space without form, pulsing with joy and fulfillment.
Then the darkness came like an inky lake, starting at her toes and rising, swallowing her legs, and then her body, and then her head. Satisfied, she slipped into nothingness as vast as the universe.
Athena opened her eyes, but didn’t move. She wasn’t sure if she could. Her arms and legs felt like jelly.
Where the hell was she? The floor in front of the mat on which she lay, in a dimly lit room, was stone.
Not finding any points of actual pain, she eased up until she sat against a wall. When she drew her feet under her, something dragged along behind them.
Athena frowned at the leather cuffs around her ankles.
“What the—?”
The cuffs led to chains attached to a ring in a wall.
She pulled and pushed on the fleece-lined cuffs, but found them immovable with no sign of a buckle or knot, and puzzled over how they were attached. At least they were soft. She grabbed the chains and tugged on the ring, but it gave no hint of yielding.
Abandoning the effort for the moment, she looked around the empty room, slightly bigger than a jail cell, which seemed to be carved out of rock. A cot stood nearby, and five feet away was a toilet hidden behind an Oriental screen.
“All the comforts of home,” she whispered.
Continuing her examination, she found a wooden chair clearly out of her range, and, just past it, a dark window.
No, a mirror.
Or maybe it was a one-way mirror, and someone stood on the other side watching her.
“Hey,” she said, “who’s there?”
Her voice echoed back.
“Where am I?”
Nothing.
“Hey!”
Still nothing.
Athena rested her head back against the wall and tried to remember anything about how she’d ended up in this prison.
The first thing she recalled was the vampire’s sudden appearance, and then she remembered him holding her, and touching her, and then biting her. Her hand rose to the spot where his teeth had penetrated her skin and she touched two small bumps. They were tender, but didn’t actually hurt. And then she fingered the small bruise on the inside of her right arm, in the center of which was a small red mark. A needle mark.
She swallowed hard.
As far as she could tell, he’d taken her blood, doped her up, and then kidnapped her. That must be what had happened. The vampire had imprisoned her.
Why hadn’t he killed her?
And how could he have made her feel so incredible? The memory of the pleasure sent a wave of heat through her, and she shuddered. Certainly what he’d done to her was something no human could ever do. Or had it just been drugs playing tricks with her memory?
A knot of self-loathing burned in her stomach. Now she’d pay for not trying harder to escape when she had a chance.
Jake stood perfectly still, watching.
Athena’s auburn braid lay across her shoulder and hung down in front of her right breast. He remembered the silky feel of her hair against his cheek and closed his eyes for a moment to enjoy it. He could still smell her scent on his skin.
After a week of tracking her, he’d meant to have his revenge. And he had, in a way—he’d felt her fear and tasted its citric flavor in her blood.
He’d meant to drain her, and he’d nearly done it, but at the last crucial moment he’d stopped.
Why?
He studied her. What was it about this one?
She sat still now, her head resting against the wall, her arms propped on her knees. The sleeveless top left her lovely shoulders bare and hugged her full breasts, and the neckline revealed a hint of cleavage. He knew the feel of her breasts in his hands, but wondered at the taste of them. Would they be as special as her scent? The jean shorts she wore were so short, they barely covered her sweet pubic mound, and Jake found himself staring. His body reacted to the memory of his fingers inside her.
He sighed, and walked from the small room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Now he had to decide what to do with her. Skidmore had called him a raving idiot when he’d carried Athena in and asked for her to be given a transfusion.
“We don’t give them blood, dear boy. We take it. Remember?”
But he’d agreed, and Athena’s life force had slowly returned. After three days, she’d finally regained consciousness.
Now what?
The fact that he couldn’t decide angered him, and he felt his fangs lengthen in response.
“Jake?”
He spun around at the voice and smiled when he found Katie walking toward him. She wore a dusty khaki outfit suited for a safari and held a bullwhip coiled in her hand. He’d taught her how to use that bullwhip and sometimes wondered if that had been a wise move.
“Katie. I’m sure glad to see you.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him soundly, then slapped his chest. “Why? Were you worried about me?”
“Yeah.” He grinned as he held her close.
She pushed out of his grip and frowned at him. “Sounds like I’m the one who had reason to worry.”
Skidmore must have told her about his encounter with the wooden stake.
Jake shrugged.
Katie shook her head as she looped her arm through his. “Come, let’s find our host. He said he had business down here somewhere. Then maybe we can share a snack.”
They followed voices to the main part of the dungeon where they found Skidmore sitting in a wooden chair, involved with several of his contestants. Jake stopped just inside the door, unwilling to interrupt or get involved, and Katie released him to continue forward in order to stand beside Skidmore, her hand on his shoulder. But Jake found himself watching with interest.
A young woman, shapely and naked, sat on a low wooden stool with her legs spread wide for a fair-haired man on all fours in front of her, his face buried between her thighs. A fine sheen of sweat covered her body and her back arched as she grabbed a handful of her partner’s hair.
Before she reached a climax, another man, darker, a little older and covered with tattoos, knelt behind the first male, grabbed his waist, and entered him with steady, hard strokes. Dark green drawings covered a torso of roping muscles, and his buttocks tightened into rocks with each stroke. The blond man grunted in response, his head up, his body tightened and shaking.
