The Feeder Read online

  Picking my pen back up, I was just about to put pen to paper when my office door was knocked off his hinges. Scrambling back I made to grab the taser I kept on charge on the shelf behind me, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  A huge body slammed into my side, sending me crashing to the floor. On the way down my head caught the edge of an open filing cabinet drawer. Pain exploded through my head, blurring my sight. Hands pulled me, forcing me onto my back. The lights above were blinding for a moment, but as my eyes focused upon the once blurred figure above me, my breath caught in my throat. Black eyes stared down at me. Suddenly I became very aware of the fact that something warm was slowly trickling down my temple. When vampires were hungry, when they hunted, their pupils expanded to cover the entire visible eye. The only thing to be seen was a giant void of blackness. And that’s what greeted me as I looked into Vince’s eyes.

  His hands wrapped tightly around my wrists as he leant down and he licked his way up the side of my face, catching the small trickle of blood with his tongue. I knew the moment the taste, the power of my blood hit him. His eyes widened and an evil grin split his face. “I knew you would be delicious,” he sneered. “Now say goodnight.”

  His hand clamped down over my nose and mouth and a strong chemical scent swamped my senses. Suddenly the world around me started to become quite foggy.

  There was no doubt in my mind what would happen now. He would drain me. I would suffer the same fate as the rest of my family and all those that came before me. I would die at the hands of a vampire.

  Thayne

  “What do you mean she is gone?” Gideon thundered as I slammed my fist into the wall, the plaster crumbling to dust under the impact. We had spent the past hour clearing out the club and searching everywhere we could think of in the hope that we might find some clue as to where Vince had taken her but had come up with nothing.

  Where the fuck did he go?

  “Exactly what I said. She. Is. Gone.”

  “Well you better get her fucking back then, hadn’t you?”

  “Then tell me where he resides during the day. Give me something to work with here.” If we had a possible location for him, we could check it out. Even if he wasn’t there, there might be some clue as to where he might have taken her. If Gideon wanted us to find her, he could damn well fucking help.

  “And how the fuck would I know that?”

  “Well, you did fucking hire him.” And he was the Master of this region. It was his job to know!

  “And what has that got to do with it?”

  It was unbelievable. How could he not know where a member of his staff, a vampire under his rule, was staying?

  For a few moments, I lost all control, my anger and frustration getting the best of me as I flew across the room. Smashing my fist into another’s face had never been so satisfying; the crunch of bone was like music to the ears.

  “Thayne!” Reese yelled as I continued to pound my fist into Gideon’s shocked face “That’s enough.” When both Chad and Trent joined in attempting to drag me away, off the so-called Master vampire, I allowed myself to be pulled back. Hitting the object of my frustration might feel good now, but there were more important things for me to be doing.

  “You’ll pay for that,” Gideon growled, spitting blood on the floor as he stormed away.

  The moment he was gone I turned to give orders to the guys. If Gideon didn’t have any information for us then we would have to find it ourselves.

  We spent the next hour getting in contact with every vampire, human staff member and familiar we knew. Not one of them knew where he rested during the day. After all that time wasted, the chance of getting Eve back alive was growing slimmer by the minute. The best we had was an old phone number that we doubted was still in use.

  “Call it. It’s a long shot, but it’s all we have.” I couldn’t think of anything better to do. How could I have let this happen? How could I have not seen that the person we had been guarding her from was hiding in our mists?

  Looking around the room at the guys, sending my senses out, I knew I wasn’t the only one that was feeling guilty over that fact. All three of the guys were radiating the emotion, Reese more than the others. It would be a long time before he cut himself any slack over it. Me? I would never forgive myself.

  Pulling a phone out of his back pocket, Trent dialled the number we had been given by one of the older familiars that no longer visited the club. She had been given the number the night before she met Christian, the vampire that she was now shacked up with down south. I got the feeling that if it hadn’t been for her leaving the area with Christian within hours of meeting him, she would have endured the same fate as all the other females Vince had gotten his hands on.

  “It’s ringing,” Trent announced the moment before we heard a strange vibrating sound from somewhere above. “What the fuck?”

  “Where is that coming from? Surely that can't be...” Hanging up the phone, Trent stared wide-eyed as the vibrating noise cut off. Pressing call once again, the tension in the room ramped up another notch. The moment the call connected the same noise picked back up.

  It was here. Not Vince, apparently, but his old phone at least. We continued to call the number, hanging up and redialing every time it switched to voicemail.

  “It's above us,” Reese said as we stood staring up at the ceiling above our heads. We had followed the sound upstairs to a door next to Eve's apartment. It was nothing but a storage cupboard for cleaning supplies.

  How the fuck could Vince's phone be in the ceiling? There was no access further up from out here. “Open that door.”

  Within moments, Reese had picked the lock and was holding it wide for me to enter. “Why didn't you just smash it?” That would have been the quickest way in which to do it.

  “Gideon’s already pissed. The less damage we do, the more likely he will give her some slack when all this is over.”

