She hung slack in my grip. “I said no,” she said, her words starting to slur. “I said no.”

Ivy was taller than I, but my shoulder fit nicely under hers, and supporting most of her weight, I wedged the door open.

“He didn’t listen,” Ivy said, all but incoherent as I dragged her inside and shut the door behind us, shutting out the vomit and blood on the steps outside.

The black of the foyer was smothering. I staggered into motion, the light brightening as we entered the sanctuary. Ivy doubled over, panting around a moan. There was a dark smear of new blood on my robe, and I looked closer. “Ivy,” I said. “You’re bleeding.”

I went cold as her new mantra of “He said it was all right” turned into a giggle. It was a deep, skin crawling giggle, and my mouth went dry.

“Yes,” she said, the word sliding from her with a sultry heat. “I’m bleeding. Want a taste?” Horror settled into me as her giggle slipped into a sobbing moan. “Everyone should have a taste,” she whimpered. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

My jaw clenched and I tightened my grip on her shoulders. Anger mixed with my fear. Someone had used her. Someone had forced her to take blood against her will. She was out of her mind, an addict coming off a high.

“Rachel?” she quavered, her steps slowing. “I think I’m going to be sick….”

“We’re almost there,” I said grimly. “Hold on. Just hold on.”

We barely made it, and I held Ivy’s vomit-strewn hair out of the way as she gagged and retched into her black porcelain toilet. I looked once in the glow of the seashell night-light, then closed my eyes as she vomited thick, black blood over and over. Sobs shook her shoulders, and when she finished, I flushed the toilet, wanting to get rid of what ugliness I could.

I stretched to flick the light on, and a rosy glow filled her bathroom. Ivy sat on the floor with her forehead on the toilet, crying. Her leather pants were shiny with blood down to her knees. Under her jacket, her silk blouse was torn. It clung to her, sticky with blood coming from her neck. Ignoring the warning coursing through me, I carefully gathered her hair to see.

My stomach knotted. Ivy’s perfect neck had been ravaged, one long low tear marking the austere whiteness of her skin. It was still bleeding, and I tried not to breathe on it lest the lingering vamp saliva might set it into play.

Frightened, I let her hair fall and backed away. In vampire terms, she had been raped.

“I told him no,” she said, her sobs slowing as she realized I wasn’t standing over her anymore. “I told him no.”