Struck (A Vampire Novel) ✔

Fourteen

Although the chattering in the ballroom had been minimized due to my screams, the music kept playing. A crowd was growing around the demon and me, hushed voices reaching each other but not making sense in my ears. All I felt was the pulsing pain of the gashes across my skin. There were three now; one on my arm, my chest under my collar bone, and on my stomach just above my navel.

Wet blood was dripping from the wounds across my skin and onto the floor, where the tip of my feet slipped and struggled to keep my weight from closing off my windpipe captured in the man's grip. The pain helped me fight the fear enough to grab the man's wrist in order to keep from choking to death. My wounds screamed in protest. Sweat was dampening my clothes along with the blood, and tears were streaking my face. The man himself didn't seem moved by my pain.

"Vincent!" His voice caused me instant relief. I couldn't see Xander, but just knowing he was here and that the man harming me wasn't Jacobi made me feel slightly less helpless. Unless he was a Royal. Looking into his scary dark eyes, I could believe this man was what a Royal was to be. Not that I would know...

At Xander's voice, the man tightened his grip on me as though I might be pulled from him. I cried out quietly, trying to pull his fingers from my neck to no avail. My toes slipped in my own blood, causing me to lose my footing and in turn lose my oxygen. I struggled desperately to get it back, but my feet couldn't find less slippery ground.

"Vincent, stop!" Xander was closer now. "Jacobi doesn't want her killed yet."

"Jacobi isn't my master," The man, Vincent, said oh so slowly. His eyes watched me struggling in his grip both to stand on my toes and to breathe. My heart was racing painfully and my lungs were burning from deprivation.

"She's mine," Xander snarled viciously. I didn't think he had a vicious bone in his body, but the intimidating claim was thick and solid with rage. Vincent rolled his eyes to look at Xander carefully, daring him to attack.

"Vincent, the girl," Corentine interrupted, moving closer. She wanted to kill me, still. A little pain was good, but in the end she wanted to be the cause of my death. Instead, I was losing feeling in my limbs and my vision was blackening.

Suddenly, Vincent's grip loosened on my throat and he instead wrapped an arm around my waist to hold me to him firmly. I gasped for air, inhaling so sharply that I coughed on it. I pressed my hands against Vincent's chest by reflex, not used to having a stranger's body so aligned with my own. He easily swiped away my hands, reaching to move my hair aside and looked at my neck and shoulder on both sides.

"I do not see any mark of claiming, my Xander," He stated, holding his free hand in the direction of my neck as though presenting me as his argument. He was playing with Xander, I knew, but what I didn't know was why.

"I'm not yours anymore, Vincent," Xander growled darkly.

"Would you like me to show you how to claim a human properly?" Vincent laughed then, low and dementedly. It sent shudders throughout my body. He grabbed my face and turned my head sharply so that my neck was bare beneath him. I whimpered, finally able to see Xander standing with Aveline just behind him. Her hand was to her mouth in horror, uncertainty filling her eyes as she looked from Vincent to Xander.

When Xander moved to stop Vincent, he quickly said, "Ah, ah, Xander. Come any closer and I'll rip her head off her shoulders. You've seen me do it before." Another chuckle rumbled through his chest, "I've seen you do it, as well."

Vincent's attention moved back to me. I felt his lips brush the skin on my shoulder. Then I felt him suck the skin of my neck between his teeth sharply, causing me to gasp and close my eyes in terror. He released my skin easily, releasing a low chuckle again no doubt at the expression of rage on Xander's face. It was then that I felt the smallest trace of sharp fang brush my skin, causing me to tremble compulsively. I didn't want to be claimed by anyone, much less this terrifying being.