out of the way, wiping blood off my face with my forearm. “Why was she hooked to a tube?” I leaned over and picked up some of the discarded fabric and blotted the blood off Naomi’s pale skin, hovering over her hoping she’d wake.
“You must feed her quickly.”
“She yearns for blood.”
“The walls are almost full.”
“What walls are you talking about?” I shouted in frustration. “Can someone please tell me what’s happening in more than three or four words?”
“You must look below.” Something shoved me from the back, prodding me around the side.
I complied and walked around the thick marble structure that held Naomi’s unconscious body.
“She feeds it too quickly.”
“She is not like other vamps.”
“She is strong.” The whispers came quickly, jumbled together like they were all talking at the same time.
For some reason the ghosts seemed suddenly nervous.
I spotted a circular hole near the bottom where the tube must have been hooked. My stomach lurched. Naomi’s blood had been draining into this thing, filling it up. I inhaled, moving closer to the small opening. There was so much blood. As fast as she could regenerate, it was being siphoned away.
That’s how they kept vamps incapacitated. They knocked them out and drained their lifeblood, making them too weak to fight or even wake up.
But what her captors didn’t realize was she didn’t have ordinary blood running through her veins.
She had mine.
It made her stronger, so she would survive. She had to survive. “Who did this to her?” I demanded. I addressed the ghosts, because there was no one else around to question. My wolf snarled and snapped her muzzle, urging me to free her. We just need to feed her and give her more blood. Then she’ll be as good as new. We have to believe that.
I maneuvered myself next to her, leaning over her stark face, whipping my wrist up to her mouth, ready to tear my skin with my teeth.
“No!”
“You must wait.”
“Have to stop it first.”