The sun had risen.
Antoine could sense it, though not a glimmer of light penetrated the dense gloom of his aquatic prison.
Just two hours in this hellhole, and already it felt like a lifetime.
Two hours of pain. Two hours of fighting the instinct to breathe, to persuade his body that there was just. No.Point.
Two hours of failure. His diaphragm spasmed over and over, dragging water through flooded lungs in a futile, automatic reflex his body refused to abandon. His chest burned and convulsed, but the instinct to breathe didn’t care, only forcing him to heave again and again in silent, airless desperation.
He had no way to die. He longed to sleep, to pass out, even to scream. Instead, he would drown forever, without relief or end.
He didn’t know what was worse: the primal suffocation, or being so utterly powerless.
Entombed in a steel box, bound by hardened steel chains, but the sea itself was his true jailer, vast and merciless, mocking every impulse to fight. The cold leached the strength from his muscles. He hadn’t been strong enough to break his restraints even on Roberto’s boat, let alone now, with his body trembling and aching, locked in spasm without the oxygen it craved. Worse than the hunger; immediate, pressing, unceasing.
“Noah!”
It was a futile attempt. He couldn’t reach Noah from the Curia house—a range of ten miles—and he was so much further now.
They’d come so far on Roberto’s damn boat that there’d been no lights of the city to see, just a faint glow against theangry sky.
He felt for his bond to Cally, as he had a hundred times already, dreading the moment that he reached for her only to find nothing. But the pulse came strong, as it always did, her lifeforce vibrant.
Maybe Gabriel would claim her, as he had promised. Would that prevent Roberto from killing her? Would Gabe feed from her, before her power swelled so much that it destroyed her from within?
He’d already fed from her, and hadn’tthatbeen an unpleasant revelation.
Cally hadn’t told him. It must’ve happened in Gabe’s apartment, and since then, there hadn’t been much chance to talk. Or there had been, but they’d chosen other priorities.
Maybe she didn’t see it the way he did. Maybe, to her, it was nothing more than a necessity.
No. That didn’t make any sense. There’d been no need for Gabe to feed from her so soon after Antoine.
What if Gabe had forced himself on her?
If he had, it was just another reason to kill him. Antoine clenched his fists—all he could do.
It was difficult to reconcile the Gabriel he thought he knew with one who would feed on Cally against her will. But then, Gabe had betrayed him, so did Antoine really know him at all?
What did it matter? It was just another way to torture himself, and on top of his current problems, it was just a—well, drop in the ocean.
But Gabe had fed from her once already. Another time, two maybe, and he’d form the same bond with Cally that Antoine had.
Would she let him?
She had to. There was no other choice.
His marked chattel. His bonded. Hislove.Fed on by another vampire.Bondedto another vampire.
If he could’ve thrashed against his chains and beaten his head against his steel cage, he would have. But the cold had sapped even his strength, and his futile rage didn’t even serve to warm him.
Roberto. Nico. Tobias.
Gabriel.
One day, he would get free. And when he did, he would kill them all.
Rage was the only defense against the hopelessness that pushed in. For such dreams were fantasies. Roberto had been as good as his word; there was no way Antoine would ever escape this grave. No way anyone would ever find him.
