Chapter
14
Elena woke slowly, a sense of dread
making her reluctant to open her eyes. She heard whispered voices,
the shuffling of many feet.
Squinting through half-opened lids, she
saw a dozen faces staring down at her. Startled, she jackknifed
into a sitting position, her gaze flitting wildly around the room.
A moment’s disorientation quickly turned to panic. Where was she?
Before the question was fully formed, she knew.
She was in one of the
dormitories.
With the sheep.
“You’re new, aren’t you?” asked a girl
with curly brown hair and slanted brown eyes.
Elena nodded.
“It’s time for morning meal,” the girl
said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You must eat. It is the rule,” the
girl said with an airy wave of her hand. “Come along.”
Elena shook her head. How had she
gotten here? The last thing she remembered was falling asleep in
Drake’s arms.
“You’ll be punished if you don’t eat.”
A look of fear shadowed the girl’s eyes when a bell rang. “We must
hurry! We’ll be late!”
Spurred by the trepidation in the
girl’s eyes, Elena sprang out of bed. She didn’t know what kind of
punishment vampires meted out, but she was certain it was something
awful.
She followed the line of women down a
high-ceilinged corridor. As soon as they crossed the threshold of
the dining hall, all conversation ceased.
Elena took a seat near the back. She
didn’t belong here. There had to be a mistake. She glanced
anxiously around the room, searching for Liliana, before realizing
that the vampires were most likely resting at this time of the
day.
Four large men patrolled the dining
hall. Elena studied them, trying to determine whether they were
human or vampire. Common sense told her they were human, but they
were curiously lifeless, their movements almost puppetlike. They
spoke in monotones, their eyes blank, their faces showing no
emotion whatsoever.
Although she had declared she wasn’t
hungry, Elena ate everything she was served, surprised at how good
it was. And then she grimaced. Of course, it only made sense that
the vampires would take good care of their food
supply.
When breakfast was over, two of the
hulking men herded the women downstairs into a large
rectangularshaped room with stark white walls and a stone floor. A
large hearth provided warmth.
Once the women were all inside, the
doors were closed and locked. The girl who had spoken to Elena
earlier told her that the men had their own place to spend the
day.
There were books in the room, easels
and paints, yarn and thread and a half dozen looms, a potter’s
wheel, several chess sets, iPods with ear phones, as well as a
largescreen TV and what looked like every movie ever made. Elena
frowned. The TV was the first sign she had seen that there was
electricity in the Fortress.
The women spread out quickly, each
finding a task or a pastime to her liking.
Feeling as though she were caught in a
horrible nightmare, Elena watched the women. They all seemed happy,
perfectly content to be locked away in this dreadful place. She
overheard snatches of conversation—two girls talking about men they
hoped to mate with, one girl whispering to another that she thought
she was with child, several other young women talking about which
vampires they hoped would come for them that night.
“I’m hoping for Cullin,” a pretty
brunette said with a sigh. “He’s so handsome and his bite is so
tender.”
“You can have Cullin, Marta. I want
Dallin,” a tiny redhead said, a quiver in her voice. “He only takes
a little and then he’s gone.”
“Dallin and Elnora, sitting in a tree .
. .” Marta chanted, and burst into giggles.
“I don’t care who it is,” remarked
another with a toss of her head. “As long as it isn’t
Vardin.”
All the women within hearing distance
nodded in agreement.
Eventually, boredom had Elena picking
up a copy of Jane Eyre.
She carried it to an overstuffed chair in the corner and sat down,
one leg curled beneath her. She tried to read, but somehow, the
fictional problems of Jane and Mr. Rochester paled when compared to
the very real problems that beset her. Elena wasn’t being kept in
an attic, but in a very real prison. There were similarities, of
course. Mr. Rochester couldn’t marry Jane because he already had a
wife. Drake couldn’t marry the woman his father had chosen for him
for the same reason. He already had a wife. Mr. Rochester’s wife,
who was quite insane, perished in a fire. If she had to stay here
much longer, Elena thought she, too, might go insane.
With a sigh, she put the book aside.
She couldn’t concentrate on the words, couldn’t think of anything
but Drake, locked up in a high tower room. She couldn’t shake the
feeling that he was in pain, that he needed her. How long would
Rodin keep his son locked up? She pressed a hand to her mouth to
stifle a gasp as a new thought pushed its way into her mind. There
was a hole in the tower roof. Surely Rodin wouldn’t leave Drake up
there during the day, helpless to avoid the sun’s
light.
Worried for Drake’s welfare, she lost
track of time.
She looked up when a woman entered the
room. She wasn’t a vampire, but a female version of the men who had
guarded the dining room. Elena watched nervously as the woman gazed
around the room, then strode purposefully toward her.
“You,” the woman said sharply. “Come
with me.”
When Elena didn’t comply immediately,
the woman grasped her roughly by the arm and yanked her to her
feet.
Elena followed the woman down the
corridor and into a small room.
“Undress,” the woman ordered. Reaching
into a cupboard, she withdrew a long gray dress. “Put that on.” She
dropped a pair of black shoes on top of the dress. “Quickly
now.”
When it became evident the woman wasn’t
going to give her any privacy, Elena turned her back on her and
quickly changed into the gray dress, and as she did so, she was
overcome with the feeling that she had just lost her
individuality.
Moments later, she was back in the
recreation room, indistinguishable from the rest of the
sheep.
Drake pressed back against the wall of
his prison. It kept him out of the sun’s direct light, but he
couldn’t escape the scorching heat. It enveloped him like an
invisible shroud, burning through his clothing to the flesh
beneath, adding to the pain of the heavy silver leg iron that
shackled his ankle to the wall. But for the chains that bound him
he could have dissolved into mist and escaped.
