As if sensing my end, the whips paused, granting me a brief reprieve. Tears tracked my cheeks and fell over my jawline, every inch of me drowning with agony.
I glanced up from the curtain of my hair covering my face, looking for the creature, hoping for an end. But as before, only darkness surrounded me.
Still, I sensed the bastard. Felt him in my head because just when I would recover enough to stay conscious, the whips returned.
Over and over he tortured me, and his laughter echoed in my head.
Please god, kill me.
My whole life I’d fought for survival, battled through depression after losing my parents, struggled to keep a job and keep myself going every day for the simple reason that my mom and dad would have wanted me to, that one day I might see them again.
But now… Now I had enough of everything. The exhaustion tore through me, and I no longer wanted to face the shitstorm of my life. This was it.
Just like most things in my life, I was taken, forced, and shoved aside. And I went along each time, believing in hope. But I’d been fooling myself, and now I had enough. I needed the exit button because I wanted to tap out.
I hiccupped a strangled cry and ached as a deep strike raked down my back. I floated back and forth out of consciousness.
In that moment, I would have done anything to escape.
The agony faded once again, easing the darkness that was consuming me. I watched through barely open eyes as my tormenter appeared in front of me. He smirked and heaved each breath as if my bloody state and agony delighted him. But he looked different, gone was his pasty complexion, and now he carried a shiny, healthy glow like Derrial had earlier that morning. Was this creature somehow feeding on my blood too?
The fear in my veins melted under the inferno of rage drumming through me. I had enough of being used and abused by this monster.
As I slouched in the seat, my quickened breaths grew raspy during the small reprieve, and an idle thought floated through my mind. I’d been told of vampires around campfires as a little girl. And now meeting these aliens, I questioned if the tales didn’t have it wrong. They romanticized vampires, others had them as misunderstood, or starved undead. But what if they were creatures who came from space to use humans? If I had known that as a little girl, I wouldn’t have ever been able to sleep another wink.
“Such a strong, brave, little human,” the creature cooed as he stepped closer. He reached out, catching a little of the blood that dripped from the side of my face. He licked the droplet he’d caught on his finger, almost sounding like he was having an orgasm when he tasted it, his eyes rolling back into his head, groaning. The sound disgusted me, bile climbing to my throat.
“You’re beautiful painted in red,” he declared, his eyes snapping open. Before he even started to let the darkness out once again, I was prepared for my life to end at that point, so nothing shocked me more than when the walls started to dissolve around us. The creature jerked around, his face twisting into a disfigured beast.
What was going on?
“I’ll just take some for the road,” he snarled, his upper lip creased with a look of disappointment. In haste, he swiped his palm across my bloody arm. I screamed in agony as white-hot pain raced over my skin as if his touch was barbed wire, shutting my eyes.
“See you shortly,” he whispered in my ear and licked my neck, the sound turning my stomach.
When the pain had subsided enough for me to open my eyes, he was gone, and the walls had almost completely disintegrated with only a puff of dust in their place.
I couldn’t imagine what creature was waiting for me now, I couldn’t comprehend what could be scary enough to get the black-eyed devil to flee but whatever came next would end up killing me.
Shaking all over and my vision blurring in and out, I sat there with what felt like hundreds of open wounds, blood dripping on the concrete floor around the seat, and tried to prepare myself for death.
I was ready…Ready to face my maker. To end the horrendous pain.
Tears rolled down my face, stinging the cuts they fell into and continuing their journey down to the corner of my mouth. A hooded vale of death hung over me, and in that moment in time when I wasn’t sure how I could ever recover, I welcomed the easy way out. As gutless as it sounded, I couldn’t keep this up.
When a figure appeared where a wall had been minutes earlier, I blinked hard to clear my vision. Was I seeing right? A familiar, gorgeous, tatted Vepar appeared in front of me, my brain evidently having enough. I was hallucinating. Thane’s penetrating gaze was the last thing that I saw before I finally let the effects of my wounds carry me away.
* * *
“Pet, wake up,”were the words I woke to. I really would like to stop losing consciousness I decided as I struggled for what felt like the millionth time to open my eyes. I sighed as I felt a soft, wet cloth gently being moved over my burning wounds. The coolness helped ease away the pain somewhat but considering I felt as if I’d just climbed out of a pool it was clear that I was still bleeding profusely.
My muscles hurt as I tried to move them. When I finally wrenched my eyes open wide enough to see anything, I stared up into Thane’s worried, blue gaze. I’m sure I looked like hell.
“Stay with me, pet,” he murmured, continuing to move the cool cloth over my aching wounds. “We just need to get the bleeding to stop and you’ll be better in a flash.” He held a device similar to the one that Corrin had used on me at the mansion and started to run it over my injuries.
“Fuck.”
His sudden outburst had me flinching, and I regretted the sudden movement as a searing pain shuddered through me.