Page 3 of Incandescence

Alexander

I raised my eyebrow . Maya mustn’t be as completely out of it as I’d suspected, if she’d absorbed my name when my master had brought her to the nest. She also had to have more than a fair idea of what our master was, but it seemed she needed to hear it.

I withheld a sigh. I guess I’d been in denial for some time too after I was captured. But even the memory of that event had been diluted over the years, right along with my willpower.

“He sucked blood from your throat,” I said drily. I wouldn’t let sympathy for her plight color my words or my emotions.

“So he’s a leech?” she retorted, even as an undertone of terror leaked through her sarcasm.

“You know as well as I do what he is. He’s a vampire, I suspect one of the oldest and most powerful of his kind. You’d do well to revere him.”

An open and scathing disgust washed away her disbelief and fear. “I’ll do no such thing! I don’t care who or what he is. He didn’t respect me or my life when he brought me here and I’m not about to lie back and let the monster suck me dry. Not a second time.”

She might have offended sensibilities now, but she had no idea how much living the way I did changed a person. She also had no idea how far a human was willing to go to survive even while wishing for death. I arched an eyebrow. “And how do you intend to stop him?”

She shook her head, her face pasty and eyes glittering.

I mourned for her, or at least the girl she used to be.

My master’s bite had already infected her.

Soon she’d be craving the blood in my master’s veins more than she would a desire to escape.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the hunger pains would never cease, and that only sheer brute willpower overcame a perpetual state of being half starved.

I blew out a slow breath, my belly cramping with both blood hunger and rejection for the food on the table. “We eat, or suffer the consequences.”

Consequences that wouldn’t only involve my master drinking her blood. Now that my master’s infection was inside her, the moment he drank from her again, she’d succumb to her deepest sexual yearnings.

I didn’t understand the science behind it, but I’d witnessed the event enough times to know what to expect.

My dick stirred at the thought. But despite my physical needs, mentally, I hated that sex with my ‘playthings’ happened not because of a genuine attraction, but because they needed physical release almost as much as they needed my master’s blood.

I took a seat and distracted myself by scanning the sumptuous spread. My belly gurgled, but not with appetite. It felt hollowed out at the unwanted calories I’d be forcing into it. I looked up at Maya with a half-smile and murmured, “Bon appétit.”

Half an hour later, Maya pushed away her empty plate before I swallowed down the last mouthful of the breakfast spread. I would have devoured this food in my long-ago normal life.

Now, it could have been sawdust.

Maya stood, her face showing a little more color. The food had lent her some strength, but I gave her a couple of hours at most before she threw it all back up when fierce hunger overcame her.

An unquenchable need for my master’s blood.

Our master, now.

I swept a hand toward a door at the far end of the dining room, opposite our master’s chambers. “There’s a shower through there. I’m sure you’d like to freshen up.”

Once the hunger pains hit, a shower would be the least of her concerns.

She sent me a scathing look. “I’ll only feel clean again once I get out of here.” She turned and marched purposefully toward the elevator. Her steps faltered and slowed. It was like watching a straight-backed and disciplined soldier morph into a wilted flower.

Still, she got farther than any other of the previous women, despite the fact my master’s mind control was even stronger when combined with the influence of an infected bite.

Maya got within a meter of the elevator doors when her whole body sagged and she stood trembling, unable to go even one more step.

I sighed. She’d learned a hard lesson. Self-defeat and powerlessness were stamped all over her. My master didn’t particularly need to drink from his subjects to make them weak.

The hopelessness and complete lack of control were soul destroying.

I stepped toward her, but knew better than to touch. “Go have your shower, Maya—”

She twisted toward me, her movements slow and methodical. “My name is not Maya.”

It took great strength to move from the force field of my master’s mind control.

She really was mentally tough and resilient.

Every other woman had crumpled to the floor.

I pulled in a deep breath then slowly released it, wishing I had the right to touch and console her.

But I’d never have that right, not while I was in league with the devil.

I cleared my throat. “Like it or not, it is now.”

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered hoarsely. “What’s in it for you?”

I blinked. Her words stung and shame suffused me. “I was brought here, the same as you. I didn’t choose this life. Didn’t choose to stay and become addicted to my master’s blood.”

She looked...sickened. “So you’re a blood whore?”

I inwardly recoiled. I’d never thought of it in that way, but that was exactly what I’d become. I’d fallen to the lowest of the lows, my willpower sucked out of me along with my blood.

I crossed my arms. “You’re quick to judge. And yet you’ll be the same as me very soon.”

Her voice shook. “That will never happen.”

“You won’t be able to stop it. It’s a compulsion. A need.”

She lifted her head and crossed her arms, any and all vulnerability shoved aside. “I’ll fight it and your master with everything I have.”

I admired her spirit, but it wouldn’t last long.

I exhaled heavily and said nothing more than, “We’ll see.”