“Go to hell….” I said, terrified.

He eased back to see my face. It was hot where his robe had shifted and his skin touched mine. “I will start here,” he said, pulling my dripping arm to where I could see it.

“No…” I protested. My voice was soft and frightened. I couldn’t help it. I tried to bring my arm closer, but Piscary had it tight. He pulled my arm in a slow controlled motion as I fought to keep it unmoving. My broken arm sent surges of nausea through me as I tried to use it, pushing at him with the strength of a kitten.

“God no, God no!” I screamed, redoubling my struggles as he tilted his head and sent his tongue across my elbow, moaning as he cleaned it, his tongue moving slowly to where the blood flowed freely. If his saliva reached my veins, I would be his. Forever.

I wiggled. I thrashed. The warm wetness of his tongue was replaced with the cool sharpness of teeth, grazing but not piercing.

“Tell me,” he whispered, tilting his head so he could see my eyes, “and I’ll kill you now instead of in a hundred years.”

Nausea bubbled up, mixing with the darkness of insanity. I bucked under him. The fingers of my broken arm found his ear. I tore at them, reaching for his eyes. I fought like an animal, instinct a hazy mist between me and madness.

Piscary’s breath came in a harsh pant as my struggles and pain whipped him into a frenzy of restraint I’d seen in Ivy far too often. “Oh, the hell with it,” he said, his flowing voice cutting through me. “I’m going to drain you. I can find out some other way. I may be dead, but I’m still a man.”

“No!” I shrieked. But it was too late.

Piscary’s lips pulled back. Forcing my bleeding arm to the floor, his head tilted to reach my neck. The haze of pain swelled into ecstasy as he ground his fingers into my broken arm. I screamed into his moan of anticipation.

A distant boom of sound struck through me, and the floor trembled. I spasmed, the warm rapture of my arm shocking into a breathless feeling of pain. The sound of men shouting filtered in through the haze of nausea.

“They won’t reach us in time,” Piscary murmured. “They’re too late for you.”

Not like this, I thought, out of my mind in fear and cursing the stupidity of it all. I didn’t want to die like this. He bent to me, his face savage with hunger. I took a last breath.

It exploded from me as a green ball of ever-after smashed into Piscary.

I wiggled in the minuscule shifting of weight. Still on me, Piscary snarled and looked up.