Maximus let out a sharp sound, half groan, half shout, as he shuddered against me. Something moist hit my inner thigh, and beneath his new moan, I heard a rip of tape. Then I felt the sting of it being torn from my own delicate flesh. Not having any hair grow back on my new skin yet was suddenly a good thing.

When Maximus moved away, letting the camera get its first unhindered view of us, he was tapeless and erect while I had semen coating my inner thighs and pubis mound. Martin Scorsese couldn’t have directed a more convincing scene.

I knew why Maximus had gone with the “method” approach—anything less would have roused too much suspicion—but this was still traumatizing. I wanted to bathe with boiling water, yet I couldn’t even wipe the smears away.

“Sorry it had to be this way, baby. Next time, it will be better,” Maximus said, ripping the tape away from my mouth and adding it to the pile he’d concealed in his fist.

Next time. Would he need to repeat this ruse to ensure that Szilagyi had enough filthy videos to send to Vlad? I couldn’t suppress a revolted shudder at the thought.

I’d find a way to reach Vlad. I had to. Besides, despair might have made me oblivious to it before, but now, I realized a very important thing about the camera in the corner of my cell.

It had a cord that was plugged into an electrical socket.

Chapter 13

It felt like I broke my brain trying to mentally link to Vlad over the next two days. So far, I might have struck out in my progress with that, but I did have a breakthrough in another area: the stranglehold of the sun.

Dawn still hit me like a boulder to the head, but I awoke earlier each passing day. My willpower was growing from the ugliness of my circumstances, but in the meantime, my body was getting frighteningly weak. Being skinned had made me lose most of the blood I’d had in me at my capture and I hadn’t been given a drop since. Before, I’d listened to the heartbeats here in an effort to figure out how many people were in this hideout. Now, I had to fight not to listen to them because they inflamed my hunger to the point where I could barely concentrate enough to attempt linking to Vlad.

I need blood, I’d mouthed to Maximus during his heavily guarded visit the second day after my not-rape. He hadn’t brought the tripod camera with him for a repeat, thank God, but instead, he came with a bucket and a washcloth. It was beyond humiliating to have him give me a sponge bath with four smirking guards watching, but at least their trading comments about my anatomy kept them from focusing on my mouth, so they didn’t see my wordless message. Maximus did, and his single nod said he’d do the best he could.

Maybe feeding would help me to push past the barriers to my abilities. My link to Vlad had to still be there. We hadn’t just exchanged blood; he’d turned me into a vampire, so every cell in my body must have an intrinsic connection to him. I just needed to reactivate those connections and follow them to their source.

I tried for the rest of the night. When dawn finally hit me with its usual knockout blow, I was still trying.

Vlad’s castle wasn’t burning anymore. That wasn’t the only change since the last time I’d seen it. The sections where it had collapsed had been cleared out, revealing cratered spaces that went down as far as the basement in some places. Huge debris piles were lined up outside what was left of the stone walls. Cranes and bulldozers were lessening those piles by hefting loads into nearby steel shipping containers. The castle had looked almost deserted before, but now it was crawling with people involved in clean-up activity.

The north and east ends of the house looked like a fallen soufflé with how concave they were. The west side had fared better, but it had been reduced to one story. By comparison, the southern side towered over the ruins, all four stories intact and the turret in defiant relief against the clear afternoon sky.

That’s where Vlad was, hands clasped behind his back while he looked down on the progress. Mencheres was there, too, seated on a couch next to a computer table. The couch I recognized; the computer area was new. Even if I didn’t remember what the room had looked like before, the metal table didn’t fit with the sumptuous furnishings that, like the turret and the rest of the south wing, had somehow survived Szilagyi’s two-pronged attack.

I didn’t know if this was real or a dream. That didn’t stop me from staring at Vlad with a hunger that eclipsed the one that ravaged me now. I’d tried not to dwell on how much I had missed him, but seeing him destroyed the emotional defense I’d built up. I ached to touch him, yet I couldn’t. The other times I’d linked to Vlad in my sleep, I’d had a ghostly version of a body. This time, I had nothing. Maybe I really was dreaming.

If so, I’d dreamed him into looking more disheveled than I’d ever seen him. His dark hair was matted and his clothes were streaked with so much soot, dirt, and blood, I couldn’t tell what their real color was. A thick layer of hair shadowed his jaw, making it more beard than sensual stubble, and his shoes had pieces of charred flesh stuck to them. Despite this, his posture was regally erect, as if he were garbed in spotless royal robes instead of his filthy attire.

“Come,” Vlad said in Romanian.

Marty walked into the room, causing a wave of joy to crash over me. He’d survived the attack! Thank God! Then, just as quickly, my joy was replaced with concern.

Marty looked almost as bad as Vlad. Both sideburns were gone and he only had a few patches of black hair remaining on his head. His face was also covered in blood, and it took me a moment to realize why.