  He was right. It was obvious to everyone from Gideon’s reaction to the news of her kidnapping, that he thought she was to blame. What punishment he would reap on her when we got her back – and we would get her back – I had no idea, but I would stop any harm coming to her at all costs.

  Stepping into the small room I looked around, taking in the shelves of chemicals, the brooms and mops leaning against the corner… and the broken air vent above me. Grabbing hold of a ladder in the corner, I climbed, ripping the loose cover off completely to give me more room.

  As my eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom, I spotted a group of items in the air duct leading back towards the door. Vince’s phone being one of them.

  I quickly passed the items off to Reese and was just about to descend the ladder when I noticed something. The vent opened up into a cross section. One section had held the items I had passed off to Reese. Another two disappeared off into the darkness. It was the last one that drew my attention. While the other three were filthy, the bottom of this section was shining clean as if someone had slid down there on multiple occasions. “I’ll be right back,” I called to the others. “Just want to check this out.”

  Pulling myself up, I moved down the duct. It didn’t take long to know why Vince had been coming down here. Just a few metres down I came across the first vent. Looking down, I had to grit my teeth in an attempt not to let loose the growl that was growing in my chest. The vent looked right down into Eve’s living area. Continuing, I came across a second and third vent, those last two sealing Vince’s fate entirely. One looked down into her bedroom, directly over her bed. I was in no doubt that the noise that had sent Eve running to me the night before had been Vince moving around up here. Had he still been there when things had got heavy between us? Was that why he had suddenly decided to do this, because of me?

  The last and final vent, I didn’t even want to think about. The damn thing was located directly above the shower. We needed to find her… now.

  “He’s been using the ventilation system to spy on her, watch her in her apartment,” I in-forme
d the guys as I descended the ladder and exited the storage closet. “You found anything on that thing?”

  While I had been searching the air ducts, the guys had been searching through the phone and the other items I had found.

  “We got two possible locations from some old photos on the phone. The idiot has location settings turned on so it records the location of the pictures.” The anger and rage coming from the guys were almost overpowering.

  “What pictures?”

  “Ones that prove this isn’t the first time he has done something like this and show that we need to move fast if we have any hope of finding her alive.”

  We had too. It had only been a few weeks but Eve had come to mean more to me than anyone ever before. For decades, ever since my turning, all I had thought about was hunting, tracking and taking out whoever I was asked to. But now… all I ever thought about was her. I loved her. It may have been too soon, but there it was.

  “Then we better get a move on.”

  Eve

  My head was pounding, my brain fuzzy. My throat was dry as a bone. My arms and legs were strangely numb. I felt like I was floating, suspended in the air. I felt cold, my body shivering. Where was I?

  The last thing I remembered was being in the office doing paperwork when...

  My breath caught as I remembered the events that had led to my being here. Wherever here was? I still hadn't opened my eyes to take a look. I didn't want to. Vince had attacked me and knocked me unconscious. He’d tasted my blood.

  Oh fuck, he’s tasted my blood!

  Forcing my eyes open – a task that took me a great deal of time and effort to do – I took in my surroundings. Where the fuck was I? Concrete surrounded me. The floors, walls and ceiling all made of the stuff. It looked like a giant concrete cell. Great dirty marks stained the polished surfaces. The scent of the place was strangely familiar to me. It reminded of the club during the day when there was no one there, the room not filled with the sweat and perfumes covering the customers. The only exit from the room was a large steel door a few metres in front of me.

  I understood now why I felt like I was floating and my limbs were numb. My wrists had been tied together then strung up and secured to a hook embedded in the concrete ceiling above. My legs had suffered a similar fate, bound together and secured to the floor. I also knew why I was so cold now. I was naked. Fucking naked! This was bad, very bad. I needed to get out of here and fast before Vince came back and drained me of every drop of blood held within my body.

  How had he gotten the guys to drop their guard? That was the only way he could have gotten to me. The lads had been watching me like hawks ever since Pippa was killed.

  Pippa… He killed Pippa. But why? What did she ever do to warrant what he did to her?

  Anger rose within me and I started thrashing. Maybe if I pulled enough on the bindings, they would give. The hooks break free.

  An hour later and it was obvious I was kidding myself. As if I could break concrete. What was I thinking? All I had managed to do was rub my wrists raw.

  I’d spent too much time around bloody vampires; that ’s what it was.

  Before Thayne came to the club, I’d done my best to spend as little time as possible with them. I knew everyone's name, I would communicate with them about work, but I never truly socialised with them. Thayne had changed all that. Now I was friends with a lot of them. I enjoyed spending time with them… but not as much as I did him.

  Over the past few weeks, he had come to mean a great deal to me. I wanted to be around him all the time. I hated it when he said goodnight and retreated down into the cellar. I wanted to follow him every single time. Or invite him up to mine. Waking up in his arms tonight, I'd felt so safe, treasured. I wanted to wake up with him every night. If I got out of here, I’d make sure he never took a single step down those stairs away from me again. He was moving upstairs with me.

  “Glad to see you’re awake,” Vince sneered as he slammed the large metal door behind him. I had been so preoccupied with thoughts of Thayne that I hadn't heard his approach.

