Page 17 of Battle for the Shadow Prince (A Bargain with the Shadow Prince #2)

17

Plaything

DAMIEN

A fter so many weeks baking in Valeska’s sun-drenched dungeon, you’d think a soft bed in a dark room would be a relief. Only, the reality I’m living now is far worse. I’d willingly return to the silo if I had a choice.

Valeska has me chained to her bed by the neck. It seems Tae was significantly weakened when I wounded and possibly killed Lang. I don’t know if the twin is still alive, but I’ve only seen Tae since the incident. A collar, it seems, requires far less magic than a silo and offers me no shade or comfort, not even from my own wings. Valeska was smart not to cuff my wrists or ankles. I would chew through my own arm or leg to be free of her at this point. The neck is painful. The neck is degrading. The neck requires suicide by beheading to escape.

I’ve tried. Thrown my entire weight against the burn in an attempt to snap my own neck. Turns out I’m too weak to even off myself.

No matter, without blood or Eloise’s energy, my death will take care of itself. I’m in constant pain now, my stomach trying to eat itself from the inside out, my blood like broken glass in my veins, my tongue a leathery stump, my eyes too dry to open. My head throbs. My heart aches with each laborious thump. I’m always cold.

I no longer can lift myself off the bed. It takes all my strength to twitch a finger. It shouldn’t be long now. I’m not afraid to die. In fact, the thought comforts me. I will cross over into the Darklands, triumphant that Eloise’s identity died with me. Once I’m gone, Eloise will know. She’ll feel it, and then she’ll be free. She hasn’t entered my dreams again, which must mean she’s accepted the truth I conveyed to her at our last meeting. It’s time she lets me go.

The soft whine of the door opening meets my ears, and then a sliver of dim light pours in through the crack in my eyelids. The sound of Valeska’s heels clacking on the floor draws near. I don’t open my eyes or say a word. Maybe I can’t anymore. Weakness weighs me down like a lead blanket.

“You’re no fun like this, Damien,” she says.

I feel her wrist press against my lips but make no move to bite.

“The healers tell me you should already be dead. You have days, maybe hours, until the end if you don’t drink. What a waste that would be.”

Inside I smile. Not long now.

“The scribes tell me that force-feeding you my blood is a violation of our laws. I can take your blood. I can drain you dry and hasten your death. But to force my blood on you without your consent is considered a violation.” Fingers stroke along my hollowed stomach, across my chest. “Something about blood binding, making victims into zombies, ethical considerations, blah, blah, blah. We’re vampires, I told them, not a religious order.” She snorts.

I want to cringe, but I don’t have the energy. I’m naked, as I have been since the day she captured me, and although she had me bathed when she moved me into her chambers, she has never once offered me the comfort of a covering.

“Can I tell you a secret? I’ve never been that concerned with the old laws. I really don’t think the forebears are relevant any longer. A bunch of ancient vampires who spend their days sleeping in an underground palace halfway around the world don’t seem like much of a threat. But what does scare me is losing the faith of my hive, which means I need to give the illusion of following those laws.”

Her hand skims across my chest, my abdomen. I’m not sure why she bothers. I am dead flesh. Unless the bitch is into necrophilia, I can’t possibly be doing it for her.

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.”

I can’t move, can’t see where she’s looking, but by the lascivious way her fingers graze my hip, I can guess. I will myself to cross from this life into the next, pray to the gods to take me to the Darklands where my kind find their final rest.

“You understand that I can’t allow you to die, Damien?”

Despair drills a hole in the center of my being. Starved and foggy, I’m not sure what she has in store for me, only that it is evil and that I will suffer even more than I have already suffered.

When Valeska speaks again into my ear, there is nothing but cruelty in her voice. “I thought with time, you’d grow hungry enough to take my blood. I thought with encouragement, you’d offer up your mate’s name. I thought the torture of the light burning your skin and your starvation would break you. But now I see you’re too strong for that. That strength was what enticed me to want you from the start. Now I see that I underestimated you. You are a greater prize than I assumed.”

Her nails scrape down my shoulder, my side, my hip. I want to run. I want to die. My body refuses to do either.

“The beautiful thing about having you in my chambers, Damien, is no one else knows what happens here. No one can confirm or deny your consent to my blood.”

The sound of tearing flesh meets my ears, and then a hand is prying open my lips. I try to fight, but I have nothing left. If she wanted to, she could snap my jaw with one squeeze of her hand.

Blood drips over my tongue, and it at once disgusts me as it elicits an immediate physical response. It’s reflexive. My lips fasten over the cut.

Don’t swallow. Don’t swallow. Don’t swallow .

My will is strong but my body is weak.

My throat contracts, and then I’m drinking from my enemy. Drinking blood I’m ashamed to enjoy. Drinking blood that could be my undoing.

“There he is,” she coos, petting my hair as I guzzle blood from her wrist. “Things will be so much easier now.”