Chapter 2 1.

But death did not come for me.

The monster just stared at me, his cold hand still covering my mouth. He leaned in and skimmed the tip of his nose down the side of my face, sniffing at my skin. He stopped just at the center of my throat, right where my juglar should be and I held my breath, waiting for what I considered at this point, to be the inevitable.

But, he didn't bite down. Instead, he grabbed a handful of my black curls, brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as if to memorize my scent.

He pulled away abruptly and was on his feet in the blink of an eye, his movements too fast for me to process at first. Casting a cold grin at me, he turned on his heels and ascended the steps to deck of the boat.

When I could no longer see him, I released the breath that I had been holding. My heart was beating wildly in my chest and if our captor really had amplified hearing, I'm sure he heard it too. Maple's body was still next to mine.

The vampire had a habit of leaving all the girls there when he was done with them until the late morning when the rest of us were awake. I suspected that he wanted us to see what he'd done; he fed on our fear just as much as he fed on their blood.

I brushed my fingers over her eyelids, pulling them down over her empty eyes. The peaceful expression still lingered on her face and I said a silent prayer for her and for myself. The cabin was completely quiet around me. The other girls' breathing was barely audible over the thundering of my own heart.

I pulled my legs up against my chest, fighting back the sobs that threatened to tear me apart at the seams. I wanted desperately to go home to Minnesota. If I'd known that a simple trip to Prague would lead to my kidnapping, I would never have left. I'd swear off traveling for the rest of my life if I could just make it out of this alive.

The tears fell anyway and I rested my head on the top of my knees until, too exhausted from crying, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

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Someone tapping on my shoulder woke me up the next morning. The chestnut haired girl who usually sat across me on the cabin floor was leaning above me, her grey eyes darting from the steps leading to the deck and then back to my face.

"What's wrong?" I asked, sitting up. I couldn't remember if I had ever asked her name.

"We're here, " she whispered with her anxious eyes. It was difficult to tell with the waves rocking the boat but it didn't seem as though we were moving anymore.

"Where is here?"

"I don't know." I sympathized with the uneasiness in her eyes. It was rather easy to imagine why men would kidnap girls; they were in the business of selling women's bodies. But what vampires would want to do with a group of kidnapped teenage girls had to be so much worse.

Their was no question that vampires didn't exist in my mind prior to three days ago and in some ways, I hadn't been completely proven wrong. The sparkly, brooding bloodsuckers from modern day pop culture, who pledged their undying love to naive human girls were nothing close to what truly existed. Our green eyed captor was a savage. He looked at us as though we were cattle and treated us with equal inconsideration. I refused to delude myself into thinking that who or whatever he was taking us to would be any less cruel to us.

The steps leading to the deck creaked and the girl cowered into my side. The man came down and stood at the landing of the steps. In the daylight, I could actually see his features and I might have called him handsome if I didn't know what a monster he was. There were loose curls in his dark brown hair and his features were sharp and angular: a strong, chiseled jaw and straight nose. A jagged scar ran from the left side of his hairline to the left corner of his mouth. His bright green eyes, the color of freshly cut grass stood out against his smooth alabaster skin. He was dressed completely in black, tapping his boots against the wood floor.

"Up, " he ordered. It was the first time any of us heard him speak. The deep baritone of his voice made the girl jump next to me. The other girls didn't hesitate. They were on their feet in a heartbeat. I wrapped my around the girl's shoulders and pull her to stand with me. She leaned her head against my shoulder as if she was unsure if her legs would keep her upright.

The girl was about five inches shorter than me and I wasn't really a particularly tall person. It was rare to find someone shorter than my 5 foot 5. Her chestnut colored hair brushed against her bare shoulders and she wore a silver cocktail dress with a sweetheart neckline, no doubt the last thing she wore before she was taken. It was now speckled with blood and dirt. Her tiny feet were bare and scraped. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder, awkwardly holding her shaking form. She looked young; too young.

The man walked to the other side of the room, eleven pairs of old rusted shackles clinking in his hands and several feet of rope hung on his shoulder. One girl at a time and with blinding speed, he shackled their feet and tied their hands together in front of their bodies with a complicated looking knot.

I held my breath when he came to the two of us. He turned to the smaller girl first, pulling her sharply out of my hold. He towered over her but he didn't spare her a single glance as he bound her hands and feet; his eyes were all for me. He watched me with those hungry green eyes the entire time and shoved the smaller girl aside when he was done with her.

His cool breath flitted against my face as he leaned into me. Grabbing a handful of my hair, he inhaled and bent to skim his nose down the side of my face and into base of my throat as he had done before. I didn't move and concentrated on slowing my rapid heart rate. What did he want with me?

I gasped when I felt his cold lips press against my skin and stumbled back. He chuckled darkly, the sound rumbling through his chest as he stood upright.

"Come here girl, " he demanded, holding the cuffs out to me.

I stepped forward, wanting to spare myself from his fury and allowed him to bend and place the shackles around my ankles. His movements were lightning fast with the other girls but he took his time with me. He ran his fingertips up the side of my exposed calves and lower thighs as he stood back up.

I wished that I wasn't wearing this dress now; there were only two thin straps holding it onto my shoulders and the skirt flared out about mid-thigh. I could feel the smaller girl watching me as the man stared at my body, gazing at me as if he could see all of me underneath my clothing and tied the rope around my wrists. He turned to the girl across the room with one hand gripping the knot around my wrist and he motioned toward the steps.

"Move, " he commanded. He seemed to like speaking in mono-syllables.

The other girls shuffled after the first, following her up the steps and onto the deck. My tiny friend followed after them hesistantly, glancing back behind her as if she was afraid to leave me alone with him.

"You're with me." His grin was wide and devilish and he said it as though there was a stronger meaning to those words. He followed close behind me, his hand on the small of my back as I made my way up the steps.

The boat was docked near a wooden bridge that ended on the white sands of a beach. Beyond the sand, stood a forest of green trees and thick bushes.

On the deck, the other girls stood in a single filed line, each girl in front of a man with skin just as pale as the man behind me. I was willing to bet that they were all vampires too.

As if on queue, the men stepped forward simultaneously and tied a piece of cloth behind each girls' head, covering their eyes. Their movements looked calculated and practiced and each man had a rather bored look on his face as though they had done this a thousand times before. They bent and wrapped their arms around a girl's thighs and threw her over their shoulders. Each man walked, one behind the other, onto the bridge with their cargo. The first guy was about to step into the tree line when a piece of dark cloth was placed in front of my eyes, obstructing my vision. The green-eyed man stood behind me and fastened the rope. His fingers lingered in my hair and then slowly traveled down my neck and shoulders to grip my waist.

He lifted me off the floor and balanced my torso over one of his forearms like women sometimes did with their designer handbags. He started moving with me.

I listened to his footsteps as we walked across the bridge. Then there was the sound of his boots moving through the loose sand and then... nothing.