name. I heard piercing wails.
I heard the screams of the dying.
Hopelessness and horror closed in on me.
I wouldn’t give up without a fight. I wouldn’t—
Volod moved so fast. He had been standing before me, then in a blink he had one hand on the back of my head. The other hand on my shoulder.
I screamed and tried to fight.
My neck burned where he’d bitten me before.
I felt the slide of his fangs into my flesh.
No. No. This couldn’t be happening.
I felt the draw of my blood leaving my body as Volod drank of it.
My body started to go limp.
My vision grew cloudy.
Nothing.
TWENTY-NINE
My thoughts were muddy. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t feel.
Something had happened but I couldn’t hold on to what it was. A wispy tendril of a thought that kept eluding my grasp every time I reached for it.
Panic made me shiver. I didn’t know why I felt panicked, only that something was wrong. Desperately wrong.
I tried to take slow, even breaths. Even that was a struggle.
Then I remembered. A dream.
A nightmare.
My eyes flew open. Darkness. Even though I knew I was awake now, the fogginess of my thoughts wouldn’t clear. It was a fight just to think.
The nightmare kept pushing at my mind. I couldn’t quite remember it, but I knew it had been a bad one.
A familiar figure entered my thoughts. The face was shadowy. He stepped forward and I saw him clearly.
Volod.
I held back a scream. Just a nightmare, Nyx. He’s not really there.
I took a deep breath. The air felt close. Confined.
Fear overcame me. I felt as if I had swallowed a mouthful of needles that now stabbed at the inside of my belly.
Pieces of the nightmare started to unfold in agonizingly slow frames. A bridge. Rodán. Volod. Water. Vampires … Vampires … more Vampires.
Hands grasping me. Me, fighting their holds. Volod’s long white fangs coming toward me.
In my mind I heard my own scream as Volod sank his teeth into my neck.
Cold flushed over me from my head to my toes. A nightmare? Or did it really happen?
Of course Volod hadn’t bitten me. I’d be dead.
I’d be buried …
No.
I put my hands up—
And my palms met a firm, padded surface just inches from my face.
I started to scream but put the back of my hand in my mouth, holding the scream in.
Calm down. Calm … down.
The fog of my thoughts wouldn’t clear. I moved my hand away from my mouth and hiccuped.
I felt around me, touching the sides and top of the box. Desmond’s words came back to me. Drow were immune to a Vampire’s bite.
But I was half human, too.
The half-Drow part of me allowed me to see within the total darkness. Above me was the quilted cream-colored satin lining of the inside of a coffin. Each wall around me was padded in satin, and my head was on some kind of small pillow.
It was nighttime and I was in Drow form, my amethyst skin contrasting to the cream lining. I didn’t feel the familiar leather fighting suit hugging my body.
I ran my palms down my belly and as far as I could reach in my position. I was wearing some kind of velvet-like gown with bell sleeves, a dress like the ones I’d seen Elizabeth wear. The gown was the same cobalt blue of my hair.
I brought my finger to my mouth and ran it along one of my incisors. The normally tiny fangs that I had as Drow were now long. I pricked my finger on the end of one. Not only long, but sharp, too. The taste of my own blood made my mouth tingle.
An overwhelming urge came over me to get out of the coffin and to the surface. It was almost unnatural in its strength.
My elements. I felt them stir, waiting for me to call on them. My earth magic was strong. I was surrounded by earth, including the six feet of dirt above me.
Grasping something familiar calmed the nerves inside me, and I held on to my earth magic.
Get me out of here, I ordered my element. Take me to the surface.
The earth trembled and shook around me. I heard loose dirt slide down the sides of the coffin. And then I felt the coffin begin to rise.
Despite the continued fogginess of my thoughts, I was able to focus on getting out of the grave. Right now nothing else mattered.
The coffin burst free of the ground and I heard rocks and earth pounding on the lid as