Page 17 of Blood Claims (Garnet Dagger Mafia #2)

DARKNESS UNITED

VANESSA

“ V anessa.”

I heard my name whispered by a voice I didn’t recognize, opening my eyes and gasping when I wasn’t where I should have been.

Because the last thing I remembered was how sleepy I was when sitting on the couch in between two Vampires.

Two men that seemed to have made it their mission to get me to relax.

We had finally picked a movie around the time the food had arrived. Food I had enjoyed so much, I had half-forgotten the fact that I hadn’t been kidnapped again and felt that this was actually just a date. Weirdly, a great date at that.

Because Victor and Tal had done everything to make it seem that way.

The conversation had been easy and flowed naturally, despite the undercurrent of hostility I knew I should have brought to the surface far more.

The food, no surprises, had been delicious, and both men had seemed to enjoy it.

This despite Victor teasing me on how much I had ordered, yet neither one seemed to have any trouble packing it away.

But then again, they certainly had the overabundance of muscles to feed, so amazing food or not, it was not surprising they had eaten most of it.

What had been surprising, however, was that neither of them had tried anything sexually.

It was as if they both agreed to take it slow with me, putting their own needs and wants on the back burner.

At least until I once again felt comfortable enough around them to take it back to that point.

Although, this didn’t mean that they didn’t drive me sexually mad.

That vow I made to myself about no sex was one I wanted to take a match to.

Because they may have respected my need to take things slow but that didn’t mean they respected it enough to give me space.

Not when they had their hands on me constantly.

The only respite I received was when eating, but as soon as I was done, my plate was taken away and my body was encouraged to lean back into Victor.

His arm draped over my shoulder and across my torso as he kept me tucked close to his chest. As for my feet, these soon found themselves in Tal’s lap, where he rid me of my socks and rubbed them.

This combined with the way that Victor started playing with my hair was enough that I lasted all of twenty minutes into the movie before I was lost to the world of sleep.

What happened next, I had no clue. But as for now, well I couldn’t explain it. Not when I suddenly found myself in some sort of abandoned building. The only light coming from the moon as it shone through the broken windows. Faint beams of light cast an eerie glow on the debris littering the floor.

As for the room, it wasn’t one I could place.

It held no clues as to what it was once used for.

Not seeing as it was void of anything but a broken tiled floor and peeling painted ceiling showing through patches of dark red from beneath.

The curved wall of windows held only jagged broken pieces of dirty glass barely hanging onto the rotting frames.

But there was not one scrap of furniture or picture on the walls behind me that held any clue as to where I could be. So, without anything else to do, I was forced to walk closer to the door at my back, shivering at the dark corridor that greeted me.

“Hello, is anyone here?” I asked, barely above a whisper, too afraid to shout for fear of who may answer.

Had something happened to me? Had I been kidnapped from Victor and Tal without my knowledge? And if so, how did I just wake up standing in that strange room?

Of course, I had no answers to any of this.

I would have liked to have put it all down to a dream, but then it felt far too real to be that.

Just like the way the paint chipped away as my hand gripped the doorframe when I poked my head around the corner.

Or the way I could feel beads of sweat form on my forehead and the shiver ripple down my back as my hairs stood on end.

It was all too real.

I squinted my eyes and after they adjusted to the slight moonlight that trickled through, I could see that the walls were painted in two different tones of green.

And just like in the room I was still clinging on to, the walls were peeling away like damp had set in.

Old, rusted pipes were hanging above and as for the floor, it was so thick with dust, it looked like compacted dirt.

Now as for a reply, nothing came, and knowing I couldn’t just wait here, I decided to brave my first step from the safety of this empty room.

Although I couldn’t help but wince as my footsteps were the only sound heard.

Meaning if I wasn’t as alone as I hoped I was, then whoever was in this creepy ass place with me would hear my movements.

Although I supposed this became an oxymoron seeing as I had already called out to ask if I was alone or not.

“Duh, Nessa,” I muttered to myself, just making it worse. But then the second I passed an open doorway and saw a lone figure sitting in a rocking chair with their back to me, I knew it couldn’t have got much creepier.

“Erm… hello?” I asked, letting them know I was there and well, if the chair hadn’t been rocking, then I would have thought them to be dead.

Their leathery looking bald head suggested that they were both male and old.

Along with the dirty gown they wore that suggested I was now in some kind of institute or hospital.

“Shit, I hope not,” I muttered to myself and, this time, the rocking stopped.

I remained frozen, rooted to the spot as crazed laughter filled the room, giving me instant chills.

I wrapped my arms around myself, as if this would protect me from the horror.

One that made my breath suddenly hitch in my throat as the head started to turn to face me.

I gasped the second it started to defy the limitations of the human body, turning completely around, facing me without the rest of its body following.

“Jesus, no!” I uttered like a hopeless prayer.

The face of death quickly becoming the most frightening sight I had ever seen.

Eyes like two black voids and a nose thin enough it looked ready to snap.

Its skin looked like it had been buried under desert sand.

Like what I could imagine unwrapping a mummy would look like.

Its wrinkled skin cracked as it opened its mouth wider until the corners split completely.

The dead skin stretched across its jaw as more and more of it became exposed and skin tore away from bone.

I finally started backing away from the doorway as that haunting laughter continued. In fact, my back hit the wall just as I started shaking my head, repeating over and over,

“This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real…”

But no matter how many times I said it, it didn’t make it true.

Not when he suddenly snapped his jaws open until his face split in two!

His top half of its head falling to the back of his neck as he exchanged laughter for screaming.

After this, a mist came gushing from his mouth, like some kind of gas was being released into the air!

I scrambled to make more of a move to get out of here, running down the hallway to the sound of screaming behind me.

I kept looking to make sure it didn’t follow, making it all the way to the end.

