Page 63 of Bloodgrove

But his bones felt impossibly heavy, his muscles made of lead. He coughed and collapsed again. Once more, he called to his magic, but only emptiness answered.

“What?” he gasped, finally managing to stand and stagger several steps.

It was bright enough up here for him to make out shapes. There was the stairwell. Large windows lined the walls where worktables had once stood. Even though the hall was tall, perhaps he could survive the fall.

But how would he keep running with broken legs?

Will looked around, his thoughts growing clearer with every labored breath.

The vampire was gone.

He did not stop to think. He ran for the only other door at the far end of the room. His stiff legs stumbled, but he caught himself and kept running.

He never heard the vampire.

Only when a hand closed around his throat and tore him backward did he know he had lost.

Chapter 33

Fire danced across his cheek, tiny flames licking at his skin. Will opened his eyes with effort, but his mind followed him only slowly back into consciousness. He felt the dried blood crusting his right eye, tasted it at the corner of his mouth, and all at once, his memories returned.

Panic flooded him. He tried to tear himself free from whatever held him, but heard only the clatter of chains. His arms were spread above his head, an iron cuff locked around each wrist, and the tips of his toes barely brushed the floor.

A whimper escaped him, and tears rose into his eyes. But he was still alive, and as far as he could tell, otherwise unharmed. The vampire had stripped him, and now he felt the frost gnawing at his skin. Something heavy encircled his throat—he had not noticed it at first. When he tried to rest his head against his arm, needles drove into his neck. The vampire had fastened Saint’s collar around him.

Saint.

Again, he strained against the chains, but they did not yield, their sharp edges biting deeper into his skin.

With slow breaths that only brought more cold into his lungs, he forced back the panic and listened, though he held no hope that Saint was still alive.

Sounds drifted through the open door to the stairwell, at first too indistinct for Will to understand. Then he went pale. They were no longer screams, only the desperate, broken, pain-ravaged whimpers of someone who had given up.

Saint was still alive.

But Will wished him dead.

His dinner rose into his throat, his stomach convulsing, but he could not vomit in this position. Acid burned his throat, tears ran over his cheeks, and he wanted nothing more than to stop hearing.

They left him hanging there until the last cries died with the dawn.

Saint had made it.

He could rest.

Will’s gaze remained fixed on the milky windows and the blue beyond them. Once day broke and the vampires disappeared, he could scream. Someone would come. Perhaps fishermen would return with their catch.

“Hope.”

The mocking word made Will flinch. The vampire strolled into the room, walking more upright than the others of his kind. Torn trousers hung from his bony hips, skin as thin as papyrus stretched over his bones, and his head was bald.

“You can speak,” Will managed. His throat was dry, his mind unwilling to form words, but he saw no way out except to beg, and even that seemed hopeless.

“Hmm… Words.” The vampire carefully ran his fingers over his face as though feeling his cheekbones for the first time. “They are returning… slowly.”

A moment later, he stood before Will and sank his teeth into his shoulder. It happened so quickly that Will had no chance to brace himself. Pain exploded through his body, and the vampire drank from him greedily.

Its tongue licked across Will’s wound, and sharp teeth drove deeper into the flesh. But the pain began to fade, his eyelids growing heavy, and he remembered the venom Saint had told him about. It paralyzed and numbed him, making him compliant for the vampire.