Steel cuffs bound Nolan's wrists and ankles keeping him trapped to the table they'd strapped him to hours ago. The bright fluorescent light above beat at him unmercifully, his hunger clawed at his insides. It had become impossible to muster the strength to touch Asta's mind. His thoughts were fragmented. She spoke to him but the words kept slipping away. He knew only that someone was coming. They were surrounded by enemies, was she warning him that another would take the place of the vampire that left?
Nolan's face was ravaged by the pain. He knew now he had been unsuccessful in ridding his body of whatever poisons they had given him. The paralysis they'd inflicted on him left him defenseless when they burned his skin and slashed him with their knives. One of them was especially talented at causing unrelenting pain as he employed his blade with great precision all over Nolan's damaged body. He could feel rivulets of his blood racing down his chest and legs to drip onto the floor.
He looked at the light that hurt his eyes so. A pitiful rush of power went through him as he stared at it. A hairline crack appeared in the glass surrounding the element. Unsure whether or not he had caused the break, Nolan ignored the merciless pain from his wounds, forcing the disorientating hunger, to the back of his mind, and focused all his thoughts on the bulb. A short time later. A minute, an hour? He couldn't tell. There was a pop and the room went dark. Small glass fragments showered down on him, some falling into his open cuts. He was severely drained and embarrassed by the elation he felt at so small a feat.
The blood rushing through the veins of the two men and woman who slept so near to him called to him. The withered cells of his body demanded replenishment. The need to feed, to survive, over road all else. His fangs lengthened as his body fought to free itself of restraints that should have been as easy to escape as snapping a thread. It was useless, he was useless. Though his body raged with hunger he could not move.
The vampire had not returned and the humans no threat to him as they slept an unnatural sleep. Nolan tried one last time to contact Asta, then shut down his lungs and heart and hoped he would wake with the strength to free himself.
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It was mid-afternoon before Fiona woke. The sky was overcast but the fire in the sitting room was warm and cozy. Fiona wrapped herself in an afghan and found a book to read while she waited for Asta to wake and join her.
Fiona was always lost in the pages of a story. She'd learned over the years that it was safer to live her life through characters in a book than to deal with situations that could cause her to lose control and invite a spirit or ghost or whatever, to possess her and leave her in an embarrassing position. And this was definitely a situation where she was out of her element.
She remembered the time she was being proposed to on a second date. He had been a nice enough man, but she had no intention of accepting. While she'd been desperately trying to find the right words to turn him down, her Aunt Alice had apparently taken over and given the poor man a detailed list of why she would never be Mrs. Fiona Flozniak. His name being at the top of said list. When Fiona became aware of surroundings again she was sitting alone at the table of the exclusive restaurant he'd brought her to, the waitress and other diners eyeing her with shock. Fiona had never heard from him again.
It was almost three o'clock when Fiona looked up from her book to discover she was no longer alone. She watched in fascination as women, one after the other, appeared out of nowhere. They all were beautiful, though very different in looks. From fashion model perfection to girl-next-door wholesomeness. But all shared with Asta that indefinable something that would make anyone of them the center of attention in any size crowd. As a group, their allure nothing short of overpowering. Fiona, who'd always considered her own brand of beauty to be quite sufficient, knew she was totally out of her league.
"Thank you for coming," Asta greeted them as she glided into the room. Her step halted halfway in. "They went without me," she said looking around the room. "You ladies are more than welcome to stay and make yourselves at home," Asta was already turning her back to them. "I will return as soon as everything is resolved."
"Wait," a chorus of voice called out. Raven was at Asta's side before she could leave. Raven took her by the arm and led her back into the sitting room. "I was remind you that Nolan would be very displeased if you put yourself in the least bit of danger. You are to remain here, with us, and they will bring Nolan to you when they have defeated Bertrand and the humans who work with him."
