Unmerciful: (Forbidden Bonds) (A Forbidden Bond Novel Book 3) Read online

  The weak baby vampire whimpered when she saw Sheena above her, but she didn’t strike. Sheena rammed the needle into the woman’s thigh. There was no reaction other than an expression of acceptance. Maybe even hope. Sheena began to depress the syringe but hesitated. She wanted to kill her competition, just as she had twenty-five years ago, but the look in the female’s eyes said she wanted to die. She wanted an end to the torment. Sheena wavered between the need to kill her rival and the even bigger wish to watch her suffer. Thin, but strong arms wrapped around Sheena from behind and pulled her away before she could finish the deed.

  “They’ve found the door. We have to go, now,” her kinky doctor whispered in her ear as he hauled her out of the cell.

  “Wait! I wasn’t done!” she hissed.

  BOOM!

  That was the sound of the steel reinforced door to the lower level being penetrated. There was no more time. Sheena broke the doctor’s hold and jerked her bag off of his shoulder. She sprinted for the hidden exit. They wouldn’t catch her today. Sheena would live to fight another day. She was on the run again, but this time, she had her data and a huge supply of her new drug, Hypervamp. She would make them all regret fucking with the true rogue.

  Two

  “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to do it,” Lindsay repeated over and over in her head, but the power of speech was beyond her. The body of her latest victim was sprawled next to her on the floor. She knew the man still lived because she could hear his staggering heartbeats, but he would die soon without medical attention. If she could trade places with him, Lindsay would. Then again, could she really damn another person to her fate to save herself? No. She couldn’t. It was better to die than live this way.

  “I’m so sorry,” she tried to tell him through tears of shame and misery.

  Lindsay hoped the man found peace. Fear and pain had pounded through the man’s body when she’d latched onto his throat and ripped open the tender skin to drink from him. Lindsay felt his horror and the accompanying agony, but the part of her brain that was able to recognize that what she was doing was wrong always switched off in her desperate need to quench the burning thirst of her body.

  When Lindsay tried to brush the tangled blonde hair out of her face, she saw the blood in her hair. There was blood on her face, and she didn’t think she’d ever get the blood stains out from under her fingernails. Her stomach rolled, and she fought the urge to vomit. She was able to wrestle off her shirt and use it to wipe off her face and hands. She tossed the shirt away from her in disgust, not sure why she bothered to clean herself up. Before long she knew she’d be stripped, hosed down, disinfected, and put in a clean gown and undergarments. The doctors liked her sterile for their tests.

  Wearing just her underwear and a top that was vaguely like a bra only without the support, Lindsay rolled on the cold floor to face away from the sight of the man she’d fed on. She didn’t want to see him die, though she would know when his heart stopped beating either way. Time passed slowly as Lindsay lay there shivering, waiting for the doctors to return. They would come to drag away the poor soul she’d mindlessly attacked while under the influence of the drug they pumped into her bloodstream. Then there would be another round of testing as soon as the body was hauled out of her cell. After she was sanitized, of course, because who wanted to torture a blood-covered woman? She supposed they needed samples uncontaminated by human blood. Her blood was no longer human, and that was an idea she still struggled to comprehend.

  First, they would shoot Lindsay with a sedative from across her cell. They used a dart gun now because they’d underestimated her one time too many and were tired of patching up the doctors and orderlies when she went on the defense. She’d broken bones and fought like a mad woman. She’d had a few bones broken by the orderlies as well, but she healed in a day or two. She put up a fight but hadn’t killed anyone. No matter how tempting it may have been, Lindsay just couldn’t consciously take a life, even if they deserved to die.

  The orderlies finally got over the fact that she was a woman and started kicking her ass. They were vampires, too, so they gave as good as they got. Whether she fought or not, Lindsay would be strapped to a steel table with manacles and thick rubber straps so she couldn’t fight while they ran their excruciating tests. They would cut out samples of her skin and take so much blood it was a wonder she survived. She had suffered through several procedures that involved deep core biopsies of her kidneys and liver without the benefit of anesthesia. The multiple spinal taps had been pure hell.

