Enslaved Read online

  Splice rose from his seat on Vince's bed, threw his head back and covered his face with his hands, exasperated. "Dude! You can't let a power go to waste like that! It will KILL her! No stake necessary, man. That's probably why the Oracle told you not to let her know about them, Vince. It's in the Old Commandments of Vampire. The book that explains powers...it states 'if a vampire possesses a power that is untapped, then the soul and power of the possessor will die, therefor killing the vampire who beholds the Old Magics.'"

  Vince just stared at him, face paling to a sickly gray. "Do you just memorize that stuff?" He asked idly, hanging his head in stark despair. Without waiting for an answer he muttered, "Shit, how am I going to fix this damned mess?"

  Splice winced at his cousin's use of vocabulary. It was rare for this master of torture to cuss, and when he did it meant that he was close to his breaking point.

  "Okay, let's just stay rational and think, cuz." Splice said, sitting back down on the bed. "So, you've been lying to her since she entered the next life?"

  Vince nodded, eyes darting to the door as if someone might be listening, then averting back to Splice.

  "And you've covered up her marks, told her that the soul-tugs she gets were because you two are mates? Do you even know what a 'soul-tug' is?"

  Vince shook his head no and waited for Splice to tell him.

  "Only copy-cats get it. It tells the copy-cat who has a power and who doesn't have a power. The soul of vampire isn't like the human one, it's harder, less breakable. It contains the Old Magics," Splice explained, "which are the things that allow vampires to live and allow some to get extra abilities, a sixth sense. In Viktoria's case she has a sixth and a seventh sense, which makes her soul even more fragile than it should be, seeing as she's friggin' half human! And now, her powers are deteriorating and she's slowly dying inside...what can we do about this little dilemma?"

  The two vampires fell into a thoughtful silence....this was not going well at all, Splice thought and saw the same feeling written plainly all over Vince's tortured face.

  So, Splice thought, the torturer gets tortured, hmm, interesting twist.

  Vince shot him another I'll-kill-you-with-my-bare-hands looks as if he knew what Splice had been thinking.

  "Sorry," Splice muttered. "Do you want me to tell her? I can make it look like you didn't know anything..."

  Vince groaned, leaning his head back against his chair and closing his eyes as he said, "Great, make me look stupid now, too."

  Splice rolled his eyes at his cousin, "I think I know a way to keep her living for a few days while we think of a plan, but I also think you won't like it..."

  Vince opened his eyes a slit and glared at Splice. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, a vampire with power can transfer their...power-energy into another vamp with an ability, although it leaves the donor rather weak." Splice trailed off, was he really going to give some girl his own energy to keep her alive and drain himself of life in the process...?

  "You'll be willing to do that for Viktoria?" Vince asked, dumbfounded.

  "Yes, after all, I owe you for taking care of Raina while I've been gone."

  "Okay. So, now to the part where I might not like, explain." Vince commanded, not in the mood for a polite question.

  "Well, in order to give her that kind of life- okay, well, to do that it gets kinda intimate..."

  Vince went stiff. "How intimate, Splice?"

  "Blood-drinking between the donor and the acceptor..."

  Splice's cousin was silent and all the while Splice just wanted to crawl into a ditch and never come out. When a vampire bites another vampire it was because they were mates, another vamp didn't just randomly go up to some vampiress and sink his teeth into the woman if she wasn't his mate....

  Vince sighed, "How long will this...intimacy keep my angel alive? And how many times will you have to do...it?"

  "Viktoria's already pretty drained, I can tell by her soul-tugs. They're hungry, not subtle like a normal tug would be. So I'll have to do that alot. And it should keep her going for a good week if we exchange twice a day." Splice answered, not meeting his Vince's gaze that was filled with so much feeling that he couldn't even show any kind of emotion.

  Vince stood from his seat, "If this is going to work, we have one problem."

  "And what would that be?"

  "How are we going to convince Viktoria to feed from you?"

  Splice chuckled slightly, "There's no 'we' to that part, that's ALL you."

  "Great," Vince growled and smashed his fist into the wall.

  Splice sighed, "I'm going to go feed, cuz. Any more schemes we need to come up with."

  "Just leave for now, Splice, I need to be alone." Vince breathed, back to Splice, head resting on the wall a few feet away from the hole in the drywall.

  Splice obeyed to command thinking, Vince has finally reached his breaking point, prepare for the explosion.

  Chapter 26

  A wave of sudden vertigo swept over Tori as she took her first step down the stairs. Everything seemed to blur in front of her for a moment, the world swimming before her bleary eyes. What was happening? Her head ached suddenly, the dizziness accelerated and all of a sudden she found herself tipping over, body falling down the stairs, hitting each ledge with a sickening thud.

  Tori must've blacked out for a moment, for she found herself at the bottom of the staircase, body aching, mind reeling at how fast she hit the floor, the last thing she remembered was the spinning world and her face coming close to the black-oak wooden stairs...

