Seth
He moaned, bile rising in his throat as he shifted on his bed. Had he been drinking last night? He felt sick. Like, really sick. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d partied hard enough to feel anything close to this. He’d definitely been much younger and much, much stupider.
It wasn’t just his head or his stomach either—he was physically shaking, his muscles trembling like he had a bad case of the flu. He didn’t feel feverish though. Actually, he was freezing.
There was only cold air brushing his skin, so he reached down to pull his blanket up over himself, but his fingers grasped at air.
He forced his eyelids open, immediately shutting them tight again.
Ugh. His overhead light was way too bright. Like, practically fluorescent. He should change the bulbs to something warmer. He would, as soon as he didn’t feel like death warmed over.
Okay, second try.
Seth opened his eyes. Kept them open by sheer force of will.
And immediately wished he hadn’t.
The bile was back in his throat. Because this wasn’t Seth’s bedroom, and it wasn’t his bed.
This…Seth had no idea what this was. All he could see were white tile floors and harsh lighting and what looked to be a glass wall in front of him.
There was a little slot in the door, close to the floor, about the length and width of a large laptop.
And there was a hallway beyond it that was just as bright and sterile as whatever room Seth was in.
He glanced down, wincing at the sharp pain in his head with the movement.
He was wearing a…hospital gown? He had his underwear on underneath, so at least there was that.
But this didn’t look like any hospital room Seth had ever seen, unless he was in special isolation for something horribly contagious.
But when had he even gotten sick?
This didn’t look like a hospital bed either. Seth was on some sort of cot, lying on top of a thin, lumpy mattress with a thin, scratchy blanket covering it. He peered over the side and saw a tin cup of water on the floor next to him.
He should probably drink that, but he didn’t know if he could keep it down.
Also…should he drink that? Who’d even given it to him? What was—
Running. Seth had been running. He’d been in the woods, and he’d heard something? Felt something? He’d thought it was Riley, but it hadn’t been Riley, and then Seth had been…drugged? Had he been drugged?
“Ah, Mr. Carter. You’re awake.”
Seth looked up from the water on the floor to find a man in front of the glass, wearing a black suit and glasses. Seth had seen him before, right? At the cliff and then…at the bakery. And now he was here, talking to Seth through some sort of intercom.
All of which explained exactly nothing.
There were a million things Seth could ask—or yell—but he settled on, “Where are we?”
The suited man waved a hand. “Our top-of-the-line research facility. Welcome.” He made it sound like Seth had asked to be here. Like maybe he’d signed up for a tour of the place and just wandered into this room all by himself.
The oddness of it all made Seth want to scream, but if he opened his mouth wide enough, he’d probably only vomit.
He sat up slowly, moving in tiny increments until he was perched on the edge of the cot with his feet flat on the ground.
The floor was freezing against his bare feet, but apparently they hadn’t shelled out for the grippy socks to go with the gown.
Seth tugged the blanket up around his shoulders. He couldn’t seem to stop shivering.
“Why am I here?” he asked, his voice wavering more than he would’ve liked.
“Because we need your assistance.”
Seth was tempted to go into a lecture about the polite ways to ask someone for help—ways that definitely did not include chloroform or its equivalent—but he opted for sarcasm instead. “You’re looking for lunchtime catering? I don’t bake under duress.”
The suited man gave a small, mirthless smile, like Seth’s attempt at humor was beneath him to acknowledge. Seth supposed it hadn’t been his best work. “Oh, nothing so taxing as all that, I assure you.”
The suited man gestured to someone outside Seth’s line of sight, and a man in a long white lab coat and goggles appeared. He was holding a small plastic bin filled with medical supplies.
The suited man pressed some button, and the glass door slid partially open, forming a door to Seth’s room. The lab coat guy walked through, and the door shut again behind him.
Seth didn’t even think to make a run for it. He just sat there like a dummy. Not that he was sure his legs would hold him, anyway.
