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Cain’s eyes flew open as he gasped for air, drawing a lungful of breath into his burning lungs. He sent his senses outward, sensing he was not alone. In a cell, yes, but guarded.
His mind reached for Annalise, meeting a steel wall where he usually found a fissure of light. He couldn’t locate her, couldn’t sense her. Panic tightened his chest and he pushed his mind harder, wincing when his efforts brought sharp pain.
Iron cut into his flesh. Cuffs restricted his circulation and slowed his blood flow. Chains rattled along the crude cement floor as he shifted to stand, but there wasn’t enough slack. They’d tethered him to a low point in the wall.
His eyes searched the shadows for any kind of tool or weapon. Rodents scurried along the dank corridor walls outside of his cell. The rich scent of earth informed him he was several stories underground. A door slammed in the distance.
Heavy footsteps fell in measured steps, growing louder as someone approached. The swipe of a match preceded the flickering glow of a torch.
“Where is he?”
Cain’s eyes closed as he prepared for the inevitable. His head swayed with a wave of vertigo. Bile rose in his stomach, but he swallowed it back. His mouth filled with saliva and blood. Turning his head, he spit on the floor, more wooziness gripping him.
He lost interest in the voices in the distance. Vaguely hearing the footsteps, his mind focused on his breathing. Weakness—so much weakness.
“You’re conscious.”
He jerked at the unapologetic probe forced into his mind and showed his teeth. Only the Bishop had the power to trespass so brazenly. Cain growled at the intrusion.
Heavy footfalls echoed closer. Cain angled his face away from the flickering light, his eyes too sensitive to face it.
“Good evening, Cain,” the Bishop greeted.
Cain’s breathing filled the silence, his eyes fighting to block the unwanted light.
“Do you understand why you’re here?”
He squinted, as the Bishop lit several oil lamps along the corridor wall. “Where’s Annalise?” Cain slurred.
“She is with her mate.”
His newly healed chest lifted under the crust of dried blood, his freshly graphed skin pulling tight. He pushed his mind forward again, the slight exertion draining him. “I can’t sense her.”
“I’m not surprised. You’re weak and she’s not yours to sense.”
His jaw clenched. Their connection existed. He’d felt it and so had she. “Have they bonded?”
“That’s no concern of yours now.”
“Give me the truth!”
“Control yourself. The girl’s situation holds no relevance to your circumstances. I’ll give you the truth when you share yours. Explain your behavior.”
Something wasn’t right. He should be able to sense her. Their connection severed when Adam attacked him. But that was hours ago.
He jerked against his bonds, roaring with frustration. “Tell me where she is!”
“Silence.”
The Bishop held the highest authority, Cain’s alliance to the order and the powers that be, crumbled the moment they turned on him. Though the man had three centuries seniority over him, and possessed the ability to eviscerate him with only his will, Cain would not obey. His loyalty was to Annalise.
“Why isn’t she responding?” His arms jerked and his body thrashed, unable to break free or penetrate the wall blocking him from sensing her mind.
His agitation exploded. Muscles corded along his limbs, as he yanked the chains bolted into the wall. His heart beat erratically, as adrenaline burned through his veins. Bearing his teeth, his neck contorted with stretched muscle, and he roared through his teeth at the pain.
What was happening to him?
Fire seared his insides as sweat broke over his skin. Churning lava tunneled through his arteries, clogging every passage, and stealing the oxygen from his blood. He could feel his cells dying, popping like tiny molecules as the dark veil of death seeped into his limbs.
His spine bowed, his arms tugging against the chains as a roar of pain ripped from his chest and echoed off the walls. Soot and plaster crumbled from the cracks in the wall. He growled, his eyes flashing with fury, as whatever was taking over him threatened to snuff out the very life in him.
“I said control yourself!”
He flashed his fangs at the bishop and hissed into the light. Unable to control his body’s reflexes, he thrashed against the consuming cold. Scalding heat burned on his skin as ice chopped like rapids at his insides. His limbs trembled, and his lungs convulsed.
Every breath only teased the shallow crevices of his lungs. Pain consumed him. Sweat poured into his eyes. And then everything stopped.
Cheek pressed to the cement floor, he panted. His throat wheezed, carved open from his screams and raw under his words.
“Something’s ... wrong.”
