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And when Gabriel and I got big enough, we cornered the bastards who’d beaten Rafe and gave them an ass-kicking of our own.

13

RIDLEY

The day after the party, I finally went back to Zaq’s cell. It had been three days since I’d last visited. The dimly lit, black-and-white video feed hadn’t prepared me for what I’d find.

He looked like a different man. The silver was eating away at his insides. His face was pale, and the blood craving was a live animal in his eyes. His features had sharpened, the human in him having been carved away to reveal the vampire beneath.

The vampire that was the only thing keeping him alive because a human would’ve been dead from dehydration by now.

Zaq’s head wobbled on his neck. His gaze went to my throat. He swallowed, then with an obvious effort, focused on my face.

“Hey.” His voice came out as a croak.

Shame sank sharp teeth into my chest. He was a dhampir. He could withstand weeks, even months, of this torture.

But that made what we were doing to him even more horrifying.

Think like a slayer.

I shoved the shame down, cramming it into a dark corner of my soul along with other questionable things I’d done in my years with SI.

“You know the drill.” I put the container of steak tartare and blood-wine I’d brought on the floor and showed him my switchblade.

“Yeah.” His gaze locked on the food.

I released him from the cuffs, trying not to look at the ugly wounds on his wrists, and stepped back. He brought his arms down. His agonized groan sank those sharp teeth of shame deeper.

And oddly, my own arms cramped. I gave them a shake at the same time he shook out his own.

What the hell? It was like I felt his pain in my own body, which wasn’t just odd, it was creep-me-out weird.

Instead of going for the food, he slid down the wall and stayed there, legs sprawled out before him, head resting on the concrete.

“You need to eat.” My tone was stiff. I was still stuck in the creepiness of feeling his pain.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “No shit, cher. Maybe if you could push that over here—?”

The shame returned as I realized he was too weak to get it.

I opened the container of raw steak and put it on his lap along with a fork, then uncorked the wine. He had to use both hands to lift the bottle to his mouth, but after a few gulps, he had enough strength to dig into the meat.

I crouched on my haunches near the door, toying with my switchblade and watching him eat with a satisfaction that was way out of proportion to what I should be feeling.

And it scared me.

The man was getting to me.

Why else would I risk feeding him? If I kept it up, Moreau was bound to find out I was aiding the very man I’d helped kidnap.

The enforcer would either stake me himself or report me to Crow, and God knew what she’d do to me. I’d seen her carve pieces out of slayers who disobeyed orders. The dhampirs healed, but the humans didn’t always make it.

And even a dhampir remembered that kind of pain.

Zaq ate with a slow, steady focus. Even half-starved, he didn’t shovel the food in. Instead, he showed impressive control, taking time to chew the steak tartare thoroughly. He chased it down with sips of blood-wine.

At least I wasn’t feeling him anymore.

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