Page 2 of Because the Night

“I don’t know this world,” he says, as if to himself. Then he strokes my cheek with the pad of his thumb, before winding a lock of my hair around his finger. “And you remind me of someone. What’s your name?”

“Skye.”

“Skye,” he repeats in a pleasant tone. “You’re going to be a good girl for me, aren’t you, Skye?”

Of course, I am. I would doanythingto please him. But when I try to nod, or to speak again, nothing happens. I simply lack the strength. My whole body feels light, insubstantial. Like I might float away on the next breeze. It’s then that I realize I haven’t even done anything interesting with my life, and here I am, about to lose it.

With a sigh, he brings his wrist to his mouth and bites. Then he presses the wound to my lips and says, “Drink.”

Blood trickles into my mouth, the scent of copper and taste of iron is overwhelming. I barely manage to swallow, but I do because I wouldn’t dare disobey him. A sharp sensation spreads through me, forcing its way into my flesh and bones. It is fire without heat, and it brutally consumes me.

When I try to turn my head, he forces me back, making me take more. I want to cry and scream and puke all at the same time. The blood flows down my throat and through my body and all I can do is lie there and…

“I know you’re awake,” says a deep, amused voice. “It’s time we had a little talk.”

I open my eyes a sliver. Just enough to see the linen bedsheet beneath my cheek and the shadows thrown by the thick candle burning on an antique wooden desk. I doubt this is Heaven. Not that I’ve ever been particularly religious. But when I imagined an afterlife, I pictured an eternal, peaceful darkness. A whole lot of nothing with all of my anxiety gone for good. A big old four-poster bed with a beautiful bastard sitting on a wingback chair in the corner watching me—not so much.

Though he could be the Devil. His presence is commanding as he sucks all of the air from the room. He radiates power and strength and I have never experienced anything like it. He has big dick energy to the nth.

“You attacked me. You fucking bit me.” The strange thing is, I feel amazing. The best I have ever felt. Which makes no sense, and means I’m nowhere near as afraid of him as I should be. Confusion and righteous anger are my main emotions right now. “How long was I out?”

“Ladies don’t swear.”

“Ladies do what they like, and I happen to like salty language…a lot. Now answer the question.”

“Not long.” He holds up my cell. “What’s this?”

“My phone.”

His dark brows rise. “This is a telephone?”

“Yes. How do you not know that? Where am I?”

“In one of the basement rooms you were so clumsily trying to enter. It’s little wonder you woke me,” he says. “What year is it?”

I sit up and wrinkle my nose. “What year is it? Who are you, Sleeping Beauty?”

“Just answer the question.” I tell him, and his response is, “Huh.”

Something is definitely going on with me. My sight is somehow so much better. Even with only the low light of the solitary candle, I can see everything. From a couple of dust motes dancing in the air to the missed stitch on the collar of his button-down shirt. It’s like looking through a magnifying glass. Seeing the world in such detail is overwhelming.

“Relax your eyes,” he says. “Broaden your focus. It takes some getting used to.”

“What did you do to me?”

“Have the old tales already been forgotten?”

Not only has my sight changed, but I can hear more things, too. An insect scuttling across the floor upstairs and a night bird calling in the garden. We’re underground in a basement room with solid stone walls and no windows. There’s no way I shouldknow that a car is cruising past the other end of the street, or that a neighbor is playing “Saturn” by SZA.

My fingers tighten on the thick, woolen blanket thrown over the end of the bed, and the material tears as if it were wet paper. It’s all too much. Scents, sights, sounds, touch, and taste. Everything has suddenly been amped up to eleven.

The asshole sighs. “You’re going to break a lot of shit before you get yourself under control, aren’t you?”

“What did you do to me?”

“You know.” He smirks and rises to his feet. “I can see it in your eyes.”

I don’t know, but I do have my suspicions, as wild as they are. I run my tongue over my teeth and taste blood after one of my enhanced canines scratches it. “This is…vampires aren’t real.”

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