Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
I eat my soup while Vlad gives a speech Tolstoy would be proud of. He reminds me of the arrogance and childishness of expecting to be happy in love. It should not make me feel any better, but somehow it does. There is a kind of joy and freedom in giving up hope.
“You have to get a grip, Alexei. You are creating the war we are trying to avoid.”
“They created the war by taking Anya.”
“Then you are being provoked into conflict. Don’t be stupid, Alexei. Use your brain. Is she weak?”
“No. She is not. She got into this trouble by consuming two vampire thralls.”
“If she is not weak, then she is probably taking care of herself. Trust your mate instead of mourning her.”
CHAPTER 12
Anya
Being the captive of a vampire is not as terrible as some might imagine. The worst thing about it is the long hours of missing Alexei and worrying about what he is doing. I know he will be trying to come for me. The question is what is happening to him as a result?
I wonder sometimes about trying to escape. The vampire stronghold is practically inescapable. I don’t like being in contact with Dom much, but I like encountering the other vampires even less. They look upon me as a pet of sorts, I think.
When Dom refers to me as his child, they smirk in the way normal people sometimes do when a person calls their dog their child, with either an air of ‘not really,’ or ‘how dare you.’ They don’t dare contradict him, because he’s their equivalent of an alpha. What Dom wants, Dom gets.
I miss Alexei terribly. I want to try to call him. Dom said he had been in touch, so I assume there must be a way to do that myself. If I can just get into his vampire office, and use the vampire telephone…
It’s not really a matter of sneaking around. I have free run of the place, and Dom’s office isn’t locked. He is too confident in his complete and total dominance to take precautions. Nobody here dares cross him.
I try to stay out of sight as I go up to the room where the vampire does his business. Not his actual business, of course, because vampires don’t do that. Their bodies are frozen in time. There’s a bathroom adjacent to my room because they realize that plumbing is essential for people. It’s what passes for care in a place like this.
Nobody is trying to hurt me here. I am being kept like a hostage, but not a hostage anybody is particularly worried about. So there’s no resistance as I get into the office, which contains, among other things, a phone.
I don’t know Alexei’s number. I’ve never had to call him. I wonder if the castle is in the phone book. I suppose I could try to look it up.
“What are you doing?” The smooth, indulgent, and eternally amused tones of Dom float behind me. I have the sudden feeling that nothing I planned was a surprise to him.
“Nothing,” I lie in the way everybody lies when they’re definitely doing something.
Turning around, I face him, looking up at his gaunt but keen features. This might be the most dangerous creature I have ever encountered, or will ever encounter. But he does what he always does when I am in his presence. He soothes me with his mind, and he makes acting out too much of an impossibility.
He smiles at me. “You’re trying to get in contact with your mate, aren’t you? Unfortunately he is yet to come to his senses and submit to me as I have requested. He is choosing his pride over you, Anya. Even if you were to call him, I would not let him take you. He is yet to learn his lesson.”
“What’s his lesson?”
“He has a place in the order of things. Wolf leaders call themselves alphas. It gives them airs and graces. It makes them think of themselves as apex predators. But we are the true apex predators, and we will be respected.”
“This is all because he insulted you?”
“This is because no wolf will be safe in a vampire’s world unless he or she is subjugated. You will submit, or you will die. Here. Let me show you.”
The vampire reaches out to me and I close the distance between us because I have no choice. He wraps an arm around my shoulders and draws me to him, my back to his chest. I feel his icy breath on my neck and I know what is going to happen next.
I don’t want to be bitten. I want to resist. But I am still as a stone as the vampire’s lip curls up and his fangs make a terrible descent into my neck, puncturing skin and finding my blood supply.