  The Vince I usually saw every day at the club, the one with the handsome, clean-cut looks and evil eyes was no more. Stood before me now was a vampire that was truly insane. His previously immaculate clothes were now wrinkled and covered with filth. His hair, which was normally kept slicked back, was now standing on end as if he had been pulling and tugging at it. And his eyes… well, there was still that evil glint in them, that would never leave, but there was now a look of madness to go with it. He wasn't just an evil, murdering, bloodthirsty vampire. No, he was an insane, crazy, evil, murdering, bloodthirsty vampire.

  “You being conscious will make this all the more fun.”

  That didn't sound good. “Let me go.” I tried to make myself look unafraid, but the shake off my voice gave me away. I was terrified.

  “I don't think so. I’ve waited too long for this. Ever since I walked into the office one night and scented your blood after you fed Gideon, I knew I had to have you.”

  What? No one was supposed to know about me feeding Gideon. He had promised me no one would find out. “Don't look so surprised, we all kind of guessed you were feeding him. It's common knowledge.”

  Was it?

  He was right before me now. His face only inches away. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick and yell for help, but I couldn’t, terror had taken a hold of my body.

  “But Gideon has kept you all to himself for far too long. It's time to give someone else a taste.”

  Fisting his hand in my hair, he forced my head to the side, giving him better access to my neck. He did it with so much force that I was surprised he didn’t rip my head plain off or break my neck. I felt his hot breath against my skin. The slide of his tongue tasting my flesh sent a shiver of revulsion through me. “You like that, don’t you?”

  The hand that wasn’t about to rip my hair out from the roots was running up my thigh, over my hip, stomach, and ending at my breasts. Thayne and the guys had said that Pippa hadn’t been raped, that there was no scent of sex in the room or upon the body when we found her. Hell, I hoped that would be true for me also.

  “I'm glad Gideon never fed from your pretty little neck. I love feeding from a virgin neck, makes it all the sweeter,” he whispered in my ear before running his wet tongue over it and back down my neck, stopping at the pulse point where my blood was closest to the surface. “You’re mine now.”

  And then he struck. His fangs pierced my flesh and dug down deep. Finally, as the pain from the bite began to build, the scream that had been lodged in my throat since the moment I knew what was coming released. Releasing my breast from his tight hold he slapped his hand over my mouth to muffle the scream. Tears poured from my eyes.

  After what felt like forever, but was only really a few moments, he released the damaged flesh of my neck. Most vampires, when they feed from the neck were careful, understood the damaged that could be done to the poor human feeding them if they got too excited and moved their head too much while their fangs were embedded. Vince didn’t care and had not been gentle. The damage wasn’t too bad yet from what I could tell, but I knew there was more to come.

  Lapping at the wound with his tongue, he laughed. “I knew you would be delicious, but I never expected this.”

  I knew what he was feeling. He was feeling the same thing Gideon did every time he fed on me. Power. Strength.

  “I have to have more,” he growled. His dark eyes were insane with thirst as he went back for more, digging his fangs down even harder. I could feel the pull of his mouth sucking the precious life-giving liquid from me, taking more and more every second.

  This was it. This was the end. I would die just like all those before me.

  I should have always known that this would be the way I exited this life, drained of my blood by a vampire. It was the destiny of every Feeder. No matter how much we tried to change it.

  Thayne

  The first place we checked out was a b
ust. The old cabin on the outskirts of town had been flattened, and the ground it had once stood was now in the process of being landscaped. She wasn’t here, and we were running out of time.

  “Where is the other location?” I asked jumping back into the truck. Neither location had been close by, so at this time of night, it was quicker to drive than to run. We had taken Reese’s truck, it being the fastest off-road.

  “Another few miles out, but not too far.”

  Good, because we didn't have time to lose.

  “I always wondered when he would snap, but I never thought he would take this route,” Reese mumbled as we spun back onto the main road out of town.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s always complained about Gideon keeping Eve all for himself. He thought that she should be fair game for all of us working at the club and not just Gideon.”

  Wait! What? “Gideon feeds from her?”

  “Yeah, didn't you know?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  How could I have not had realised? Her fear of me biting her. The way Gideon treated her as nothing more than a possession. I should have known; all the evidence had been there. How could I have been so blind?

  “She tries to hide it, but we always know when he’s fed from her. You can see it in her eyes. She doesn't enjoy the bite. She fights it.”

  To fight the bite meant extreme pain. Why did Gideon feed on her if she wasn't willing? My mind was spinning with everything I had just learnt. When I got her back, we would have to have a big conversation about her feeding Gideon. I wasn’t happy about it, and from the sounds of it, neither was she.

  “It's just up ahead.”

  Snapping out of my daze, I gazed ahead into the darkness. Reese had turned off the lights a while back once we turned off the main road. We didn’t need them to find our way in the dark, but not having them on while traveling down a busy road would draw attention that we didn't want. The further we drove down the dark lane, the more anxiety I felt building within me. This was it. I just knew it was.