Nocturna Dominium: Sinful Natures

A Light at The End

Vera's P.O.V.

I gulped and stared into the man's striking blue eyes. I whipped my head away and looked down at the ground, staying silent. "You're a feisty one, aren't you? Vera?" Even if I could talk, speaking in a situation like this wasn't best for me. "Are you mute?" He gripped my chin again before turning my head from one side to another.

Mute by choice...I scoffed and looked away again, squeezing my hands into fists. I didn't like to be touched by this monster. I nodded, taking a hesitant step back as his eyes roamed. "Well then, I will make sure accommodations are made for you to be able to communicate." He tossed me a ring of keys. "Come now, Vera, don't dilly dally; gather the rest of the prisoners and follow me." He turned around and went inside the building covered in copper and piping.

I sighed, picked up the keys off the ground, walked over to the prisoners, unclipped their chains from the floor, and gestured for them to follow me as one of the other vampires oversaw this. I jumped out of the wagon onto the dirt road, walked over to the door left ajar, and stepped inside.

The insides had the same pipe and copper feel as the outside; like most buildings here in the sanguines territories, all metal and lifeless. I looked around the room and saw a small desk before me. The man with silver hair stood before it, talking to the lady behind the desk as they glanced toward me. "Vera, come here." I walked over to them and stood beside him with other prisoners. He handed out a small sketch pad and a pen. "Use this to communicate. Now tell me, Vera, how old are you?"

I opened the pen and notepad and wrote. "Eighteen." He nodded before giving me a sly grin that sent me shivers. I wrote underneath it. "Why?"

He shrugged and nodded to the other prisoners. "I need to know how old everyone is to start making their file. Also, I'll need a taste.. of your blood; now, you can either give it voluntarily, or we can take it from you. Everything else on your file is things like ordinary physical parameters."

His words meant danger to me as the thought of being bitten struck a cold, deafening fear deep inside me. I didn't want to be bitten, especially not by a Sanguine; the rumors about their fang modification horrified me. It never truly numbed the area. It elicited burning, hot pain. I didn't want to go through that, but I had no choice. I wrote on my notepad. "When do I have to go through that?"

He looked at me with renewed interest. "Well, today, we will be doing physicals for you and the other slaves, and then we will do the blood draw; then, after that, you'll get a chance to rest in your dorm with the others we have here in the facility. And the physicals start now, so follow me." He walked past the desk and into a door behind the desk. I hesitantly followed and clutched the notebook to my chest. I followed him into the back of a tiny nurse's office and watched him talk to a bright red-haired nurse.

He gestured to the nurse. Her fangs glinted in the perpetual moonlight. "Alright, she will be your nurse for the evening and will be completing your physical. She will also come to get me when you are ready to give blood."

He gave me that twisted grin again before he left the room, leaving me alone with the nurse. "All right, I need you to come sit over here." I nodded and walked across the room; it was littered with gurneys and medical supplies, and some medical cabinets crowded the walls, starkly contrasting with the copper outside of the building.

When I sat down,she started running her tests, checking my breathing and reflexes, then asked "Any family history of diabetes or heart disease?

I shook my head twice, answering both questions as my hands fiddled with the notebook; looking at it now, I noticed two small initials on the bottom of the right corner of the leather case. "D.S." Now, what did that mean? I mulled over it as the rest of the physical went on, and before I knew it, I was done with the physical. "You're not on any medication, are you?"

I shook my head again before she left and returned with the silver-haired man. He had a new smile on his now bloody lips; he noticed me staring. "Oh, don't worry about that, my dearest. It's nothing I should bother you with; now, are you ready to show me what blood type you are?"

I shakily opened the notepad and wrote it down in small scribbles. "Yes, just please don't be too rough." With that, I held out my arm. He was fast, much faster than mortal eyes and brain could register, and within a faction of a second, his mouth was around my dainty wrist, digging his fangs deep into my pale skin. He growled a guttural sound that made me recoil. I thought the piercing pain was the worst of it until I felt the burning sensation spread up my arm from where he'd bitten me. I struggled to stay still on the gurney. Tears welled in my eyes. I whimpered as I felt him feeding off me.

After a few minutes, the dizziness set in, and I gripped the edge of the hospital bed to keep myself stable and upright. I felt his long fangs retract from my skin, and he took a couple more gulps of my blood before I ripped my arm away, holding the slowly leaking wound to my chest and glaring at him. He stood to his full height this time, his eyes glowing a bright blue, as he took a step forward and reached for me. I flinched and closed my eyes; I felt him grab my arm and wrap something around it. When I opened my eyes, I saw he had reached past me and grabbed some medical gauze, slowly wrapping it around my wrist.

He grinned down at me. "Welcome to the Auction house, Vera. You will be one of our prized possessions; I know it." He let out a sinister chuckle, hinting that he might know more about me than I did.