“Please, Kiev,” she choked, flinching at my touch. “Let me go. I can’t survive this without my husband.”
On mention of Derek Novak, I stopped caressing her and settled my hands over her protruding stomach.
“I told you to forget that man.”
“I can’t. I won’t.”
I gripped her abdomen tighter, applying pressure with my fingers.
“If you want your twins to be born alive,” I whispered into her ear. “I suggest you heed my warnings.”
“Please. If you let me escape this place, I’ll do anything…willingly.”
The anguish in her voice made me take a step back. My gaze roamed the length of her body before meeting her glistening green eyes. Her beauty made me ache inside.
Anything? I began to mull over all the things I wanted to do with her at that moment. The possibilities were endless…
I was shocked when she took my hand and pulled me into the bedroom, toward the bed. She lay between the sheets and looked up at me with a determined expression on her face even while tears brimmed in her eyes.
“If this is what you want from me,” she whispered. “I’ll give it to you.”
If you don’t take her now, I thought to myself. You’re going to regret it forever.
Brushing aside her long auburn hair, I pulled myself over her and leaned toward her neck. I breathed in her intoxicating scent before running my tongue along her bite marks, licking away the dried blood. It felt like no matter how much of her blood I drank, I would never be satiated.
Standing up, I looked into her eyes again for a reaction. They looked docile. Jaded. For as long as I had known her, Sofia Claremont had never given into my demands without a fight. Now, her surrender to my darkness unnerved me.
“You don’t want me,” I muttered after several minutes. “You’re just desperate.”
She looked up at me, her eyes widening. Perhaps she believed it to be an act of mercy. If only she had known that what I had planned for her was the furthest thing from merciful.
I woke up in a sweat. Night had fallen and the boat had stopped moving. I sat up, noticing that the pain in my body had subsided. I ran my hands along my skin. It felt smooth. Mona had been right. The sleep had done my body good. How long I had been sleeping, I could only guess.
I stood up and looked around the empty deck.
“Witch?” I called.
Splashing came from the waters nearby. Over the edge of the boat, two shiny heads bobbed above the waves. And the witch. She sat with her legs on either side of one of the dolphins, her wet dress hiked up her toned thighs, blood around her lips, nimbly picking apart a fish with her bare hands.
“They needed to stop for dinner,” she said.
I was ravenous. Even the sight of fish blood made my stomach grumble. I slid into the cool waters.
“How do you catch those things without a net?” I asked, swimming toward her.
“Kai might be able to spare you one, if you ask him nicely.” She patted the dolphin on the head. It lifted its shiny face from the water, opening its mouth to reveal several squished fish.
The smell made me feel nauseous. Ignoring her insult, I turned away and ducked beneath the waves. I opened my eyes, and immediately felt like a fool. The salt stung my eyeballs. Clearly it’s been too long since I’ve swum in seawater.
I had no choice but to rely on my sharp sense of hearing. I held my breath and ducked down again. A school of fish swam about ten feet away from me. I kicked hard and pushed myself downward, my claws outstretched.
I resurfaced with nothing.
Mona eyed me. Unwilling to let her watch me make a spectacle out of myself, I swam to the other side of the boat where I was out of her view. I took a deep breath and dove deep once again. I continued failing. After several more attempts, I gave up.
As I returned, Mona looked at me, a hint of amusement in the corners of her lips. She strapped what appeared to be a set of waterproof glasses over her eyes. I had no idea how she would have gotten hold of such an object. Withdrawing a thin dagger from her belt, she pressed her heels against the dolphin’s body and they both disappeared beneath the waves. Several moments later, they resurfaced, three large fish pierced through with Mona’s dagger. She handed the blade to me and I was too hungry to refuse out of pride. I dug my fangs into the fish.
“That’s about as far as my hospitality goes,” she muttered, watching me drink.
Once I’d finished, I dipped my head in the water to clean my mouth. Looking at her still eating, I was keenly aware of how much tastier a morsel she would have been. Thinking it wise to distance myself from the temptation, I swam back to the boat and lifted myself up onto its edge.
“Why do you live like this?” I asked, staring at her.
“Huh?”
“Why don’t you live with your kind in The Sanctuary?”
She averted her eyes to the water. A few moments passed before she cleared her throat, wiping blood away from her mouth with the back of her hand.
“I prefer freedom over comfort,” she said.
“Have you always lived this way?”
“For a long time.”
Although she appeared to be in her early twenties, her eyes told a different story. Something about them told me that she had undergone more suffering than any twenty-year-old should have. They were jaded. Fearful. Untrusting.
She finished her fish, guided the dolphins back into their harnesses and pulled herself onto the boat. I joined her on the bench where she grabbed the reins and urged her pets forward. As the wind caught her long hair, it brushed against my face.
“You’ve asked me questions,” she said. “And since we’ve still got some journey ahead of us, I suppose it’s my turn. So tell me, who are you?”
Who am I?
I could think of many descriptions for myself, for my life that had thus far been defined by my father. Murderer was the first word that came to mind, but clearly not the wisest choice of answer given the circumstances.
“Just a man who had the misfortune of bumping into a hungry vampire,” I found myself saying.
I was sure that Arron wouldn’t have had any reason to discuss my history with a slave. There was no way she could have known that I was putting on an act.
There was no way she could have known that, in reality, I was an unpredictable monster who could have blackouts at any moment. Who could regress into uncontrollable states of violence that were still very much a part of my being, thanks to my father’s long reign over me. I recalled my last night with Natalie. She had tried to make me remember what we used to have. And her attempts to appeal to my humanity had made me break down and lose myself completely.