The Feeder (10 page)

Eve

My head was pounding, my brain fuzzy. My throat was dry as a bone. My arms and legs were strangely numb. I felt like I was floating, suspended in the air. I felt cold, my body shivering. Where was I?

The last thing I remembered was being in the office doing paperwork when...

My breath caught as I remembered the events that had led to my being here. Wherever here was? I still hadn't opened my eyes to take a look. I didn't want to. Vince had attacked me and knocked me unconscious. He’d tasted my blood.

Oh fuck, he’s tasted my blood!

Forcing my eyes open – a task that took me a great deal of time and effort to do – I took in my surroundings. Where the fuck was I? Concrete surrounded me. The floors, walls and ceiling all made of the stuff. It looked like a giant concrete cell. Great dirty marks stained the polished surfaces. The scent of the place was strangely familiar to me. It reminded of the club during the day when there was no one there, the room not filled with the sweat and perfumes covering the customers. The only exit from the room was a large steel door a few metres in front of me.

I understood now why I felt like I was floating and my limbs were numb. My wrists had been tied together then strung up and secured to a hook embedded in the concrete ceiling above. My legs had suffered a similar fate, bound together and secured to the floor. I also knew why I was so cold now. I was naked. Fucking naked! This was bad, very bad. I needed to get out of here and fast before Vince came back and drained me of every drop of blood held within my body.

How had he gotten the guys to drop their guard? That was the only way he could have gotten to me. The lads had been watching me like hawks ever since Pippa was killed.

Pippa… He killed Pippa. But why? What did she ever do to warrant what he did to her?

Anger rose within me and I started thrashing. Maybe if I pulled enough on the bindings, they would give. The hooks break free.

An hour later and it was obvious I was kidding myself. As if I could break concrete. What was I thinking? All I had managed to do was rub my wrists raw.

I’d spent too much time around bloody vampires; that ’s what it was.

Before Thayne came to the club, I’d done my best to spend as little time as possible with them. I knew everyone's name, I would communicate with them about work, but I never truly socialised with them. Thayne had changed all that. Now I was friends with a lot of them. I enjoyed spending time with them… but not as much as I did him.

Over the past few weeks, he had come to mean a great deal to me. I wanted to be around him all the time. I hated it when he said goodnight and retreated down into the cellar. I wanted to follow him every single time. Or invite him up to mine. Waking up in his arms tonight, I'd felt so safe, treasured. I wanted to wake up with him every night. If I got out of here, I’d make sure he never took a single step down those stairs away from me again. He was moving upstairs with me.

“Glad to see you’re awake,” Vince sneered as he slammed the large metal door behind him. I had been so preoccupied with thoughts of Thayne that I hadn't heard his approach.

The Vince I usually saw every day at the club, the one with the handsome, clean-cut looks and evil eyes was no more. Stood before me now was a vampire that was truly insane. His previously immaculate clothes were now wrinkled and covered with filth. His hair, which was normally kept slicked back, was now standing on end as if he had been pulling and tugging at it. And his eyes… well, there was still that evil glint in them, that would never leave, but there was now a look of madness to go with it. He wasn't just an evil, murdering, bloodthirsty vampire. No, he was an insane, crazy, evil, murdering, bloodthirsty vampire.

“You being conscious will make this all the more fun.”

That didn't sound good. “Let me go.” I tried to make myself look unafraid, but the shake off my voice gave me away. I was terrified.

“I don't think so. I’ve waited too long for this. Ever since I walked into the office one night and scented your blood after you fed Gideon, I knew I had to have you.”

What? No one was supposed to know about me feeding Gideon. He had promised me no one would find out. “Don't look so surprised, we all kind of guessed you were feeding him. It's common knowledge.”

Was it?

He was right before me now. His face only inches away. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick and yell for help, but I couldn’t, terror had taken a hold of my body. 

“But Gideon has kept you all to himself for far too long. It's time to give someone else a taste.”

Fisting his hand in my hair, he forced my head to the side, giving him better access to my neck. He did it with so much force that I was surprised he didn’t rip my head plain off or break my neck. I felt his hot breath against my skin. The slide of his tongue tasting my flesh sent a shiver of revulsion through me. “You like that, don’t you?”

