“Agnes, is that you?” My voice was barely audible.
She grabbed Roman’s hair. “I told you to get off her, vampire. You’ll kill her.”
Roman released me and swung at Agnes. As she disappeared from sight, all I heard was a screech followed by a thud.
My pulse slowed to a crawl.
I couldn’t scream or speak, and I was fading fast.
Sam, I love you with all my heart. Take care of our children.
This was how I would die. This was how Maeve planned to kill me—by using Roman to do her dirty work.
My muscles weakened, my eyes rolled back in my head, and my knees buckled.
Oh my God. I was about to fall with Luna attached to me.
Please don’t let me hurt her.
The last thing I heard before darkness consumed me was Roman’s voice. “You’ll never see your daughter again.”
3
SAM
My eyes flew open as a pungent odor of mildew filled my nostrils and entered my lungs, cloying and thick. I pushed my hands into the dirt floor, swearing like the sailor I was as I stood to my full height. I wiped away the rocks and debris that were embedded in my face and spat out the crud that was in my mouth.
A quick scan of my surroundings revealed I was in a cage in a basement. Agnes Monroe, the nice witch who was Layla’s grandmother, was in a second cage beside mine. There were round fluorescent lights hanging from wooden beams, a camera in the far-right corner, a curtained wall to my right, and a solid metal door directly ahead of me. The space reminded me of an isolated dungeon deep in the caverns carved into a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
Hell, I could very well be in the mountains for all I knew. Yet my watch said otherwise. According to the date and time, only two hours and forty-five minutes had passed since Layla and I had entered the farm.
Where the hell were my wife and babies? I prayed—like I had as a boy in the confessional as I told my weekly sins to a priest—that Layla had fled with Luna. My gut was screaming that she hadn’t.
I banged on the bars of my cage and quickly removed my hand. The damn thing was cobalt. Smart move on my captor’s part.
I kicked the cage this time, hoping to wake Layla’s grandmother. “Agnes.” The white-haired woman, wearing pajamas, a robe, and slippers, didn’t move.
I sharpened my hearing, and aside from Agnes’s pulse, I could faintly hear another sound coming from somewhere behind the curtained wall.
I sniffed for a scent but was met only with putrid mildew odors that seemed to be stuck to my nose hairs.
“Agnes.” My voice boomed.
Layla’s maternal grandmother looked like she’d seen better days. Her face was wrinkled, and her nails were yellow. Despite the volume of my voice, the woman wasn’t moving. I detected a heartbeat—slow and steady. So she must’ve been tranquilized.
The only way to free myself was to melt the steel bars of the cage. I inhaled deeply, calling forth my fire element. But that prickly, throbbing sensation before heat traveled down my arms to the tips of my fingers never came. I tried again and nothing. Absolutely, fucking nothing.
I took a trip down memory fucking lane, recalling what had happened right before I passed out.Oh fuck. Was Tripp okay? Ben?
I checked the room one more time for either of them. Maybe they were behind the curtain. Still, I growled and tried to kick-start my earth element by making the ground shake or the walls crumble. Epic failure.
Then Patricia’s words seared my brain. “You’re not a powerful vampire anymore, Sam Mason.”
The witch must’ve zapped my powers from me.
I was so fucked and furious but didn’t have a chance to think before the metal door creaked open.
Roman Brown strutted in, clapping and laughing. “It’s a gas to watch you through the camera.” He feigned a pout. “What’s wrong, Mason? Did you lose your elemental powers?” He tapped his lips with his forefinger. “Oh, wait. Patricia stole them. You’ll never get them back.”
