no hope.
“Help me!” She pulled back her fist to bang again, but cold hands latched on to her wrist and pulled her off the steps as if she weighed no more than a string of spaghetti.
“Careful,” one of the vampires hissed. “We need her alive if we hope to get paid.”
Olivia slashed at the vampire holding her, but he was too fast and her knife went flying across the street.
A blinding panic exploded inside Olivia and she struggled in vain to free herself, even knowing her mere human strength was no match for one vampire, let alone two. These vamps weren’t going to feed, didn’t need her type of blood, but she was smart enough to know she was a valuable commodity on the vampire black market. With the cut on her finger, they could smell her blood and thus tell her blood type. She didn’t understand how it worked, but it must be like a human being able to tell the difference between the scent of grilling meat and fresh cookies. Even if she didn’t have exposed blood, it wouldn’t be difficult for a vampire to determine what type of blood she had. All they would have to do is break into a blood bank and access the records then target their victims.
She’d heard the stories about the vampires’ black market. Part of her had wondered if they were true or simply a product of fearful minds. As she stared the possibility of becoming a blood slave in the face, she no longer doubted.
She’d rather be bled dry and left in the street than endure what they no doubt had planned for her. At least then it’d be over in a matter of moments. Her agony wouldn’t be stretched out possibly for the rest of her natural life.
She kicked and wriggled, scratched and screamed against the viselike grips of her two abductors. She had to get away somehow, and she racked her brain for some miracle of a solution.
“I’ll donate more blood. Just please let me go.”
One of the vamps laughed at her, and she had the impression that his breath would be hot and foul if he were still alive.
“Why would we do that when you’re our ticket to a life of leisure?”
She bucked like a wild horse determined to be free. Though it likely made no difference, she clawed at the vampires’ cold skin and did her best to kick them. She would fight until her last breath. If she died tonight, she wasn’t going quietly or easily.
“Let me go!” she screamed, then spit at the taller of the two vamps. She eyed his mouth and imagined head-butting him so hard his fangs would fall out.
One of the vamps clamped down harder on her arm, causing her to scream. She’d swear her bone was on the verge of breaking.
“Stop making so much damn noise,” he said.
That was when she noticed dark shapes coming out of the alleyways, more vampires who’d scented her and planned to take her off her abductors’ hands for their own profit—or their dinner. God, she was going to be the prize in a vampire fight.
Despite the white-hot pain in her arm, she struggled even more, desperate to get loose, to run as fast as her feet would carry her while these vamps fought over her. She jerked her body, writhed like a snake, made every movement she thought might make even the slightest difference in the state of her capture. Panic welled in her so much that she feared her heart would simply burst with it.
“See what you’ve done,” the bigger of her two captors said with disgust.
He tossed her aside so quickly that she didn’t have time to process that she was free before her back slammed into something hard and unyielding. She cried out as she realized she’d hit a fire hydrant. She tried to draw in a breath, but the pain caused her to stop and her eyesight threatened to abandon her. Pain radiated out from the spot on her back where she’d hit. Her vision blurred so much that she had to close her eyes to keep from vomiting. If she’d broken any bones, that would lessen the minuscule likelihood that she could slip away while the vampires fought among themselves.
She swallowed and tasted the salty, coppery taste of blood. She must have bitten her lip or the inside of her mouth in the struggle. Her stomach revolted at the idea of swallowing blood. The very idea of being turned frightened her a million times more than being killed. Being like these beasts, feeding on the lives of humans, was a horror beyond comprehension.
She did her best to take slow, deep breaths and blinked to clear her vision. Neither tactic was working very well, and she couldn’t get her body to obey her mind’s command to get up and move.
The sound of brakes, slamming doors and boots on pavement broke into the melee of curses and rock-hard fists doing battle. Her brain must have been rattled loose, because she’d swear black-clad soldiers had jumped into the fray.
She watched as they broke apart the warring parties as if they were separating snapping dogs, only to be jumped by even more. Grunts and the thuds of fists hitting flesh rose up out of the melee. The vamps reminded her of an anthill with an endless line of ants filing out of the darkness. Or maybe she was seeing double or triple.
A tall blond guy wrenched the hands of a smaller vamp behind his back and slapped handcuffs on him. She squinted, wondering if she was really seeing what she thought she was. How could handcuffs possibly hold a vampire?
Why was she sitting here asking herself questions when now might be her only chance to get away and find safety? It’d take a miracle, but she had to try. She winced as she finally dragged herself to her feet and attempted to run, only to realize her ankle had gotten badly twisted sometime during her struggle. Still, she moved as fast as she could, biting her lip against the pain so hard she drew more blood. Even if her foot came off, she was going to keep running.
“Campbell, no!”
Olivia heard the woman’s voice on the cold wind a moment before another iron grip latched on to her arm. The vamp spun her toward him.
She thought she’d known fear before. But that was before she’d stared into the red eyes of a vampire in the unrelenting grip of bloodlust.
ISBN: 9781460320174
Copyright © 2013 by Doranna Durgin
CLAIMED BY THE DEMON
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