The hand that wasn’t about to rip my hair out from the roots was running up my thigh, over my hip, stomach, and ending at my breasts. Thayne and the guys had said that Pippa hadn’t been raped, that there was no scent of sex in the room or upon the body when we found her. Hell, I hoped that would be true for me also.

“I'm glad Gideon never fed from your pretty little neck. I love feeding from a virgin neck, makes it all the sweeter,” he whispered in my ear before running his wet tongue over it and back down my neck, stopping at the pulse point where my blood was closest to the surface. “You’re mine now.”

And then he struck. His fangs pierced my flesh and dug down deep. Finally, as the pain from the bite began to build, the scream that had been lodged in my throat since the moment I knew what was coming released. Releasing my breast from his tight hold he slapped his hand over my mouth to muffle the scream. Tears poured from my eyes.

After what felt like forever, but was only really a few moments, he released the damaged flesh of my neck. Most vampires, when they feed from the neck were careful, understood the damaged that could be done to the poor human feeding them if they got too excited and moved their head too much while their fangs were embedded. Vince didn’t care and had not been gentle. The damage wasn’t too bad yet from what I could tell, but I knew there was more to come.

Lapping at the wound with his tongue, he laughed. “I knew you would be delicious, but I never expected this.”

I knew what he was feeling. He was feeling the same thing Gideon did every time he fed on me. Power. Strength.

“I have to have more,” he growled. His dark eyes were insane with thirst as he went back for more, digging his fangs down even harder. I could feel the pull of his mouth sucking the precious life-giving liquid from me, taking more and more every second.

This was it. This was the end. I would die just like all those before me.

I should have always known that this would be the way I exited this life, drained of my blood by a vampire. It was the destiny of every Feeder. No matter how much we tried to change it.

Thayne

The first place we checked out was a bust. The old cabin on the outskirts of town had been flattened, and the ground it had once stood was now in the process of being landscaped. She wasn’t here, and we were running out of time.

“Where is the other location?” I asked jumping back into the truck. Neither location had been close by, so at this time of night, it was quicker to drive than to run. We had taken Reese’s truck, it being the fastest off-road.

“Another few miles out, but not too far.”

Good, because we didn't have time to lose.

“I always wondered when he would snap, but I never thought he would take this route,” Reese mumbled as we spun back onto the main road out of town.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s always complained about Gideon keeping Eve all for himself. He thought that she should be fair game for all of us working at the club and not just Gideon.”

Wait! What? “Gideon feeds from her?”

“Yeah, didn't you know?”

“No, I didn’t.”

How could I have not had realised? Her fear of me biting her. The way Gideon treated her as nothing more than a possession. I should have known; all the evidence had been there. How could I have been so blind?

“She tries to hide it, but we always know when he’s fed from her. You can see it in her eyes. She doesn't enjoy the bite. She fights it.”

To fight the bite meant extreme pain. Why did Gideon feed on her if she wasn't willing? My mind was spinning with everything I had just learnt. When I got her back, we would have to have a big conversation about her feeding Gideon. I wasn’t happy about it, and from the sounds of it, neither was she.

“It's just up ahead.”

Snapping out of my daze, I gazed ahead into the darkness. Reese had turned off the lights a while back once we turned off the main road. We didn’t need them to find our way in the dark, but not having them on while traveling down a busy road would draw attention that we didn't want. The further we drove down the dark lane, the more anxiety I felt building within me. This was it. I just knew it was.

“There’s some sort of building up ahead,” Trent said as he started grabbing weapons from the back of the truck and passing them through the small window to me. “Looks like a building site.”

It was a building site. In the distance concrete stuck up out of the ground at different locations on the site, like massive concrete pillars. Each was covered in graffiti tags, not an inch of space left clear. What someone had been trying to build here I had no idea, but from the state of the place it was obvious that it had been some time since any work had been done.

“Any sign of them?” Trent whispered through the window as we pulled to a stop.

“None yet,” Reese replied. “But... Hold on, do you smell that?”

Drawing in a large breath, I moaned as my throat burned with thirst, the scent of Eve’s tantalising blood thick in the air. “She's here.” Jumping down from the truck, I cast my senses out, trying to get a hold of her location, but got nothing. Was she unconscious… or dead? Fuck, I hoped it wasn't the latter.

The place was a mess. Remains of the many fires and drink cans were evidence of the human partying that had taken place here, though, again it seemed to have been a while since anyone had bothered to come out here.