Shea, Jacques Dubrinsky's lifemate, concurred, "That is exactly what you were told to say, Raven." Shea more than any of the other women there knew what Asta was going through, she had been the one to find and rescue her lifemate from a similar situation. She couldn't imagine having to sit and wait for word knowing the agony he must be enduring, "Although, now that I think about it, I believe the most important part of the message was that we be together. You may have overemphasized the remain here part, Raven"
"Please do not think I am unaware of what you are doing or that I am unappreciative of it. But I feel guilty enough putting your lifemates' lives in danger. This is not your fight," Asta's words were sincere but her eyes were on the sky growing darker outside the front window. "Bertrand will rise soon. I'm sure they are planning on finding and releasing Nolan before that. I just want to be there, to make sure he's all right. You must understand, he hasn't contacted me since they first took him," a note of panic was creeping into her voice, "I must leave now."
They watched as she dissolved into mist and disappeared from their sight.
The women looked at each other and reached a common decision. They were gone without another word having been spoken.
Fiona set her book down and pulled the afghan up under her chin. She heard the sound of a dog making its way across the hardwood floor. "I didn't know Asta had a dog. Come up here, boy," she patted the spot next to her and invited the Labrador to join her, "I guess they forgot about both of us."
The red-haired canine studied her for a moment before his eyes smiled at her and he joined her in front of the fire. He was stretched out next to her enjoying her attentions, silently encouraging her to pet and stroke him freely. Sighing to himself, he decided that it wasn't always so bad to get left behind while the rest of the males left to battle a master vampire. Being a fledgling of a mere one hundred twenty-five years sometimes had its advantages.
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Nolan woke with a start. His lungs filled with air and his heart began to throb with life. His unhealed cuts seeped with blood at each beat of his heart. His hunger, raking his insides would not allow him the oblivion of rest any longer.
Nothing had changed, he was still alone except for the humans sleeping at his feet. His hair was matted to his head and dried blood and sweat covered his body. He knew it would be dark soon and he battled back the fear that Bertrand would return soon.
He could do nothing to help himself while the paralysis held him prisoner as much as the bindings at his wrists and ankles. He had to free himself. Staying here meant he was condemning both himself and Asta to certain death. Concentrating fiercely, fresh beads of sweat and blood dripping down his face and body; blurring his vision, making his open cuts burn, Nolan tried to move a finger. Only one. Nothing.
Nolan knew himself to be a being of immense of power. He controlled and manipulated the elements without thought. He was both feared and respected by the most powerful of Carpathians. To be reduced to this filled him with rage. So much rage he couldn't hear, see or think because of it. He wanted to pound his fists in frustration. He wanted to rip into the throats of his captors, hear their screams of agony. He wanted to watch them die.
They'd only injected him the one time, although syringes full of the stuff lay on a table with easy reach. While the most brutal of the humans had occupied himself by inflicting cuts on him, Jasper had taunted him with how they would keep him helpless with repeated doses. That they would soon be bringing Asta to join him in his torment and assured him he would have an excellent view of the tortures they had planned for her.
Bertrand had been there the entire time, encouraging their depravities feeding off the emotions of both the torturers and the victim. Though Nolan never saw him he could feel both his and Mark DeWitt's excitement at the thought of having Asta at their mercy. DeWitt's physical response to his fantasies of subjugating her; making her beg and scream in pain caused Nolan's heartbeat to speed up, his fresh cuts bled out even more. He lost consciousness with their laughter ringing in his ears.
Asta had told him something important, but even at the time he hadn't really understood what she was saying. He had the impression of her being chased, of a group of males surrounding her Carpathian, vampire?, she had been hurt and was scared. Was she even now in a worse situation than his? He couldn't touch her mind. He'd tried but there was no connection, no answer.
He knew the poison would work its way out of his system eventually, but not soon enough. For now, he was forced to lie in the dark, agonizing hunger and pain making it impossible for him to reason, his incisors dripping with want. He could do nothing but wait for it to all begin again when Bertrand woke. He felt a howl of despair rise in him but his mouth didn't move, he didn't make a sound.