Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins Page 0,116

You’ve become part of their unit. Don’t fuck it up.” He took a breath and his energy changed to something a little scary. “I sentence you to two nights in the box. Not because you’ve done wrong, but because I haven’t punished you and you need to know I won’t hesitate to do so, should you displease me. I’m displeased by the situation, by the fact someone else’s commands overwrote mine, and it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t your fault. Life isn’t fair, and you’ll only piss me off if you start down that path.”

“Thank you for explaining why I’ll spend time in the box, Master. You didn’t have to, and it’s appreciated.”

He gave her a small nod, and reached to close the box.

When she was once again plunged into total darkness, she heard him in her head.

It wasn’t plugged in before. It will be now. Use this time to meditate and consider what kind of vampire you want to be. Submissive in bed, yes, but out of it? You’re stronger than you know.

And then she was blocked from the rest of the world, and she understood how they were doing it, this time. She was in a Faraday cage, of sorts. It had to be plugged in for it to block her from any energy or magic or whatever outside the box.

37

Eunice thought he’d go crazy, but Aaron had told him this was between Kelsey and her Master, and he needed to let that happen and focus on his work.

For two days, his job consisted of working security for Aaron’s wife in Faerie. In fucking Faerie.

He helped her regular castle guard oversee the party to end all parties, and he completely understood why more help had been brought in when half of the castle guard joined the orgy at the end.

By the time he was taken home, he’d been awake for thirty hours and he was exhausted, but nothing mattered because his beloved was in a damned box, dead to the world. It was no longer plugged in, but she was still in the fucking box. Someone had delivered it to Drake Security, and they were in the basement.

“You mustn’t take her out,” Aaron told him, physically blocking him from doing so.

“Why would they do that to her?! She’s starving. She’s so damned weak, and she’s bound into a fucking box.” He didn’t yell. Oh no. His voice was low. Calm.

Someone was going to die for this. Aaron had told him she’d be okay, and she clearly was not okay.

“This is standard punishment for a vampire. Two nights without food means’ she’ll be weak, but it won’t do permanent harm. She’s had worse, Eunice.”

“She won’t wake up in the box under my watch.”

“I will feed her, Eunice, but she isn’t old enough to trust unbound when she wakens after being punished. I’ll offer her my arm while she’s bound, but I won’t feed her if you take her out.”

He glared at his boss, at the ancient dragon powerful enough to make your teeth hurt from hundreds of yards away. “You’re saying she’ll hurt us when she rises? I don’t believe that.”

Aaron blew out a breath. “I once fed the man you knew as Abbott, when he’d been in a box. When he still had a Master. Etienne, as he was known at the time, nearly bled me dry, long before he was powerful enough to be called The Abbott.” He softened his voice. “He was my friend. He wouldn’t have hurt me for the world, but he came out of it a raving wild thing. Mindless. Until he’d fed, he wasn’t himself. It’s possible your girl will wake starved but clearheaded, but it’s also possible she wakes with only a thirst for blood, and with no memory of who she is. Until she rises, we won’t know.”

Eunice stood still as a statue, every muscle in his body taut. His hands squeezed into fists at his side. Concrete in his gut. “I can’t feel her, Aaron. I mean, I can sense the shape her body’s in, but I can’t feel her mind. Her soul.”

“Can you usually feel her at one o’clock in the afternoon?”

“No. Yes. I mean...” Fuck. “I begin to sense her, sometimes, before she rises. When she’s fed on lust, I’ll feel her this early.”

“She hasn’t fed on anything in days. As young as she is, we may not see her until sunset.” He ran his hand through his hair. “We’re all safe here. I’m going to take