Page 48 of Mortal Shift
“Come to offer yourself as an appetizer?” he asked, prying his human from his lap and dumping her unceremoniously on the couch as he got to his feet. She didn’t even seem to notice, too lost to her post-feeding bliss. “I might indulge you, if you ask me nicely. On your knees.”
Sounds of amusement rippled round the room—from the vampires, not the humans, who, like the one my new creeper had just discarded, were mostly too out of it to know what was going on, and incapable of anything more than gazing at their predators with utter adoration.
And that’s when Kallan’s words sank in.You’ll know you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.Asshole! So much for that whole ‘we don’t have to be enemies’ bullshit. This was exactly what he saw me as; what they all saw me as. A human. Worthless. Here to be mated by Cole and fed to vampires. Lounging around with my throat exposed, begging someone to drink me. Subservient. Submissive. Subspecies.
I flushed bright red, humiliation making the blood rush to my face. He’d tricked me. He’d sent me here to prove exactly what he thought my place was, and the rest of them had stood there and said nothing while he did it. And I’d been stupid enough to fall for it.
Heat spread from my face to my eyes as all the vamps stared at me, amused at my humiliation, and I knew this would be round the entire academy by the morning. I blinked hard, willing the moisture in my eyes back where it had come from. I wasn’t going to let them see this prank had got to me. I didn’t belong here, I didn’t! I wasn’t here for their pleasure like some helpless victim. Bile rose up my throat, and I wanted to whirl on my heel and run from the room, but my stupid legs wouldn’t listen. Helpless. That was exactly what I was.
“I think she’s going cry,” a cruel voice said, and I couldn’t even make my stupid eyes find whoever it was.
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to tear my eyes away from the macabre spectacle in front of me, unable to do what I should have done, and run out of there at full speed before one of the vampires followed through on the first one’s threat. Because this wasn’t just a humiliating situation. It was a dangerous one. Thaden had proved to me time and time again that he could take whatever he wanted from me, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop him. A whole room full of his kind? Yeah, I was fucked.
“Aw, look,” the vampire said, his voice mocking. “She’s all scared, like a little Bambi. How adorable.”
“Maybe that’s why the wolves like her so much,” a female vampire said, her lips curling in cold amusement. I didn’t recognize either of them, but they clearly knew who I was, and they had no intention whatsoever of letting that tell them I was off menu.
“Maybe she’ll beg betterafterI’ve had a taste,” the first vampire said, starting towards me.
“If you lay one finger on me,” I hissed, “I’ll kill you.”
There was a full second of stunned silence, and then raucous laughter erupted through the room. But there was nothing benign about this sound; it was predatory and deadly, a cat toying with a mouse.
“Oh, I like it when they fight back.” His eyes turned hard, and his voice to match. “Makes the chase all the more fun.”
I forced a harsh laugh, ignoring the nausea roiling in my gut. “You think I’d run? From the likes of you? Dream on.”
Anger flashed across his face, but passed as quickly as it had come.
“You’re the one who came to us, human. A human sets foot in this room, they’re going to be fed on.”
I felt movement behind me, cutting me off from the door, and the vamp advanced on me, a cocky swagger in his step.
“I hear you’re already a blood whore, so don’t pretend that isn’t why you’ve come.”
He closed the gap between us until it was almost nothing, and dropped his voice.
“Beg me nicely, and I’ll make sure you enjoy it. Maybe more than you do with him.”
Throaty chuckles sounded from behind—between me and my way out. I swallowed hard.
“I can see you want it. You’re addicted to him. But I’m so much better.”
I shook my head, trying to clear his voice from my ears, and backed up a half step, crashing into the vampire behind me. He—at least, I thought it was a male, but I didn’t dare turn to check—skimmed his nose along the pulse in my throat.
“She smells divine,” he murmured. His tongue flashed along my flesh and I shuddered, jerking away from his touch, and he chuckled. “Tastes it, too. Share her?”
The vamp’s vicious smile widened into something barbaric. “Of course. What sort of friend would I be if I didn’t let you play with our new toy?”
“I’m not anyone’s toy,” I protested, but it came out as little more than a squeak. The vampires were crowding me from all sides now, the endorphin-drunk humans apparently forgotten in favor of the new source of entertainment. Sucked to be me. Ugh.Suckedwas so not a word I wanted in my head right now.
“Just…let me go,” I tried.
“Now, why would we want to do a thing like that?” my tormentor said, reaching out to trace the fingers of one hand along my jawline. I grit my teeth to keep from flinching. I’d shown too much fear as it was, and I was through with these assholes getting off on it.
“Let me go,” I demanded again, this time a note of steel in my voice, “or I’ll tell Cole what you did.”
“And I’ll tell him how you begged for it,” the vamp countered.
