I wanted to scream, but I needed to focus. There was no one to save me but myself. There'd never been anyone but me to save me. I was stuck in Leopold's embrace, but I could move my hands. I grabbed the end of the stake and yanked. It moved and Leopold stopped sucking my blood long enough to step back and pull the stake from his own body. He threw it across the room and was back on me before I'd gotten more than two steps away from him. I'd tried to move faster, but I was sluggish and weak and my vision was starting to fade. I suspected I was dying, but I couldn't muster the energy to care. I was so tired. I couldn't fight anymore.
There was one question, though, that was tapping at my brain. One thing I wanted to know before darkness enveloped me. “Can you taste the water in my blood?”
He stopped sucking and looked at me. He seemed honestly curious, but also blood drunk and woozy himself. He licked his lips and considered. “No,” he said. “No. You aren't a carrier.” His words were slurred, confused. He smiled a slow smile. “Which means I have no more use for you, Abigail. I would have liked you to be my consort, but you taste too good for me to stop now.”
He bent to shove his teeth back into my neck, but I slipped between his arms and dropped to the floor. The sudden movement made my head spin and my stomach heave, but I kept going. I had no other choice. I crawled between his legs and to the other side of the room, moving as quickly as I could. I knew he was faster than me, knew I couldn't fight him, but I had to try. I couldn't let him take all the blood from my body without a fight.
I spun, trying to find the stake, but Leopold was on me, lifting me under my arms again and shoving me hard against the wall. The sudden movement and the shove against the wall caused my stomach contents to rise and there was no stopping them. I vomited on Leopold's face in an upchuck worthy of the Exorcist. Leopold dropped me and I fell to the floor where I threw up again and again until my stomach was empty and I was dry heaving.
I heard someone shrieking and screaming and I wanted to tell them to be quiet, because the noise was making my head ache, but I had to stop heaving first. I remembered the way Zane had gotten me to calm down, the soft words he'd spoken to get me to breathe and stop heaving. I remembered the feel of his hand on my back, and drew in a deep breath and then another until my stomach had calmed.
“That's it, sweetheart,” Zane said, my imagination so vivid I could swear I felt his arms around me. The screaming had stopped and someone was lifting me and carrying me. It was either a delusion or a vampire, neither of which I needed to be awake for, and I was so very tired. I closed my eyes and let the cool darkness take me away from it all.