But when I saw nothing following, I foolishly believed the danger was over as I found a spiral staircase.

Yet before I could reach it, my foot fell through the rotted floorboards, the brittle wood giving way and making me scream as my body dipped sideways.

“AHH!” I made a hopeless sound as I reached out and scrambled to pull myself out of the hole I had created. However, it was useless as I sank down, until my entire lower half was lost and dangling in the empty space below.

“No, no, no!” I shouted, my hands reaching out for anything to hold on to.

But this was when I saw it, a strange black fog began to roll in from all sides of me.

My mind quickly questioned where I had seen it before and why it looked so familiar.

But then this thought quickly fled me as I saw a booted foot suddenly emerge from around the corner.

One now stepping through the fog, making it part around his heavy footsteps.

My head rose up as I took in the thick boots, the dark trousers, the floor-length jacket, and the longest legs I had seen on a man, when suddenly I started to slip further.

“No!” I shouted in vain as my belly was next to disappear down the hole. I knew then that I had no choice but to hold myself as still as possible, now whispering to myself, “I don’t want to die.”

I held my arms out in such a way that my elbows seemed to be the only thing preventing me from falling through, despite the pain this caused.

But then the dreaded moment I heard more wood cracking, I knew this would only hold out for so long.

And I was right. But then, it didn’t help as the man walked closer, no doubt putting more pressure on the unstable floor.

“Please stop… I don’t want to die,” I said again, pleading with him, and surprisingly he did as I asked. However, the second I braved to look up, it was enough to put pressure on the wood. Which meant that I never got to see his face before I fell straight through.

“AH!” I screamed in the few harrowing moments I felt weightless.

That was until I suddenly stopped my descent when someone grab my arm.

My mouth hung open in a silent scream as my eyes found a face shroud in darkness looking down at me.

All I could see were his glowing silver eyes and I gasped, knowing now what that meant. Knowing now what he was.

He was a Vampire.

Unless there were other supernatural creatures that shared this same trait, I didn’t know. All I knew was that whoever he was, he had saved me, making me look down to see that the drop was enough to have broken my neck as there seemed to be some kind of hall beneath me.

I also knew how strong the man must have been as he started to lift me up with only one hand wrapped around mine.

One very large hand, at that, his fingers met above my elbow.

Which meant that as I rose up through the broken floor, I had no choice but to watch as, bit by bit, his huge body came into view.

Then once I was at waist height, he took hold of my other arm to aid him from pulling me the rest of the way through.

Yet my feet still hung in the air as he walked away from the broken floor before setting me down…

and down… and down some more. This was until my head barely came to the center of his chest as the guy was a behemoth!

I was about to thank him when he growled down at me,

“Your death is not yet fated.”

I swallowed hard and backed away from him, having no choice but to look down so I didn’t make the same mistake twice. But then what choice did I have when his voice sounded like it belonged to the fucking devil! The rough timber of it gave me chills far stronger than the creepy laughter had.

“Who… who are you?” I braved to ask as his heavy footsteps brought him closer to me, unaffected by the fact I was trying to put space between us. I even saw the glint of white teeth as my question must have made him grin.

“You will know soon enough,” he promised with less of a threatening growl to his words, despite the context suggesting otherwise.

I swallowed hard, and he dipped his head lower as if fascinated by the action. His silver eyes still glowed in the darkness giving me something to keep contact with, as I swear the shadows of the night were moving around him.

I decided to ignore this and ask something else as my head darted to the sides of him.

Quickly trying to make sense of where the moonlight had gone, as it should have been behind him.

Especially seeing as I could see the edges of the windows at his back.

Had it gone behind a cloud and my eyes were just playing tricks on me?

“What is this place… where are we?”

He stepped even closer, and to the point that I was forced to tilt my head right back in order for me to keep eye contact with those glowing molten depths.

“You are precisely where I want you to be,” he replied, making me gasp as I took my last step away from him, putting me directly against a wall.

“W-hy… what… what do you want with me?” I stuttered. Again, he seemed amused, and this time I was close enough to see deadly fangs emerge when he grinned.

“Oh, so very much,” he replied, his voice taking on a dangerous smooth tone that felt like it could lure victims into a lake so he could stand at the sides and watch them drown.

“In fact…” He paused so that he could reach out and touch me.

My flinching retreat meant nothing to him as he gripped hold of my neck. My frightened gasp was one I knew he relished in, as he used his thumb to force my chin up. Doing so now so as I could meet his gaze as he lowered his head down to mine.

Which meant that he commanded all my attention when he told me,

“…I want everything from you… my sweet-blooded Vanessa.”

I cried out, his hold on my throat not tight enough to prevent this, something that seemed intentional.

For he clearly liked the sound of my distress.

His grin told me so before he leaned down until his lips were at my forehead.

Which was when he startled me, first by leaving me with a lingering kiss, before adding to it a villainous promise.

“Soon, little one… soon I will come for you, but for now, I will allow you to wake and release you from my dark world… until next time, my sweet little Blood Lily.” After this all the shadows in the room suddenly lunged for me, like a hundred arms all reaching for me as one.

My scream echoed in the night and this time, it was one that was answered by comforting voices in the dark.

“Nessa!”

“Wake up, baby!” Victor and Tal both called out to me as I felt myself being shaken from the nightmare that had still gripped me.

My eyes snapped open to find them both either side of me in whatever bed they had obviously placed me in.

Each were holding me tight as I heard crying, only realizing after a few foggy seconds that it was coming from me.

And speaking of fog, I gasped the moment I finally remembered where I had seen those strange living shadows from my nightmare before.

It had been the night the witch was trying to kill me. Right before the brothers had arrived to save me.

The man in the darkness had done the same thing. Meaning that all three of them were somehow connected.

Their Darkness United.