"No, no!" Malkom roared, twisting violently.
The Viceroy sliced his own wrist. " 'Tis a gift I'm giving you. The Thirst. I am going to make blood sing for you, make you dine on demon flesh every day for eternity." He shoved the streaming gash to Kallen's pried-open mouth. "You will become like us, and be loyal only to me. It begins now."
"Do not drink it, Kallen!" Malkom bellowed, but they forced him to swallow it.
They set upon Malkom next, stabbing him until he was too weakened to resist. The Viceroy's thick, vile blood was forced down his throat as well.
Then the vampire raised his sword. Malkom thrashed against the chains with every ounce of power left in his body, but neither he nor Kallen could get loose.
Kallen met Malkom's gaze for a harrowing moment - just before the Viceroy's sword sliced clean through Kallen's neck. His body collapsed backward, his head tumbling into the grave. Dazed, sightless eyes stared up at Malkom. The prince's brows were still drawn, his teeth gritted.
Malkom gaped in disbelief while years of their shared memories flashed in his mind.
The two demons' countless battles, more victories than defeats. The dozens of times Malkom had saved Kallen's life; the thousands of times Kallen had praised him, encouraging him to better himself.
"You are a fearless warrior who's more than his past." "Of course you've the intelligence to learn how to read! Who the devil convinced you otherwise?" "You are stronger and faster than the others, your will to live greater than any I've known. You see details others are blind to. Uni"ueness is a kind of nobility, is it not, brother?"
Throughout, Malkom had begun to shed the taint of his past. He'd dared to entertain dreams of a better life.
Now Kallen was dead. Malkom roared with impotent fury, his eyes going wet with loss. Kallen. Dead.
Or worse.
The sorcerer cast a layer of black dust over Kallen's body.
"No!" Malkom bit out. "Leave him in peace!"
More chanting, more power.
Malkom's lips parted. Kallen's body was lifeless no more. With each of the sorcerer's words, it began to twitch, to ... move in the dirt.
Not from death spasms. But writhing with life. The headless neck pumped blood anew.
The Viceroy again snapped his fingers for the demon slaves. Once the pair had kicked Kallen's body into the grave, the sorcerer scattered more of that dust over all. To make Kallen whole once more?
When smoke snaked up from the depths, the Viceroy raised his bloody sword. "Now 'tis your turn, Slaine. And I promise you, rising from the dead - if it takes - will be the easy part. If you live, I will break you."
Malkom silently prayed for a true end, beseeching the gods who had never once answered his most desperate entreaties. Please, do not let me rise -
The sword whistled through the air. He perceived the scantest bite of blade.
Then nothing.
Despite Malkom's prayers, he and Kallen had both risen two nights later, waking into a nightmare of darkness, deep in the earth. After clawing through the dirt, inching their way to the surface, they'd been thrown in a murky cell in the Viceroy's dungeon.
They hadn't suffocated as they'd risen because they now drew no breaths. Nor did their hearts beat.
The walking dead. Vampire. I am a vampire.
No! Malkom still hadn't accepted his fate, was ready to rage and fight it. Even as he recognized how much he'd been altered.
Though he wore no cuffs to prevent him from tracing, he no longer had that ability. His clammy skin felt as if a thousand spiders crawled all over him. His upper fangs had elongated and narrowed, throbbing painfully. Even in the low light, merely opening his sensitive eyes was an agony.
His very hearing was different, more acute. He could detect insects boring in the ground beneath him.
From the moment he'd awakened in the grave, the burgeoning need for blood had lashed him. Confusion and anguish roiled within him.
In Kallen, too. He stared at the filthy cell walls, hollow-eyed and unblinking.