Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [603]
That this male evidently knew he was a member of the Order put a dangerous new spin on Nikolai’s incarceration. As did the evil glimmer in those shrewd raptorlike eyes.
“What exactly does the Order know about the other Gen One assassinations?”
Nikolai glared up at him, silent, jaw set tight.
“Do you really think you can do anything to stop them? Do you think the Order is so powerful that it can keep the wheel from turning when it’s been in motion secretly for years already?” The Breed male’s lips spread into a caricature of a smile. “We will exterminate you one by one, just as we are doing with the last remaining members of the first generation. Everything is in place, and has been for a long time. The revolution, you see, has already begun.”
Rage coiled in Nikolai’s gut as he realized just what he was hearing. “You son of a bitch. You’re with Dragos.”
“Ah… now you begin to understand,” Fabien said pleasantly.
“You’re a fucking traitor to your own race, that’s what I understand.”
The facade of civil behavior fell away like a mask. “I want you to tell me about the Order’s current missions. Who are your allies? What do you know about the assassinations? What are the Order’s plans where Dragos is concerned?”
Nikolai sneered. “Blow me. Tell your boss he can blow me too.”
Fabien’s cruel eyes narrowed. “You have tested my patience long enough.”
He got up and walked to the door. A curt wave of his hand brought the guard on duty inside. “Yes, sir?”
“It is time.”
“Yes, sir.”
The guard nodded and disappeared, only to return a moment later. He and a facility attendant wheeled in a woman strapped to a narrow bed. She’d been sedated as well, and wore only a thin, sleeveless hospital gown. Lying beside her was a tourniquet, a package of thick needles, and a coiled IV tube.
What the hell was this about?
But he knew. He knew as soon as the attendant lifted the human’s limp arm and fixed the tourniquet around the area of her brachial artery. The needle and siphoning tube were next.
Nikolai tried to ignore the clinical process taking place beside him, but even the subtlest scent of blood made his senses fire up like holiday lights. Saliva surged into his mouth. His fangs stretched longer in anticipation of feeding.
He didn’t want to hunger—not like this, not when he was certain Fabien intended to use it against him now. He tried to ignore his thirst but it was already rising, responding to the visceral urge to feed.
Fabien and the other two vampires in the room were not immune either. The attendant worked expediently, the guard keeping his distance near the door while Fabien watched the blood Host being readied for the feeding. Once everything was in place, Fabien dismissed the attendant and sent the guard back to his post outside.
“Hungry, are we?” he asked Niko when the others had gone. He held the feeding tube in one hand, the fingers of his other hand poised on the valve that would begin the flow of blood from the woman’s arm. “You know, this is the only way to feed a Rogue vampire in containment. Blood intake must be closely monitored, controlled by trained attendants. Too little and he starves; too much and his addiction becomes stronger. Bloodlust is a terrible thing, don’t you agree?”
Niko snarled, wanting so badly to leap up off the bed and strangle Fabien. He struggled to do just that, but it was a futile effort. The combination of sedatives and steel restraints held him down. “I’ll kill you,” he muttered, breathless from exertion. “I promise you, I will fucking kill you.”
“No,” Fabien said. “It is you who’s going to die. Unless you start talking now, I’m going to put this tube down your throat and open the valve. I won’t shut it off until you indicate that you’re ready to cooperate.”
Jesus Christ. He was threatening to overdose him. No Breed vampire could handle that much blood at once.