Page 26 of Dark Embers

“What’s going on?”

My eyes snapped open, and I turned to see Hadrian striding toward us.

Alice removed her hand from my hold. I looked at her in anguish, stumbling back and slamming into the bars behind me. Alice had been replaced with Marguerite once more.

A wave of nausea struck me as I recalled pressing my cheek against her cold hand just now. The visual trick made me feel so violated.

“Julian’s finally regaining some coherency,” Marguerite told Hadrian. “He’s not all the way there, but getting closer.”

Hadrian threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Out. I’ll take it from here.”

“You sure you don’t want me to stick around?” she asked, turning back and giving me a smile. “A woman’s touch can be extremely helpful.”

I gritted my teeth. “He said get out. So get out!”

Marguerite looked as if she’d been slapped. She stared pleadingly at me for several seconds, then reluctantly sped away like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Hadrian turned and watched her leave. We were in the dungeon, but I was the only one locked up in this particular room of cells.

“Nowthat’sthe Julian I remember. Passionate and cold, knowing just what he wants.”

I grunted. “What did you do to me?”

I didn’t remember leaving the tank or being brought to these cells. How long had I been here?

Hadrian stepped to the cage and squatted down, meeting me at my level, then cocked his head to the side. “I gave you an appropriate punishment. Something we agreed upon.”

I pointed a shaky finger at my own head. “What did you do up here?”

A sly smile grew slowly on the vampire dictator’s face, and he got back to his feet, beginning a slow and steady pace in front of my cage. “I watched you drown over and over again for an entire day. Six times per hour. That means you drowned one hundred and forty-four times. But that was three days ago.”

I looked down at the rough concrete floor. “Three days? I have no recollection of them. Except for… vivid dreams”

“Oh, yes, we know that much.” He tapped a device on his wrist.

I heard my own voice echoing in the empty prison room. “Shea?”

There was a pause.

“What are you doing here?”

Another pause.

The nauseating disgust I’d felt with Marguerite crept its way back into my stomach and climbed up my throat.

Hadrian tapped his watch again, and the replay stopped. “We’ve been analyzing your… conversations over the past three days.”

I put my head in my quaking hands.

“There ismuchmore than what I just played for you,” Hadrian continued.

“That tank of water,” I started. “It wasn’t just water, was it?”

Hadrian snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Right you are.”

“So much for ‘not being animals’.” I brought my angry eyes up to Hadrian.

“You must understand that I had the interest of all vampires in mind,” the vampire leader said. “You’ve been off the radar for fifteen years. The hallucinogens I placed in that tank of water were put there so you would spill information that could be beneficial to our cause. And if you had ulterior motives, those secrets would present themselves in your… conversations.”

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