Page 55 of Taste of Forever (Vampires of Sanguine #3)

Laith

N umbness. Pain. Exhaustion. My perception of the world reduced to those three sensations.

It felt like an eternity. How wasn’t I eight-hundred years old already? Why was I still alive?

“Why do vampires carry silver weapons?” Soren, the human with the cold, dead eyes, sat in front of me, examining my silver knife covered in my own blood.

“We’re pretty fond of irony.” I had refused to scream throughout any of the torture sessions so far, so my voice still worked. My tongue was sore and swollen though from how often I’d had to bite it.

Every injury on my body, even the surface wounds, were healing slower than normal. The silver must have contaminated my bloodstream.

“You kill lots of other vampires?” Soren tapped his index finger on the tip of my knife. “We keep hearing stories about warring clans.”

“Whoever’s giving you information sucks at it.”

“Oh really?”

“Here’s something I’d like to know.” I licked my cracked lips. “How come I never heard your men’s heartbeats?”

Soren grinned coldly. “My men are extremely well-trained. Navy SEAL and Green Beret training are child’s play compared to what these men go through.

By the time they’re done, no amount of stress will trigger a central nervous system response.

Doesn’t matter if they’re fucking, fighting, fleeing.

Nothing will make their heart rate rise above resting. ”

“How do you do that? Torture all of the emotion out of them?” My voice was heavy with sarcasm.

Soren gave a shrug and a nod at the same time. “Works best when they don’t have much empathy or emotion to begin with.”

How was it not surprising at all that a shadowy government operation recruited psychopaths?

“Here’s a question for you.” Soren held my blade up toward the light in the ceiling, turning it to make the metal and blood shine. “What’s a blood mate?”

I tried not to show surprise at the question, but exhaustion and silver overriding my system delayed my reactions. And Soren was sharp enough to see right through it.

“That’s what Heather said she was to you. At least, you believed she was.”

I said nothing, keeping my face stoic. He was trying to provoke a reaction out of me by saying her name. Well, fuck him if he thought he’d get it.

“Something about her blood being nutritionally perfect for you, specifically? You got hooked on her and nothing else could compare.” Soren leaned back in his chair. “Like a dog after a bone.”

I ignored him, focusing on the itch of my skin repairing itself on my face. Three of his men had had a go of using my head as a punching bag for a while. Thankfully no silver was involved there. Just some fuzzy vision, a bit of blood, and a ringing in my ears.

“You wanted her for yourself, and I can’t say I blame you.” Soren brought his hands together. “And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but she was disgusted at the idea of fucking you.”

My gaze returned to him, again unable to hide my surprise. “What?”

His eyes lit up, delighted that he’d baited me, even as his face grimaced.

“Yeah. Sorry, man. But she doesn’t see you as a person.

You’re not even the same species as us. She said vampires are closer to animals than human.

That’s why she worked willingly with us to gather intel from the beginning, and got paid well for it. ”

Soren put on his best imitation of sympathy.

“There’s no future with her. I’m sorry. But if you cooperate with us, we’ll help you, Laith.

Our government takes care of those who sacrifice for this country.

Just answer our questions, let us take samples so that our scientists can study you, and you’ll be in good hands. ”

At first, I snorted. The sound morphed into a snicker under my breath that gradually grew louder. And then, because I was too exhausted and weak to school my reaction, I started full-on laughing my Temkra-damned ass off.

Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. My brain was probably desperate for some happy chemical shit, because I laughed as if Heather had declared a tickling war on my armpits.

It honestly started to hurt after a while because I couldn’t catch a full breath. And when I finally did, the whole process started all over again.

Because Soren just sat there, growing more and more pissed off.

He tried a few times to ask what was funny or make some snide remark but my laughter drowned him out.

Everything was morbidly hilarious. The fact that he tried to act like he knew Heather better than me.

Tried to act like the sincere and sympathetic Good Cop after sticking my own knife in my leg.

The fact that he’d thought I’d believe him.

And the look on his face right fucking then, the realization that he hadn’t reeled me in at all, and that I was getting under his paper-thin skin, was just the cherry on top.

“Wow. You think you’re really good at mimicking human behavior, but damn.” My laughing fit subsided and I finally managed to catch a breath. “I bet women can sense how vile you are from a mile away. Is that why you have to stalk and harass them for a shred of attention?”

A vein pulsed in Soren’s forehead while his heartbeat hammered in my ears. Oh, now he was emotional. The anger and embarrassment came off him in waves. And now that I’d gotten a reaction out of him, I just couldn’t help myself.

“You couldn’t even get into Sanguine yourself. You had to threaten a woman to collect intel for you,” I went on. “Is your tech not sensitive enough to pick up our border magic? Or are you just too much of a coward to be surrounded by scawy vampiwes? ”

I purposely made my words childlike at the end of my question. Meanwhile, Soren got to his feet, bringing the knife to my neck with surprising speed for a human.

“Careful,” I said. “You need me to talk right? Even if you kill me and dissect my body, my corpse will only tell you so much.”

He pressed the tip of the knife into my skin and I inhaled sharply, bracing against the flinch of burning silver.