“Now,” the suited man said briskly. “Mr. Brown here is going to draw some of your blood. If you struggle in any way, I’m afraid we’ll have to sedate you again.”
For a brief moment, the rising fear and panic threatened to pull Seth under. His breaths sped, and his sluggish heart stalled and then jump-started, racing in his chest.
What. The. Fuck?
He forced himself to slow his breathing as Mr. Brown approached. Panicking wasn’t going to help him right now. Neither was any attempt at fighting—not at this moment, when Seth was so weak and so sick. And he’d rather they take some of his blood than drug him again.
What the hell did they need his blood for anyway?
So Seth sat still and frozen while the scientist or lab tech or whatever he was poked Seth at the crook of his arm, taking five vials of blood. Seth’s skin felt extra sensitive and tender, and the poke hurt.
A few minutes later, with a new Band-Aid on his arm, Seth watched Mr. Brown—and that was an alias, wasn’t it?—walk away. Seth’s stomach churned. It should have felt the same as any other visit to the doctor, maybe, but it didn’t. It felt so much worse.
Seth looked to the suit. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m just a regular guy.”
The suited man’s brows rose over his glasses. “Oh, I think we both know that’s not entirely true.”
But Seth was regular. He was human. Healthy. The only thing remotely unusual about him was…
Riley. His connection to Riley.
Seth’s fingers clenched around the blanket on his lap. “What exactly do you study here, Mr.…?”
The suited man smiled that same small smile, the one that didn’t reach his eyes. “Apologies for my lack of manners. I’m Mr. Perkins. I’m a lawyer, although I believe you’ll find my duties at this facility are varied. Much oversight is needed, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
Seth couldn’t imagine a fucking thing. He could barely process what was happening around him. He was trying to take it all in, but it was like the data wouldn’t compute in his brain.
He could see that there was another room across the hallway, behind Mr. Perkins.
Another cell, identical to Seth’s. It was empty, but Seth could hear…
noises coming from somewhere. They were muffled, but there was definitely activity happening in this building.
Machines whirring and…maybe someone was growling?
It was hard to distinguish, and Seth’s head wouldn’t stop pounding, which didn’t help.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Carter,” Mr. Perkins said. “You’ll be in the best of hands.”
It was the least reassuring sentence Seth had ever heard in his life.
“For how long?” he asked, hating how his voice cracked on the last word. “H-How long will I be in your hands?”
“Why, until Mr. Beauchamp comes for you.” Mr. Perkins’s glasses glinted under the fluorescents as he tilted his head.
“Of course, we won’t be able to let you go right away.
He’ll need incentive to cooperate. And mating bonds are so little understood, you see.
Especially unconsummated ones. We must take advantage of what falls into our laps, mustn’t we? ”
And then Mr. Perkins hit some button, and the intercom connection between them shut off, and he just…walked away.
Leaving Seth alone. In a cell. With no idea what came next.
Seth called after him. When that didn’t work, he yelled after him. He eventually worked himself up to screaming like a fucking banshee, but there was no answer, and no one else came. So Seth choked back the last cry and sat there, shivering in his horrible blanket.
The situation was bleak, wasn’t it? Whoever these people were, they seemed to have a lot of funding—nothing about the facility Seth had seen so far looked second-rate, other than his shitty cot—and if they knew about mate bonds, then they had to have some basic understanding of vampires and what they were capable of.
They were going to use him to lure Riley. That was what they’d said, and that was what made the most sense with Seth’s…predicament.
And it would work, wouldn’t it? Riley would come for him. There was no question in Seth’s mind, not an ounce of doubt in his heart.
And Riley would be captured, and it would be Seth’s fault.
Hot tears formed in his eyes. He couldn’t help it. Seth wanted to be brave and stoic in the face of danger, but he’d never been so scared in his life.
Had he really been put out by his little “kidnapping” at Riley’s gorgeous cabin? That had been nothing. A family vacation with no warning and a little bit of attitude.
