on fire. I heard the strangers coming, her lumbering like an ox, him moving fast. Way too fast, like vampire-from-Plasma fast. His arms locked around my chest and he slammed his knee into the back of my leg, destroying my balance. I tumbled forward, but before I could greet the floor face-on, he rolled with me, positioning his body so he’d take the brunt of impact on his back. He wasn’t much of a cushy thing to land on being all thin-skinned and angular, but it was far better than busting my nose on the tiles.
Russian hooker lady collected me from him, looping one arm around my torso, the other around my legs. I kicked, I squirmed, I thrashed—it didn’t matter. All the hand-to-hand training in the world did nothing against her strength. If I had the smallest window of opportunity, I could gouge at her eyes or hit a pressure point in her neck, but she had me so effectively locked down, I was pretty sure she’d done this kidnapping thing a time or twelve before.
“What are you, werewolves?” I demanded.
“Nyet. We serve Maxim.”
My clever brain jumped to ‘men’s magazine with boobs on the cover’ and ‘pads’, but I swallowed both musings AND a near hysterical bubble of laughter. “That’s the vampire elder, isn’t it?”
“A prince.”
“Wait, a vampire prince?”
“Da.”
I figured out two things then. First, Mom and I hadn’t nuked any elder’s first born—we’d done a prince’s first born, and princes were like territory leaders. They acted as liaisons between their communities and the human communities, and as such had a lot of pull. We were in much deeper crap than we’d anticipated. Second, my kidnappers were ghouls. I didn’t know much about the hows and whys of the vampire/ghoul bond thanks to that whole ‘while a virgin, no vampire stuff for you’ clause, but at least I was familiar with some basics. The bond between a master prince and his human servants was mutually beneficial: the vampire got some lackeys to do his grunt work, the lackeys inherited a few supernatural tricks for their veneration. In this case, it was improved strength and speed, though I’d read about some ghouls with telekinesis, telepathy, and shapeshifting.
I glanced back at the skinny guy. He slithered along behind us, stopping when we hit the threshold to close the front door of the house. He hadn’t said a word, letting my Amazonian captor do all the talking, though when I stared at him, he smiled. I would have smiled back except for that whole being terrified and pissed off and wanting to bite off his face and maim him for life thing.
We piled into an SUV with tinted windows, me crammed tight to the woman’s chest like an overgrown infant. Before I could holler my head off for one of the neighbors to call the police, she shoved my face into the side of her boob, stifling my cries. I dug in my teeth to give her one to remember me by, but her sweatshirt was too thick to get through. Not only was I frustrated, but now my tongue was all linty, too. It sucked.
The door closed shut and the car moved. As the two ghouls were in back with me, a third person chauffeured, but there was a privacy shield between driver and passengers so I couldn’t see who it was. It hit me then that I was going to see a vampire prince, that I had been taken from my home and was now considered the victim of a monster attack. The lady said I was safe, that I’d be home by suppertime, but she probably lied and I’d be bitten and bled dry. I never should have been a pain in the ass about the journeyman thing, I should have waited ‘til Ian did me right, this was all my fault.
The worst of my woe-be-gone epiphanies? I’d been a dink to my mom the night before my imminent death. I’d be forever immortalized as ‘that kid, the dink.’
A high-pitched squeal erupted from my lips, a sound similar to a whistling teakettle, and then I burst into tears. My giant Russian friend bounced me in her lap with quiet tuts, effectively
Russian hooker lady collected me from him, looping one arm around my torso, the other around my legs. I kicked, I squirmed, I thrashed—it didn’t matter. All the hand-to-hand training in the world did nothing against her strength. If I had the smallest window of opportunity, I could gouge at her eyes or hit a pressure point in her neck, but she had me so effectively locked down, I was pretty sure she’d done this kidnapping thing a time or twelve before.
“What are you, werewolves?” I demanded.
“Nyet. We serve Maxim.”
My clever brain jumped to ‘men’s magazine with boobs on the cover’ and ‘pads’, but I swallowed both musings AND a near hysterical bubble of laughter. “That’s the vampire elder, isn’t it?”
“A prince.”
“Wait, a vampire prince?”
“Da.”
I figured out two things then. First, Mom and I hadn’t nuked any elder’s first born—we’d done a prince’s first born, and princes were like territory leaders. They acted as liaisons between their communities and the human communities, and as such had a lot of pull. We were in much deeper crap than we’d anticipated. Second, my kidnappers were ghouls. I didn’t know much about the hows and whys of the vampire/ghoul bond thanks to that whole ‘while a virgin, no vampire stuff for you’ clause, but at least I was familiar with some basics. The bond between a master prince and his human servants was mutually beneficial: the vampire got some lackeys to do his grunt work, the lackeys inherited a few supernatural tricks for their veneration. In this case, it was improved strength and speed, though I’d read about some ghouls with telekinesis, telepathy, and shapeshifting.
I glanced back at the skinny guy. He slithered along behind us, stopping when we hit the threshold to close the front door of the house. He hadn’t said a word, letting my Amazonian captor do all the talking, though when I stared at him, he smiled. I would have smiled back except for that whole being terrified and pissed off and wanting to bite off his face and maim him for life thing.
We piled into an SUV with tinted windows, me crammed tight to the woman’s chest like an overgrown infant. Before I could holler my head off for one of the neighbors to call the police, she shoved my face into the side of her boob, stifling my cries. I dug in my teeth to give her one to remember me by, but her sweatshirt was too thick to get through. Not only was I frustrated, but now my tongue was all linty, too. It sucked.
The door closed shut and the car moved. As the two ghouls were in back with me, a third person chauffeured, but there was a privacy shield between driver and passengers so I couldn’t see who it was. It hit me then that I was going to see a vampire prince, that I had been taken from my home and was now considered the victim of a monster attack. The lady said I was safe, that I’d be home by suppertime, but she probably lied and I’d be bitten and bled dry. I never should have been a pain in the ass about the journeyman thing, I should have waited ‘til Ian did me right, this was all my fault.
The worst of my woe-be-gone epiphanies? I’d been a dink to my mom the night before my imminent death. I’d be forever immortalized as ‘that kid, the dink.’
A high-pitched squeal erupted from my lips, a sound similar to a whistling teakettle, and then I burst into tears. My giant Russian friend bounced me in her lap with quiet tuts, effectively
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