Or become everything his parents and grandparents and ancestors had always hated.
A corpse couldn’t have revenge.
A vampire could.
He’d opened his mouth, and Seamus had put his wrist against it. His blood had been honey-sweet, and it brought a strange tingling zip to Zack’s tongue that coursed down to his fingers and toes. He’d swallowed once, twice, and then he latched onto Seamus and drank as fast as he could. He’d … oh, God, he’d chewed into Seamus’s arm when his blood had begun to slow and reopened his vein.
“Go on.” Seamus had stroked his hand through Zack’s hair like he was trying to comfort and encourage him. “Drink your fill, my precious boy.”
Each drop brought more of that electric feeling, and a distant part of his mind knew what it meant. Vampiric magic was infusing his veins. He couldn’t get enough of it. The taste—the sheerpowerin it was everything he’d ever wanted in the world. When he came back from the dead, he would be stronger than he’d ever been. He would survive.
If he couldn’t save his loved ones, then his enemies would feel his wrath.
The past and present blurred as Zack tumbled down a pothole in memory road that left him stuck in a vivid playback loop.
The tingling in his fingers and toes crawled up his limbs to his chest and formed a molten core. That heat was intoxicating, nearly as orgasmic as sex, and Zack kept drinking in hope that it would flood through him and make him whole.
But that liquid heat wrapped around his heart and froze in place. The cold worked outward and sliced through every nerve as his injuries began to knit together.
In this moment, in the coffin, those injuries were gone. Healed. But he continued reliving the agony before his death. He screamed and broke away from Seamus, writhing on the balcony. He couldn’t curl into a ball now like he did then. The world had been—was again—ice and fire and tiny stars blackening into oblivion.
Seamus had pulled him back into his arms. “Shh, child. Shh. Embrace the night. You will be well when you wake.”
Well?Well? Zack was a freaking vampire stuck in his coffin reliving his death. He had fuckingdied. And he had become everything his family had said he’d be. A monster.You know you don’t have to be that. Roger. Takashi. Josefina, Nell. They’ve shown you that being a vampire doesn’t mean becoming the worst version of yourself.
Are Roger and Takashi still alive?
What would he do if they weren’t? What if he was now trapped in this immortal body, and the only ones waiting for him on the outside of the coffin were Seamus and Anton and his birth family, who would likely start hunting him the second they discovered what he’d become? Zack could practically hear his brother convincing other family members—grandparents, cousins, aunts—that hunting Zack to oblivion was the “right thing.” Even his father wouldn’t be able to resist turning against him.
What if the world was only pain?
He slammed his hand against the coffin lid. A burning sensation started in Zack’s chest. The lack of air was finally suffocating him.That doesn’t make sense. Maybe his immortal body didn’t totally remember he was dead.
You are remade, a voice that sounded far too much like Seamus said in his head.
Seamus.
His killer.
Hissire. He’d turned Zack into this … thiscreature.
Zack was going to tear him apart.
With what little leverage he had, he punched upward. He rocketed his fist upward again. And again. The wood started to crack, so he continued pummeling it. When it finally splintered, dirt skittered down onto him.
No wonder he couldn’t open the damn thing. Seamus had fucking buried him. How many feet was he in the ground? Three? Six? He only knew that the more he broke the lid, the more dirt rained down on him. Icy fear seized his lungs, and the burning in his chest grew, but he kept going. He didn’t need anything except an escape.
His knuckles broke and healed and broke and healed. Over and over. He punished the wood with every ounce of fury in his soul. Finally, the hole grew large enough, and he pulled himself upward into the dirt. Clawing and fighting, he searched for the surface.
The burning ache in his core clenched his stomach.Hungerwas too mundane a word for the growling emptiness inside him. Thirst didn’t encompass the roughness of his throat. His whole beingneededa source. As he stretched, reached, and pulled, the crackling ache spread from his core through the rest of his body. Dirt filled his mouth, and it wasn’t what he needed.
His fingertips brushed frigid air. He choked on dirt as he cried out in surprise. But there wasair. He yanked upward, and the next thrust plunged his hand into that bitter void. With one hand free, he fought to break the other one out. Desperately, he scrambled. He managed to push out his entire arm and used that to heave himself upward.
The crisp air was welcoming to his lungs, but it couldn’t cool his throat. It did nothing to alleviate the burning heat in his body.
But he smelled somethinggood. He needed that good thing. Twisting his head, he caught sight of a woman sitting at the end of the dirt patch holding him down. She trembled like a leaf on a blustering wind and fell over. Her heart thundered in his ears. Relentless and fast-paced, it called to the void inside him, and that void screamed its need to consume her.
He crawled, quick handfuls over loosely packed dirt, toward her. The dirt tried to keep him pinned. He growled as he worked himself free.
