It smelled musty and damp. Electrical lights had been installed, lining the long corridor. It was an improvement over the old gaslights that he remembered from his father’s country house.
Kasper kept up with technology and whenever a new invention was publicized, Kasper was one of the first to give it a try.
A sound came from one of the rooms at the end of the corridor, and his feet carried him closer, his chest tightening, his hands balling into fists, jealousy charging through his veins.
Thomas ripped the door open without knocking. He smelled the human instantly, but Kasper wasn’t feeding from a human, nor was he fucking one. Thomas’s entire body revolted at what his eyes perceived within a split second.
A woman was tied to a rack on the wall, her pregnant belly sticking out prominently. He’d rarely seen pregnant women in society, since they confined themselves to their homes once they were increasing, but from a friend of the family he’d seen during her confinement, he realized, judging by the size of the woman’s belly, that she was within weeks, if not days, of giving birth.
Yet, he instantly realized that the baby in her belly would never see the light of day, nor would she ever again see the sun shining on her face.
A vampire stood in front of her, a knife in his hands. And next to him Kasper’s eyes were focused on the two.
“You can’t have both! You can only save one of them. Choose! Either your mate or your child!”
Thomas rushed into the room. “What are you doing?”
Kasper’s head whipped toward him. “Stay out of this, Thomas!” he snarled. Then his eyes narrowed and he focused on the vampire in his presence.
Thomas saw how flickers of light discharged from Kasper’s body and shot toward the vampire.
“No!” Thomas cried out, realizing that Kasper was using his mind to control the vampire to execute his dirty deed.
“He needs to be punished!” Kasper cried out, his face distorting into an ugly grimace.
Less than an hour earlier, Kasper had been in an exceedingly good mood, but now, nothing of that good mood was evident. Almost, as if he had a split personality. Thomas had started noticing it more and more often. But this was the first time Thomas saw true ugliness within Kasper and recoiled from him. “What has he done?”
“He defied my orders! Now he’s going to pay!”
Kasper whipped back to the vampire and shot a blinding ray of light toward him. The vampire cried out, but his hand holding the knife rose and his feet took a step toward his human mate whose eyes were wide with fear.
“No,” she cried out. “Please don’t do this, George, don’t let him do this to you! You’re stronger.”
But her vampire mate advanced, his face distorted in pain as he tried to fight Kasper’s control over his body. It was clear that he couldn’t.
The knife sliced low into the woman’s belly, her cries of pain echoing against the stone walls. Thomas’s stomach lurched and he jumped toward the vampire, trying to kick the knife out of his hands. Kasper’s kick to his midsection stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Stay out of it!” he ordered.
Thomas glared up at his lover. “Stop this now!”
But Kasper didn’t listen. Instead he trained his eyes back on the vampire under his control and sent another burst of mental power to him. Again, the vampire cut into the belly of his mate, making a longer incision now. More blood spilled onto the floor and the woman merely hung from the rack now, her legs having collapsed underneath her.
Her cries deafened Thomas’s ears as he tried to make another attempt to help her and her baby. A bolt of power hit him squarely in the chest, and instinctively he fought back, focusing his mind on Kasper.
“Finally!” Kasper grinned at him. “I thought you’d never find the power inside you. Isn’t it wonderful? You feel it, don’t you?”
Yes, Thomas had felt the force slumbering in him ever since Kasper had turned him and told him he’d help him harness it. Harness the dark power Kasper had given him with his blood. He’d suppressed it, because he didn’t want it. But now, at the sight of injustice toward an innocent, it emerged.
Kasper laughed and pushed against him with his mental power, knocking him to the ground.
“Maybe now you’ll let me train you. Watch how it’s done!”
Kasper looked back at the vampire he was still controlling. “So you’ve decided to save your child. Well . . . .” Kasper pointed to the bleeding belly of his mate. “Then take it from her body!”
The vampire followed Kasper’s command and Thomas watched in horror as he stuck his hands into the woman’s womb and pulled out the child. It was covered with blood, the umbilical cord still attached, but it was alive.