“What was in that picture?” I asked when it became obvious that there was no one in sight. “Apart from the body, what was there?”

“From what I could tell,” Reese said, “it looked like some kind of room. It wasn't outside; that's for sure.”

“Okay, look for an opening. A door. Anything.”

Trent and Chad went one way, Reese and I the other. I tried once again to follow the scent of her blood, but it seemed to be coming from so many directions that there was no chance in hell of following it. After a good few minutes, we still hadn’t found anything.

This cannot be happening. Not just after I found her.

Never once in my existence had I been lonely, craved the companionship of another, except for the last decade or so. Seeing one of my friends, a fellow assassin, find happiness and love had made me realise how empty my existence was. I’d never thought that I would find someone I would want to keep around for longer than one night. Never thought that someone could draw my attention so completely… until now. In only a matter of a few weeks, Eve had turned my existence upside down. No longer did I care about my work, about the job that I’d been asked to do. I still wanted to find out what Gideon’s secret was – and I would happily sit there smiling when Sabrina ripped his fucking heart out – but only because of the way he treated Eve.

“Over here.”

“What is it? What have you found?” I yelled as I sprinted in the direction of Trent’s voice.

“A door,” he answered as we came across him and Chad kneeling among a pile of rubble, gazing down into a dark ditch. “Down there.” 

At the bottom of the ditch was a steel door, the metal starting to rust with the grit that had no doubt been washed down there during times of rain. Though the ground at the base was swept clean, showing that it had been opened recently, and the scent of Eve’s blood was strong. “Come on.”

When no one moved to follow me, I looked back. Each of them looked pained, hunger bright in their eyes. “I don’t think I can go down there,” Reese said shaking his head. “I don’t know what it is Thayne, but Eve’s blood is more tempting than anything I’ve ever scented before. If I walk into that room and see it, I’m not sure I can withhold from feeding.” 

I should be mad, angry that he would not have my back, but I understood. I wasn’t sure that I could survive going down there either if I was honest, but I was grateful that he wasn’t going to take the risk. There was something about her blood. It called to you. Made your mouth water and throat burn.

Fuck I wanted a taste of that sweet nectar.

“You guys too?”

“Yeah. Sorry man. We'll stay up here and grab the fucker if he comes out alive, but I’m not willing to risk going in there where that scent will be strongest. It’s too tempting.”

Nodding, I agreed. “Okay. Watch my back,” I said as I scrambled down into the ditch and placed my hands upon the old rusting door that I was sure separated me from Eve.

I’d thought that I was prepared for what I was about to head into, but there was no way to prepare for the sight that met my eyes the moment I slid through the door and into the dark, damp concrete room below the building.

Bound and chained, hanging suspended from the ceiling was Eve, her naked body limp and drenched in blood. My throat burned with thirst, my fangs elongating and piercing my lip, spilling my own blood. 

I wanted a taste so badly… just one small taste. But I had made Eve a promise never to take from her without permission. And I would keep my promise no matter how much I wanted to sink my fangs into her precious neck and taste her succulent nectar.

Vince kneeled on the floor, face covered in Eve’s precious blood. Even after almost draining her his eyes were still black with hunger.

I could hear her heart beating, but it was weak and irregular. I needed to get her out of here, quickly, if she was to survive.

“More. I have to have more,” he rambled. “She's so tasty. So succulent. I can feel the power flowing through my veins.”

He’d lost it. Well and truly lost it.

Holding my breath in case her scent overwhelmed me, I took a step forward, only for the sound of my foot coming down upon a piece broken glass to draw Vince’s attention to me.

Head snapping up, he hissed. “Stay away from her. She is mine. Mine I tell you! I have to have more. Need more… Need more… Need… Need.” He kept screaming it over and over again before rising to his feet and flying across the room at me, his hands going for my neck.

He had no weapons, nothing but his own strength and speed in which to attack me with. It should have been easy, a quick flick of the knife at my belt and one quick jab to pierce his heart with the silver blade… but no. Moving faster than I had ever seen him move before, he grabbed my wrist, stopping me before I could make the plunge. I wasn’t prepared for the strength of his attack as he yanked the blade from my hand and slammed his fist into my face.