  She barely had enough energy to move her head and open her mouth to let out a slight shout for help that couldn't have carried all the way to Vince's room, but he heard, he always seemed to hear her...Tori stared up at a blurry black and white form at the top of the stairs, not sure if it was her Vincent or...

  "Viktoria?"

  It was Splice, not Vince....where was Vince?

  "What happened?" Splice asked, feet moving swiftly and gracefully down the steps until he reached her, offering a hand. "Are you okay?"

  Tori sighed and allowed Splice to help her up, one cool hand on the small of her back, the other still clasping her hand after she was standing. Right as Tori touched his skin, the images around her sharpened painfully, every color, shade, hue, they all cleared up into they were nearly glowing with radiance. It was as if Splice had sent power- energy through her, strengthening her. Tori locked eyes with Splice and the room around her seemed to be leeched away as the rusty-red color of Splice's eyes sucked her in, nearly drowning her in an odd familiarity...

  Splice inclined his head, pulling Tori closer, wiping her mind of any thought, sweeping it clear of any person that seemed to matter...Tori began to stand on her tip-toes, their faces getting closer and closer.

  Splice's lips brushed hers slightly when, suddenly, Tori's mind caught up to her actions. She tore away from him, stumbling backwards, her newly found strength draining when their physical connection snapped.

  "Uh, um," Splice looked away, fumbling with his words, glancing anywhere but at Tori. "Er, I'm going to go feed now." Splice slipped away, his voice reaching a peak as if he wasn't finished speaking.

  Tori didn't really mind, she minded the fact that in that split second where she and Splice were about to- about to KISS, she had forgotten all about Vince....he had flew out of her mind like a leaf being carried on the wind.

  Splice hurried out of the room, trying to keep his nervous stride calm-seeming and cool. Once he was out of Viktoria's view and out of earshot he slumped against the wall of the hallway, resting his arms on his knees, and hanging his head in his hands as he inhaled...exhaled slowly.

  What had he done? He was about to make out with his cousin's mate, not cool, not cool at all. But he had felt a rush, something he had never felt before. It was like that adrenaline high people got when they were doing something dangerous, like they were jumping off the edge of a cliff into ice-cold water.

  The thing t
hat freaked him out the most was that he actually WANTED Viktoria, wanted her like the blood he craved when he was fasting before a Gathering...it was that bad. He hadn't even known Viktoria for more than an hour and all he wanted was to feel his hands on the curve of her hips, her soft-looking lips caressing his own. Splice wanted to experience the sensation of his body pressed close to hers, wanted nothing more than to whisper in her ear and feel that rush he had just lived through, that sense of familiarity despite the fact that he DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HER! And he had lusted for all that stuff in one single moment with one single touch....nothing was right in this Vampire Hotel, nothing at all, Splice thought, nothing was right in this world. Nothing.

  Chapter 27

  Viktoria was in the dining room alone and eating when Vince found her, his speech already planned out. More lies to add to the web, he thought as he sat down in front of her, eying the plate of human food she was nibbling on.

  "You're still eating that?" He wondered as she took a bite of a carrot.

  "Hey, I'm not a total vampire, Vince. Plus, I'm extremely hungry for some reason." Her eyebrows puckered than relaxed. "What's wrong, you seem tense." She murmured.

  "Well," Vince cleared his throat nervously, trying to keep his expression cool and collected. "You know how my cousin is a copy-cat, right?"

  Viktoria thought for a moment and nodded, crossing her leg over her knee under the table. "Yeah, why?"

  "Seeing as you're only half-vampire, you'll need, how do I phrase this...? We can say, you'll need special energy only a vampire with an ability can give you." Vince murmured.

  Viktoria looked slightly disturbed at this. "Why do I need a vampire's energy, Vince? What aren't you telling me?"

  "Because, the vampire part of your soul is dying out, you need someone's energy or you'll just...die." He choked out the last part, knowing that it was true, completely and utterly true. His Viktoria was going to die if he didn't let Splice feed her with his energy...

  "Who- who's going to be, you know, feeding me?" Viktoria grounded out, her voice barely above a whisper, her food forgotten.

  "Splice,"

  "Oh, God." She sighed out between a sort of gasp/sob. "Why can't you do that? How do you do that?" She wondered, her anxiety reaching maximum, Vince could feel it.

  "I can't do that because I don't have any special powers and you NEED someone with an ability, with a strong soul. Splice has both; I don't." Vince sighed, looking away and running a hand through his black-as-midnight hair, pushing it away from his pale face and scarlet eyes.

  "Splice is going to stop by your room tonight, angel." Was all he said before striding off, leaving her second question unanswered.

  Viktoria was in her room at sunrise, sitting there, staring blankly at a corner of the ceiling, confusion and misery wrapping around her. She didn't know what the hell was going on, or what Splice was going to do. Tori didn't want to have another encounter with Vince's cousin like she had earlier.

