One by one, the vampires called out a name, and the man or woman called left his or her seat and followed the vampire out the door.
“Elena Knightsbridge.”
It took her a moment to realize her name had been called. There had to be a mistake, she thought frantically. She wasn’t one of the sheep! She was Drake’s wife.
“Elena Knightsbridge, come to me.”
To her horror, she found herself rising as if she had no mind of her own, moving toward the vampire who had summoned her. He resembled Drake in that he was tall and had long black hair and blue eyes. But that was where the resemblance ended. There was a cruel twist to this man’s mouth, a coldness in his pale blue eyes.
“Poor thing,” one of the women murmured as Elena passed by. “To get Vardin her first time.”
Elena shivered when he looked at her. There was nothing of warmth when he smiled at her, no gentleness in his grip when his hand closed over her arm. This was a man who enjoyed inflicting pain, she had no doubt of it.
She couldn’t stop shaking as he led her down three flights of stairs, then shoved her into a room that looked as though it had been decorated for a king—from the overly large bed draped with cloth-of-gold to the striped silk that covered the walls. An overstuffed chair covered in red velvet, a desk, and a large, beautifully carved wardrobe were spaced around the room. Aubusson carpets covered the floor; hanging candelabras provided illumination.
“Please,” he said with exaggerated politeness. “Sit down.” It was a demand, not an invitation.
She perched on the edge of the chair, her hands clenched in her lap. A sense of doom settled over her when the door closed, seemingly of its own accord.
The vampire came toward her like a hungry cat stalking its prey. He stood over her, his eyes going red, his fangs gleaming as he lowered his head to her neck.
Panic swept over her as his hand closed over her shoulder. She wanted to fight him, wanted to scream for him to leave her alone, but sheer terror at what he might do if she opposed him held her frozen in place.
“No.” The word escaped her lips. “Please. There’s been a mistake. I’m not one of. . . of the sheep.”
But he didn’t listen.
Didn’t stop.
Didn’t care.
There was no pleasure in his bite as he bent her back over his arm, only an excruciating pain that sizzled down the length of her neck like the sharp bite of a serpent, and then burned its way through every nerve and cell in her body.
She screamed with the pain of it as her body began to tremble uncontrollably. When he bit her again, the world spun out of focus. She was falling, slipping helplessly into a black abyss that felt like death. Sobbing, she whispered a single word.
“Drake.”
He came awake with a start, the echo of Elena’s terrified cry ringing in his ears. Ignoring the pain that burned through him with every breath, he pulled against the chain that shackled him to the wall. He struggled to free himself even though he knew it was useless. His preternatural strength had been leeched away by the silver that bound him, by the relentless sunlight that had scorched his flesh.
His whole body throbbed in agony. Blood oozed from where the silver had rubbed his skin raw. Sweat stung his eyes. His tortured body screamed for nourishment to relieve the pain and the thirst.
“Elena.” Her name whispered past dry, cracked lips. “Elena, forgive me.”
Chapter 15
Elena couldn’t sleep that night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the vampire’s hellish gaze, felt his fangs savaging her throat again and again. She huddled under the covers, shoulders shaking, eyes burning with tears. Where was Drake? Why wouldn’t they let her see him? She needed him, needed him desperately. She was lost and alone in a nightmare from which there was no escape.
Gradually, exhaustion claimed her and she fell into a restless sleep, only to wake some time later, a scream on her lips.
“Hush, now, you’ll be all right.”
Elena opened her eyes. In the dim light, she saw one of the women kneeling beside her bed. “S-sorry,” Elena said, sniffing back her tears.
“No need to apologize. We all have nightmares now and then. I am Northa.”
“Elena.”
“What are you doing here? You are not one of us.”
Elena hesitated a moment, wondering if she should tell the truth, and then shrugged. “Drake is my husband.”
Northa’s eyes grew wide with astonishment. “You married Rodin’s eldest son?”
At this announcement, someone lit a nearby candle and several other women clustered around Elena’s cot, their expressions filled with curiosity.
Elena nodded.
“It is said that of all Rodin’s sons, Drake is his favorite.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Elena said, remembering how angry Rodin had been.
“We only know what little we hear,” Marta said. “It is rumored among us that Drake left the Fortress over three hundred years ago and in all that time, he has never come back.”
A girl with straight brown hair and gray eyes nodded. “Cullin told me that his brother has never been one of them, that he never approved of his father keeping us here against our will.” She made a vague gesture with one hand. “I don’t understand what he means, against our will. If we didn’t stay here, where would we go?”
“There’s a whole world out there,” Elena said. “You could have a place of your own, get married, have children.”
“Some of us will be allowed to mate and have children,” Northa said.
“And those children will be food for the vampires!” Elena exclaimed.
Northa shrugged. “It is how it has always been.”
“But you’re prisoners!” Elena looked at the women gathered around her. “Don’t you want to be free?”
“What is free?” Marta asked.
“I’m free,” Elena said. “I chose to marry Drake. We have a house of our own. No one tells us what to do or when to do it. We can come and go as we please.”
A girl with short black hair snorted with disdain. “You look like us,” she said, tugging on the sleeve of Elena’s nightgown, which was like the gowns all the other women wore. “You feed the vampires. How are you any different?”
“I don’t belong here.”
“But here you are,” the dark-haired girl said with an air of finality. “And once you are here, you can never leave.”
Those words, and the finality with which the dark-haired girl had spoken them, haunted Elena in the recreation room the next day. It might be true for the sheep, that there was no escape, but it couldn’t be true for her. She didn’t belong here. Would never belong here. She refused to believe she would never leave this horrible place. She had to cling to the hope that she would soon be with Drake again, that they could return to Wolfram Castle, because hope was all she had.