When and how had he gotten so fucking strong? I’d sparred with him once or twice on the occasions I could actually get him to show up before the club opened and never before had he bested me. But right here, right now, with the power he was showing, we were evenly matched.

Okay, so maybe he was a little bit stronger than me, but I wouldn't give in for anything. Hopefully, his uncontrollable rage would give me an up on him.

As his fist flew towards me again I spun to the right, breaking his hold upon my wrist, his fist just missing me and coming into contact with the concrete wall behind. He threw hit after hit at me, his anger and madness making him uncoordinated, causing him to miss almost every time, for which I was highly grateful. My jaw was still aching from the first hit he had landed upon it.

I needed another weapon, one that would take him down quick and easy. My blade was a no go as it was currently on the far side of the room, kicked out of the way in the scuffle. I had another slightly larger blade in my boot but currently had no way of getting it. There were also numerous handguns upon my body. One strapped to my calf and two more in the holster under my jacket. If only I could get to one of them.

“Just let her go,” I gasped as I narrowly avoided a fist to the stomach and took a hit to the hip.

“You can’t have her!” he roared. “She’s mine. Her blood is mine.”

“I don’t think so.” If anything, she was mine. Mine to care for. Mine to love. Because by God, did I love her.

Her heart was slowing, growing weaker by the second. I needed to end this now.

Using all of my strength I gripped his arms and pushed him away. Not expecting the move he stumbled, taking enough steps back to give me room to manoeuvre and wrap my hand around a gun. The sound of the bullet leaving the chamber echoed around the room as Vince’s eyes widened in shock. When it came to guns, I had a perfect aim; never missed.

Vince crumbled to the floor as the now tainted blood he had stolen from Eve flowed out of his body through the hole I had shot into his un-beating heart. He wasn’t dead, yet, but it wouldn’t be long. Silver affected us differently from other metals. It wouldn’t kill us but an injury caused from silver took a long time to heal. Meaning that Vince would bleed out before he could heal enough to survive the wound.

‘But just in case,’ I thought as I removed the dagger from my boot and stalked towards him. Fisting my hand in his blood soaked hair, I pulled his head back and placed the blade to his throat. Lowering my head, I whispered in his ear, “She belongs to me now,” before I removed his head clean from his body.

With Vince taken care of, it was time to get Eve fixed up and moved out of here. It took all of my control to ignore the fragrance of her blood and the burning thirst it created to get her bonds cut and lowered to the ground. Her wounds were bad. The flesh of her neck was severely damaged where Vince had fed from her, obviously, with little if no control over his thirst. She had a few more bite marks, but none as severe as that. There were bruises on her hips and breasts. Noticing the pattern to them – a pattern that looked very much like finger marks – I longed to kill Vince all over again, more painfully too.

“Thayne?” Trent called through a small gap in the door. “You still alive?”

“Yeah.”

“And Eve?”

She was alive… for now. But she wouldn’t be for long if we didn’t get her some help. “I need you to get the truck as close as you can. And I'm going to need the first aid kit, along with any coats, jackets or blankets you’ve got in there.”

“On it.”

Just a few minutes later I had as much blood as possible washed off her body and all her wounds cleaned and bandaged. Wrapping her tightly in the blanket Reese had passed me through the door I lifted her up into my arms and carried her out to the truck. The guys were already enclosed in the front of the truck, leaving the back for Eve and I. Even after cleaning up her body, the scent of her blood was strong in the air, and none of us wanted to risk any of them losing control. 

As soon as I had her settled on my lap, we sped down the dirt road back towards the club. The night would be ending soon, and we needed to move fast if we were to get back before the sun came up. “Has anyone let Gideon know that we’ve found her?” I asked, knowing that they would hear me even though the window at the back was closed.

“Err… No,” Chad answered, looking a little uncomfortable.

“Why not?”

“Well, Reese overheard him telling Eve that he would take his fed from her tonight, so we thought it best that we do not warn him in case he decided to wait on at the club for her.”

“She’s injured,” I snapped. Surely Gideon wouldn’t expect her to feed him when she was in this state? Scarily close to deaths door?

“We’re not saying that he would,” Chad explained. “It’s just that we wouldn’t put it past him. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

He was right. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I sent a quick text to a contact nearby. The reply I had hoped for came through only a moment later. “We’re not taking her back to the club.”