LUCAS
Hunger was the first thing I felt as I came back to consciousness, heartbreak the second. I shouldn’t have felt anything like the pain of her loss, but humanity was a hard thing to kill. I never wanted to be back here, but I knew without a doubt where I was. The Dumond Estate. Even after a hundred years, it still held the ghost of Briar. Her energy was everywhere. In the air, in the bones of the house, fuck, she was still in me.
“Release me,” I growled, shaking my head to attempt to free my eyes from the blindfold they’d tied over my face. “I know where we are, Rowena. It’s obvious. I’d smell Briar’s scent a mile away no matter how long she’s been gone.”
Sharp pain blossomed across my cheek as something connected with my jaw hard enough to send me toppling over onto the floor. I spat out the blood filling my mouth.
“Always straight to violence,” I gritted out. “No wonder your alpha left you high and dry.”
“Do not speak of Magnus. He left because of the shame you brought our pack.”
“I didn’t bring shame to your pack. You did. Forcing her into a mating she didn’t want. Refusing to let her love who she wished.” I took a slow breath and tried to break the bonds holding my wrists behind my back. “Her death is on your head.”
A harsh growl filled the air right before the pointed toe of a shoe crushed my rib, sending searing pain shooting across my side.
I coughed and rolled away, working to get my feet under me. “Her death? You ruined her death. How dare you tell me I’m to blame for what happened to my daughter.”
The blindfold was ripped off my face, and I sat curled on my side, blinking through the pain that had my vision graying around the edges. The house was the same as it had been on that fateful night so long ago. Except now every surface was covered in a thick layer of dust.
“Why did you bring me here, Rowena? To kill me finally? To get your vengeance?”
She let out a bitter laugh. “If I could kill you, believe me, I would have done that the night we first met.” Standing in front of me, she was a fierce opponent. The points of her black leather boots shone in the moonlight beaming in a waterfall of light from the broken window at the top of the staircase. A reminder of the pain she could deal out with no remorse.
“I brought you here to find my daughter.”
I laughed, the sound hoarse and slightly frantic. “So you are going to kill me. Well, I can guarantee I won’t find her in the afterlife. I don’t belong anywhere near Heaven.”
She crouched in front of me. “No, Lucas. I’m not sending you to Hell. I’m sending you to find Briar. Who is very much still alive, and very much ruined. Because of you.”
The end…for now
BRIAR
SCOTLAND, 2018
“Please let me go. I’m so hungry. Everything hurts.” My voice was weak and raspy. I didn’t know how long I’d been here. It all started to blur together after the first few years. Blurred into one terrible nightmare of captivity.
Nik hadn’t responded to my calls for help, for food, for freedom in far too long. He hadn’t come to…test my resilience, to see if he’d been successful in his attempts to cure me. I laughed bitterly at the thought. I couldn’t be cured. Not from this.
“Nik, I can still starve. You won’t let me turn, so you have to feed me.”
This cell with no windows and nothing but a small opening at the top of the door had been painful. I couldn’t even hear the sounds of the world around me. No sense of time passing aside from the clues Nik had given me. It was slowly driving me insane.
“Briar.” Nik’s voice floated on the air, rough and pained. Not typical—even if he had turned into a sadistic asshole.
A crash, the sound of flesh colliding with flesh, and a snarl had my nerves humming with a mix of fear and elation. Lucas. He’d come for me. He hadn’t abandoned me after all. I was finally going to be with him again. I had to. After everything between us, after he came for me at my wedding, he wouldn’t leave me like this.
“Where is she?” His voice sounded odd, so different, so strange. But it had been so long since I’d heard him last.
“You can’t take her. She’s meant to be mine. Once I change her back, she will be my mate.” Nik was crazed. There was no other explanation for the horrors he’d put me through.
A loud thud followed by rattling walls had me pressed into a corner, making myself as small as possible. I wasn’t ready to see Nik again, to have him touch me. The door trembled, shaking with a strange vibration that had my teeth aching until a bright blue light glowed from between the cracks and spilled through the window.
“What in God’s name?” I whispered.
Stone exploded inward, causing mortar and dust to fill the cell. I saw him through the cloud. Tall, broad, dark, and deadly, he strode through the dust. It had to be Lucas. He was here. He’d come for me. And he’d brought me a present. Nik’s limp body held in one hand, he tossed the unconscious shifter at my feet. I didn’t give it a second thought. My hunger took hold before I could even realize what I had done.
My teeth were in Nik’s throat, the monster in me taking every last drop. I drained him until a warm voice whispered, “Stop, love. He’s dead. He’ll take you with him if you don’t stop now.”
