Page 84

Danny flashed me a grateful look.Have I mentioned that I love you?

Not in the last hour or so.

Some of the tension eased as we grinned foolishly at each other. For an instant, we were just a couple of idiots in love, fuck everything else.

Then Tobias undid his spell.

The young man’s eyes snapped open. He bolted up on the mattress, his eyes wide. His gaze landed on the small crowd of people beside his bed, and he gasped.

“You’re safe now,” Bryan said, dropping to his knees beside the young man. He put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. His voice went thick. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”

“Where am I?” the young man whispered.

He sounded approximately as horrified as anyone would if they had died, come back as a vampire, and woken up in a strange place that looked like a torture chamber, surrounded by a bunch of other vampires.

In hindsight, maybe we ought to have taken him somewhere that didn’t look like the décor had been inspired from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

“You’re somewhere safe, I promise,” Bryan told him. “I’m not going to let anything harm you, okay?”

The young man nodded, some of his alarm seeming to subside.

“What’s your name?” Tobias asked, his words every bit as gentle as his mate’s. “Mine is Tobias.” He gestured to his mate. “And this is Bryan. He saved your life.”

“Rico,” the young man said. He glanced up at Tobias and then back to Bryan. “You saved me?”

Bryan nodded, blinking back tears. He took a deep breath and then let it out again, slowly. “Listen, there’s a lot to explain to you. We need you to try to be as brave as you can be right now,” Bryan said, his tone soothing. “Can you do that?”

Rico nodded. Then he blinked rapidly and frowned. He sucked in what looked like an experimental breath. Then he let it out slowly.

“Breathing feels weird now,” he whispered. He paused, then glanced between Bryan and Tobias. “Why does breathing feel weird?”

Danny’s hand tightened in mine and the dread he was trying so hard to shield me from leaked through.

“You were badly injured,” Bryan said. “Do you remember anything about being in the mines?”

The young man shuddered, then nodded. “They said they were going to kill me.” He paused, frowning. “I thought they were just crazy, like something you’d see in a true crime documentary. Like maybe some kind of a cult or something?” He said that last part like a question. “But then I saw them… biting people. And the way they moved… it was like they weren’thuman. But that’s insane, right? They couldn’t have really been—”

The young man broke off and he shuddered again.

“No, they weren’t human,” Bryan told him, his tone exceedingly gentle. “And we took care of them. We stopped them from ever hurting anyone else. Do you remember that?”

I could feel the unease threading through Danny. The collision between this young man and the truth of what had been done to him was surely coming. It was like my mate was braced for impact. I was braced, too.

Together,I reminded him.

Danny nodded imperceptibly, his gaze glued on the young man.

Rico’s eyebrows drew together.

“I got bit,” he said, more slowly. His hand flew to his neck. But there was no wound there anymore. “It happened so fast. I was so sure—”

Then he seemed to put it together all at once.

“Holy shit,” he said, his eyes widening. Glanced back at Bryan. “I’m one ofthem, now. Aren’t I?”

Bryan and Tobias exchanged a miserable look. Beside me, Danny’s eyes slid shut and I could feel the grief and shame flooding through him.

“Good God,” Thierry remarked, giving Bryan and Tobias a dirty look. “The poor boy is going to gnaw his arm off before you two actually say the words.” He turned to Rico and added, in a brusque, businesslike tone, “Yes, you were turned into a vampire. Yes, you will need to drink blood. No, you won’t burst into flames in the sun. No, you aren’t a soulless monster. And yes, it was necessary to save your life.”