Blood and Wine - Margot Scott Page 0,5

the wall. He’s rigged up a system of heavy-duty chains attached to silver-coated collar, ankle, and wrist cuffs. With the press of a button, he can loosen the chains and allow me to roam about my enclosure. Or, he can tighten them—like they are now—pinning me firmly against the stone.

Most of the old vampire legends are nothing but fiction. I don’t care for garlic, but it doesn’t hurt me. The sun won’t kill me, though I would need a significant amount of blood and a few days in the dark to recover from a day at the beach.

However, the anecdote about silver being harmful turns out to be true. For a vampire, merely touching it is like placing your hand on a hot stove.

Now, imagine how it would feel to hold your hand there twenty-four seven.

That’s been my whole existence for the past eighteen years.

“I hope the boy was to your liking,” Edward says, gesturing to the lifeless body of a young man on the floor of my cage. Once a month, Edward and his son will drag an unlucky human down here for me to feed on. He’s got it down to a science. One human’s worth of blood is enough to enrich every bottle of wine that leaves this place, while keeping me alive and sufficiently weakened.

Edward leaves my cage to fetch an IV needle and a coiled tube from the cabinet where he keeps an array of medical equipment. Back inside, he sets the supplies on a small metal table, next to a bottle of wine and a corkscrew, then takes a seat on the rollaway stool.

“Do you know what tonight is?” he asks.

I maintain my silence.

“Tonight is a monumental occasion.” He twists the bottle opener into the cork. “Not only do we have our regularly scheduled family dinner—” He withdraws the cork with a pop. “—but today is also our anniversary.”

He means the anniversary of the day he betrayed me.

Before coming to America, I spent a few centuries bouncing around Europe, eastern Asia, and northern Africa with others like me. In the 1930s, I followed my bloodline all the way down and discovered I had descendants living in Virginia, at this very estate. I visited the property, claiming to be a distant cousin, and developed an affection for the place and the people living here. By the mid-seventies, I’d grown tired of wandering around the continent with no place to call home, and decided it was time to secure a permanent residence.

Katherine, one of my descendants, had long-since passed away, leaving her husband, John Greyson, and their daughter, Isabella, to manage the estate. Most of the family money was tied up in the land, and they were struggling to make ends meet.

I got it in my mind to purchase the estate as a home of sorts for myself, as well as the Greysons. I enlisted Edward Radcliff’s help in acquiring it, with the intention of making myself known to the family shortly after purchase.

Edward had worked with a vampire I was acquainted with on a similar project, so I thought I could trust him. I gave him my money. He purchased the property.

Then, he made me his blood mule.

Perhaps it was my own doing. Vampire blood has restorative properties for humans. In addition to being incredibly addictive, it can heal them almost instantly. It can make them faster, stronger, and more alert. If they drink enough over a long period of time, it’ll slow down the aging process, while clearing up scars and blemishes.

I allowed Edward a taste of my blood when he injured his ankle on the steps to his office. I didn’t want an injury getting in the way of the work he was doing for me. However, that one taste was enough to get him hooked.

He takes a long draw off the bottle of wine, then sighs with pleasure.

“God, that’s good stuff,” he says. He grabs the needle and tubing and begins feeling around the crook of my arm for a vein.

I remember when Chastity first taught him how to do this. Supposedly she used to work for the Red Cross. Now and then, when they can’t find a human to feed me, they’ll leave a pile of blood bags in the center of my cage. Bagged blood tastes about as good as you’d expect, but it does the trick.

I wince as the needle pierces my skin. Under normal circumstances, I would hardly feel it, but in my current state, every point of