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ChapterSeventeen
THORNE
Unease tugged at my senses as I lay on the bed in my gilded cage. In the two weeks since my confinement began, I’d only felt this once before. A restless gnawing in my gut, a desperate hunger I couldn’t sate. I craved something but had no idea what that something was. Only that I needed it.
I’d fed, believing that would ease my hunger. It hadn’t even scratched the surface. For once, blood was not the answer to this emptiness inside me. I’d been a wild animal, tearing at the walls, frantic as I tried to break out of my cell. Until the sensation vanished like it had never been there in the first place.
But it was building again. Consuming me until I could think of little else. What was wrong with me?
I’d never heard of this happening before. Was it some sort of side effect of being apart from my mate for so long? I knew madness could result from extended separation, but Sunday and I had only just mated. Surely that was too soon for anything, or was it even worse because we were so newly bonded?
Grabbing my phone off the bedside table, I dialed the only person I knew could help me. My father.
He answered before the first ring was half over.
“Noah? What’s wrong?”
His voice held the tension of a parent expecting bad news. Cashel Blackthorne always expected bad news from me.
“I feel... strange. Off somehow.”
“What do you mean? Have you fed? Has Lucas been mistreating you? That cocky bastard probably tossed you an old blood bag and went off to galavant in the woods with his shifter.”
“No. Of course not. It’s nothing like that. This is... different. I don’t think it has anything to do with feeding, but something in me is insatiable. A thirst I cannot quench. A pull to get to something.”
“I’ll be right there. Don’t move from where you are.”
The concern in his voice had my heart lurching. I couldn’t answer him because he’d already hung up.
Two hours passed, and the itch under my skin hadn’t eased. I paced the room, anxiety causing me to spiral toward insanity with every second that ticked by. The fucking timepiece on the wall was mocking me. Reminding me of every moment I didn’t have my mate. I tore the bloody thing from where it hung and threw it to the floor, denting the glossy hardwood and smashing the intricate clock into pieces.
The crash reverberated off every wall, filling my head with satisfying, discordant notes of chaos. What else could I destroy?
I spied the bookshelf filled with priceless, irreplaceable tomes and stalked over with a dark smile.
Perfect.
Without a second thought, I tore the wood structure free of the wall and flung it across the room, books and artifacts flying everywhere.
And that’s how my father found me. Standing amidst utter destruction, pages and random debris raining down around me.
“Bloody hell, Noah. Control your temper. You’re as bad as me.”
I grinned at him until the panic took hold again. “Something is wrong with me. Isn’t it?”
He was a master of self-control, but he couldn’t hide the worry that flashed in the eyes that were so like my own.
“Tell me,” I gritted out, bracing myself for the worst.
“Do you remember the stories we told you of sun sickness?”
Dread built in my chest. “Yes. It was eradicated. Mother was the cure.”
“No. You and your sister are the cure. At least... we thought you were.”
The way he said it made me shudder. Sun sickness had ravaged the vampire world for centuries, driving the infected mad, causing them to eventually walk into the sun and end their existence in one rash decision.
“Are you saying I have sun sickness?”