  Lindsay suspected they took so much blood right after feeding her to keep her body in a constant state of starvation. They would let her heal from their tests for a day while they observed. All the while the scorching in her belly would grow to a steady, painful burn. The annoying voice in her head would become louder and louder, telling Lindsay to feed, to kill, just like the monster she’d become. Just give in to the ache, embrace the monster, and consume the people they shoved into her cell until they were lifeless in her arms.

  Lindsay fought against that raging need to destroy anyone in her path. She refused to give in. She may have been turned into a vampire, but Lindsay was still very human at heart. She would never kill. They pumped her full of drugs, and sadly, Lindsay couldn’t resist the urge to feed with that vile poison in her system, but she never murdered. The drugs turned Lindsay into an animal. She became so angry and violent. It was like a cloud of rage dropped over her mind. The vampire inside of Lindsay took over, and human Lindsay faded into the background. She was semi-aware of what was happening but unable to stop the monster from leaping on its helpless prey. She ravaged the innocent people she fed on, but somehow she always ended the feeding before they died. Not that it did them much good. They wouldn’t receive any medical attention to save their lives after Lindsay drained them to the point of near death. The doctors left the victim in the cell with Lindsay until they died. Lindsay’s heart shattered with every life she ended. If was astounding that she had any heart left to break.

  After the body was dragged away, there would be more torture when the tests began. Then the cycle would start again, and Lindsay was forced to take yet another life. She would be starved, drugged, and left to suffer until she was mindless with hunger. By the time Lindsay mentally came back to herself, another innocent person would be fighting for their life alongside Lindsay. Lindsay would live, they would not. This was her existence now. A never-ending round of horror, death, and pain was all Lindsay knew. She just wanted it to end, even if that meant her death. This wasn’t a life anyway. It was better to die than go on hurting other people.

  Lindsay was lost in her misery when her day took a turn for the worse. Who knew it was even possible? She knew things were about to go from totally fucked to just-kill-me-now when the cautious face of her tormentor appeared above Lindsay. The woman who was the orchestrator of Lindsay’s torment was suddenly standing over her with the promise of more agony in her beautiful, dark eyes. How could someone so lovely and so fragile looking be so evil to her core? Sheena said nothing as she inspected Lindsay. Instead, she simply glared at Lindsay with loathing, as she always did when she came to taunt.

  Sheena blamed Lindsay for the actions of the vampire who’d had Lindsay kidnapped from a nightclub near her college. She was waiting for a friend to meet her, but he was late. Lindsay walked out of the ladies room and straight into the arms of a vampire. One minute Lindsay was a college student enjoying the end of her senior year and contemplating the rest of her life. She’d completed her finals that day and was ready to let loose for a while after working so hard on her studies. She had no idea vampires actually existed, much like the rest of humanity. The next minute Lindsay was the prisoner of a madman and vampires were everywhere she looked.

  That madman became her master and her lover. He’d taken over Lindsay’s mind to make her believe she loved him. He told her how much he loved her as well. When she wasn’t with him, Lindsay knew what he was doing to her wa
s wrong, but the things he’d implanted in her brain made it difficult for her to distinguish reality from his mind tricks. He didn’t love her. He couldn’t. He didn’t even know her. She surely didn’t love him, no matter what her distorted brain thought it remembered. What she did remember clearly was the betrayal she’d felt when she woke after being taken from the club that first night.

  Abel was her friend. At first she’d had a little crush on him, but he only wanted to be friends. Lindsay had quickly gotten over the infatuation and they’d started spending time together. Abel was the only person Lindsay had felt like she could be herself with. He didn’t ask questions about her family or her history. He just enjoyed Lindsay’s company. That was until she woke up in a vampire nest and realized that Abel was a vampire. Lindsay had known Abel for two years. They met at the club one night and hit it off. He was a gorgeous man. Every woman’s tall, dark, and handsome dream wrapped up in a rough-edged, brooding package. They went to dinner many times. They walked in the park during the day. They saw movies when he had time. Abel was always pressed for time, but he’d never explain where he had to be that was so urgent. At the time, Lindsay believed no explanation at all was better than a lie. She never knew when she might see him, but she dropped everything when he appeared for however long he could be with her. She’d been a total idiot.

