A Touch of Darkness

Chapter 23

***Victoria's POV***

The silver chain bag had been removed from my face. As the guards hooked the silver chains wrapped around my wrist against the wall across from Claude's bed.  My feet daggling just above the red carpet.  My arms stretched above my head, as I kicked at the guard closest.  Barely receiving a flinch.

The same black satin sheets.  The entire room decorated black and deep blood red.  Classic Claude.  The vampire guards left me promptly.  Not an ounce of emotion in their bored stares.  They didn't give a shit about me.  Only doing exactly what Claude tells them to do.

Claude never returned that night though. And no one came the next day.

Had it been days now? I was losing sense of time.  My body was permanently in excruciating pain.  While my mind would numbly go black but then burst awake remembering where I was.

Claude would appear occasionally trying to get me to speak but I ignored him.  He kept bringing me people to feed from but I wasn't hungry for blood.  I only felt rage.  Even when he would sleep in the bed only feet away my eyes would refuse to close.

I can't believe I got myself trapped back where I spent so long trying to escape.  I should have disappeared the second I saw Claude at the bar.  I would have saved Damien and Maggie from this mess that was my fault.

My body shook with a deep realization. Damien could be dead because of me, Maggie likely killed.  My heart sunk further.  That familiar consuming darkness I felt all those years ago in my head returned.  But worse.  Knowing if Damien's dead, it's his blood on my hands.

There was no one to blame but me.  

My eyes closed as my body slowly became accustomed to the searing pain that was wrapped around my wrists, hanging on the wall like a hunter's game kill.

"Ah my dear Victoria.  How are we tonight?" His dark voice startled me awake.

He sat lazily on the foot of the bed, the low lit bed room hiding half of his features.

I didn't have the energy to speak as I stared blatantly in his soulless stare.

He sat up slowly, untucking his black button up shirt from his black slacks.  "I hoped you join me for dinner.  But maybe this will show you how to behave?" Flicking the silver chains.  I bit my lip from a the scream as my raw flesh ached.

The weight of my body making every movement painful.

Blood seeped down my chin from biting so hard.

Claude's thumb swept my lip. Sucking the appendage as he stood still towering over me.  "I miss that pumping blood that use to course through you" Spitting out my blood at the wall.

 Twisting my head from his features coming inches from my face.

His cold clammy hand ripped my chin in his direction.

"Why do you have to make this so difficult?  You did this to yourself.  You think I like hanging my beloved from a wall!"  Roaring in my face.  His venom splattering on my cheeks.  Face still tender, the chains keeping me from fully healing.