This was…something else.
This was Seth being Riley’s weakest link and evil assholes taking advantage of that fact with no remorse. This was Seth putting Riley in danger by virtue of his existence and his fragile fucking mortal body.
With that thought, Seth made himself stand on shaky legs and walk the perimeter of the room.
It was relatively small, maybe seventy square feet total.
Other than Seth’s cot and cup of water, there was nothing in the room except one of those prison-looking toilet-and-sink combos coming out of the wall.
And, of course, a camera staring out ominously from a corner of the ceiling, the red light blinking to let Seth know he was being watched at all times.
Gross.
The air in the room didn’t give anything away, not that Seth was even sure what insight could possibly be gained that way—he wasn’t a goddamn detective. But it was stale and tasteless, with no discerning scents making their way through.
Seth walked up to the glass wall and peered around as best he could.
There were more rooms along the opposite wall, besides the one directly across from him.
He didn’t see anyone—or anything—in any of them until the furthest one away, where he could just make out the corner of the glass.
There, Seth thought he saw something, a shadow or maybe a flicker.
“Hey!” Seth called as loud as he could. “Hey! You!”
There went his customer service etiquette out the door.
But the shadow or flicker didn’t respond, and Seth didn’t see it come back to its glass wall again.
Maybe he’d imagined it. Or maybe it couldn’t hear him.
Mr. Perkins had been using the intercom to talk to him, and Seth couldn’t make out any of the muffled sounds of the building now that it was shut off.
Was his room soundproof? Seth wasn’t claustrophobic by nature, but he couldn’t help the cold clutch of fear in his belly at the thought.
He tried banging on the glass wall, not sure anymore if he was testing its integrity or just giving in to panic.
It wasn’t actually glass; that was for sure.
It was something different, something that had the slightest flexible give under his slaps.
But whatever it was, it had to be strong, if other cells here were hiding supernaturals.
And they were, weren’t they? That was what this research facility was meant for. It was meant for creatures like Riley. To steal them away and tear out their secrets.
Seth’s nausea took the moment to remind him fiercely of its existence, and he stumbled back to his cot, collapsing on it as he tried to swallow down his bile.
As it stood now, Seth wasn’t strong enough to fight his way out. Which meant waiting. Looking for opportunities. Getting as much information as he could out of his captors.
Seth drained the water cup after all. If it was drugged, it was drugged, and Seth couldn’t afford to let himself become even weaker by way of dehydration.
He already felt the irresistible pull of sleep, anyway.
Whatever they’d used to subdue him when they’d captured him, it was gnarly stuff, and he needed to sleep it off before he threw up all over his hospital gown.
He wasn’t sure if they’d give him another.
He lay down fully, pulling the scratchy blanket up over him.
Please don’t come, he begged, sending his thoughts into the ether. He was under no illusion that he and Riley had a telepathic connection, but maybe if Seth thought hard enough—if he really begged with all his might—Riley would sense it.
Please, please stay away. Don’t let them get you. Stay safe. I couldn’t bear it if you were hurt.
Seth wished he hadn’t sent Riley away yesterday. Wished he’d gotten one last day with his sweet, sulky vampire before everything turned to shit.
But then again, if Riley had stayed, he might have been caught too.
No, it was better he hadn’t been there.
Maybe if Riley let it go—if he let Seth go—the facility would lose interest in him over time. And then what use would they have with boring, mortal Seth?
Seth ignored the niggling suspicion at the back of his mind that told him it didn’t matter if he was boring or not.
They’d taken him, and there was no way they’d let him go after he’d seen what they were capable of.
He would either escape, get rescued, or die here, alone and scared and with a blanket that hardly deserved the name.
Seth drifted off to what sounded like whale song coming from the floor below. But that didn’t make any sense, so it must have been his fatigue and despair making him hallucinate.
At least it was a pleasant hallucination, kind of soothing in its absurdity.
Seth would take every bit of soothing he could get.