Page 29 of Bought for Blood

I walk where he points me. Right runs deeper into the block, past the store rooms, and the air changes as we go. We’re not moving toward the scent of wax, and that unsettles me.

A new room. Why would we go to a new room?

He’s been five times now, and it’s always been the same route, the same door, the same chair by the fire. Now a new room, deeper in, where the building feels less welcoming. I run through everything I said last time, everything I did.

Did I do something? Is this the part where the game changes?

My wolf is awake and low. She doesn’t like the smell down here. Neither do I.

I haven’t showered. I realize that halfway down the corridor. I’ve prepared for every session so far. Tonight they took me straight off the cot in my ward shirt.

So it’s not a session. Then what is it?

The guard stops at a plain wood door, swipes his card, and pushes it open.

The room is stark. Bare walls, concrete floors, and a metal chair bolted in the middle of it. A caged bulb hums overhead. On a folding table by the wall sits a medical bag.

A handler stands at the table with her arms crossed, a woman I’ve never seen, jacket zipped to her chin against the cold.

“Where’s this?” I ask her.

“Sit down.”

“I asked where—”

“And I said sit.”

I cross the floor, and I sit because standing here won’t get me anywhere. The steel chair drags the cold straight through my shirt into my skin. My breath comes out too fast. My heart is going harder than I want it to.

The door opens again.

It isn’t him.

The man who walks in is a vampire—the cold comes off him the same way—but that’s where it ends. Young. New suit, too much aftershave, something thin and sour underneath it. He looks at me the way the guards look at the pretty ones, and my wolf comes up, reads him in one breath, and finds everything wrong. Hunger. Nerves. He’s pleased with himself and agitated underneath, all right on the surface where anyone can see.

She can read him.

She’s never been able to read the other one.

He’s not here.

It goes through me slowly, and then the rest comes with it.

He’s not here, and they’ve sold me to somebody else. That’s what this room is. That’s what I am when he’s not in the building.

I thought I was his. Off the list, fed, kept. I let myself think it.

Stupid. Stupid.

“So you’re the one.” The young vampire comes closer. His shoes are new too. They squeak on the concrete. “They talk about you, you know.”

I set my eyes on the middle distance and keep my face level.

“I paid triple for the hour.” He waits for that to impress me. “Triple.”

“Then you’ve been robbed.”

The handler coughs into her fist. His face flattens. He steps in fast. His hand grips my jaw and shoves my head over to bare my throat, fingers cold, digging in. I grab his wrist with both hands before I can stop myself.