Grabbing his head, he tried to shake away whatever the sensation was. Vertigo ripped through him and he stumbled into a tree. What was happening?
His vision swirled out of focus and he relied on his hearing to track his enemy, fearful this might be the end. Weak beyond expectation, he stumbled and collapsed, his face smacking hard against the sandy ground as blood eclipsed his vision.
Breath panted past his lips as he lay prone and vulnerable. He listened to the cackling, but the shrieks wavered, and he didn’t trust his perception. He was losing consciousness and only had a few seconds—
He blinked, his muscles heavy and motor skills slow. The farm. He recognized the barn and the scent of hay mixing with honeysuckle. Animals brayed and bleated in the distance. Why was he there?
A flash of darkness jolted his head back, pulling him somewhere else. He grunted and found it impossible to move. Paralyzed.
With each flash of light came silence and the sweet scent of home. Then came the darkness followed by the incessant cackling above. Silence. Cackle. Silence. Cackle. Silence—no. Wait. Screaming.
His body tensed. He recognized that voice. “Anna?”
He struggled to move but could barely twitch a finger. His visions jumbled—black night—blue sky—black night—blue sky—it was too much at once.
“Cain!”
“Annalise!” He couldn’t find her. “Where are you?”
“Help me!”
Growling, he forced his body to move, but his heavy limbs only dragged. This was no dream. He was trapped in a nightmare. “Anna, I’m coming!”
“Cain, make it stop!” Her scream ripped over the field, cutting into the woods and trees as his vision flashed to black and something sliced up his leg. He roared and struggled to go back to the dream to get to Anna.
Pain consumed him, and he wheezed, “Anna?”
Her cry pleaded from a distance in a broken sob, “Cain…”
Then he saw her, covered in rags, soaked in blood, her crimson hands cradling her pregnant belly. “Am I dying?”
The blood rushed from his veins and his jaw hung in horror. “Anna!” He struggled to go to her but couldn’t move. “Who did this to you?”
Her face contorted with another sob. “I don’t know.”
His eyes counted every laceration, struggling to see the true wounds through the spattered blood. There was so much blood.
Her injuries matched his own. Mark for mark. Bite for bite. Dear God, he was killing her.
“Cain, make it stop…” She sobbed. “I don’t want to lose my baby.”
Shafts of ice cut through his veins. What had he done?
She suffered his pain. Was that possible? Of course, it was. He’d experienced her transition, he’d known how close she was to death before. He’d never forgive himself if his actions…
“Don’t move. I can end this!”
He roared and tightened every muscle, forcing his mind away. The moment he awoke on the forest floor, the pain came back to him tenfold. The she-bitch crouched in the distance, hissing when she saw him move, and then she barreled toward him, faster than a speeding horse.
He leaped to his feet and opened his claws, “Come at me, you fucking bitch!”
He jumped and they lunged through the air, colliding in a clatter of flesh and bone. Possessed by his beast within, he held nothing back. He grabbed hold of her head and yanked hard and fast until an inhuman crack snapped inside her throat.
He landed in a crouch. The enemy’s body collapsing to the ground in a pile of boney limbs. Finally, silent.
Her finger twitched, and he dragged himself to his full height. Lurching closer to the heap of broken bones, he glared down at her black eyes and sank his booted foot onto her broken neck. Gravel crunched under the weight of his other foot as he grabbed a fistful of her snarled hair.
Blood trickled from his scalp into his eyes as he stared dispassionately at her mangled body. “Tell me who your sire is.”
A restricted wheeze escaped her chest. “I-say-ahhhhhhh…”
With a snap of his arm, he further broke her neck then plunged his fist into her chest, closing fingers around the beating tissue and yanking hard, leaving nothing but an empty cavity behind. Then, raising his blood-soaked arm to the moon, he let out a battle cry and squeezed the dead heart.
The corpse at his feet rotted to dust as the wasted heart in his fist crumbled like sand. Lightning lit the sky and rain pelted his skin, washing away the blood.
Cain shut his eyes and caught his breath as the wind howled through the trees scattering the ash away.
Chapter 19
The floorboard creaked and Adam spun, a feral glint in his eye as his brother stood in the doorway of the room. “Get out.”
Cain’s heart lurched at the gruesome sight of the bloodstained floor, the ominous sense that something horrific had transpired there, and the palpable heat of his brother’s fury. His stare searched the motionless form on the bed, and he held up his bloodied hands in surrender. “Is she—”