“I can’t…won’t do that to you.” I’d die before I did that. “Thank you, but I won’t do it.”
It would turn their relationship into something that they would never be able to come back from. She never wanted Spencer to see her like that.
She’d only ever drunk Sir’s blood. She’d never been permitted to drink from others, and never had. It was another way he controlled and manipulated her. He’d wanted her to crave him, hunger for him even when his blood made her so sick she barely stopped herself from throwing up after feeding.
Again an image of Gunner filled her head, the way he’d pinned her to the seat. Her fangs had actually tingled—
The door flew open, and Sir stalked in. His eyes were glowing, the veins in his throat bulging, lips peeled back.
“You betrayed me! Again!” he roared. “I have loved you, taken care of you, given you everything you ever wanted, and this is how you repay me?”
She said nothing. There was nothing she could say to convince him otherwise, not when he had already made up his mind.
As for his love? If this was love, she was glad she didn’t have to experience it. And anyway, his love of power, not her, was what drew him to her family. His brand of love meant slaughtering her mother in front of her, kidnapping her and her brother, then tearing them apart.
She’d heard Ronan’s cries through the wall, had heard him calling for her, for their mother, into the night. For dhampir, it was the connection to their human mothers that allowed them to have human emotions. If severed before they gained their powers, they’d lose the ability to feel. Luna was young when Sir came for her, she couldn’t remember what it felt like to have the full spectrum of emotions, but her brother’s cries that night still haunted her.
He’d been taken away the next day. She hadn’t seen him since, had only felt him, felt his presence, his power come into being, felt it grow.
Sir had appointed himself as some kind of twisted father figure. Until her hunger for blood began at age sixteen, then he’d become something else. And he’d made her pay for every ounce of blood he’d given her.
She finally gained her powers a year ago, and he had been taking full advantage of them since.
The male who had torn her life apart strode toward her now, and she forced herself to hold her ground, to rein in her anger. She couldn’t fight him, and there was no point running, no escape, no rescue from what was about to happen.
He backhanded her, knocking her to the floor, then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down the hall, down the stairs to the basement.
She’d known this was the price she’d pay, and if given the chance, she’d do the same thing all over again. She’d still help Gunner and Grace and the other demi.
He opened the heavy iron door and crouched down, his eyes locking with hers. “If I don’t lock you away, I will kill you. I will slit your delicate throat deeper and deeper until I take your fucking head off.”
It was a waste of breath but still she tried because she knew the hell that was coming. “Sir,” she said, heart pounding. “Please, listen…”
He stomped down viciously on her leg, hard enough that the bone snapped. The sharp cry that left her surprised her. He’d broken her leg before, hobbling her so she couldn’t easily escape if she somehow got out of this room. Yes, she felt pain, but not like this. Dhampir didn’t feel physical pain like humans did. It was muted. The pain of hunger surpassed all else. But this…this was beyond her experience.
What the hell was happening to her?
Sir dragged her across the concrete floor, deeper into the small steel-walled room, and dropped her.
He strode to the door but paused, turning back. “Maybe I’ll be able to stomach looking at you in a couple of weeks.”
The door banged shut a moment later.
Luna threw her head back, and a sound came from her that she’d never made in her life.
She screamed.
Chapter 1
Three months later
Gunner sat bolt upright in bed, the blood-curdling scream from his dream still ringing in his ears. He rubbed his hands over his face, body shaking, buzzing with electricity as if a low-level current was licking over his skin.