No, no. Life had gone on after that. Zack raced down the road of memories leading from that first signpost. He’d moved to Chicago with Kit and Carver and Roger and Takashi.Takashi. Roger and Takashi were his boyfriends. Takashi had given him a beautiful necklace for his birthday. Reflexively, Zack went to touch his neck and discovered it was missing. When Takashi had given him the tiny white-gold dagger, he’d kissed him.
He and Takashi had shared a dance at the ball. That was where he’d worn the necklace. And Zack had danced with Roger. That dance,God, that dance had changed the world, hadn’t it? Because not only had Roger stood up to Seamus, but he had nullified Seamus’s attempt to cause fear among the partygoers. Roger had started to pull Zack to his side as an equal instead of upholding the vampire bullshit of calling him a pet.
But Zack hadn’t been able to relish what Roger had done because he’d noticed Vincent was missing. Vincent … confusion threatened to sweep in, but Zack held to the road. Vincent had been in the bathroom. He’d been beaten, and Zack had insisted on helping him.
The group of them had left the party. Carver, Kit, Vincent, Takashi, Roger, and him. Not left, fled. Because Seamus was pissed. And Roger had learned … something that was eluding Zack. That something was important.
But not as important as the way Seamus broke into the hotel suite and tore into Carver’s neck. Zack had come out of the master bedroom, dagger in hand, and he’d thrown it straight for Seamus’s head. The fucker had dodged, but Zack had felt the movement of his cold aura and met him in battle.
Battle.
Fuck me, I lost. Zack ran his hands down his cheeks. Thinking of the blows Seamus had landed caused phantom aches, so he refocused on the present.
The room was too dark. The bed too stiff. Hospital beds shouldn’t be so goddamn stiff. Only, Zack didn’t have any wires or machines attached to him. They’d need to monitor his heart rate, right? Were hospital rooms ever pitch-black?
How long was I out?Zack groaned and started reaching for the edge of the bed. He touched a wall on his right and then another on his left. The firmness had to be some sort of trick. They must have boxed him in out of caution.I guess they didn’t want me to accidentally roll out of bed and hurt myself.
He moved to sit up, but his head bumped into the ceiling within a few inches. Something stiff was at his back.
Ceiling? What was he doing close to the ceiling? As he lay back down, he realized his enchanted dagger was tucked into the back of his belt. What was that doing on him? Weird to put that in bed with a patient. And weird that he’d have it and be up against the ceiling. He ran his hand along it, the slick satin cool to the touch.
Satin.
He wasn’t in a bed.
He was in acoffin.
They buried me alive!Zack put both hands on the lid and pushed, but it didn’t budge. “No. No, no no no no no no.”
With a scream, he pushed with all his might. Adrenaline surged, making him stronger than he’d ever felt, but even that wasn’t enough. He teetered toward panic and gave in to repetitively pounding on the lid.
He was going to die because no one had noticed that he was still alive! Screams tore out of him. His panic grew.Stop it! You’ll run out of air!
A calmer, more detached version of his own voice answered,Why haven’t you already?
The singular thought shunted his panic to the back of his mind. He held his hand to the satin lining. If he had been in a coffin long enough to heal his injuries, he should have run out of oxygen. And Roger and Takashi would have been able to hear the slightest sign of life.
So, to test his forming hypothesis, Zack held his breath and waited for his lungs to burn.
And waited.
And waited.
Andwaited.
No burn came.
That shouldn’t be possible. Zack thrust his hand through his hair, holding on near his roots to ground himself from the new wave of mounting anxiety.
Another memory sprang forward. For a fraction of time during the fight, Seamus had grabbed his hair like this while raining blows down on him. Each slam of his fist or foot had brought such pain that Zack had struggled to stay conscious.
Zack had clung to one desperate desire: the urge to kill Seamus. Beyond the need for survival, the hot liquid pull of revenge had filled him. Because Seamus had killed Carver. Had forced Zack’s hand into cutting Kit. Was planning to hurt his lovers. Seamus was trying to kill his family; not his blood family, but hisactualfamily.
I promised myself vengeance. And then… And then Seamus had cradled Zack and told him he could slip away into death, or he could drink Seamus’s blood and become a vampire. Seamus had said, “All you have to do is open your mouth, and it’s yours.”
There had been other words, ones that Zack couldn’t recall with perfect clarity because he’d been caught in the moment of that choice.
Go out in a valiant effort.
