Ryker crouched and focused on unlocking the prohiberis manacles binding her to the chair. They fell away, exposing reddened, bleeding flesh.
“Can you stand?” he asked, surprised that his voice was smooth and lacked any hint of all the emotions he was ignoring.
Maybe he could do this.
She sucked in a breath and shook her head. “I… don’t know.”
Gods damn it all, but her words were like knives to his gut.
It was harder than ever to keep that mask in place.
He held out a hand and briskly said, “Try.”
The command echoed through the room, laced with the innate power of his position.
She didn’t fight him. Her bloody hand trembled as she lifted it off the armrest. Her fingers shook as they landed in his, and like the first time they’d touched, sparks ran through him.
Forcing those sparks far, far away, he focused on her hand. He couldn’t help but notice the dirt coating her fingers, the broken fingernails, and the dried blood caked on her exposed flesh.
Gods, he would kill Victor for this. Not today, and probably not tomorrow, but one day, he would destroy him.
Who had authorized letting this monster loose on Ryker’s wife? Rebel or not, she didn’t deserve this treatment.
No one deserved this.
Brynleigh whimpered, “That hurts.”
Wide-eyed, Ryker looked down, realizing he had an iron grip on her frail fingers. A curse that would’ve made even the most battle-hardened soldier blush slipped from his lips, and he loosened his hold.
As if she were a hundred and not twenty-nine, Brynleigh slowly pushed herself to her feet. Whatever magic Victor’s witch had been using to keep the Fledgling vampire at bay seemed to have drained Brynleigh’s strength. She trembled, her legs barely straightening, before her knees buckled.
“Fuck.” Ryker caught her before she could slam into the ground. “I've got you.”
That was the last straw. She wouldn’t be spending another hour in this prison. They should’ve brought her somewhere else. Somewhere civilized.
Maybe if he’d surfaced from his grief and anger long enough to wonder where she was, he could’ve prevented this.
But it was too late for maybes.
As Ryker wrapped his arms around Brynleigh and cradled her to his chest, he noted her skin’s frigid temperature. The oppositeof a fever, it was like she was made of ice. Her skin was so pale beneath the blood and bruises that it was almost translucent.
He carried her towards the door and clung to the only truth he knew for certain: he wouldn’t let her die.
Even though she had planned to kill him, even though she’d ripped out his heart and stomped all over it, she was still his.
She’d always be his.
CHAPTER 2
Death Would Bring her Peace
Afew minutes ago
Brynleigh had been a fool to think she would never break under her tormenters’ hands.
It turned out that all it took was three weeks of continuous torture to reduce her from a functioning vampire to nothing but a physical embodiment of pain.
There wasn’t a single part of her that didn’t hurt. Her soul, her body, and her heart were all so broken and bruised that she couldn’t remember what life had been like before everything ached.