Heart racing, I took in great lungfuls of air, gasping, “Something…something’s wrong.” Pain twisted in my gut, burning me from the inside. No, this couldn’t be how it ended.
That blue glow filled my senses again, but this time it broke me free of my chains.
“Sleep, my love. You’re safe now. I have you.”
The man’s voice was unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, and when he touched my forehead, I knew it wasn’t Lucas who’d saved me. Whoever it was had me at his mercy, and I had to pray he would be kind.
My vision went black as my heart sped to a fever pitch before stopping completely.
Silent.
Still.
Empty.
I woke in a dark space. It was cold and empty, quiet as a tomb. Was this how death felt? I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, nothing moved, and the burning in my throat was unbearable. A heavy weight sat upon my chest, keeping me from drawing breath. But if I was dead, would I need to breathe? I needed to breathe. God, didn’t I?
Carefully lifting my arm, which felt like lead in its own right, I pressed my palm to my sternum and willed that rhythmic thump to make itself known. Nothing. My heart wasn’t beating.
I wanted to scream, but how could I if I had no air? Was this Hell? Had I been condemned for loving a Blackthorne?
The scent of sulfur catching light hit my nose first. That had to mean I was breathing, didn’t it? My head throbbed, mouth dry, tongue thick, and gums aching. Misery. This was pure misery.
A small glow in the distance drew my focus. Moving cautiously, I pushed myself to a sitting position and trained my gaze on the flickering candle.
How did it light? I could make out four walls and a handful of sconces with unlit candles of their own, but not a single soul existed inside the room with me.
“Hello? Where am I?” My voice was a weak rasp, thin and tired.
But the candles around the space continued to burst to life one at a time until everything was illuminated. This wasn’t a cell. It was a bedroom. Heavy tapestries covered the places where windows should be. No bars. Just a door. Normal, except for the dark.
I stood, my legs feeling stronger than I’d expected.
“Thirsty?” The voice I’d heard when I was rescued came from outside the door.
Panic swirled in my mind.
“Who are you?” It wasn’t Lucas. That much was certain.
“All in good time, Briar. Are you thirsty?”
I swallowed past the burn parching my throat. “Yes.”
“Come to the door.”
I did as he asked. I had little choice, really. He held my freedom in his hands. Again, it was up to a man whether I lived or died. I hated it.
The knob twisted easily, the door cracking open and revealing a tall man with dark hair, close to the same shade as Lucas’. His eyes burned an acid green though, not the warm topaz of my dreams.
“Here. You’ll need this if you’re going to make it.” He shoved a tall glass filled with red liquid at me.
I didn’t hesitate. I drained the glass and handed it back to him without a word.
“More?” he asked.
Nodding, I waited as he handed me another.
I drank my fill, not questioning where it came from, who the donor was, how he got it. All I knew was I needed to sate this hunger.
“Better?” His eyes locked on me.
I lashed out, gripping him by the throat and giving him no warning.
“Yes, Now tell me who the hell you are.”
He didn’t panic. Not even a glimmer as the green of his eyes glowed and my palm began to blaze.
I released him and backed away, holding my hand to my chest.
“My name is Sebastian Eliason, and I’m the man who saved you. I’ll thank you to remember that the next time you think about trying to kill me.”
“The last man who said he was saving me spent every waking minute torturing the monster out of me. Excuse me if I don’t so easily trust you.”
“I’m not asking for trust, just a truce. You don’t kill me, and I’ll keep you safe until you’re ready to handle yourself.”
I glanced around the room. No chains, no bars, no silver. I didn’t know what to do.
“So, I transitioned?”
He nodded.
“And I killed Nik?”
“He had it coming, if you ask me.”
I hadn’t, but I couldn’t disagree. “I can’t go home. They won’t understand what…what I’ve become.”
“I know.”
I couldn’t help but stare at him. This stranger who’d come to my aid for seemingly no reason. But I’d learned the hard way. There was always a reason.
“Why?”
He cocked a brow. “Why what?”
“Why would you risk your life to free me from him?”
“Because we’re the same, you and I. We can help each other.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, we’re the same?”
“We have no place where we belong. The vampires won’t have us. The shifters won’t either. None will allow us to stay. I’ve been alone a long time.”
“You? You’re like me? A shifter and a vampire?”
He shook his head. “Not a vampire, but yes, I’m an abomination. That’s what they call us, you know. My coven shunned me. You’re the first I’ve met who’s survived the transition.”
“There have to be others.”
Shrugging, he let out a sad sigh. “Without someone to teach them how to survive straddling two worlds, they’ve all been too far gone for me to save.”
“Can you show me how to survive? Being…this?”
He nodded. “As long as you promise to stay. I can’t be alone any longer.”