“If I let you live to talk, you have to actually answer questions,” he hissed. “Can you do that?”

“Depends on how and what you ask, tough guy.”

Soren’s jaw clenched. I had pissed him off. Embarrassed him. Crushed his fragile little ego. And it was eerily clear how much he wanted to kill me. That was the only desire I saw in those dead eyes.

But something was holding him back. Maybe he had strict orders from whoever was above him, or the psychopath possibly had a tiny shred of a conscience after all.

He pulled the knife away and returned to his chair, dropping heavily into it.

“How long do vampires live?”

I shifted my weight in the chair. “No one knows exactly.” It wasn’t a total lie. “But much longer than you. I’ll still look the same as I do now when you reach the end of your life.”

“Give me an average. Your best estimate,” Soren groused.

“No idea. I’m not a math guy.”

“Is a year in Sanguine the same as a year in our world?”

“How should I know? I’ve never compared the two.”

Soren looked like he wanted to slap his forehead and drag the knife across my throat in equal measure.

“I know you’re not stupid, vampire. You know the information I want.”

“Never was the smart one.” I inched up my aching shoulders in a shrug. “I’m the funny one, as you probably figured out by now.”

“What you’re going to be is a lab rat,” he hissed. “Kept in a cage. Poked and prodded and experimented on for the rest of your miserable, long life. You’ll see generations of scientists come and go, advancing the human species with the secrets of your kind.”

“I’m flattered you think so highly of me.”

Soren jumped to his feet again and plunged the knife into my other thigh which, until then, had been left uninjured. I bit back my scream but couldn’t stop the agony from showing on my face.

“How about I make it so that you can’t walk?” Soren twisted the knife and the silver cutting roughly though my flesh and muscle burned with a sharp pain that left me breathless.

“You don’t need your legs. Hell, you don’t need any limbs to be a vampire guinea pig.” He jerked the knife out and plunged it into my shoulder.

When he twisted it there, I couldn’t stop from letting a scream escape.

My whole body shook like I’d been electrocuted, overwhelmed with inescapable, blinding pain.

The silver burned, but my skin felt ice cold.

Blood filled my mouth. I knew I must have broken a few teeth.

My system just couldn’t handle the onslaught of silver poisoning me with every touch.

“You’re actually pathetic.” Soren gave the knife one more twist before pulling it out, which gave me no relief. “You think Heather will want you without any arms or legs? She’ll be even more horrified by the freak you are.”

His words were noise, just a distant buzzing while I fought to stay conscious.

My blood clotted quickly, but the stab wounds were deep.

And with my healing abilities diminishing, I could very well bleed out.

At that point, I was starting to prefer it.

The drip-drip-drip sound of my blood hitting the concrete floor was becoming quite the lulling melody.

I should stay awake. I remember telling myself that. But…why? It hurts so much.

I had done my part already. Heather was gone and hopefully safe with the clan. They would find out what happened and make quick work of Soren and his crew, if not his whole fucking organization.

Soren had a short fuse. I could probably provoke him into accidentally killing me. There was no telling how much time had passed, but I couldn’t hold out much longer.

“Okay…” My voice was hoarse with exhaustion as I turned my head and spat out a mouthful of blood. “I’ll tell you…I gotta tell you something.”

I could barely see, but there was no missing his evil smile. “That’s what I like to hear. What would you like to say, vampire?”

“You got a recording device on, right?”

“Yes.”

I shook my head, coughing. “Come here. I gotta whisper. This is top secret. Only for you to know.”

He lifted an eyebrow, skeptical.

“Your government will want to hear this,” I said. “But they’re not ready. You gotta hold onto this until the time is right, Soren.”

His fucking ego couldn’t resist. He leaned in, hovering just above me with the knife in front of us as a warning. “Well?”

“Closer. I need to make sure the recorder won’t pick it up.”

“You try anything, vampire, and I will rip your fangs out with a pair of pliers.”

My flinch at that was not an act. I remembered Kalix’s fangs, how they had been filed down flat. If I somehow lived past this moment, I couldn’t comprehend the shame and lack of dignity at being defanged.

Kal endured it. So could you.

“Got it,” I said. “No funny shit, I swear. I just need to speak right into your ear.”

After another moment’s hesitation, Soren leaned down until the side of his head was right next to mine. He flinched when I turned in his direction, but he stayed put. Waiting.

“I just realized, Soren, buddy, that we’re not so different after all,” I whispered.

He snorted with disdain. “How do you figure?”

“We both got a thing for Heather. That’s why you chose her, right? I might have stalked her a little too. Witnessed some private things. But here’s the difference between you and me.”

I paused for a breath and he remained still, waiting.

“She chose me because I have more humanity than you ever will.” My lips brushed his ear as I said at full volume, “I’m not the one who’s pathetic and monstrous.”

He snapped straight up, and I had just enough vision to see the outrage on his face. The knife came down again and I was ready. But it wasn’t a killing blow. He plunged it into my opposite shoulder, starting the whole cycle of burning ice and blinding pain again.

This time he left it in there while he stomped to the basement stairs. The last thing I heard before passing out was him calling out to the others.

“Come down here and hold his jaws open. I’m about to put some vampire teeth on a necklace.”