Free Bleed For Me by Cynthia Eden

the canvases.
On the easels. On the paints.
    Terese ran across the room. She stroked the soft tips
of the paint brushes. And there were dozens of brushes. All sizes.
And the paint…so much paint. Every shade imaginable.
    A bubble of laughter escaped her.
    Apollo had given art back to her. He’d given her—
    A floorboard squeaked behind her. Terese turned, her
arms open, a smile on her lips. “Apollo, thank you—”
    Apollo wasn’t standing behind her.
    Terese’s smile disappeared as terror filled her.
    No, it wasn’t Apollo. The man standing there, less
than two feet away…was Eric.
    “Hello, my dear,” he purred silkily. Then he lunged
for her, claws outstretched, fangs bared.
    She screamed.
    * * *
    The air shimmered, and Apollo appeared back in the
cabin’s bedroom. “Terese!”
    The bed was empty.
    He ran into the den, screaming her name.
    And he froze at the sight before him.
    The art supplies, the supplies he’d painstakingly
gathered for her before jumping to Olympus, were destroyed. The
canvases were slashed. Brushes were thrown across the room. Paint
stained the floor, a hideous splash of red and black.
    In the middle of the chaos, lying abandoned in a
puddle of paint…was Terese’s robe.
    “No!” He grabbed the robe, clutching the soft fabric,
his fingers staining red. “Artemis!” he screamed. “Artemis, I need
you!”
    His sister flashed into the room. Her face blanched
when she saw the destruction surrounding Apollo.
    “Where is he?” he snarled.
    She shook her head. “I-I don’t know.”
    Apollo stalked toward her with the robe still
clenched in his fingers. “You knew he was after her. You knew who
he was, knew how long he’d been a vampire.”
    Artemis stared at him, her lips trembling.
    “Now tell me where the dick is so that I can kill
him!”
    “I-I don’t know where he is. I can’t feel him right
now.”
    Fury blasted through him.
    “But…I sense her.”
    He stilled, desperate hope filling him. “Terese?”
    She nodded.
    “Then she’s still alive.”
Thank Zeus.
He’d
go after her, bring her back, make certain she was safe and—
    “For the moment,” his sister whispered sadly.
    * * *
    When Terese opened her eyes, every part of her body
ached.
    She’d fought with Eric. She’d clawed. She’d bit.
She’d kicked.
    But, in the end, she’d been no match for him.
    Apollo.
She hated to think of Apollo going
back to the cabin and finding the destruction that had been left
behind.
    He’d tried so hard to protect her, but Eric had still
taken her away.
    And, now—now he was going to kill her.
    “Hello, again,” Eric’s taunting voice floated from
the darkness. “I see you’re back with me.”
    Terese tried to rise, tried to jerk up and run—
    But she couldn’t move. Her wrists were chained,
stretched out high above her head. And her legs were manacled,
spread-eagled on the ground and locked to thick stone chains that
had been driven deep into the earth.
    Eric’s face appeared before her. His pale, handsome
face. The face of an angel, cloaking the devil. “Terese, it seems
I’ve finally got you where I want you.”
    No, no—
    His claws stroked her cheek. Slid down and scraped
her throat. “Guess what’s going to happen to you, sweet
Terese?”
    Bile rose in her throat. She couldn’t stand for him
to touch her. Could. Not. Stand. It.
    And she was naked. He’d stripped the robe from her at
the cabin and left it behind for Apollo.
“So he’d know I have
his whore.”
    “After I first gifted you…”
    Gifted her?
“You mean when you cursed me,”
she snarled, her wrists straining against the chains.
    The tips of his claws bit into her skin. She felt
blood trickle down her neck.
    “After I
gifted
you, all you could talk
about was seeing the sun again. How you wanted to walk in the
daylight, wanted to feel the warmth on your skin.”
    Yes, yes, she’d talked about the sun. She’d cried.
Begged to see it again.
    But Eric had told her the sun would be her