He groaned deep in his throat. He could
feel his flesh blistering inside and out. Not wanting Elena to see
him like this, or to suffer the heat of the day with him, he had
called Liliana to take Elena away last night, after she had fallen
asleep.
Elena. Where was she now? Closing his
eyes, he tried to concentrate on her whereabouts, but the intense
pain clouded his mind, making coherent thought
impossible.
He spent several minutes uselessly
cursing his sire, then lapsed into silence. He had known Rodin
would be angry, but he had never expected anything like
this.
The pain intensified his thirst. He
felt his fangs run out in response. As the hours passed, pain
turned into agony. He felt his body shrinking in on itself, felt
his veins constricting. The weight of his clothing became agonizing
against his tender flesh.
A hoarse cry tore at his throat as a
ray of sun found him and he scuttled to the other side of the
tower, his arms covering his head in an effort to escape the
withering heat.
Cringing in pain, he summoned Elena’s
image. Beautiful Elena, with hair like fine black silk and skin as
soft as down. Elena, who cared for him in spite of what he was . .
. or had her affection turned to hate now that she knew the truth
about him, about his people?
“Elena.” He forced her name through
cracked, dry lips.
If he begged, would Rodin let him see
her one last time?
The day dragged on. Elena took up the
book again, pretending to read. She was aware of the curious gazes
of the other women, but they seemed to sense she wished to be left
alone, or maybe they were simply leery of a stranger in their
midst.
Just when she thought the day would
never end, the door opened and Liliana stepped into the room.
Without a word, all of the women rose and filed toward the doorway.
Elena hung back so that she was the last in line. When she reached
Liliana, she stopped.
“Where is Drake?” Elena asked
anxiously. “I want to see him.”
“I am sorry. That is not possible just
now. Please, go to last meal with the others.”
“I want to see my husband,” Elena said,
stressing the last word.
A humorless smile played over the
vampire’s lips. “You will see him at Rodin’s pleasure and not
before.”
“Why not now? Please, I must see
him.”
“If you wish to see Drake again, you
will do as you are told.” Without waiting for an answer, the
vampire left the room.
Fighting back tears, Elena went into
the dining hall and took a seat. Several human girls served the
meal. Tonight, a pair of male vampires patrolled the aisles
dividing the men from the women.
Elena forced herself to eat, afraid
that refusing would keep her from seeing Drake.
The meal was almost over when the door
opened and a dozen or so vampires—both male and female—entered the
room. Elena stared at them. They were all beautiful. Male or
female, they moved from table to table with a languid grace no
human could ever match. Most of the men wore black, but not the
women. Clad in brightly colored clothing or lounging outfits, they
looked like a flock of exotic birds.
One by one, the vampires called out a
name, and the man or woman called left his or her seat and followed
the vampire out the door.
“Elena Knightsbridge.”
It took her a moment to realize her
name had been called. There had to be a mistake, she thought
frantically. She wasn’t one of the sheep! She was Drake’s
wife.
“Elena Knightsbridge, come to
me.”
To her horror, she found herself rising
as if she had no mind of her own, moving toward the vampire who had
summoned her. He resembled Drake in that he was tall and had long
black hair and blue eyes. But that was where the resemblance ended.
There was a cruel twist to this man’s mouth, a coldness in his pale
blue eyes.
“Poor thing,” one of the women murmured
as Elena passed by. “To get Vardin her first time.”
Elena shivered when he looked at her.
There was nothing of warmth when he smiled at her, no gentleness in
his grip when his hand closed over her arm. This was a man who
enjoyed inflicting pain, she had no doubt of it.
She couldn’t stop shaking as he led her
down three flights of stairs, then shoved her into a room that
looked as though it had been decorated for a king—from the overly
large bed draped with cloth-of-gold to the striped silk that
covered the walls. An overstuffed chair covered in red velvet, a
desk, and a large, beautifully carved wardrobe were spaced around
the room. Aubusson carpets covered the floor; hanging candelabras
provided illumination.
“Please,” he said with exaggerated
politeness. “Sit down.” It was a demand, not an
invitation.
She perched on the edge of the chair,
her hands clenched in her lap. A sense of doom settled over her
when the door closed, seemingly of its own accord.
The vampire came toward her like a
hungry cat stalking its prey. He stood over her, his eyes going
red, his fangs gleaming as he lowered his head to her
neck.
Panic swept over her as his hand closed
over her shoulder. She wanted to fight him, wanted to scream for
him to leave her alone, but sheer terror at what he might do if she
opposed him held her frozen in place.
“No.” The word escaped her lips.
“Please. There’s been a mistake. I’m not one of. . . of the
sheep.”
But he didn’t listen.
Didn’t stop.
Didn’t care.
There was no pleasure in his bite as he
bent her back over his arm, only an excruciating pain that sizzled
down the length of her neck like the sharp bite of a serpent, and
then burned its way through every nerve and cell in her
body.
She screamed with the pain of it as her
body began to tremble uncontrollably. When he bit her again, the
world spun out of focus. She was falling, slipping helplessly into
a black abyss that felt like death. Sobbing, she whispered a single
word.
“Drake.”
He came awake with a start, the echo of
Elena’s terrified cry ringing in his ears. Ignoring the pain that
burned through him with every breath, he pulled against the chain
that shackled him to the wall. He struggled to free himself even
though he knew it was useless. His preternatural strength had been
leeched away by the silver that bound him, by the relentless
sunlight that had scorched his flesh.
His whole body throbbed in agony. Blood
oozed from where the silver had rubbed his skin raw. Sweat stung
his eyes. His tortured body screamed for nourishment to relieve the
pain and the thirst.
“Elena.” Her name whispered past dry,
cracked lips. “Elena, forgive me.”