He’s the ringleader. I don’t have to be a vampire groupie to know that he’s the one in charge. The other guys might share a mate with him, but they look to Eli for comfort and for guidance. I guess he’s kind of like the big brother of the group, but I’m not sure if that’s an appropriate assessment or not.
I know that the three of them rule. They’re some sort of royalty. They live in a fucking castle, after all. Besides, if what they taught me about the other humans in Eagleton was actually true, then there’s a lot more to the world than I could have possibly guessed, and I have an idea that I’m not going to like what I find out about the world.
“We can’t burn in the sun,” Eli says finally.
“Okay.”
“Don’t ask how we can be killed,” Benjamin says, obviously bored.
“I didn’t.”
“Good, because we won’t tell you.”
“Good, because I didn’t fucking ask,” I snap, tired of his shitty attitude. “And for that matter, I didn’t ask you to kidnap me, and I didn’t ask to ride in this smelly carriage, and I didn’t ask you to bring me here.”
“Are you finished?” Benjamin asks. I’m out of breath, tired and parched from the talking and the lack of hydration I’ve experienced since getting in the carriage. The ride was long, and the air is dry. I need some water, and I think he can tell.
But I don’t want to give Benjamin the satisfaction of thinking he’s bested me somehow.
“No,” I snap. “I’m not finished. Not by a long shot.”
“Yes, you are,” Eli says. He reaches across me and opens the door to the carriage. He gestures for Matthew to go first. Benjamin follows. I start to move, ready to exit, but Eli grabs my arm. I look at him, confused.
He waits until the others are completely out of the carriage, and then he reaches for me.
“Benjamin got to taste you,” he says. “And I’m entirely jealous. It’s my turn.”
He kisses me then, long and hard. It’s deeply passionate, deeply wonderful, and deeply perfect. It’s the most perfect kiss I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do when he finally pulls away and looks at me.
I stare at him, completely awestruck, and then to my utter horror and complete shock, he slaps me in the fucking face.
Hard.
Then he grips my chin, and I look up at him.
“If you ever speak to Benjamin, Matthew, or myself with that level of disrespect again, don’t expect to sit for a week,” he says.
His voice is even and cool, but I can tell that he’s not fucking around with me. I don’t respond to him, and somehow, I don’t think he expects me to. I just get out of the carriage and follow the other men into the castle. I try to ignore the humans who are tied up in the other carts.
I don’t want to know what’s going to happen to them.
Chapter 5
AT CASTLE ROSE, I EXPECT to be something of an underpaid maid. We pass several other house humans as we walk through the castle. They all turn and stare at me, but I don’t really know why. I don’t really want to know why, either. The women here are beautiful, and most of them aren’t wearing very much clothing at all.
Do the vampires feed on these girls?
Is that what they’re going to do to me?
Only, they don’t take me to a cell or to a tiny tower room or anything like that. Instead, they lead me up, up, up through the castle and to a huge, oversized bedroom with a giant bed in the center.
“You could fit ten people on there,” I say, awed.
“And we have,” Benjamin says, obviously bored.
I blush, not missing what he’s saying. So they’ve bedded people before: shared women. That’s what they’ve done, is it? And they’ve done it here. I try to push the images away from my mind, but thinking about the men and their orgies turns me on so much more than it should.
I don’t think I’m supposed to like the idea of them sleeping with people. If we’re supposed to be mated, then I guess I’m supposed to want them to be virgins, to be untouched, but I don’t really want that. Somehow, that’s never been important to me.