Bloodline. Maggie Shayne

      Finally she pointed to a blanket on the weedy ground. “Lie down.”

      He frowned at her. “I thought you were going to help me escape.”

      “You can only escape if you can jump the fence, and you can only jump the fence if you’re a vampire. So I’m going to help you change over. Lie down.”

      He went still and stiff, suddenly wary. “Is this some kind of a trick, Callista? Are you testing me, so that the minute I agree, the other keepers will jump out and punish me? Is this the challenge you said they were about to give me? The one you said I was certain to fail?”

      “No, Ethan.” She knelt beside the blanket, opened a pack and began removing bags of blood and tubing from it. “The challenge they would have given you would have proven to them whether you could be trusted once you’d been transformed.”

      He sat on the ground, but he didn’t lie down. Overhead, the stars gleamed bright, flickering like fireflies on the velvet blanket of the night. In the distance, a night bird mourned.

      “And if I failed, they wouldn’t change me. I would stay as I am. I don’t see that as such a bad thing.”

      “If you fail, Ethan, your fate will be far worse than death.”

      “What could be worse than death?” he asked, arrogant laughter in his tone. But when Callista met his eyes, the look in hers made his blood turn cold.

      “They would transform you anyway. And then they would drug and starve you to keep you weak, and drain your blood whenever they needed it to create another vampire. You would be nothing more than a machine to dispense blood, your entire existence lived in a tiny cell with no light, no heat, no human contact.”

      He blinked and gave his head a shake. “Is that…is that how they do it? They have a captive vampire somewhere?”

      “Mmm,” she said with a nod. “But he’s not going to live much longer. They need…new blood, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

      He swallowed, his eye drawn to the bags. “This came from him?”

      “With his blessing,” she said. “He wants you to get out as badly as I do.”

      He licked his lips, then looked away from her very quickly. “I can’t go. I can’t leave her behind.”

      “I told you, she’s too weak tonight.”

      “Then I’ll just have to pass this challenge of theirs and stay in their good graces.”

      “Pass the test and they’ll send you away all the same, but in their employ, not as a free being. But you won’t pass the test Ethan. You won’t.”

      “How can you be so sure?”

      She met his eyes, at the same time pressing against his chest to get him to lie down. He resisted, and she whispered, “Their plan is to order you to kill Lilith. They make every test fit the person, and they know you feel something for her, so asking you to kill her will test you in a way nothing else can.”

      The strength went out of him, along with his breath, allowing Callista to push him flat on his back. Before he could even blink, she was rolling up his sleeve and sinking a needle into his arm. It led to a tube, which led to a pit he hadn’t noticed before, dug in the sandy soil. And even as he watched, his own blood began to seep along the tube until, within seconds, it was trickling out the other end into the two-foot-deep hole.

      “And if you refuse to kill her, they’ll do it for you. She’ll be dead either way, and you’ll either be expelled from here to do their bidding or held captive until you die. It’s better this way, Ethan. I change you, and you escape.”

      “What about Lilith?” he demanded, lifting his head. Dizziness hit him, and he quickly let it drop again.

      “I’ll watch over her as best I can. I’ll try to keep her safe until the opportunity arises to get her out, as well.”

      “You’re risking your life by doing this,” he told her. His words were becoming slurred with weakness.

      “Yes, I know. That’s my choice.”

      “But why? You’re not even…one of us.”