Copyright © 2014 by Tanesha Galante
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2010
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There's blood dripping into my eyes and rocks making deep gashes into the pads of my feet - I don't care. Low hanging branches from trees I sprint past are whipping me in the face and neck, a couple have gotten me in my open eyes. Still none of it mattered as much as the need to continue.
If I stop, I die.
They're right behind me, I can hear them, feel them, see them when I glance back as their eyes glow like bloody beacons in the dark forrest behind me. In front of me is more forest, more trees, shrubbery, and rocks to gouge myself on. There's no where to hide, no way to escape, and panic crowds closer. The extra adrenaline pushes me faster. Somehow, I am fast enough to escape their grasps. It shouldn't be possible.
Before I started running, I had been dragged from the basement - my living space - into the kitchen for the sport of the vampires busy with a card game. I was a snack, whipping post, and whatever else they wanted me to be. Tobias, a mocha skinned vampire who was appointed as a sort of keeper to me, had thrown me on the kitchen floor near the sink, opposite the kitchen door. The table the vampires were sitting at was between me and the exit. Tobias' 6'4 inch lean yet muscular frame was to the right of the sink, in front of the fridge. To the left of me on the other wall was a counter and plenty of cabinet space - although the only food the cabinets held was a meager supply to keep me alive, if just barely. Above the sink was a small window, usually closed. Assuming it was, I didn't look behind me.
When I was first brought here over 2 years ago, I was constantly checking the windows for an opportunity to escape. And the doors. And even the cracks high on the basement walls, hoping maybe if I dug into them I'd end up outside. But not anymore. I'd investigated the cracks in the walls until my fingers bled and my fingernails broke completely off, and learned there's just always more cement. The windows near the ceiling of my living area were barred off with steel poles so thick I couldn't get my hand completely around them, and the other windows in the house were always closed, as well as the doors. I was always guarded, so even if they weren't I would never get away. I had given up and accepted that the rest of my life was going to be spent here, being used and abused until they decided to drain me. Or trade me.
I sat on the floor for almost 3 minutes before one of the vampires decided it was time to acknowledge my presence. It was Alexi, the only vampire at the table I was familiar with. At a meager 5'7 in comparison to his... friends, Alexi has shoulder length hair that is naturally the same crimson as his eyes.
When he turned to me, the other four vampires at the table followed suit. There were two brunettes, one almost drastically taller than the other, a blonde, and the last had jet black hair. All with the trademark red eyes.
All but one kept a stoic expression. The shorter brunette looked at me and gave me one of the most sinister grins I'd seen since becoming a prisoner.
"This, my friends, is Little Bitch. Not very useful around the house, but good for sport. Say hello, Little Bitch."
"Hello." I almost choke on the word, I'm so terrified. But I've learned many times over to obey Alexi when he speaks.
"Very good," he cooed at me, like I was a favored pet. Which I basically was. "Joshua here was telling me how he loves children. Preferably the young females who haven't yet matured completely. Why don't you sit on his lap and get to know him better?" Alexi smirks at me while he says this, and indicates the short brunette with the sinister smile.
I knew this was coming, I'd been through this too many times to count, but my heart still stops in my chest at his words, and remembering Joshua's smile I start to shake. My trembling makes it a little harder to get myself up off the floor, but I manage. On shaking legs I slowly make my way to sit on Joshua's lap, and I can tell my reluctance makes him happy. When I sit, he immediately wraps one arm around my waist, and his other hand rests high up on my bare thigh. Alexi doesn't let me wear regular clothes, so I have on a pair of tight jean shorts that don't even cover my full backside, and a crimson tube top that emphasizes my not fully there yet breasts. I'm not given shoes, Alexi thinks I might take that as a sign that I'll be let outside some time before I die.He also likes my jet black hair to be down, so it sits straight almost to my knees. The one thing Alexi has given me that I don't despise is a thick all wood hair brush, the handle of which I've worn down so it's almost velvet soft. I keep my hair clean and to perfection as most I can partly to escape his wrath, and partly it comforts me.
The longer I sit in Joshua's lap, the more evident his excitement for me being there becomes. I shudder in disgust and hear him chuckle under his breath as his arm tightens. Because of my lack of decent coverage and the non-existent warmth from Joshua's wintry flesh, I start to become desperately cold. At least downstairs I had a blanket to wrap up in.
