Christine Feehan: Dark Desire (Dark Series - book 2)

There was blood, a river of it running. There was pain, a sea he was floating in. Would it never end? A thousand cuts, burns, the taunting laughter telling him it would go on for all eternity. He could not believe he was so helpless, could not believe his incredible power and strength had been drained from him, leaving him reduced to such a pitiful state. He sent mental call after call out into the night; none of his kind came to help him. The agony continued, went on relentlessly. Where were they? His kin? His friends? Why wouldn’t they come to him and end this? Had it been a conspiracy? Had they deliberately left him to these butchers who wielded their knives and torches with such delight? It had been someone he knew who had betrayed him, but the memory was curiously fading, obscured by endless pain.

His tormentors had somehow managed to capture him, paralyze him so that he could feel yet not move, not even his vocal cords. He was totally helpless, vulnerable to the puny humans tearing his body apart. He heard their taunts, the endless questions, felt the rage in them when he refused to acknowledge their presence or the pain they inflicted on him. He wanted death, welcomed it, and his eyes, cold as ice, never left their faces, never blinked, the eyes of a predator waiting, watching, promising retaliation. It maddened them, but they refused to administer the finishing blow.

Time no longer meant anything to him, his world had become so narrow, but at some point he felt another’s presence in his mind. The touch was far off, female, young. He had no idea how he had inadvertently connected with her, his mind melded to hers so that she was sharing his torment, every scorching burn, every cut of the knife, draining his blood, his life force from him. He tried to remember who she might be. She had to be close to him if she shared his mind. She was as helpless as he was, enduring the pain with him, sharing his agony. He tried to close himself off from her, the need to protect her paramount in him, yet he was far too weak to block his mental thoughts. His pain poured out of him, a raging torrent, flowing straight to the female sharing his mind.

Her anguish hit him like a powerful blow. He was, after all, a Carpathian male. His first duty was to protect a woman above his own life at all times. That he should falter so added to his despair and sense of failure. He caught brief images of her in his mind, a small, fragile figure huddled in a ball of pain, trying desperately to hang on to her sanity. She seemed a stranger to him, yet he saw her in color, something he had not seen in centuries. He couldn’t send either of them to sleep to save both of them from this agony. He could only catch fragments of her thoughts as she desperately tried to call out for help, tried to decipher what was happening to her.

Droplets of blood began to seep from his pores. Red blood. He clearly saw that his blood was red. It meant something important, yet he was confused, unable to discern why it was significant and what it meant. His mind was becoming hazy, as if a great veil were being drawn over his brain. He couldn’t remember how they had managed to capture him. He struggled to “see” the image of the one of his own kind who had betrayed him, but the picture would not return to his mind. There was only pain. Terrible, endless pain. He could not make a sound, even when his mind shattered into a million fragments and he could no longer remember what, or whom, he was struggling to protect.

Shea O’Halloran lay curled up on her bed, the lamp providing her just enough light to read her medical journal. She covered page after page in mere seconds, committing the material to memory as she had done since she was a child. Now she was completing her residency, the youngest resident on record, and it was an exhausting ordeal. She hurried to finish the text, wanting to get some rest while she could. The pain hit her unexpectedly, slamming into her with such virulence that she was thrown off the bed, her body contorting with the force. She tried to cry out, to crawl blindly toward the phone, but she could only writhe on the floor helplessly. Sweat beaded on her skin; smears of crimson blood seeped through her pores. The pain was like nothing she had ever experienced, as if someone were cutting her flesh with a knife, burning her, torturing her endlessly. It went on and on

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hours, days, she didn’t know. No one came to help her, and they wouldn’t; she was alone, so private that she had no real friends. At the end, when the pain ripped through her as if a hole the size of her fist had opened in her chest, she lost consciousness.

When he thought his tormentors were through with him, would end his suffering, give him death, he discovered what true hell really was. Gut-wrenching agony. Evil faces above him. A sharpened stake poised over his heart. A beat of time, a second. It would end now. It had to end. He felt the thick wooden point drive into his flesh, tearing a huge hole through muscle and sinew. The hammer fell hard on the end of the stake, driving it ever deeper. The pain was beyond anything he had ever imagined. The female sharing his mind lost consciousness, a mercy for both of them. He continued to feel every blow, the huge peg separating his flesh, penetrating his insides while blood spurted like a geyser, further weakening him. He felt his life force fading away, his strength so drained now that he was certain he would die. He reached for death. Embraced death. But it wasn’t to be. He was a Carpathian male, an immortal, one not so easily disposed of. One whose will was strong and determined. A will that fought death even when his body begged for an end to his suffering and existence.

His eyes found them, the two humans. They were covered in his blood, red sprays across their clothes. He gathered his strength, the last of it, and captured their gazes with his mesmerizing stare. If he could just hold them long enough to turn their own evil back on them. One cursed suddenly and jerked his companion away. Quickly, they covered his eyes with cloth, no longer able to stand the dark promise in the deep pits of suffering, afraid of his power, although he was so helpless before them. They laughed as they chained him into the coffin and lifted it upright. He heard himself scream with the pain, but the sound was only in his mind, echoing sharply, locked away, mocking him. He forced himself to stop. They couldn’t hear him, but it didn’t matter to him. He had a shred of dignity left. Self-respect. They would not defeat him. He was Carpathian. He heard the dirt hitting the wood as they buried him in the wall of the cellar. Each shovelful. The darkness was complete. The silence took him like a blow.

He was a creature of the night. The dark was his home. Yet now, in his agony, it was his enemy. There was only pain and silence. Always before, he was the one who chose whether to stay in the darkness, in the healing soil. Now he was a prisoner, locked away, with the soil just out of reach. Comfort should have been his, was near, yet always the wood of the coffin prevented his body from touching what would eventually have healed his wounds.

Hunger began to invade his world of agony. Time passed, meant nothing. Only the terrible, relentless hunger that grew until it became his entire world. Agony. Hunger. Nothing else existed for him anymore.

He found, after some time, that he could put himself to sleep. But the return of this gift meant nothing anymore. He remembered nothing. This was his life. Sleep. Wake only when an inquisitive creature strayed too close. The rush of agony consuming him when his heart beat. Conserving as much strength as possible to try to draw food to him. Sources were few and far between. Even insects learned to avoid the place of darkness and the malevolent creature who dwelled there.