Please, I begged no one in particular. Please, I don’t want to know this.

So instead, I watched the frescoed ceiling, concentrating on the fat cherubs smiling down on the horrific scene instead of Nathan’s screams of pain and terror.

The nightmare was sadistically long. After he’d broken him physically, mentally and emotionally, Cyrus left Nathan naked and violated on the freezing marble floor, small amounts of his blood leaking from a dozen open veins. He was dead by the time anyone returned.

The Soul Eater slid into the room with Cyrus at his side. “Very good, Simon. You’ve given him real potential.” He knelt beside Nathan’s abused body and cradled his head in his lap.

“I don’t know if I’d call it potential. He’ll only last until your next meal.” There was an edge of annoyance in Cyrus’s voice.

The Soul Eater stroked Nathan’s arms lovingly. “No, I think I have other plans for this one.”

He lifted his wrist and bit down hard, audibly puncturing the skin and veins. Then he pressed his wounded wrist to Nathan’s slack mouth.

The blood slowly brought animation to Nathan’s body. First, his mouth as he twitched his lips. Then his arms as they lifted to clutch at the Soul Eater. It took less than two minutes for the change to complete.

Alarm flared through Cyrus. I could feel it without entering his mind. “Father, think of what you’re doing. Your blood is weak already. It will barely keep him alive. You won’t be able to feed from him. Let me turn him, as we planned.”

Nathan lurched to his feet, his eyes wild. Hungry.

The Soul Eater ignored Cyrus, focusing instead on his new child. “Look at you. You’re parched. My old blood can’t sustain you.”

At that inopportune moment, Marianne cried out feebly. Like the moan of a dying animal, it caught the attention of the predators around her.

To his credit, Nathan tried to fight it.

“It will just get worse,” his sire taunted. “The hunger will gnaw at you. It will drive you crazy.”

Cyrus grew more anxious by the second. “Father, kill him. You can’t survive another year without feeding.”

The Soul Eater continued to ignore his son. “Nolen, please. You know she’s going to die, anyway. Look at her. She’s barely alive.”

Contrary to what he said, the haze in Marianne’s eyes lifted. I was glad that I couldn’t see inside her head, to know what she saw when she looked at Nathan. “Nolen, what are you doing?”

He covered his face. “I can’t.”

The fatherly affection in the Soul Eater’s tone vanished. “You will. You’re feeling the hunger I have carried for centuries. If you think it hurts now, imagine how you’ll feel in a week. In a month. Take her and ease your suffering, or I’ll be sure you wish you had!”

Nathan’s pain reached out and sucked me in. I’d felt hunger before, but nothing like this. The Soul Eater’s blood was already depleted. The cells and tissue of Nathan’s body tried to draw nourishment from the blood, but it was a by-product, stripped of the power needed to fuel his vampire flesh.