Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
And what if he isn’t the last “pet” to suffer Salazo’s lust? What if this barely scratches the surface of the vampire’s greed?
“Here!” Salazo claps his hands. “What distracts you so?”
The young man pulls his focus back to Salazo. “S-Sorry. I’ll do the—the—which pose did you want?—I’ll do the pose!”
Salazo turns in his chair, sees Kyle, doesn’t seem pleased to see him in the least. When he gazes back at his pet, suddenly he isn’t much pleased to see him either. “No,” he decides, at once moody, “no, it’s all wrong, it’s all … no, no. Where is your—oh, where did all of that delicious confidence go? You are now a tiny mouse. I do not like tiny mice.” Salazo rises from his chair, nearly standing taller than the cage itself, causing the young man inside to shrink back. “Stay like that, stay in there, stay in that outfit, stay until you become delicious to me again. I am so anticipating a taste of you later when you are more … ripe.” He sweeps his red robe about himself, annoyed, then saunters right past Kyle, not even dignifying him with a word or a look.
Kyle watches him float away around the corner. When he glances back at the cage, the young man is clinging to the bars, eyes shut, teeth clenched. “Fuck me,” the pet curses under his breath, hits his head against the cage, then keeps hissing the words again and again through his teeth.
“Is he more your type?”
It’s Drake, yet again sneaking up behind Kyle undetected, folding his arms on Kyle’s shoulders and leaning against him, smiling with dimples.
Kyle shrugs him off. “You can keep painting yourself as an innocent bystander to all this, with your so-called humane ways of survival. But while this guy still lives in a damned cage, there is nothing humane about this place. You’re complicit in this.”
“I only ask because my brother mentioned you’re a football player.” Drake nods at the guy. “Is he one, too? Is there some kinda jock-code-bro-code thing going on? Jocks before cocks? Players before vamp … ayers? Hmm, that last one didn’t work …”
Kyle leaves Drake’s side and strolls right up to the cage. He didn’t count on the young man stirring, gasping in fear, and at once moving away, back slamming against the other side. To be fair, there’s little space to move inside it anyway.
Kyle takes the hint, takes a step back, lifts his hands. “Hey, I’m not here to hurt you.”
“F-Fuck you,” the guy spits back.
“Promise. I’m really not. Ran into you by total accident out there in the desert. I didn’t realize you’d be dragged back here. I’m not one of these guys.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“Do I look like them?” Kyle gestures at himself, at his own hair, then opens his mouth and pokes at his teeth. “See? No fangs or weird hair. Hell, man, you’re even taller than me.”
“So? He’s one of them and he looks like us, too.”
Kyle glances over his back, seeing Drake. He sighs, rolls his eyes, faces the guy. “Okay, some of us aren’t really transformed fully yet. And I never will be. I don’t drink blood.” He realizes that’s a lie. “I don’t drink nonconsensual blood.” That doesn’t sound much better. “What I mean is, I’ve spent decades drinking none of it, and my boyfriend is turned on by dating someone like me, so … he kinda … uh … Y’know what? This is an overshare. I realize that. My point is, no one deserves to live in a cage.”
“Hey, hero boy,” comes Drake, slinking up to Kyle’s side, then leaning against the cage, “this is cute and everything, but I hope you realize every vampire in this cave can hear every word of your conversation. Salazo’s probably on his way over to end you.”
“He can try,” snaps Kyle, baring his teeth.
Ten long seconds pass. No one comes.
Drake frowns. “Perhaps I’m mistaken and he’s … occupied.”
“Then now’s our chance.” Kyle circles the cage in pursuit of its door—ignoring the young man who keeps backing away from him, as if caught in a terrifying game of tag. “How does it open?”
“It doesn’t.”
Kyle shoots Drake a look. “Then how does the pet get in and out?”
“I have a name,” barks the cage’s inhabitant.
Drake shrugs, walks up to the cage, takes hold of its bars, says to the pet, “Duck,” then lifts it straight up into the air, the young man barely ducking in time to avoid being smacked over the back of his head by the cage. Drake sets down the cage next to him, then sweetly adds, “It’s lighter than it looks.”
The young man gasps. “I … I couldn’t budge the thing!” he protests. “It’s gotta weigh a ton!”
“It’s just that human and vampire muscles work differently,” explains Drake, then says nothing further than that, turning back to Kyle. “What now, hot stuff? We march out of here with him? Freedom and happy endings for all? You’re in charge now.”