His larynx burned, but not as much as his fury when the bishop merely tipped his head and watched him with flat eyes, devoid of empathy.
“Does your soul suffer for her?” There was genuine curiosity in his even tone.
Cain panted through the spiking discomfort, his tongue licking over his dry lips. He wanted to explain the unbearable pain, the sense of death swallowing him whole, but his body was too weak. Face pinching with shame and agony, he softly wept.
Cain felt the bishop’s presence in his mind as he spoke. “Do you truly believe you were called to her, a human destined for your twin? It’s impossible. Your delusions have cost you your life, I’m afraid.”
He was already dying. It didn’t make sense. He had his mother’s and sister’s blood. His wounds on the outside had healed. Yet something inside of him syphoned his strength, as if pulling his life through a funnel and leaving only the husk of his body behind.
“Did you honestly believe you had a claim to her?”
“I don’t...” He panted, the sharp stab of pain stealing his breath. “...know.”
He jerked as another rush of adrenaline stabbed through him. His muscles locked, jolting his spine forward as he bowed against the unforgiving ground. The bolts jostled in the wall as his body thrust against the chains.
“Enough!”
His bones screamed as his body slackened and he collapsed. Grit stuck to his face, blood seeping from the corner of his eye.
The sense of his insides popping with little bursts of pain and his veins reconstructing brought excruciating agony. It was as if he were being reborn, torn apart thread by thread, only to be sewn back together again. But it was killing him.
A shiver ripped through him as understanding dawned. The pain was not his own, but hers.
How?
His fingers, which felt broken and severed, twitched at his back. His lungs, which burned with fire, heaved in his chest. And the blood he tasted...
As another wave of agony tore through him, he accepted that it was her life being siphoned away and her pain calling to him. The bonding had begun, and from the other side, he could only feel her pain. Just as she had known his anger and frustration, he was losing her. Adam was stealing her presence from his soul. Taking away her gentle light until nothing but darkness filled him.
He had nothing left of her. She was gone. All but her pain.
If her light died inside of him, what would become of him in the end?
“What’s ... happening ... to me?” he begged, desperate for the bishop’s knowledge.
“You’re weak from the earlier altercation.”
His weakness had nothing to do with the fight. His injuries had healed. This fresh agony was beyond anything his brother had done. “This is ... different.”
The Bishop stepped closer, his mind probing Cain’s. “You’re fine.”
“Something’s happening!”
“Genunk! The bonding has begun and your fate is sealed. You must relent this obsession and save the last of your dignity to face the Council.”
“I can feel her pai—”
His muscles locked and his head flung back, his mind swallowed by torment and his thoughts and words cauterized at the stem of his brain. He thrashed as his mouth filled with blood. His stomach convulsed, spewing red.
The chains ripped from the wall and he lunged at the bars, eyes wild and fangs dripping. “Release me!”
The Bishop’s eyes widened, a haunted expression draining the blood from his face. “You’re feeish.”
Cain roared and yanked at the bars. “Now! She’s dying!”
Bishop King’s hand flicked the air, sending Cain propelling backward. Impotent fury screamed out of him as his grip wrenched from the bars.
“No, you bastard! She’s going to die if you don’t let me go to her! Hesslich—”
Pain seared into his skull and he dropped to his knees, screaming as he gripped his temples. His face contorted as he collapsed to his side, writhing in agony. The Bishop held out his palm, commanding the pain, dropping all pretenses of patience.
The cell doors opened and Cain twitched with the aftershocks of what could only be an aneurism in his brain. The pain receded to a stabbing blade in his temporal lobe. His body twitched in an imposed paralysis as Bishop King stepped over his wasted body.
His shoes scraped into view. “I have compassion for your suffering, but my tolerance wears thin at your insolence. I assure you, the chains and bars are not what hold you here. Your struggles are pointless.”
His jaw remained locked, preventing the passage of words as shockwaves tore through his nerve endings.
“The pain will be over soon. Let us not speak of your brother’s mate again, my son.”
Breath jerked through his teeth and nose as the Bishop stepped out of view and relocked the bars. The lamps extinguished, and his footsteps receded down the long corridor.
The resounding pain in his skull spilled out of him in the form of tears. When he was finally alone, nothing but cold, emptiness filling his soul, his fists fell open on the filthy floor.
“Annalise...”