Page 23 of Shadow Kissed (Marked by Blood 1)

“We’re here.” Sebastian stopped in front of a black-painted door of a three-story building with rectangular windows and curlicue trims. He tapped the ancient metal locker three times and took a step back. Sangaree squeezed past us on the narrow sidewalk, and I moved closer to Erianna. “Remember”—Sebastian looked down at me—“don’t talk unless it’s to Erianna or me, don’t cause a scene, and try to slink into the shadows as much as possible.”

“Don’t be noticeable. Got it.”

“Essentially, yes.”

Erianna squeezed my shoulder, reminding me I wasn’t alone in here. An eye-level slot in the door opened, clacking metal against wood.

Sebastian whispered something to whomever was on the other side, and a few seconds later, the door swung open. “Come.” I hesitated, as any sane person should before walking into a blood den with a vampire, but this was what I wanted. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he assured, but it did little to make me feel better.

A short man dressed in blue stood aside in the narrow foyer, allowing us into the musky blood den. The smell of iron, sweat, and sex choked the air around us.

“They bring newcomers to the bottom level,” Sebastian said, walking us out of the foyer and through a small, red-carpeted room with crimson wallpaper and gold finishes. Three vampires made out with each other on one of the plush, four-legged sofas. A woman moaned loudly, running her fingers between her legs as two men moved their mouths over her curves.

My eyes widened, and I walked out, ignoring Sebastian’s amused expression. We emptied into a snug corridor. Sensual instrumental music played in the background, the sound carrying us down a set of steep stairs, masking the moans hidden behind doors to private rooms. I noticed scratch marks against the wallpaper, blood dotting the cream tears.

“How do you know he’s not in one of those?” I inquired as we approached another cold, dark staircase.

“These rooms are for more practiced mortals.”

My upper lip curled. Lowering my barrier enough, I blocked out Sebastian and Erianna’s emotions as best I could and closed my eyes. Despair and emptiness radiated from the rooms, telling me the mortals inside had given up fighting. I shuddered as lust licked at my barrier from whatever vampire was inside the room, and I closed it off.

“There are two levels underground,” Erianna disclosed when we reached the bottom of the steps. “This is where the newcomers are brought. This is the biggest den in the city, so if he’s going to be anywhere, it’s likely here.”

The cold seeped through my skin, chilling my core. When Sebastian turned the switch to a low-lit lamp, walls emerged from the shadows. He walked us out into a long room filled with hundreds of curtained cubicles.

I arched an eyebrow. “Have you been down here?”

“I prefer the upper levels.”

“Nice to know.” My jaw tightened. “So these people are cheaper to feed on then?” Of course Sebastian frequented this place. I wasn’t sure why I’d given him the benefit of the doubt.

His nature was just as devious as the other monsters in this room. Their mortal appearance only made them far more dangerous predators than I ever could have known. Mainly because they didn’t appear like one, unlike the soul vampires who I would know to stay clear of.

Being around Sebastian was annoyingly alluring at times, and I couldn’t help but be drawn to everything about him, his scent, body, and bedroom eyes, no matter how much I hated him.

Regaining my composure, I focused my attention on the cubicles. I desperately wanted to shout his name, but I assumed that wouldn’t be the best idea. “Can I call for him?” I questioned, just in case.

He shook his head, warning threading through his stoic expression. He pointed at the first cubicle and moved back the curtains just an inch. I peeped inside, watching as a male vampire traced his tongue over a drugged-up woman’s neck, licking up a trickle of blood that ran from fresh bite marks. A mortal man with bloodshot eyes, irises halfway back in his head, flopped against the wall in the second cubicle we looked at. Turning my back to them, I snarled. “They’re barely conscious.”

Erianna gave me an apologetic look, even though none of this was her doing.

“Remember what you said,” Sebastian whispered in my ear, pulling the curtain from my grasp, giving the creature its privacy, “about not making a scene.” His breath hit the top of my ear, wisping a shiver down my back. “He won’t be in any of these.”

“How do you know?”

“I think these are for women only.”

My chest heaved as I begrudgingly followed him and Erianna to the very bottom level. He pulled back a curtain to the room mirroring the one we’d just left and nodded. “These are the men.”

A scream ripped through the air, and I flinched back against Erianna. “No, stop,” a man begged as sobs pierced from the back of the room. A minute later, two sangaree passed us, one nodding in Sebastian’s direction, holding needles. They entered the area where the man screamed, and after a few seconds, the crying subsided.

My barrier itched to be lowered, my gift scratching at the edge, wanting to feel these strangers’ pain, but I couldn’t, not without it dropping me to my knees. I hated to think of the suffering in this room alone.

I trudged across the blood-spattered carpet, wrinkling my nose at the stench of sweat. A male vampire walked out of his cubicle, buttoning his blazer. I didn’t make eye contact and waited for him to leave before sneaking a look behind the curtains of the first line of cubicles.

A sangaree woman didn’t even bother to wipe her blood-smeared lips as she made her way from one to another, her eyes manic. She glanced at us, dragging her painted nails up to her lips before disappearing behind a curtain.

Sebastian raised a finger and pressed it against his lips as I gently pulled the material of one back and looked inside. I glanced over my shoulder at Erianna, who was standing watch. I shook my head. We moved on to the next, where a mortal man pressed a sangaree against the makeshift wall, one knee on a velvet footstool, thrusting deep inside of her. The sounds of their tangled moans had me closing the curtain fast. I didn’t need to see his face to know it wasn’t Draven. He wouldn’t stoop that low as to fuck a vampire, not willingly, anyway.

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