  Nothing about Abel suggested he was anything but human. Abel ate food, was out during the day, he had a reflection, and he had no problem with crosses. She knew because she wore a cross necklace every day and Abel had never freaked out at the sight of it. The human idea of mythical vampires was a ridiculous joke. Vampires had no limitations, other than the need to feed on blood, and they had lots of dirty tricks to screw with a human mind. They were the perfect predators.

  After being drugged and stolen from her life, Lindsay woke to a nightmare. Lindsay’s friend, Abel, was standing on the fringes of a crowd of vampires bidding on her like she was a horse up for auction. Abel just shrugged his shoulder when David taunted him with the capture of his secret little human friend. He walked away like he didn’t know her. Abel left Lindsay to the master … with David, without a backward glance. Lindsay wished she could forget the cold emptiness in the eyes of the man she truly believed was her friend. Abel looked dispassionately down at her sprawled out indelicately on the hardwood floor before the dais the master’s throne rested regally upon.

  Lindsay’s mind was wandering, but Sheena drew her attention back to the present when she leaned in to get a better look at Lindsay. Lindsay was aware that she was losing her mind. Even when she wasn’t drugged, there was an evil little voice that haunted her. Lindsay thought of the voice as her inner vampire attempting to break free, but she fought against its lure of an easier life if she just let the vampire take over. The voice was strangely silent now, though. Even her subconscious was afraid of Sheena. She should be terrified with Sheena looming over her. Sheena enjoyed visiting to tell Lindsay all the painful ways she was going to make her pay for trying to steal David away from her. Sheena didn’t make idle threats, either. She made good on every single promise of pain to come.

  When Lindsay was with David, she hadn’t known his name. Nobody really knew who he was. The man who led a legion of like-minded vampires who plotted to overthrow humanity and put the vampires back at the top of the food chain was known to all of his minions as Master. He was the master, and his followers did his bidding with glee. They were sick of living in the shadows and tired of hiding from the humans. David, the master, was going to lead them into the light, as soon as he took control of the vampire military forces. Lindsay had been shocked to learn the numbers of vampires in America were vast enough to have an organized government and military.

  Something must have gone wrong, because David’s plan had somehow failed. Lindsay had no clue where the master … David was now. His name was David, and he wasn’t her master. She had to keep reminding herself of that fact. He had fucked with her head. He’d twisted her mind somehow with his vampire tricks. He’d made Lindsay a creature like him, a vampire. It was sometimes hard to separate her thoughts from the ones he implanted to control her. David had made her crazy, too, just like him and Sheena. Only Lindsay wasn’t evil like the two of them. She only heard voices and continuously fought the urge to take the lives of the people tossed into her cell. When she thought of it that way, maybe Lindsay was as evil as David and Sheena.

  She had no idea where David had gone, but he’d left Lindsay with Sheena, the sick bitch who stood over her with something clutched in her small fist. Sheena was as crazy as David, if not more so, and Lindsay feared she’d never be freed. If she were going to be rescued, it would have happened by now. All Lindsay could hope for was death to end her misery. Until now she’d had some hope of rescue after making a friend at David’s nest who promised to return to free Lindsay. That optimism was all gone now. If Brandi were coming for Lindsay, she would have found her by now. Lindsay couldn’t be sure how long she’d been a guest at Hotel Hell, but it felt like months had passed since she’d seen the light of day.

  Lindsay was tired of fighting. She’d hit the wall, and Lindsay just couldn’t scale it again. She was ready to let go. Judging by the size of the hypodermic she could now see in Sheena’s hand, Lindsay might get her wish. There were usually doctors there to do Sheena’s bidding and an orderly type guard to protect Sheena from Lindsay. This time, Sheena was there alone, and there was a strange light in her eyes that told Lindsay something was different. There was death staring back at Lindsay when she looked into Sheena’s eyes.

