Page 17 of My Master
But Esmeralda knew it was probably impossible. He had already been there too long, and she assumed that the glitching was a sign that the Otherworld needed them back. She placed her hand on Antonio’s arm. He looked at her briefly, sighed, and then the chair that bound Damien was gone.
Damien stopped glitching, and he was a whole person again, standing, rubbing his wrists. He smiled bitterly. “Next time make sure the iron isn’t so tight, I’d appreciate that.”
Antonio instinctively pushed Ezzy behind him; she peeked over the side to see Damien throw his twin brother a frustrated look.
“Antonio,” Damien said. “It’s true, something—on an astronomical scale—is happening and you two have to stop it.” His body began to glitch and glow. “And one last thing…” His voice was beginning to sound like that distant echo. “Remember the agent, Victoria Phillipe?”
Of course Esmeralda remembered Agent Phillipe. She was that tall pretty blonde that had helped them after Santiago Enterprises had begun to burn down and Rogues were set loose all over the place. She was the one Esmeralda told about the cure, and who had helped her throughout the whole legal process of things.
Esmeralda wondered what Victoria had to do with any of this.
Damien said one last thing before he faded back to the Otherworld. “Ask her to help you in your investigation.”
9
The blisters on her hands had healed, but the scratches on her face had not. The werewolf claws had sunk in deeply, and werewolf wounds were hard to heal. After losing pints of blood, the wound had sealed shut. Now, it was crusting over, throbbing and burning. Isis wished she had some ointment to ease the pain, but she supposed it’s what she deserved, for being so stupid, for thinking that she could escape.
She knew Caesareon, and she knew how he operated, and she cursed herself for not seeing it coming. She sat in the corner of the room, on the dusty floor, holding her hands in her lap, barely moving, barely breathing. The wolf was still there, at the foot of Caesareon’s bed, baring his teeth at her.What a good guard dog,she thought and then wondered how he was able to bring werewolves to his side. It was no secret that shifters and vampires had always been enemies. \Maybe he was paying them large amounts of money, or he had promised them a special spot in society once he ‘ruled the world.’
Whatever the case was, it frightened her to know just how much power he had attained. If the werewolves were on his side, she wondered what other creatures were working with him in this plan. Were there demons? He told her that he needed her to lead his armies, but Isis felt like there was more to it than that. Something big was playing out, and she wanted to know what it was.
Isis’s eyes were weighing down with sleep, but she didn’t want to take that chance and fall asleep. If she closed her eyes, would the werewolf attack her? She did not want to risk it, she did not want to take that chance, but she couldn’t help herself. She found herself drifting…drifting.
“Isis, my dear, come here,”
Isis moved towards her Master. He was leaning against mountains of pillows, luxuriously dressed in thick robes that opened at the chest, revealing the hard muscles underneath. His eyes were only halfway opened, a smile played on his face.
Isis wanted to fight this pull towards him. When she looked at his dangerously beautiful face, all she could see was the face of that boy—of her brother—and think about how his life had bled away because of her fangs.
She hated this monster, as well as she was fascinated by him. There was something about him that was terribly horrendous and deadly; a mystery. He looked young, about twenty three, but when he spoke, the way he phrased things, it made him seem much, much older.
Her Master had explained the concept of what she had become to her. Vampire is what he called her; a creature of the night that had to drink only the blood of humans to survive. He told her to take pride in what she now was, that he had saved her from death, that vampires could never die and that she was one step closer to becoming a Goddess. Being a human meant weakness, is what he told her.
His hold on her gave her no choice but to believe him, no matter how deep her disbelief ran.
Isis wasn’t the only one he had given this speech to. There were others; other vampires like her that he claimed to have created. She recognized none of them. They were all pale faced and extremely beautiful, a quality that they all seemed to share. That and their eyes all seemed to glow the same angry red. It was a wild color, flickering and jumping, consuming their pupils, unlike their Master’s; his were a steady yellow, like the eyes of a rattlesnake.
And they were always hungry.
The others were there now, his other vampires, most of them women, sitting on pillows around him. Their bodies had been stripped bare, hardly covered up with anything but transparent cloths. Their long fingernails were raking over their Master’s chest, tracing invisible patterns and he seemed to be enjoying it.
Isis wondered if she was the only one who felt disgusted by him. Disgusted and tempted.
His tongue darted out, licking his bright red lips and he called to her again. “Isis, come sit with me.”
Slowly and cautiously, she walked forward, her legs moving by their own volition, recognizing automatically the sound of his voice and obeying it. She stood in front of him; a cream colored cloth was draped over her shoulders, belted at the waist with a golden cord. He tugged at the end of it and she fell onto his lap, her legs straddling him, the material sliding up to her thighs.
The other women moved back, silently hissing and glaring at Isis, as if it were somehow her fault that the Master seemed to prefer her as a pet. For all she cared, they could have him because she hated this man. Looking at him now, made her guts twist and rumble. She wanted to retch on him, to prove her distaste.
He gripped her waist, rubbing his thumbs against the thick fabric, smiling mischievously as he did so, as if he knew about the bone-deep hatred she felt for him. But then again, how couldn’t he know? He seemed to know everything about her, and didn’t hide the fact that he did.
“I have a gift for you,” he said.
I don’t want your gifts! She had the urge to say, but thought better of it. She swallowed and nodded. He smiled and snapped his fingers at a nearby vampire, a black haired girl with blood red eyes. She inclined her head in obedience before shooting Isis a cold stare and bounded out of the room then came back just as fast, holding what looked like rocks and sticks in her hands, carefully, as if they might break.
The vampire handed them to Caesareon who took them without thanking her. He opened the object in his hands and Isis realized it was a necklace; a necklace made up of string and black and gold stones. It was shiny and roughly textured at the same time, and it was beautiful.
Caesareon held it up to her neck. “I want you to wear it,” he said.
