and she appeared as surprised by the revelation as he was. Had she not wanted to reveal this or was she making up lies? Or was she simply a very good actress?
Maybe Cain had been right to cut off her questions, so he wouldn’t reveal too much about Scanguards. After all, she was a stranger, and even though she’d been bitten by a vampire, it could have all been a setup to get close to them, to infiltrate Scanguards. What if some group of vampires was using her as bait? Even now, she could be under their control. Despite his physical attraction to her, he had to be careful. If he got involved, it would only end badly when it turned out that she was working for the enemy. He would never go against Scanguards, not even for the hottest woman he’d met in a long time. His eyes involuntarily dropped to her chest where her small breasts moved up and down as she breathed. At the same time he noticed how clammy her hand was and how fast her heart beat.
When he raised his gaze to look into her eyes again, he realized that what he was seeing were signs of fear. Did she fear him and his friends, or did she fear the vampire who had bitten her?
“Please,” he urged her. “Tell me what happened.”
Slowly, she pulled her hand from his. Reluctantly he allowed it.
“They held me for three years.”
The words choked out from her throat as if she had trouble speaking.
Stunned by her words, he remained silent and waited for her to continue. She took several breaths, looking at his friends then turned her head to the side, avoiding eye contact with him.
“I was a student at NYU when they captured me one night after I left an evening lecture. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Vampires didn’t exist! They couldn’t exist. They were just myth, folklore. They only existed in movies. I never thought . . . ” Her voice broke.
Oliver wanted to say so much, but his throat felt parched all of a sudden.
“They took me to a building where they kept me locked up. I wasn’t the only one. There were other girls like me.” She looked up and met his gaze. Her eyes were moist, but she wasn’t crying.
Of its own volition, his hand came up, wanting to stroke her cheek to comfort her, but in the last minute, he pulled it back, not wanting to expose his feelings to her or his friends. He had to stay impartial. It was the hallmark of a good bodyguard. Cain had been trying to teach him that very fact, and Gabriel had reinforced it countless times.
However, it didn’t change the fact that he was affected by her words. He felt compassion.
“What did they do to you?”
Ursula thrust her chin up, her mouth setting into a hard line. “They pimped us out as blood whores.”
“Blood whores?” Maya gasped in disbelief.
His own reaction wasn’t any different. “I’ve never heard of blood whores.” He turned to Cain to ask for reassurance.
His colleague shook his head. “There’s no such thing. There’s no need for that.”
Ursula pulled her shoulders up and straightened, her lips trembling as she continued, “They used me and the other girls as blood whores. Two, sometimes three times a night they would bring vampires in to drink from us; leeches we called them.” She choked. “Some of the girls didn’t make it. But they always found new ones to replace the ones who died.”
Cain took a step closer. “That’s impossible. There’s no need to keep humans imprisoned for their blood. Even those vampires who don’t drink bottled blood wouldn’t have any need for this. They’ll simply go out and h—”
“Find somebody to drink from,” Oliver interrupted him quickly. Hunt, Cain had wanted to say, and somehow Oliver didn’t think it was the right word to use in Ursula’s presence. “No vampire would go through the trouble of keeping a human imprisoned just to have blood at hand at all times.”
If that were the case, why not drink it from a bottle? At least that’s how he felt: he loved the hunt. The thrill of it was what drove him out there night after night. And he could only imagine that it was the same for those vampires who hadn’t taken to bottled blood. They were in it for the chase. They wouldn’t want the bother of keeping a human in a prison to feed from him