Free Reluctant Storm by P.A. Warren

voice that makes me start shaking, causing the chains to rattle.
    He sets his drink down and grabs my shoulders so that I’m facing him and puts his face right into mine. “Your heart rate tells me you’re scared. You should be. If you knew the things I’ve done to people you would wish you were already dead.”
    I feel every beat my heart makes, like a jackhammer inside my chest, but I look at him straight in the eye for the first time, and what I see in his eyes scares the hell out of me. They are pure circles of black, and my eyes drop down, looking to his mouth and I gasp when I see fangs drop down. Fangs? People don’t have fangs. Looking up at them again, I don’t even think, just reacts, and my reaction is to move as far as I can from him.
    I forget about the chains and jerk back and almost break my wrists. He sits back in his chair and laughs at me. “Bring in the girl.”
    A young man wearing a black bulletproof vest brings a blonde girl in, pulling her by the back of her dress and drops her at the Riley’s feet, as if she were trash rather than a human being. Riley picks the girl up and sits her on his lap and plays with her hair as she sits there docile like a doll.
    “You know, Claire, your mother was most helpful turning you over to my father, and she sung like a bird, telling him where you were. That is, until I broke her neck. She expected something from my father. I can’t stand a traitor and she was traitorous to you, even though it helped us immensely.”
    I gasp at his words, they leave me cold. My mother was an evil woman, but she was still my mother. I sit still as stone, trying to process his revelations when he draws my attention back to him.
    He tilts the girl’s head so her neck is bare and starts caressing it, tracing her carotid artery with his finger. I shiver as I watch him and swallow in fear, yanking on the chains and crying out.
    “You keep pulling on the chains as if you will break them eventually… you know that’s impossible right?”
    Swallowing, I refuse to look at him and yank defiantly on the chain again, and for the first time, I enjoy the sound as they rattle against the wall. He stares me down as his fangs drop, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the fear coursing through me.
    “Watch me as I kill her! Watch me!” He continues yelling at me. “Watch what you will become and what I will have the pleasure of making you into.”
    His pearly fangs glint in the light as he opens his mouth and clamps down on the girl’s neck. She doesn’t even make a single noise. She just sits there and holds both hands clasped together in her lap, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Hearing the gulping sounds coming from him makes my stomach turn over, and I barely have time to move to the edge of the bed before my stomach lurches and the dry heaves begin. It empties itself of what little was in it.
    Lifting his head, he looks at me with a content smirk as she unceremoniously falls to the floor with a thump. He leans down and uses his finger to swipe some blood from her neck and approaches me. “Have you ever had blood?”
    My mind suddenly goes back to the day in the bathroom when I cut myself shaving my legs and wanted to try it, but I shake my head no, pursing my lips closed. I don’t want any blood. I crab walk backwards as I try to get as far from him as I possibly can, only it’s no use as he follows and presses me against the wall. I turn my head to the side and feel a tear run down my face as I close my eyes. He takes his bloody finger and traces my lips, and I feel the wetness seep into my skin and shudder knowing the girl is dead.
    He leans back and examines my lips, touching them softly, “Taste your lips.”
    He’s acting like this is something I’m willingly doing. What the hell? I shake my head no and purse my lips tightly together.
    He gives me this appalled look. “No one has told you yet, have they?” he asks looking at me in sadness. “Such a