Page 49 of Mortal Shift
“I didn’t beg!”
“Oh?” He arched a brow. “I’m sure I have a dozen witnesses who’ll swear otherwise.”
“Asshole.”
“Now, now, there’s no need to resort to name calling. You’ve got a sharp tongue on you. Though,” he slowly and deliberately ran his tongue over his teeth, “not as sharp as my fangs.”
He lifted his gaze, making eye contact with the vamp behind me. “Do you want her wrist, or will you share her throat with me?”
Shit. These fuckers were going to bleed me dry.
“If you think Cole won’t find out about this, you’re wrong. And then he’s going to start a war.”
“If he was going to start a war, he’d have done it the first time you were bitten. Face it, Cali, you’re nothing more than a burden to him. He’ll probably thank us for removing your stain on his wolfy honor.”
He had a point, because whyhadn’tCole done anything on any of the times Thaden had been sucking me dry? He was possessive as all hell about me—which sucked, because I wasn’t some prize possession to be paraded around—even when his own friends looked at me the wrong way. And yet somehow, he had no problem with someone from another faction putting his fangs in my neck? Because there was no way he couldn’t know. Everyone else seemed to, and I’d stumbled back to our shared dorm in a shit state more than once. He knew. I was certain of it. And he didn’t care.
Fine. So I was on my own here. I’d known that from the moment Zane dumped me in this hellhole. Threatening this prick with Cole had only been a bluff, anyway. I’d just been counting on him not to know it.
“What’s the matter, all out of aces? It’s not too late to beg me, you know.”
“You’ll have to kill me first.”
“Well, that sounds like an invitation.” He broke eye contact with me to sweep his amused gaze round the room. “You all heard that, right?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but the vampires were on me in a flash. Someone grabbed my arms, pinning them behind my back. I stomped my heel down onto his foot and he hissed in pain, his grip loosening, but before I could shake my way loose, my tormentor was on me from in front, gripping a fistful of my hair and using it to jerk my head painfully to one side, exposing my throat to him.
“Get off me,” I snarled, thrashing against the arms holding me, but they were too strong. Too many. I did the only thing I could think of: I lifted my knee and slammed it between the ringleader’s legs with all the force I could muster. He twisted faster than I could blink and I felt my knee thud into his thigh. He hissed in pain then drew his arm up and backhanded me across the face, rattling my brain inside my skull. White light exploded behind my eyes and pain seared through me, one or both blurring my vision. I swayed on my feet, trying to keep my balance, but it was only the hands pinning my arms that stopped me from hitting the ground. I’d have been grateful if I wasn’t busy wanting to kill the fucker.
“That’s better,” the vamp sneered as I stared at his blurred outline, too dazed to remember how to fight back. “It’s about time you learned humans are supposed to be compliant, obedient little slaves.”
I tried to stare daggers at him, but I couldn’t feel what half my face was doing. His mocking tone rang in my ears, and he took hold of my hair again, using it to tilt my head aside and give him better access to my throat. “Hold still, this will only hurt a little.”
A buzzing rang in my ears, almost like a distorted snarl, and for a blissful moment I allowed myself to believe that Cole did give a damn, and he’d come to save me. But only for a moment, because I wasn’t that naïve.
“Get your fucking hands off her!” a voice roared from behind me.
But not Cole’s voice. Thaden’s voice.
The hands pinning my arms released me like they’d been burned and I staggered, almost hitting the ground but for my captor’s painful grip on my hair. He shook it, rattling my head around, and I whimpered.
“What, this human? She’s fair game.”
“No she’s fucking not.”
“Prince Thaden, we didn’t know,” someone simpered from behind me, much further away than they had been seconds ago, but Thaden paid them no heed as he came into my eyeline. His black glare was fixed firmly on my tormentor. The vamp tightened his fist in my hair and I bit down on my lip, because I wasn’t out of it enough that I was going to let this asshole know how much he was hurting me.
“We’re not wolves. Since when do we respect their claims?”
“Fuck Cole Bryant,” Thaden spat, “and his claim. She’s fuckingmine.”
“What?” For the first time, the ringleader’s voice lost some of its arrogance. Thaden took a step closer, menace radiating from him.
“I said,” he repeated, his voice dangerously low, “this human is my personal property, and no-one but me feeds from her.”
He raised his head and swept his gaze across the gathered vampires. “No-one,” he repeated. “Is that clear?”
I heard a few stuttered yeses, but the ringleader remained sullenly silent.
