Page 49 of Bloody Kingdom

One wrong move and my throat will be cut open. If they hit the artery, I’ll bleed out in ten seconds or less.At least it will be quick.

“I’ll scream,” I threaten, my voice thick with emotion.

“Do it,” he whispers into my ear. “Scream so loud you wake the dead.”

The hand that’s knotted into my hair trails down my collarbone and moves slowly down. He takes my nipple between his fingers and squeezes hard, this time I can’t keep the whimper at bay. The man in front of me breaks into a smile when he hears the sound of my defeat.

His fingers leave my nipple and swipe through the blood that dribbles from the cut on my chest. Lazily, he smears the blood across each breast. “I’m going to paint you red and leave you here on display like my own personal masterpiece.”

My throat is so tight as vomit threatens to escape and the tears now fall freely. Who will find me after they dump my used and discarded body here? Silas comes to mind, will he even care that I’m gone? He’s so hard to read, I never know what he’s thinking, let alone what he thinks about me. Poor Duke, I don’t want him to find me in that state either.

“Before we have our fun with you,” the bald man starts, his eyes looking around our surroundings. “We need to know where you stashed the briefcase. You see, our boss won’t be thrilled with us if we show up empty-handed.”

If I could laugh, I would right now. Defiantly, I lift my chin and glare at him. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know where it is. I got scared and dropped it.”

“Don’t worry about the damn case.” The man behind me waves off the other. “We know it’s in here, she probably just stashed it somewhere. Isn’t that right, little one?”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of getting an answer out of me, instead I stare blankly in front of me. Only when his calloused hand drifts further down my torso until his fingers play with the hem of my jean shorts do I begin fighting him again. The driving need to get away from him outweighs the risk of the knife at my throat. Weak, hopeless pleas escape me as I try to fight him and push his hands off of me.

When I feel the knife bite into my neck and warm blood drip down my chest, I don’t stop. “Let me go!” my shrill cry echoes through the cemetery and goes unanswered by anyone. “Please don’t,please.”

I never went to my mother with skinned knees or bellyaches because I knew she couldn’t do anything to help me. More so, I knew shewouldn’twant to help me. This is still true today, but as I’m abruptly whirled around, my front pressed to the mossy wall of a tomb, I’ve never wanted my mother more.

“Hold her hands,” one of them orders the other. They’re twice my size. When my wrists are grabbed and held up above my head, any attempt to pull myself free is in vain. “You look so good right now, all hopeless with those pretty tears running down your face.”

A choked sob bubbles in my throat as his hands pull my hips back to rub his erection against my ass. The breathy noise he makes causes my stomach to roll.

Fingers fumble with the button of my shorts. I try moving my hips away from him, but my movements only spur him on further. “That’s right, make me work for it.”

The angle that my wrists are being pushed against the concrete wall is painful and each time I try to pull my hands free, the stone rubs against my skin until abrasions start to form.

“Stop playing with her and get on with it,” the one holding my hands orders impatiently. “We don’t have all night.”

The button of my shorts is now undone, he moves onto the zipper. Just to taunt me and drag out the rampant terror I’m experiencing, he drags it slowly down. Each centimeter he moves it down, my heart beats faster in my chest.

Unable and unwilling to watch what happens next, I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to block it out. If this is how I’m going to spend the last few moments of my life, I want to pretend I’m not in an eerie cemetery being assaulted.

My brain begins to conjure up something better. The image of the courtyard at the house fills my head. Ira’s roses have all bloomed beautifully, their fresh scent fills the warm summer air. The breeze flows through the garden, blowing my hair all around my face. Smiling, I tilt my head toward the sun and soak up all the heat it can give me. Behind me, he laughs softly at me while his hands gather up my hair, so my neck is exposed to him. I’m not afraid because I know Silas would never hurt me. When he leans down and his lips press softly into my neck, I sigh contentedly. This is perfect. This is somewhere I can die.

The idealistic scene is ripped away from me when the body that’s pressed against me is abruptly pulled from my back. The sound of something slamming into a nearby concrete grave is so loud it’s like an explosion. The pieces of the grave break and skid across the ground.

The hands that hold my wrists against the wall are the next to go. “What the—” My attacker’s question is cut off as he gasps in pain.

My world moves in slow motion and sound is barely audible as I whirl around to watch the events unfold. The man who’d been groping me lies in the rubble of a now demolished grave. It takes me a second, as he rolls from his side to his back, to put together that his head is gone—tornfrom its body. It lies feet away from the rest of him, eyes staring blankly over my shoulder.

If I hadn’t turned when I did, I would have missed it. I would have missed the moment that confirmed what I’ve known for days. I would have missed how the villain of the story became my hero.

He came for me.

Silas holds the other man by his neck multiple feet in the air with one hand. With little to no effort, he dangles the man in front of him as a rumbling growl comes from him. Not a normal human sound whatsoever, but the elongated fangs that he bares up at my attacker are also not human.

Whatever denial that remained in me is dissolved in a second. I must have been holding on to it harder than I thought because the truth hits me like a bomb, shattering any of my doubt with it.

He’s a vampire.

The bald man claws at Silas’s hand, but Silas isn’t deterred or bothered by the scratches covering his perfect skin. The man’s face grows redder by the second as his oxygen is cut off.

Just when I think Silas is going to drop him, he brings the man close to him and with an animalistic snarl, he buries those sharp fangs into his neck. The man screams in pain for a second, before his eyes grow wide and his body jerks when Silas rips his head away from his jugular.

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