Cold Blooded

“You can enter,” a whisper floated by my ear.

“No one is here.”

“Can I see my mommy now?”

Good grief.

I eased myself through the opening, my body back to my human form. My change was automatic now, not even triggering much thought. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

The first thing I noticed was a long, rectangle slab of stone perched in the middle of the room.

Normally it would’ve held a coffin with a dead person inside. Instead there was a single shrouded figure lying on top. This wasn’t like Selene’s lair with torture devices hanging all over the walls. This was obviously a place where they took vamps to make sure they didn’t wake. Naomi had once told me she knew how to incapacitate a vamp. I should’ve asked for details while I’d had the chance. Now I was left to my own devices. I hope she’s not badly hurt. That mummy wrap doesn’t look too promising. It could be hiding a lot of damage.

I paced toward her slowly, scenting everything I could.

There were traces of Valdov’s signature, but he hadn’t been here recently. I couldn’t identify anyone else, because I’d never smelled them before. I scented lots of blood—mostly Naomi’s, which smelled oddly like me. But the white sheet wasn’t swathed in red. How do you think they’re keeping her unconscious? I smell blood but I don’t see any.

“You must hurry.”

“It takes too much.”

“Cannot regenerate the bloodletting.”

“Bloodletting?” I asked, alarmed. I rushed to the fabric containing her and tore it apart. It ripped easily, falling onto the cold mausoleum floor with only a whisper of a sound. She was swathed in a few layers so it took me some time to get through it all. “Come on,” I urged as I tore. “Please be alive.” The first thing I uncovered was her chest. It was unmoving, but that was to be expected. She was still dressed. I took both my hands and split the last layer of cloth straight up to her neck. There was a loud zzzzzzip as the fabric fell apart in my grasp.

A still, bone-white face stared back.

Her eyes were closed and there were heavy dark spots sunken just above her cheekbones. She was so still she appeared to be dead. I had to remind myself that was still normal.

“The arm.”

“Must take it out.”

“It’s hungry.”

“Blood fills the walls too quickly.”

What walls? I didn’t hesitate. Her arms were each wrapped separately. I tore the cloth completely away. One of her arms was hooked to what looked to be a tiny silver funnel. Where it touched her skin, a patch had burned away completely. It was oozing thick red blood. Anger bubbled up inside me so fiercely it took all I had not to bellow my rage and alert everyone within a twenty-mile radius. I reached over her body and tore the funnel from her arm. It burned my fingers, but it didn’t register. As I did, a plastic tube I hadn’t noticed flew with it, breaking from wherever it had been secured, spraying blood all over the room.

“What the hell was that?” I yelled, jumping out of the way, wiping blood off my face with my forearm. “Why was she hooked to a tube?” I leaned over and picked up some of the discarded fabric and blotted the blood off Naomi’s pale skin, hovering over her hoping she’d wake.

“You must feed her quickly.”

“She yearns for blood.”

“The walls are almost full.”

“What walls are you talking about?” I shouted in frustration. “Can someone please tell me what’s happening in more than three or four words?”

“You must look below.” Something shoved me from the back, prodding me around the side.

I complied and walked around the thick marble structure that held Naomi’s unconscious body.

“She feeds it too quickly.”

“She is not like other vamps.”

“She is strong.” The whispers came quickly, jumbled together like they were all talking at the same time.

For some reason the ghosts seemed suddenly nervous.

I spotted a circular hole near the bottom where the tube must have been hooked. My stomach lurched. Naomi’s blood had been draining into this thing, filling it up. I inhaled, moving closer to the small opening. There was so much blood. As fast as she could regenerate, it was being siphoned away.

That’s how they kept vamps incapacitated. They knocked them out and drained their lifeblood, making them too weak to fight or even wake up.

But what her captors didn’t realize was she didn’t have ordinary blood running through her veins.

She had mine.

It made her stronger, so she would survive. She had to survive. “Who did this to her?” I demanded. I addressed the ghosts, because there was no one else around to question. My wolf snarled and snapped her muzzle, urging me to free her. We just need to feed her and give her more blood. Then she’ll be as good as new. We have to believe that.

I maneuvered myself next to her, leaning over her stark face, whipping my wrist up to her mouth, ready to tear my skin with my teeth.

“No!”

“You must wait.”

“Have to stop it first.”

The voices rushed up against my ears urgently and hands jostled me in place, forcing me to drop my wrist.

“Stop what?” I yelled. “You said two minutes ago I had to feed her. She clearly needs my blood or she’s not going to wake up.” I glanced down at her arm where the silver had been secured. It wasn’t healing. “What do I need to do? Stop giving me one word answers and tell me.”

“Must release the blood.”

“What do you mean release the blood? You’re not talking about the blood in the bottom of this altar, right? Please tell me you’re not talking about the blood that has been draining from her all this time and is now sloshing around in this giant marble bathtub.”

“If the blood is not freed, she cannot heal.”

“It keeps her here.”

“The blood binds her to it.”

They were definitely talking about something I didn’t understand.

My arms prickled. Shivering, I stepped back and searched the room again, but I didn’t feel any spells. I glanced down at Naomi. The only it they could be talking about had to be inside the stone altar. Tentatively, like reaching out to pet a rabid animal, I placed both my palms on top of the white and gray veined marble platform.

Something pulsed beneath them.

Did you feel that? I asked my wolf as I slid my hands to another location trying to sense what was happening. Her blood is feeding something. Another small vibration flittered under my palms, like a heartbeat. Holy shit. Whatever they hooked her up to just got a payday with my blood.