Primal Kill (The Order of Vampires #5)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

H is limbs were nothing more than flesh and bone, too weak to do more than wiggle his fingers and toes, loosening and shifting the dirt one granule at a time. The tickle to his bare skin never stopped, nor did the tingle of new nerves forming in his regenerated cells.

Weak and emaciated, far below the earth’s surface, he doubted he’d ever see the light of day again. Tiny, silken grains of soil shifted, but the weight of bone-crushing pressure remained.

He roared in frustration, the taste of soil on his tongue and the grit of gravel in his teeth.

Mortals. He could sense their minds nearby—the ambulatory temptation of food taunted him from above. This surely was hell.

He was forever trapped by the weight of the earth, sentenced to this endless eternity of miserable life quickened by death, only to return to his wretched existence once more. He was never getting free.

Then, one day, an earthquake struck.

A crash, like a cannon blast, cracked open the earth’s mantle, and sweet, intoxicating air drenched his lungs. A wild stampede trampled far above. Cerberus rocked back and forth, punching his way through the earth, motivated by the scent of uproarious life nearby.

Voices! He could hear voices!

Desperate to escape the confined darkness and repetitive death, he released an all-encompassing roar and shoved his energy upward. The earth moaned and buckled overhead. Rock spilled downward, scraping and pummeling him, but he held his concentration.

Embedded in the earth for decades as he was, left him with a sense of connection to the planet. He was one with the soil. The roots that wove beneath the earth’s surface had supported him for years, and he felt a part of the ground and trees.

Concentrating, he slammed his back into the ground and the sinkhole widened. More precious oxygen seeped into his lungs.

He gasped and coughed. Dirt and debris spewed past his lips, tasting of years of decay and bad blood. His chest spasmed as he clawed his way upward, using roots and stone to find purchase. An unnamable sound roared, and pain spiked inside of him with fear, but he refused to die.

He was too close. Too exposed. “H-h-hlph…” He tried to call, but his voice was ravaged from disuse.

The earth rumbled again and the screeching transcended to screams. There was too much dirt in his eyes to see. But he smelled it. The sweet musk of human blood.

Blaring, shrieking screams blurred into an ungodly roar as he followed that faint trickle of blood that perfumed the air. Through the grit clouding his lashes, sunlight pierced his vision. Crawling and clawing, he pulled himself upward and reached out with a weak hand. The world erupted in chaos as earthquakes shook the ground, but he had survived far worse.

A man yelled, but his words were muffled under the deafening beat of his pulse. Cerberus waved him closer, coughing and hacking up centuries of dirt.

“Senhor?”As soon as the man bent closer, Cerberus struck with the speed of a python, his words cutting off with a gurgle as life-giving blood bathed his insides, and his withered cells rapidly began to heal. Muscle thickened as tissue rejuvenated. Once drained, he threw the body aside. More. He needed more.

Gasping, Cerberus bolted upright.

He wasn’t in Portvgalliae , on that fated day he finally escaped the ground. Instead, he was in America, but the stink of decay seemed to have followed him.

He searched the hotel room, his body strong and whole, his mind sharp. The corpse of the stripper had stunk up the room, but that wasn’t what woke him.

He found her.

Seething, he grinned and latched onto the familiar trace of his mate’s mind, sinking into her memories, spreading over her conscious thought like an oil stain that would not wash away. As her vision became his, his claws lengthened. Dark anticipation bubbled anxiously inside of him.

She was in a house. A man stood beside her as she stared at a sleeping woman. Cerberus only needed a marker, something to tell him where she was.

Panic welled inside of him, but it was not his own. Whoever the woman on the floor was, Adriel cared for her. As she scooped her into her arms and carried her through a house, he recorded every detail.

Hardwood floors and quality carpentry hinted that the home was older. A set of stairs promised it had more than two floors. She laid the girl on a bed dressed in green linens and anxiously paced to the window. Mountains and trees showed in the blurry distance.

“Where are you, girl?” he whispered, searching her view for clues.

Locked into the vision, he stayed silently with her, a passenger and undetected traveler.

The traitorous bitch pressed a damp cloth to the sleeping woman’s forehead. Was she injured? The act of kindness angered him.

She’d sent him to a dark purgatory where he lost his sanity and life too many times to count, yet she dared to show kindness to others?

“Disloyal cunt.”

He waited, focused on her vision as she tended to the young woman. He only needed one detail, one single lead that told him where she?—

His spine stiffened.

There, on the table beside the bed, sat a bag with writing printed on the front. brITTEN BOOKS. Just below the large font were the words Ithaca, New York.

A reptilian smile curled about his lips as long fingers seemed to tickle his insides. “It won’t be long now, girl.” Laughter crawled out of him like hissing snakes. “And when I find you, I’ll enjoy forcing you to watch as I eat the heart of your little friend.”