"How old are you, lovely?" He asks in a conversational tone. Everyone else at the table had already returned to their game, talking and laughing among themselves and forgetting me and Joshua for the moment. I clench my jaw and try to ignore his question. I don't want him to know anything about me. I'm secretly glad for the name Alexi bestowed upon me. At my prolonged silence, Joshua's hand moves from my thigh to ball up in my hair, pulling so tight I feel like my skin is tearing from my skull. I'm used to pain, though, and don't show my discomfort. So he doesn't hurt me anymore- for now - I answer.
"I'm thirteen."
"Absolutely perfect. Alexi, I think I should take Little Bitch to my room for a while. It's very hard to get to know someone in a room full of people, you know."
Without looking up from his hand Alexi mumbles "Yes, yes, go on, enjoy. And you better behave, Bitch."
Without letting go of my waist, Joshua stands to leave the room. We exit with him carrying me under his arm. We make our way down the hallway to the right, to the stairway leading upstairs. It's only times like these that I'm allowed up these steps. The house is a 3 story, and the basement. It's huge, but not kept up with so it's falling apart in places. Joshua stops on the second landing and goes to the end of the hall, to the last door on the right. Walking in to the bed, he throws me onto it face first.
And I start to get very, very angry. I've never experienced the amount of anger that was building in me at that very moment, and I didn't know where it was coming from. I'd been through this so many times and I'd only ever felt anguished and suicidal, disgusted at the most. Some times I never felt anything, I'd close my eyes and think of something better - my parents, siblings, a future with a family of my own, having never been captured.
"Undress, now. I'm very impatient to try you out, so don't piss me off." At his words, my mind nearly exploded with rage. I gripped the sheets of the bed so hard tips of my fingers felt like they would erupt. Joshua takes the ends of my hair and pulls on them so hard my head snaps back with an audible crack, and the feeling resonates through my whole being.
"GET THE FUCK UP AND GET UNDRESSED!" Joshua is seething, but it's nothing compared to what I'm feeling. I control my rage, calm my shaking, and pretend to do as he says. I sit up and get onto my knees, as I reach the hem of my tube top. I slide it up slowly, while watching his face and waiting for the perfect moment. I watch as his eyes glaze and follow the trail of my top up my rib cage. When he moves closer to help make things go faster, I react. I swing an arm back and bring if forward with my fingers in a claw shape. Before I register what I've done, Joshua is on the floor clutching the gaping hole in this neck, blood pooling around him rapidly. He's flailing, trying to pull himself up on the bed.
I'm still frozen in shock watching him when he stops moving. His hands relax and fall to the floor, and when they thump onto the wood I find the ability to move again. I jump up and pace the room, contemplating what will happen now. Then I replay what jut happened and look at my now bloody hand for answers - and find five red tipped claws in response.
I'm surprised, but not completely shocked. Werewolves don't usually Change until their seventeenth birthday, and that was a far cry from my thirteen. And a partial change is rarely ever heard of, the most common instance being in a situation of extreme danger to a wolf.
Run. NOW!
The faint female voice that rang in my head made me jump, and I spoke aloud.
"Who are you?!" My voice was shaking. I got no reply to my answer, just more faint warnings to run. "But how?" I said aloud.
Window. Jump.
The voice in my head must be insane.
I looked out of the window when her persistence kept up, and saw there was a thin tree not too far from the unlocked window. The branches looked like they would snap in a brisk breeze, but the more I thought about it, I knew this tree was my only hope. I opened the window and looked down. The height was staggering to me, having never needed to jump out of a window before. I looked back at the tree, looked behind me at Joshua's body, and back to the tree again. I took a deep breath, held it, then climbed to the window sill - and jumped.
I made it to the tree after what felt like a life time suspended in the air, and grabbed on to a thin branch. I dangled there trying to get some footing, and before I could find a safe place to put my feet, I heard a loud snap, and felt the branch give away from the tree. An eternity later, I felt the impact of my landing a split second before my face landed on the tip of a sharp, but thankfully tiny, rock. With my momentum, the rock gouged me from above my left eyebrow, across the bridge of my nose and right cheek, to under my right ear. With the adrenaline still coursing, I barely felt the pain. I sat up, looked around, and decided I should go. I stood and tested my stability, and then I was off, faster than I'd ever gone before.
The tree line was almost a half mile from the house. The vampires wanted to have a clear view of everything around them so they couldn't be ambushed. Right before I crossed into the forest, though, I heard a shout followed by an enraged scream mixed with a vicious snarl. They knew what had happened, and they were coming.