She stood under the flow as it transitioned from cold to hot, the heat reddening her skin, combating the shivers that shook her with the heat. She had a sudden flash of Lucian over her, and gagged, pressing her hand to her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit down.
She poured soap into the washcloth and scrubbed every inch of skin, trying to wash Lucian off of her.
She wrapped the towels around her, and the blanket around the towels. There was a toothbrush and toothpaste, the kind that hotels left as complimentary gestures for guests. She scrubbed her teeth and tongue, removing the remembered flavor of his blood.
She was exhausted from having just done that much and she knew she had little left in her. Part of her wished to conspire for a way to seek freedom, but she doubted she could affect any plan. She was too weak, too tired, too sore.
As she stepped out of the bathroom, she cried out in fear and horror when she found him waiting for her, naked, on the bed. The tray was gone. He grinned and patted the mattress next to him. “Don’t talk. Come here,” he instructed, and she fought against the command, but it was as effective as an alpha command, her body walking placidly over to him and laying out on the bed at his side, and the words of a spell stolen from her tongue.
She clung stubbornly to the blanket and then the towels as he pulled them away. He laughed. “Still fighting. I like your stubbornness.” He bent over her, and she whimpered beneath the pain of his teeth. He did not drink as deeply or as long, but it still left her lightheaded, the world spinning, as he bit his wrist and placed his wrist to her mouth. “I will be interested how long you manage to hold on to it.”
“Elior,” she managed to say through the blood.
He laughed harder. “Oh, do you think Elior will come to your rescue? How sweet. Elior likes to think that because of his family line, he holds authority over the rest of us. But, in this modern world, blood lines matter not at all. Gold, not blood.”
“Incen-”
“Silence. You like that word. Let me guess, a fire spell?” He arched a brow as he brought his wrist to his mouth and licked the wounds closed. “Well, you are going to forget that word. It is gone, gone, gone. Isn’t it?”
She couldn’t think of what he spoke. The residue of his blood on her tongue was as thick and heavy as poison. “What is?”
“Good girl. Now, we have some time to waste,” his hand slid along her skin, and she whimpered, squirming away from the unwanted touch. “Would you prefer to be asleep or awake this time, I wonder? I prefer it when you are awake, you plead so prettily for me to stop f-king you.”
Raiden. “Stop. Please, stop,” tears slid scalding trails down her cheeks.
“Ah,” he murmured. “There we go. But I can be kind as well as cruel. Go to sleep, there’s a good girl. Go to sleep, and dream of what I am doing to you.”
She fought against it, her eyes sliding to half-mast as she felt him lift over her. “I… kill… you…” She managed to say, the words slurring and barely audible.
“You keep saying that.” He kissed her, his tongue stroking into her mouth. “Go back to sleep.”
She fell into the dark.
She woke, and he was still at her side, his eyes closed. He barely breathed, and in sleep was as still as a corpse. With the low body temperature, she could understand how the legends of vampires had been born. They would have appeared to be walking corpses to people in the past, and probably to humans now, she thought wearily as she fought for control of her body, for the energy to rise from the bed, to do anything but lay beside him, staring at his hated, beautiful face.
How long would he sleep for? She wondered. She needed to kill him. She did not think she could stand his body on hers again. She would go insane, she thought. She needed to kill him before he woke and touched her again. But she could not remember the word for burn. There was a moment of panic, and then she calmed herself. It was okay, that was just one spell.
“I don’t normally sleep with my slaves,” he commented without opening his eyes. “It encourages them towards unproductive thought processes,” he added, as if he had a window into her mind, and knew the path of her thoughts.
“Glaci-”
His hand closed on her jaw, the movement so quick she did not see it, and he tugged her against his chest. “And here I thought we were beginning to get along,” he murmured, his lips near her ear, and his voice holding an edge of humor. “You seem to have found another word to use against me. I don’t want to strip you of your entire repertoire of spells, or you will lose some of your value to me as a slave. How about we try a different command this time? Let me think…”
She struggled against his grasp, managing to sink her teeth into his finger. She realized her mistake when she tasted his blood. He chuckled, enjoying her frustrated desperation.
“How about this one? I command you to stop fighting me,” he whispered into her ear. “You are in love with me, you adore me. Don’t you, precious?”
Raiden. She closed her eyes and clung to the name as Lucian sank his teeth into her neck again.