  She stroked her gauze-clad arms restlessly, staring at the white fabric, wondering.... what was under this wrapping...? Her fingers were shaking subtly as she found the tail of the gauze and began unwinding it, slowly, layer by layer until....she saw something that she had never seen before.

  On her arm were lace-like patterns in silver, dancing all over her flesh. The one thing that stood out the most to her was the mini splayed-out hand tattooed onto the inside of her wrist...Tori shifted her gaze to her left wrist where gauze was also coating her flesh. She unwrapped that, too, and saw a small fist, a closed hand...

  Tori recalled the small silver tattoo on Splice's arm, it looked exactly like the image on her left wrist....what did that mean? She was musing over this when there was a sullen knock on her door.

  "Come in, it's open!" She called, her voice no higher than necessary.

  The door creaked open and closed when a tall, slim figure in black and white entered, eyes blazing crimson...for a moment, Tori thought it was Vince, but that faded the moment she saw the broader shoulders, the jeans, and the way Splice walked. Just as confident, but calculating, cautious.

  "You ready?" Splice wondered, leaning against a wall by her bed.

  She sighed, pushing her white hair away from her face pensively. Splice had gone over what he was going to do with her a few hours ago. "No, not really," she answered, "but I don't think I'll ever be. Let's just get started."

  Splice moved closer and everything around her disappeared into a scarlet haze as his eyes engulfed her, his hands moved to her waist, and both of their sets of fangs sliced into the others necks.

  This, Tori thought suddenly, guiltily, was better than any ecstasy she had ever felt...even with Vince.

  Chapter 28

  Tori found herself wrapped in a pair of comforting, cool arms. They seemed to be made just right for her as if a master sculptor had chiseled out the right places for her chin to rest on his bicep, carved the shapes of her legs so they fit nicely with his hips as she hitched them up and pulled him closer to her. His hands rested lazily at the dip in her lower back, his weight held just right so she could barely feel him, but just enough so she could still savor the sense of his body pressed close to her.

  Tori felt stronger than usual in his arms, she felt invincible, powerful, superior....like a vampire. This was her third feeding with...

  "I have to go now, Viktoria."

  That sweet, sweet voice whispered in her ear, teeth grazing her earlobe, sending shivers throughout her languorous body that just CRAVED him. Eyes still closed she clutched him closer, lust still pulsing through her veins and limbs.

  "Please, don't go," she whispered, slowly pulling back her eyelids and staring into crimson pools that reminded Tori of fresh blood. "Don't go..."

  "I don't think Vince would appreciate it if I stayed too long," he whispered....

  "Vince? Who's...? Oh, GOD!" Tori gasped as Splice climbed off of her and the bed, standing there, looking down at her, an indescribable look in his eyes...they seemed hungry, but not for blood.

  She stared at him in horror, though, despite her earlier lustful emotions. "Oh, no no no." How could she have forgotten Vince? How could she have allowed herself to forget him and want both physically and blood-wise Splice? But Splice looked so much like Vince, yet so different, much more free...wasn't as pushy as Vince was, or as torturous....

  Tori still wanted Splice- and Vince.

  "Okay, go." She said, her voice quieter than a whisper. But Splice heard her, he seemed to always hear her...

  Splice looked down at her with thirsty eyes, his fingers unconsciously running along her thigh before he whispered, "I'll be back in the morning to feed you, Viktoria."

  "Fine, I'll see you then." She murmured, rolling onto her side so her back was to him.

  "Oh, and Viktoria, we need to talk about those marks on your arms. I don't think Vince knows what they are..."

  Viktoria looked back at him, "What do you mean?"

  "Well talk later," he promised and glided out of the room leaving Viktoria confused, both mentally and physically.

  Her body lusted for something wild, something sweet and soft, something that didn't push her...it craved Splice....Tor's mind thirsted for that familiar tug at her mind, wanted to hear that soft, thoughtful voice, wanted to feel that connection between her and Vince....

  Tori, with a sickening jolt of understand, realized that she wanted BOTH DeChorello cousins....each so different, yet both matching her. Splice fulfilled the need to have something in common, to share power. Vince fulfilled the urge for that painful edge of pleasure, the one that she was always unsure of but secretly craved.....

  Viktoria clutched at the sheets of her bed in the dark, suddenly frightened of herself. Something wasn't right with her, it was as if something new was emerging inside her, surfacing from an abyss of silence that had somehow contained this restlessness for nineteen years.

  But now- now it was aroused and Tori came to the sudden conclusion that this new side of her could n
ot be laid to rest ever again...it was dangerous and powerful, it held secrets that she couldn't get to...

  Unable to explain this sudden burst of insight, Tori rose from the bed, slid into the one pair of unused sneakers she had, slipped into a pair of blissful jeans and a T-shirt and she ran...ran out of her room, out of the Hotel, through the forest, and tried to escape the Siren that was now wide awake within her, clawing to get out....

  To Be Continued in Liberated...

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