I awoke to a room in darkness, rain lashing the wall-to-ceiling windows. My skin felt like it was on fire. I was still on the chaise longue, but I was wearing a dress studded with tiny shimmering beads, like a flapper dress from the 1920s. I moved my arms and I could feel the pinprick of every bead in my flesh, like a thousand knife tips slicing my skin.

I stood and my head felt woozy. My feet were bare. Someone had cleaned the carpet while I was unconscious. Losing the blood spots hit me like a punch to the stomach. I needed to feed. The craving was like sandpaper scouring my throat, a raspy, dry thirst that only blood would quench.

On the floor beside the chaise longue was the silver dome-covered tray. I lifted the lid and there was a plate of Mediterranean vegetables and pesto pasta, one of my favourite foods. I sank to my knees on the carpet, ignoring the beads stabbing my thighs, picked up a fork and helped myself to a mouthful of the food.

It didn’t taste right. My immediate thought was that Kane had drugged this food too, the same way he must have drugged the blood I drank. I spat the half-chewed pasta back onto the plate. I picked at a pesto coated courgette slice and felt nauseous.

I remained on the floor, fighting the queasiness rising in my stomach.

I knew what it was. Kane hadn’t drugged this food because he hadn’t needed to.

The problem was that this food wasn’t blood.

I swore. Kane had already done something horrible to me, something I would never forgive him for. He’d turned me into a monster, no matter how he tried to spin it.

And yet, weirdly, it wasn’t until I realised I’d never eat any of my favourite foods again that I got truly angry. The reality of my situation finally sunk in with the little details.

I swore again.

How much else was there? How many other details did I need to know? Would sunlight kill me? Would garlic and crosses ward me off? Did I need to be invited into a house now? Sleep in a coffin? What about mirrors? Would I ever see my reflection again? 

I looked around the room and noticed that there were no mirrors. The only reflective surface was the silver dome of the tray. I grabbed it and saw my face reflected within. It ballooned with the shape of the dome, but aside from that, I looked like myself.

Except that I wasn’t myself, not anymore.

I’m a vampire, I’m a vampire, I’m a…

And then I made a promise to myself, and to Kane.

“You won’t get away with this.”

*

I opened my eyes and saw tiny dust motes floating above my head. I didn’t know how much time had passed since I’d been here. My limbs were heavy, my movements sluggish as though I was carrying a set of invisible weights. I opened my mouth, and the inside was dry, sore, my lips cracking with the movement.

I was hungry.

I was thirsty.

I was dying.

“You need to feed Alice, before it’s too late,” a voice said from behind me. Kane. I hadn’t even heard him enter the room.

“I told you I don’t want to feed. I don’t want any of this.” 

I dragged myself to a sitting position.

“You must feed,” Kane repeated between narrow lips. “Or you will die, and that will be such a waste. You need to kill. It’s in your nature now, Alice. Don’t be afraid of the predator within. Release her!”

“What if I don’t?”

“You mean if you don’t drain a human?” Kane rolls his eyes at me as if the question was too predictable. “Oh, you can feed without killing. You will still be a vampire, but you will never realise your full potential. You will be stronger, faster, better at everything. All your natural abilities will be heightened. But you will never achieve the same level of strength as a full vampire.”

“So I can feed without killing?”

“Some have managed it for a short while. But sooner or later, the predator always takes over. The urge to feast on life becomes too strong.”

“I won’t let it,” I said.

Kane shook his head as if dealing with an obstinate child.

“If you refuse to kill, you’ll be hunted, Alice. Hunted by Section 13 either way and hunted by true vampires for your aberration. Vampires that refuse to kill humans are worse than vermin. You’ll be an outcast wherever you turn. You wouldn’t last long out there. I wouldn’t be able to protect you even if I wanted to.”

That almost made me laugh again.

Here he was, the person who had put me in this situation, talking about protecting me as if he was doing me a kindness.

“But it is possible,” I insisted.

Kane smirked.

“You can. Some do. Clinging to the notion that they can keep their humanity. Pathetic, deluded mongrels.”

Kane almost spat out the last word. Again, I saw the mask of calm slip. He had nothing but contempt for vampires that wouldn’t kill. Underneath the serene, mannered facade I was starting to see the real Kane.

But he had also given me hope I could get through this, somehow.

As sluggish as my mind was, I was forming a plan to get out of there and away from this vile creature. Kane studied me, making me feel like a caged animal, here for his enjoyment regardless of any discomfort or pain I felt.

I knew without any doubt that he had done all of this before. He knew what my questions would be. His responses were too practised and automatic.

He’d also made a mistake.

In his overconfidence that he had me trapped, he’d given me the information I needed.

“Tell me what to do.”

Kane rose to his feet. “You don’t have to do anything but drink blood. I’ve done everything else for you.”

He sounded as if I should be grateful.

“I’ve brought a human for you to feed on, and I will dispose of them when you’re finished.”

“Dispose of?”

“The bodies are never found, I can assure you.”

He ran a finger along my cheek and down to my chin and was at the door in a flash of movement so fast I’d have missed it if I’d blinked. He opened the door and returned with a teenage girl. Kane’s hand rested on her shoulder as he guided her into the room.

I blinked as I look at the girl, for a second thinking that he had brought Hannah to me. But it wasn’t her. This girl was our age, though, and looked a lot like Hannah. 

I wondered if Kane had chosen her for me because of that.

“Feeding time,” said Kane.

The girl was dressed in a simple white ankle length dress. Her eyes were glazed, her face clear of make-up.

“Hello, mistress,” she said in a thick voice, “I’m pleased that I will be the one to help you with your transition.”

“My transition?” I said.

“It is my duty to serve our lords and ladies,” the girl says. “It is my destiny to die a beautiful death in service to you.”

This was unexpected.

“What is this?” I asked Kane, “What have you done to her?”

“Nothing she hasn’t consented to,” Kane smiled. “She’s simply been raised in the correct manner to recognise her place in the order of things.”

I blinked again at the girl.

I’d half been expecting Kane to bring me someone I knew as a sadistic twist of the knife, or a screaming innocent begging me to let them go. But he’d gone the other way and presented me with a willing victim.

There was something even more twisted about that than if he’d brought me a sobbing wreck.

How had he done this to her? She should have been at school thinking about what her nails looked like today, or her exam results, or what her latest crush really thought about her, or her family, or the university course she wanted to do.

This girl should have been running around with friends, getting into low-key high jinx and having fun, not blithely signing her life away.

I turned to Kane to make one last appeal.

“There must be another way.”

“It’s blood or nothing. Your victim is willing. She’ll consider it an honour, won’t you, my dear?”

Kane stroked the Hannah-alike’s hair, and the girl nodded.

“It will be an honour,” she consented.

But in her eyes, I saw a flicker of fear.

“Drain her, Alice. reach your full potential and join me. You’ll never wish or want for anything ever again, and the alternative…”

Kane let the sentence trail off.

He’d already outlined that I had no options. It was his way or a short and brutal end to my existence at the hands of monster hunters or vampires. Either way, I would be doomed.

If this was a chess match, then Kane had me one move away from checkmate. 

Or so he thought.

I was still twisting around everything that Kane had told me since he’d brought me here. Becoming a vampire increased my natural abilities. Draining a human completely heightened them to our full potential, but blood on its own would still have the same effect.

I wondered if Kane knew I trained in kickboxing.

I made a show of looking defeated. I slumped my shoulders, cast my eyes downwards.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Good girl.”

I almost vomited at his last line, but I held it back.

“How do I do it?” I asked.