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K adie Saintcrow searched the darkness for Rylan. She knew he was there, knew he would never leave her alone in hell, but try as she might, she couldn’t find the blood link that bound them together. That fact frightened her more than anything else.

Her mind wandered to the past, when she had still been his prisoner, when she had refused to admit that she wanted him.

She relived the night when she had called him a vampire, as if that would make her want him less.

She heard his reply in her mind, sweeter than honey warmed by the sun.

But first a man , he’d said. A man who wants you.

Who burns for your touch. Who hungers for your sweetness.

Rylan. The most handsome of men. Piercing dark eyes.

Broad shoulders. A massive chest. Long, long legs.

Large hands … She longed to feel those hands moving in her hair again, stroking her skin, to feel the hard length of his body pressed against her own, his tongue ravaging her mouth.

She cried his name, but silence was her only answer.

She tried to reach out for him, to open her eyes, but to no avail.

She was trapped in a web of utter darkness, utter silence, with no sense of herself, of where she was, or how long she had been there.

A day? A year? Terror was her only companion, that and a horrible, burning hunger.

She screamed his name, but no sound emerged from her throat.

Where was he?

Where was she?

So many questions with no answers.

Time had no meaning in this netherworld. She had no sense of time or place, of day or night. No sense of herself, only a constant, burning pain that she feared would consume her body and soul until there was nothing left.

A horrible thought flickered through her mind. Maybe Rylan didn’t know where she was. Maybe he wasn’t even looking for her. Maybe she would spend the rest of eternity locked in this impenetrable hell, with no way out.

Her mind screamed in useless denial before she fell into oblivion and even the endless darkness was gone.

It was the most frightening sensation of all.