Page 84 of Taste of Blood

“He listens!”

“Is that so? Did he listen when you gunned down nearly a dozen innocent donors?” I push the clamp in deeper. “At least we don’t involve humans in our battles.”

“They’re just humans.”

I grab another clamp and dig it into his thigh wound, clamping it to his bone. He starts breathing heavily, trying to get on top of the pain, but I don’t give him the chance. I pull my foot back and deliver a solid kick to the clamp, nearly snapping his leg in two.

“You’re just another piece of shit vamp.”

He slumps against the chains holding him up, his eyes tearing, his teeth barred to me. I want to punch them all out. Maybe later.

“Say I want to meet with this Python. See what he’s all about. How would I do that?”

“Fuck you.”

“Wrong answer.”

I pick up a hammer and take a swing, smashing it into his teeth. Okay, so maybe it sounded too good to wait for.

“We could avoid all this drama if you’d just tell me what I want to know.”

To be honest, I’m not sure he can even talk now. He spits out pieces of his teeth and glares at me. He’s looking pretty bad, but he’s still hanging in there, though for how long is the question.

“H-he’ll f-find you,” he finally manages to sputter before passing out.

“Well, damn,” I sigh, turning to Vamp 1, who’s watching me warily with his remaining eye. “Looks like it’s up to you now.”

“You might as well kill me cause I’m not telling you anything.”

I walk back to the table and pick up the crossbow, taking my time reloading it and pointing it at him. “You sure about that? It seemed like a pretty nasty way to die.”

He gulps loudly and squeezes his remaining eye shut. When he opens it, there’s resignation there. “Go ahead. Take your best shot.”

Fuck me. I’ll say one thing for the Python’s men. They’re loyal.

Still, Dante won’t be happy if I kill them without getting anything out of them. I cross the room and unfasten his wrist then shove him in front of me toward the coffin. When we get there, I kick his legs out from under him and stuff him in the box then slam the lid shut and click the locks.

“Maybe some time in there will loosen your tongue.”

I grab a towel off the table and wipe my hands and face before grabbing my jacket and heading upstairs to report to my boss. He’s not going to be happy that I didn’t get any real intel out of them, but maybe after they’ve had a few hours alone with their suffering, I’ll have more luck.

Gio is in Dante’s office when I get there. “Where’s Dante?”

“He left about an hour ago. How did it go?”

I run my hand back through my hair and sigh. “I’m still working on them.”

He grabs a fat envelope off the desk and hands it to me. “Dante has business outside the city tomorrow afternoon, so he won’t be back till around six. Go home and get some rest.”

I check the contents of the envelope and stuff it in my pocket. At least torture pays well.

“See you later, then.”

I don’t even remember the drive home, or the walk up to my apartment. I nearly fall asleep in the shower, and crawl into bed half wet and naked. As I’m dozing off, I don’t think about what happened in the basement. Instead, Asher’s green-eyed stare appears in my mind, along with one of the last things he said.

“I never stopped wishing.”

Maybe he should have.