Page 59 of Vampire Lee

“Hi.” He kept his voice low and looked around. They were in some kind of warehouse. They hadn’t been in the van for long, so he believed they were still in Hagwall.

There were ten cages, five on each side of the room. It stank, and he had a hard time processing what he was scenting, but it looked to be a mix of vampires and shifters, maybe a few crossbreeds too. He looked across the small gap into the cage next to his. Yeah. He believed the man in it was a crossbreed.

He could smell blood and infection. Shifters and vampires seldom suffered from infections.

None of the people he could see looked like champions. He hadn’t been near a fighting scene in over seventy years, but he didn’t think it had changed much, and the fear he’d managed to suppress for decades woke inside of him.

He turned to the guy who still hadn’t moved from his seated position near the corner of the cage. “Are we the bait?”

He lifted a head looking too heavy on his frail body and fixed sightless eyes on Lee—no, not on him, but in his direction. Fuck, he was blind. Lee was almost certain. Bait.

“We’re whatever they want us to be.” His voice was raspy.

Lee took a couple of quick steps closer only to have the man tense. “Easy. How bad off are you?”

The man huffed.

Yeah, stupid question. Lee’s lungs didn’t allow enough air into them, and his heart was banging hard. He took another step closer to the man. “I’m coming over to sit next to you, okay?”

He waited to see if there would be a reaction. For several seconds, the man didn’t move, then there was the tiniest little nod. Lee walked over, not fast but not slow either, and he made sure to make some noise as he went.

The man’s fangs dropped. “Blood.”

“Sorry man. A friend of mine was with me when I was taken. He was bleeding. It’s all dry.”

The man nodded. “I’m so hungry I can’t tell if the blood is spoiled or not.”

Crap. Vampires always knew if the blood was edible or not, or so he’d assumed. “When did they last allow you to feed?”

Another rusty huff left him. “If I can bite someone when I’m in the fighting ring, I can get some blood. They most often use me on shifters.”

Lee gritted his teeth. “What’s your name?”

“Angelo.”

“Nice to meet you, Angelo, though I wish the circumstances had been different. I’m Lee.”

Angelo leaned his head against the bars and closed his eyes. Lee couldn’t relax. Memories of a different time assaulted him. He’d gotten away. It hadn’t been too bad. His dad had owed some idiot money, had offered Lee as payment, and the man had used him to train his fighters. Had said he wanted them to learn how to fight someone with vampire speed.

He’d bled, had his bones broken, had lived in a cage, but it hadn’t been this bad. He’d been fed, and his master hadn’t wanted him dead. He was of no use if he was dead.

He’d spend months there, and then one night when there had been a fight, the guards had been too busy to keep track of everything around the fight to watch him. The guy who’d been supposed to take him to his cage after the training session had been asked to fetch something, and since Lee was always well-behaved and followed instructions, the guard had told him to stay put while he got whatever it was he was getting. Lee had nodded, but he hadn’t stayed put.

He didn’t think he could do it all over again, though. Months. It had taken months of daily fighting and meek behavior, and it had been a stroke of luck.

His skin was shrinking, his breaths coming in shallow puffs. Fuck, he couldn’t do this. Would they call Rei? Would he come for Lee? Why would he? Lee wasn’t part of their team. He was of no use to them.

When a wail rose in his throat, he clamped his teeth shut. He needed to focus on something else.

Looking at Angelo, he took in his frail form. The almost black hair was tousled and hanging into his eyes. He was short, and even if he hadn’t been starved, Lee guessed he was fine-limbed. Size didn’t matter when it came to vampires, age did.

“Have you been here long?” He lightly bumped his shoulder to let him know he was talking to him.

Angelo nodded.

Shit. “Any idea how long?”

“For as long as I can remember.”

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