a bang. Should I tell him that?
“Forgive me, my lord.” I grit my teeth together as I look him in the eye. “Since I was certain that I would be sentenced to death, I figured that I might as well eliminate any preconceived notions about me. Apparently, I misjudged your kind and merciful nature.”
I maintain my eye contact past the point of permissible. His expression remains ambiguous until he finally smiles. I wonder if smiling means the same to him as it does to the rest of the world.
“Such sensitive creatures, you humans.” He eventually pairs a phrase to his smirk. He trails his fingers from my jaw to my neck. ”Perhaps letting you die instead would have solved your emotional turmoil?”
Tensing within his grasp, I fight to not answer such a goading question—one pulled from a trifling past. Instead, I flat-out ignore it.
“I kept you safe, untouched by others of my kind even when you would rebel. And this is how you repay me?” he says, a shade melancholic.
In the midst of my paralyzing anger, I find my voice. “My body may be preserved but my mind has been rotting for years. I trusted you that night. When you told me everything would be okay. For the first two years I lived every day wanting to die.” I gulp down my pride. “I mourned the death of my family alone. I suffered by waiting, thinking you would return... thinking that you meant everything that you had said to me. Once I finally accepted the truth... that the sole purpose for you keeping me alive was to be your damned slave, death no longer intimidated me.”
Silence envelops the room and the wisp of his smile deflates to a taut, unmoving line. Sympathy? Regret? Maybe something struck a chord, if vampires have any chords to strike other than anger and violence.
“I see. But it does not warrant such recklessness,” he says icily, and my spine stiffens. “As you are aware by your being here, I don’t want you—nor your blood—to go to waste. So, how can I dissuade you from any sorry attempts to flee my castle?”
I nearly laugh.
“You can’t. I will try until I either succeed or until you send me to Saya,” I declare.
He sneers. “Hm, or… I could break your legs?”
A shiver of fear ripples across my forearms. He must catch the slight scent of it, because he lets slip a grin. Is he messing with me?
I clear my throat. “I will never stop trying.”
“Yes, well. Everyone has something they refuse to bargain with. And unfortunately, you have already shown me yours.”
What?
He grabs the front of my ruby dress and pulls me closer.
“The lives of your friends.”
My heart skips a beat.
Savvy... Katarii… He can’t…
I look him straight in the eyes with rage as tears fall freely.
“Don’t you dare,” I whisper. “They didn’t do anything.” I throw my fists against him, but he silences the attack with his fierce grip.
He states calmly, “How about we compromise?”
Compromise? This vampire is a monster.
My fists drop to each side and I swear if my nails were longer, they would be drawing blood from my own palms. Zein’s hands find other prey in removing the loose strands of hair from my neck, his features falling expressionless as I become dreadfully silent.
“Compliance can always be bought,” he explains. “Accept and embrace your life here, and your friends will be overlooked. Continue on with your useless acts of dissent and I will see to their deaths, myself. Do you understand?”
Bitterly, I nod. There is so much that I now cannot fathom. By saving Savvy and Katarii from the fallen and bringing them here, I obliterated any chance to free myself again. Unless they would come with me. But knowing Savvy, there’s no chance.
“Is this why you’ve kept me alive all this time? To just toy with me?” I ask, my words cracked by tears, and my resolve momentarily broken.
“That is the question, isn’t it?”
He grabs the hair on the back of my neck and pulls down, exposing the breadth. My mind leaps to my years of night terrors; to that vampire from ten years ago; to my mother changing before my eyes into one of the fallen. I nearly forget to breathe while terror floods my veins.
He’s going to turn me into one of them!
“No! You can’t!” I scream as he lowers his face to the crook of my neck and shoulder, his hot breaths sending chills along my skin—as if each and every inch