  Relief washed over Lindsay. Whatever had brought Sheena to her cell was nothing short of a blessing. The suffering was almost at an end. Lindsay didn’t try to stop Sheena from stabbing her, even though she saw the strike coming. It hurt like hell when the large gauge needle punctured her thigh, but that pain was nothing compared to all she’d already endured. Lindsay decided to ignore the pain. It would all hopefully be over soon.

  Lindsay suddenly realized the lights overhead were flashing rhythmically. So she shifted her attention to the ceiling, not wanting Sheena’s face to be the last thing she saw in this life. She stared up at the blinking fluorescent bulbs and prayed for the end. She thought about what waited for her on the other side of death. Surely she would go to hell after slaying so many people, but at least Lindsay wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else.

  Lindsay waited for the end to finally come to her. Would the Grim Reaper creep out of the shadows to drag her soul to Hades? Would there be a bright tunnel of light that led to Saint Peter for judgment before she went to the pit? Or were all the stories wrong? Maybe she would close her eyes, and it would just be over. No more pain, no more fear, no more anything. Just death. Lindsay waited to see how death would come for her, but nothing happened. She looked back at Sheena only to find the woman staring at her intently. The needle had been plunged deep into Lindsay’s thigh, but Sheena didn’t depress the plunger, at least not enough to hurt Lindsay yet. She could feel the drug begin to burn through her, but it was a much smaller dose than she was accustomed to receiving. She was far too desensitized to the drug to do much with such a puny amount. Like an addict, it took bigger doses to get high over time. Lindsay needed more and more to get the results Sheena wanted from her.

  Something was up if Sheena was ready to get rid of her favorite punching bag, but she was hesitant to deliver the lethal measure. Lindsay’s pleading eyes begged Sheena to do it. Kill her. End this nightmare. Indecision was written all over Sheena’s face. Lindsay could clearly see Sheena’s dilemma. She wanted Lindsay dead, but not if that was what Lindsay wanted as well. Sheena wanted Lindsay to suffer as much and for as long as was possible.

  Before Sheena could make the decision, it was made for her. One of the doctors Lindsay saw regularly snuck up behind Sheena and yanked her off of her feet and away from Lindsay. Lindsay watched as the man bent and pulled the needle that would have given her the release of death from her thigh while Sheena
struggled in his arms. Lindsay moved to snatch the syringe back from the doctor, but she was too sluggish. In a blink, he’d grabbed Sheena and her bag, and they were gone. With a sigh of frustration, Lindsay collapsed back to the floor. She’d been so close to the end of her miserable life, so close to freedom. Why had the doctor interfered? Lindsay wanted to scream in frustration.

  Lindsay turned her eyes back up to the ceiling and the flashing lights and let tears she’d been holding back for months flow. Wishing she was anywhere other than that cold cell, she became lost in thoughts of her life before captivity. A person couldn’t understand how precious freedom was until they no longer had any. She missed the sky and fresh air. She missed going to school and having friends. There were so many things that she’d taken for granted.

  She loved her parents, but she didn’t really miss them very much. Her parents weren’t affectionate or very attentive people. They were wealthy and enjoyed traveling. Lindsay had almost always been left behind. She was raised by a nanny and the household staff for the most part. It was hard to miss people who were always gone. She hadn’t seen her parents in over two years. Not since she went home for winter break in her sophomore year and they just happened to be there, preparing for their Christmas trip to some tropical island. They hadn’t invited Lindsay to join them. They’d wished her a Merry Christmas, and Daddy had suggested she make use of the credit card he’d given her to do some shopping. Once she’d gone off to college, her parents no longer even pretended to be interested in family activities. She wondered if her parents were searching for her. She should have graduated months ago. Maybe it was even an entire year ago. Lindsay couldn’t really say how long she’d been gone. Would they have come to her graduation? Did it matter now? No, it didn’t. She was dreaming of a girl who was long gone. That life was gone. She was no longer Lindsay Roselle. That person didn’t exist anymore. Now she was nothing more than a lab rat in a cage.