The sooner they kill me, the better.
More footsteps sounded in the corridor, breaking through my thoughts. I crawled back to the bars and craned my neck to catch a glimpse of who was approaching. It was a young woman, pushing a wooden cart filled with sacks of blood.
“A last meal for those of you who remained loyal to Aviary,” the servant called.
Snake blood, I was sure of it. Human blood was never wasted on us. I raised my nose in the air as she drew closer, taking in the scent of her own blood. Its subtle aroma mixed with the stench of the reptile blood.
She moved from cell to cell, handing out sacks through the bars. After unloading the final one, she pushed the empty cart back toward the exit. I pulled myself into standing position against the bars of my cell, waiting for the moment she would pass by.
If this was to be my last chance of human blood—my last chance of pleasure before my time ended—I wasn’t going to fight my darkness. All would be black soon anyway.
As soon as she was close enough, my arms shot out. Placing one hand around her throat and the other around her waist, I slammed her back against the gate. As I struggled to position myself to sink my teeth into her neck through the bars, pain stabbed me.
Swearing, I released her.
She staggered back, anger flickering in her deep blue eyes. She wiped my blood from a small dagger onto the hem of her short brown dress. Sliding it into a leather sheath, she tucked it into her bosom. She flicked a strand of long dark-blonde hair away from her face, and after glaring at me for several moments, she resumed her place behind the cart and continued toward the exit.
Feeling dizzy, I knelt on the ground. I wasn’t sure which wound to apply pressure against now.
Blasted slave.
“You don’t want to mess with that one,” a voice whispered. I raised my eyes to a female vampire in one of the cells opposite mine. “She belongs to Arron. You’re not going to make things any easier for yourself when the time comes.”
The vampire paused for a moment, eyeing me and wiping blood away from her mouth. Despite having shared the same prison as me for several days, this was the first time she had spoken to me.
“What’s your story?” she asked.
I shook my head and remained silent. I had no desire to dwell on the horrors of my past at this late hour of my life.
Chapter 2: Kiev
I tried to fall asleep again, but failed. My body ached too much. I couldn’t lie on my back due to the lashings I’d received at the hands of Arron, and now I couldn’t rest on my stomach either. There was barely a patch on the floor that wasn’t moist with my blood. The stifling humidity and smell of rotting wood that engulfed the whole prison didn’t help to ease my discomfort.
Instead, I found myself listening to a conversation that had broken out between some of the prisoners in the nearby cells.
“What do you think they’ll do to the humans?”
“Once the Elders arrive, having humans around will be too much of a risk.”
“Yes. It won’t take much for the Elders to procreate… turn the humans into vampires.”
“Maybe Arron will want some of the humans turned into hawks. As for the rest, it will probably just be easier to kill them off.”
“Damn, I wish they’d give that job to us. I’d murder a baby for some human blood right now.”
I tuned in and out of the conversation, attempting to discover that peaceful place between sleep and consciousness. I was disturbed by a loud crash coming from the direction of the prison entrance.
“He warned you!”
I opened my eyes to see another hawk standing in the hallway. Armor covered his chest. A guard. He was gripping Arron’s servant girl by the neck.
“Spend a night or two rotting down here and then see if you prefer it in his chambers.”
He grimaced as he swung open the door of an empty cell in the row opposite mine and shoved her inside. I noticed a thin cut beneath his left eye. He stormed away, allowing me a full view of the girl. Her right cheek was swollen and she had a bloody gash near her collarbone. The smell of her blood made my stomach groan. I cursed the hawk beneath my breath for placing her so close to me.
She had a stony expression on her tan heart-shaped face as she shuffled further into her cell until her back hit the wall. Perhaps sensing me watching her, she looked up and held my gaze for a few seconds before scowling and looking back down at her knees.
“Your little knife trick didn’t work on him then?” I said, unable to contain my irritation first at the wound she had inflicted on me, and now her torturing me with her presence.
She kept her focus determinedly on her knees.
A speck of her blood on the floor caught my attention. It had fallen to the ground just outside my cell in her scuffle with the hawk. I extended a hand through the bars and scooped it up with my finger. Tasting it was probably the most foolish thing I could have done; it should only have made my cravings ten times worse. But strangely, this blood didn’t have me craving more the way a human’s normally would. It certainly tasted better than reptile blood, but it didn’t have the same succulent quality that human blood had.
“What are you?” I peered at her.
She remained silent.
I thought back to what now seemed like a previous life and tried to recall the taste. I soon found the memory I was seeking. On my father’s bidding, I had once tortured one of her kind.
“You’re not human, are you?”
“No,” she snapped.
“You’re a witch.”
She didn’t answer, but I knew I was right.
I didn’t speak again for several hours. But when I looked up to see that she was still awake, afraid that I was losing my mind to the pain, I distracted myself with her again.
“So, if you’re a witch, why do you let him treat you this way? Why don’t you fight back?”
“What’s it to you?” she muttered.
“Oh, I have no interest in you. I’m just trying to take my mind off of my impending death.”
At that, she fell silent. But after several minutes she said quietly, “I can’t wield magic.”
“You’re not a witch then?”
“I am a witch,” she sighed, as though this was an explanation she had repeated to many people before. “But I was born without powers.”
“Why?”
“Why were you born with horrible red eyes? These things just happen.”
I averted my eyes to the ground, wincing at her words.
“I don’t belong here,” she whispered. The tone of her voice was urgent, causing me to look at her again. She crawled closer to the bars. It dawned on me then that she was quite attractive without furrowed brows and a scowl.