Dark Designs (Monsters of New York, book 1)

Prologue: CAIN

It was meant to be a humiliation.

A humiliation and, of course, a mutilation. A handicap meant to assure him a slow death of starvation, desiccation, and solar burns when he inevitably failed to feed or find a safe hideout for the daylight hours. He'd been strapped down, restrained by hands, and by belts with sterling silver buckles that practically mocked him - such simple release mechanisms out of reach, burning against his skin to form marks that hadn't faded for months, and were still inexplicable blotches on his wrists and forearms where fabric hadn't protected him.

"Our poor little junkie," Cain could still remember the hand along his cheek, the subtle smile on Alistair's lips, "so noble now that he's kicked the habit, eh? Thinks he can make demands, thinks he can say no."

People he'd thought were friends, holding him down, forcing his head back, the unnerving wrongness, the squeak and grate of the file against his enamel, and then the buzz and whine. His body shaking as much from fear and anger as the mechanical file biting into his canines. Taking away his fangs. His power. The thing he'd grown so dependent on in the last 20 years.

You should've let her die, his mind had raged, body trying to thrash against the bonds and failing miserably. Even the youngest of the coven could've beaten him in a fight after weeks denied food. But he'd thought he could stand up to his Sire. He'd thought he could reclaim some small piece of humanity, save one poor soul a grisly fate of addle-minded addiction until her body was drained of use. You thought wrong.

He'd been an example. The others brought to hold him down could've been there for fun, for all he knew - maybe morbid curiosity - but undoubtedly at least one had been there to learn the consequences of disobedience. Alistair had known exactly what he was doing.

And now Alistair was going to fucking pay.

It had taken weeks - months - learning to survive again, downtown instead of up. He'd felt like a kid, like the nervous kid on the streets looking for a fix and paranoid to get caught searching. The sweaty palms clutching a knife, because how else could he get blood except for violence? It was like the 90s all over again. Mugging someone to get cash for drugs, except instead of drugs it was blood, and instead of cash it was blood, and all he could think about was blood because he was starting to shake and get headaches and his skin felt too tight and everything was hunger.