"There they are," he said, giving me a look that said he'd somehow summoned them. "Show me how much you missed me," he demanded.
They didn't need more coaxing than that.
One of the women, the redhead from before, climbed up on the couch, making short work of getting Arick's dick in her mouth.
"Yeah, I see that," I said as Arick patted the back of the couch. The other woman shucked off her panties, hiked up her dress, and climbed up to ride his face as his hands sank into her ass.
And I took that as my cue to leave.
If you didn't know Arick, you'd have thought he used his Craft on those women. But I knew him well enough to know he simply didn't need to. I don't know if it was the palpable power that emanated from him or what, but women flocked to him. I'd literally seen two chicks come to blows over who got to suck him off first.
It was almost enough to make a man jealous.
But I had my own fucking shit to worry about.
I went ahead and took Arick's invitation to raid his house for a couple sets of clothes for me and Nova as well as some spare funds I saw laying around, shoving it all into a backpack I jacked as well.
Demons, well, we weren't prone to guilt about shit. And even if we were, stealing clothes and a few grand from a man like Arick was like taking a shell from a beach packed with them.
The man had money.
He had money from his art, from his music, from his random business ventures, and—most of all—from using his Craft to manipulate stocks in his favor.
He'd been around nearly as long as I have, and he had high eight figures to show for it.
And all he wanted in return for whatever I took—and to be clear, he didn't give a fuck what I did take, I could have walked out with a priceless antique or a spare toothbrush—was the story if or when we pulled it off.
If we didn't, well, he wouldn't miss any of it anyway.
On the drive back to the root cellar, I worked out my plan.
I would dose her up one more time if it was waning, then we would take off as the sun came up.
We could be to a club I'd dealt with a dozen times by the next day, stay the night, then head out again.
And again
And again.
Until the enthrallment snapped.
Until she no longer belonged to them.
What then, though?
Would she belong to me?
What the fuck?
No, she wasn't going to belong to me.
I had no interest in that shit.
That was for fucking Lycus and Ace.
Not me.
Or so I thought at the time.
Chapter Five
Nova
I should have liked being drugged.
It made everything slow and numb. It made my thoughts less invasive, less obsessive.
That was the problem, though. I was having trouble thinking even when I wanted to. And there were things I really needed to be thinking about.
Like what would happen if the drugs stopped working? If the pain came back?
Drex was right. Pain drove people crazy. It wouldn't be long before pain like that made my mind twist and bend until it broke.
I just barely managed to drag myself out of my pitch-black hiding place when nature called. Then promptly almost fell down the stairs on my way back because I couldn't quite feel my legs.
Or my arms.
Or my face.
Or anything at all.
As the minutes stretched to hours, I could feel the sleep pulling at my eyelids, begging me to sleep.
It wasn't long before there was no way to fight it anymore either.
"Nova," a voice called, sounding far away. "Nova!" the deep, masculine voice demanded again, this time with a shake that started to drag me out of the blissful nothingness of my unconsciousness. "Fuck. Maybe I gave you too much," he grumbled, giving me another shake.
"S...stop," I grumbled, feeling my head loll around for a second before I gained control of it again.
Another minute after that, I managed to force my eyelids to open, revealing a sun-streaked space, finally allowing me to see where I was being held.
It had smelled earthy to me when Drex had brought me in. And it had felt like packed dirt against my hands and back. But that was the first moment I realized that he'd stored me away in a root cellar.
I didn't even know such things existed anymore. Yet there I was.
"Here," Drex said, moving forward with a bag, then kneeling down in front of me to reach inside, pulling out the contents.
Slivered almonds.
Pumpkin seeds.
Dried fruit.
A small box of the healthy kind of cereal.
And raw broccoli.
It was the strangest assortment of foods I'd ever seen in one place.
"S...s...strange," I mumbled, slow blinking at the man who'd brought them to me.
"Asked some woman at the store what foods have iron in them. Aside from meat, which I'm reasonably sure you humans aren't supposed to eat raw, this is what I ended up with. Eat. We have a long drive ahead of us," he said as he pulled open all the containers for me.
"D...drive?" I asked, trying to shake off the daze of the drugs, but only managing to make myself dizzy.
"Yeah. Did some research. Seems like if I take you as far as possible while keeping the pain at bay, the enthrallment shit will snap. And you'll be free."
Free.
Actually free? Without pain?
The idea sounded like a pipe dream.
But maybe I only thought so because I'd been told that there was no way out once I'd agreed. You know, by the people who'd coerced me into the agreement in the first place. Of course they would have a vested interest in not telling me there was an out clause in the fine print.
"How?" I said, finding the word easier to say. Maybe the drugs were letting up a bit. Which could be a terrible thing, but it was nice to be able to say words without too much effort again.
"Have a friend. He said there was an account of it a long time back. Church guy's kid. Took her across the country. The thread to the bloodsuckers snapped. Here," he grumbled.
I'd been attempting to grab a couple slivers of almonds and raise them to my mouth. But my motor skills weren't exactly up to par yet. So I dropped all but one down my front.
Drex moved out of the shadows, giving me my first full view of him as the light streamed in from the open door.
I mean, if you were going to have a savior, I would highly recommend a demon biker with a death wish. Because, damn.
I thought I was into the vampires with their timeless elegance. Their suits and fancy jewelry. Their impeccable manners. You know, aside from the drinking of blood and slaughtering of enemies—both proven and presumptive.
I'd been so enamored with them all at first sight. I guess they represented all the wealth and elegance that my upbringing so severely lacked.
At first, being with them had finally quieted the niggling taunts that had been thrown to me as a child.
Trailer trash.
That was one of their favorites.
To be fair, the kids were assholes, but not overly incorrect, as much as I hated to admit that. That was probably why the insult stung so badly.
Plenty of people lived in trailers and had nice, normal families with good, stable grown-ups. They worked and paid bills and had family game nights and cared about each other and their friends and the world as a whole.