them. I inhaled, and the metallic scent of iron infused itself into my cells. It was the iron and other nutrients in blood that our bodies needed, but that wasn’t the scent that drew us, the scent we craved.
Humans don’t realize they each possess their own scent beyond perspiration and pheromones, a fragrance that comes from their very life force—their blood.
From one neck, a drop of citrusy blond female fell onto my tongue. From another, the leathery and musky flavor of a brown-haired male, this one muscular and full of testosterone. A third fed me with the floral flavor of a female redhead. Redheads were rare, and their blood tasted better than the finest Bordeaux. Redheads with green eyes tasted the best—a lusty concoction laced with essence of lavender yet acidic enough to make a vamp’s mouth water for more and more.
Then there were the dark-haired ones with light skin—those who, somewhere hundreds of generations ago in their family tree, were descended from a vampire. Their blood was the ultimate concoction, the Champagne of plasma. Bold and tannic yet fruity and divine. Peach, plum, blackberry. Leather, coffee, the darkest of chocolate. Tin, zinc, laced with violet and apple and estrogen. Even the men smelled of traces of milky estrogen.
All this plus the one-of-a-kind flavor unique to every human.
I lapped it up, gaining strength, finally able to pull hard enough to release my leather bindings.
I roared, flexing my muscles, ready to bolt—
But before I could escape my prison, my eyes would open. I always awoke.
Those fragrances had been denied me for years, perhaps decades. But I remembered, my memory exaggerating each aroma. The only scents in my enclosed space were the remnants of the two human servants who fed me. Who tortured me.
She would be hovering above me, gazing at me with her cold, evil eyes before she bent down and sank her fangs into my neck.
She never drained me, only took enough so she could maintain her control over me and keep up her own strength. The worst days were when I had to feed.
She forced me to drink from her. I had no other choice. I needed blood to survive, and hers was my only option.
Feeding from her kept my muscles from atrophying, even though I couldn’t move much while in captivity. A good thing. The only good thing.
The dream of sustenance pouring into me and giving me the strength to break free recurred again and again, but escape was always only that—a dream.
Until the day it wasn’t.
One
Dante
Somehow—still, as I crouched in an alleyway, starving for blood, I didn’t know how—I’d drawn on all my adrenaline and broken the bonds that had detained me for so long. I’d stumbled a little getting out of the compound, but my muscle memory had now returned.
Unchained.
Finally.
Free from her.
I’ll find you, Dante. You’re mine forever.
Get out of my head!
You are and always will be…mine.
With the last shred of strength I possessed, I forced her out of my mind.
My guts churned and my gums itched. Hungry. So fucking hungry. I’d scavenged some scraps from a dumpster to stave off the hunger in my stomach, but they lacked all the nutrients necessary for my diet.
I needed blood.
I’d caught and released not one but five different stray animals since my escape. Their blood would have sustained me, but they were so small that they wouldn’t have lived through my feeding.
I would not take a life.
Never. I would not violate another living being. Not after the way I’d been violated. I’d survived hell. I could go a few minutes longer to find a source that wouldn’t require killing something.
I hid in the shadows, avoiding the all-night commotion of Bourbon Street. The music and voices were muffled in my mind, as my sense of smell and my hunger overrode everything. Humans slid by, each taking the shape of a giant beating heart. I breathed through my mouth so as not to be tempted by the earthy and unique scent each one possessed. But the fact remained.
I had to stop one of them.
I had no choice.
I needed clothes, shoes, money.
Blood.
When I pounced on a homeless man, so ravenous that I was able to glamour him into submission, I promised myself I’d take only his garments and cash.
But the pulsing artery in his neck proved too delicious to resist.
Only a few drops, just enough to get me to a better source. Just enough… The itching in my gums intensified as my canine teeth elongated. I suppressed the growl so as