“Ripley! Talk to me,” I called out.
But I didn’t need her to answer. I reached in to where I was now bonded to her to see if I could find her. If I listened to that connection hard enough, maybe it would lead me to her. I cleared my mind and pushed away my own panic. I could feel her. Was she suffocating?
Fletch—Someone has me!
Then, deafening silence.
CHAPTER
ONE
There was fire in my heart. I could feel it roaring as I sat on the cold cement floor in the corner of my glass cage. Over my face was the same dulled, dead mask the rest of the women who surrounded me wore.
My eyes were open, but I wasn’t really seeing anything. Just a blur of dim, muted colors. Red from the light above my cage, white from the fluorescents of the tired women in the cage across from me, gray from the narrow hallway between us, and black from the short tresses that fell to my chin.
I was breathing, but my mind was deadened. The golden shackles on my severely bruised wrists prevented me from letting the fire boil my blood enough to burn down this farming facility run by the Cidris hunters.
I blinked slowly as I curled myself farther in the corner to hide my naked body as much as possible from the wandering men, looking for some Elizian blood to magically heal their wounds.
It’d been two months, and still the only person who had ever farmed me was the one person who put me here. Fletcher Darkly. As soon as my cage turned white, indicating I was replenished and ready to be drained once more, Fletcher would storm through the hall, drop coins into my machine, and smash that red button that would put my body through the most agony I’d ever experienced.
I didn’t know if he ever looked at me while my blood was being leeched from me because I had yet to acknowledge his existence since he had put me in this hell. But Iwouldwatch him walk away with the bottle of my blood. Even in my rage, I noticed how he still made my mouth dry, curled my toes in desire, and caused my weak heart to patter. He still had that swayin his broad shoulders. I hated that my body responded to simply a glimpse of him.
To still be attracted to him even though he was a traitor, a dismal and evil Cidris, always stirred the bile in my stomach. But I forced myself to watch him walk away if only to desensitize myself. To retrain my brain so my body would stop heating at the thought of him. But this was the price I had to pay for being naive and trusting in someone who would smile and lie to my face. I had learned my lesson.
Luckily, today I didn’t have to see him.
Today, I could blankly stare into the distance. I could count my heartbeats as I thought about all the ways my mother had been right—right to keep me in our tower. She knew I was vulnerable and would be hunted for my magic. She knew Fletcher couldn’t be trusted—knew he was a Cidris. I should have heeded her warning about him, but I thought I knew better—knew Fletcher better, and I had ignored her. Such an idiot! Now how would she find me? God, I wished she’d find me. I no longer cared if she was experimenting with my blood, if she drained me of it in her dark closet. Anything was better than this. Especially if she was trying to help me control my magic. I just wanted to go home.
Trusting Fletcher Darkly was the single biggest mistake of my life. Had anything he had told me been true?
The sound of a tiny latch clicking on the ceiling signaled the opening of a small door no bigger than my fist. I shifted my gaze to three small ocaberries dropping into my cage. Their dark, matte skin was ringed with glowing cobalt hues, and they were filled with sweet relief for this pounding headache that plagued me from blood loss.
Everyone got two. But I sometimes got three. Like today. And when the pieces of bread would come, I noticed, I would sometimes get extra of that too.
It never mattered though. I looked at the three berries and swiveled my bottom on the rough concrete ground until I faced them. Ignoring the saliva that filled my mouth with need at their incessantly sweet scent, I lifted my foot and smashed, kicking the remnants away. Holding my breath, I waved my hand to disperse the luminous spores that burst from them. I refused to replenish my magic just to be drained again. I was in hell either way. At least this hell didn’t include Fletcher as often. The longer I was drained, the less often I had to see him. The less I ate, the more likely I’d die.
“Would you just eat your berries?” Quinn ordered from the cage beside mine, her voice muffled by the glass between us. “Please. You’re scaring me.”
“No,” I answered flatly. My eyes roamed to the slender woman in the cage across from mine. Fletcher’s other victim.
She has Darkly written all over her. Quinn had said it the first day I had woken up here. And watching her over the last two months, I still couldn’t identify what exactly was “Darkly” about her. Was it her thinness? The way she kept her big eyes closed around the clock? What about the plump lips that matched mine? Or was it the way her back was always curved much like mine did? Was it the crying she did at night? Perhaps it wasn’t tears over the pain, perhaps it was tears over Fletcher. I wasn’t sure how long she had been here, but if she was crying over Fletcher still, then I saw no hope in sight for me.
What was it about me that had allowed Fletcher to swindle me? To swindle her? We had to have something in common.
A group of three Cidris dressed in all black stormed through the hallway. They looked to all the women, each picking one to collect blood from.
Two picked women on the opposite side of the hall, but the last chose one from my side. The coins rained into the machine, and down came the man’s fist on the red button. Screams burst into the air, rattling the thin glass dividing each of us.
I didn’t flinch at the sound anymore. I kept my eyes on the woman across from me. But, it still rattled my chest and pierced a piece of my soul every time.
When it was over, the woman collapsed to the ground and her cage was bathed in red light.
The three men compared their bottles filled to the brim with Elizian blood before their eyes roamed the cages and landed on me. The three of them gathered outside the glass like I was a creature to be gawked at. The front glass was soundproof, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to read their lips.
I curled myself in a ball in the corner of the cage, using my crossed ankles to cover myself and peek over my arms at my spectators.
I think one of them said something about me being a beauty. About how of all the women, they would fuck me the most if they got to choose. One fantasized about me at night. About drinking my blood. One was upset that I was always red, wondering who the hell always got to me first.
