be one of his sacrificial lambs should anything go wrong.
The music in the hall switched from pop to Beethoven's Fifth. Katie's eyes widened. "I don't have much more time."
"Is Felicia helping you?"
She quirked an eyebrow. "Who?"
"A vampire—likes to dress geek chic."
Katie shook her head. "No. Another girl is helping me. She's a magician." Her lip curved up at the corner. "She's the one making the music."
"How many of you are there?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Underborn said he couldn't tell me everything."
I growled. "Don't trust him. Get out while you can. Besides, you can't free me from these straps—not unless you have some of Maximus's blood."
"I'm not leaving you." Her eyes went hard and resolute. "I'll need you to talk Ash and Nyte out of this idiocy, too."
This was spiraling out of control. Scratch that. Events had already spiraled out of control. I wanted to grab Katie by the shoulders and give her a stern look. "I'm not giving you an option, Katie. Go now. Don't look back." My stomach growled again. I refused to feed on Katie. I needed her strong and healthy, and able to get the hell out of this place.
She touched my cheek and smoothed my oily, unwashed hair back from my face. "You didn't leave me when the hellhounds came. You could have tossed me away and left me. But you didn't. You saved my life, and now I'm going to save yours."
The music abruptly ended. Katie jerked and tugged on the hamster water bottle until the thin bracket holding it onto the table bent, lowering the tube an inch—just enough for me to suck from it. She kissed my forehead and smiled. "I'll be back soon."
Amanda returned a few minutes after Katie left, her face purple with rage, hair even more frizzed than usual. She leaned down until our noses nearly touched. "Don't think I've forgotten about what you said." She pressed long, yellowed claws against my chest and raked them down the skin, just hard enough to draw blood.
I clenched my teeth and groaned, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of bursting into tears. The sound of approaching voices jerked her upright. Her eyes widened with worry and she dashed off, returning a moment later with a towel and wiped the blood from my chest. My supernatural healing made short work of the light wounds, but I didn't have much juice left for anything else. Hunger clawed again at my incubus stomach. I wished I could drain this spiteful bitch dry.
Surely, Maximus knew he had to feed me essence at some point. Otherwise, I'd descend into madness and probably die. I couldn't remember if anyone had actually told me I could starve to death if I didn't feed the demon inside, but considering how awful it felt to go hungry, common sense told me it would be a painful way to go.
As the voices grew closer, I knew why Amanda looked so worried. The voices belonged to Maximus and another male.
"Greetings Lord Maximus," Amanda said as the lead vampire's voice grew closer.
Maximus replied. "What was your name again?"
"Amanda, my Lord."
I imagined her curtseying and swooning like a lovesick puppy. Lord Maximus?
"Guard the door at the top of the stairs and make sure no one enters until I return."
"Yes, yes, Lord Maximus. And if I can do anything for you—I mean anything at all, please let me know."
"I believe I just did."
"I'm so sorry, sir!" Her feet scrambled away.
Maximus and another man chuckled.
"I daresay she would pluck her own eyes out and stew them for you, Maximus," said a man in the kind of British accent I associated with royalty.
"As would most of my followers." Maximus, as usual, had zero self-doubt in his voice, maintaining his perfect one-hundred percent douche bag average.
"That's the spawn?" said someone else, a third man.
Footsteps tread closer until I saw Maximus and a tall, thin man with an oiled mustache and monocle over his right eye look down at me. A chunky guy, young looking despite a head of unnaturally white hair, appeared at the end of the table. He alternatively studied me and scribbled with his stylus on the tablet computer in his hand—an arctablet, I figured, or maybe just an arcphone expanded to tablet size.
"Showing me off to your best buds?" I said to Maximus.
"I'll need some samples," the white-haired nerd said.
Maximus nodded. "Take what you need, Dash."
"Dash?" I said with a laugh. "What kind of name is that?"