BENEATH THE MOON'S BITE

Luca's POV

The rogue's grip was so strong, like an iron vice. He dragged me through twisting tunnels, his breath hot and sour against my neck. The silver light from my skin, which had just filled the cavern with wonder, now felt like a beacon of my own stupidity.

"Let me go!" I twisted, trying to kick his legs.

"Quiet, little light." he grunted, shaking me hard enough to make my teeth rattle.

"You're worth more alive, but I can make you wish you weren't."

We rounded a corner into absolute darkness. No torches here. The air smelled different, instantly I understood we weren't in the Kindred's territory anymore.

My heart hammered against my ribs, I needed to be at the eastern gate, Rafe was there waiting for me, but every step the rogue dragged me through was taking me farther from Rafe.

The rogue stopped at a heavy wooden that was guarded with iron. He fumbled with the keys, and the door creaked open.

He shoved me inside so hard that I stumbled and fell, my hands scraping against the rough stones.

"I'll be back with friends," he sneered. "Don't wear yourself out trying to glow in here."

The door slammed shut, the key turned lock. Then silence fell, I pushed up blinking in the pitch black. My silver glow had faded to almost nothing, just the faintest shimmer on my skin. I held my hand up to my face and could barely see its outline.

Panic started as a cold trickle in my stomach. I was buried alive in the mountain.

Then the bond pulsed, not a steady hum from earlier, but a feeling of movement. Rafe wasn't waiting anymore.

He was coming.

But how? He didn't know where I was, the mountain was a maze.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe, feel the bond, I remembered my mother had said. It's a guide.

I blocked out the dark, the cold, the fear, I focused on that thread connecting me to Rafe, I focused on guiding him to me.

And through it, I felt something new.

A low, resonant vibration, not through the air. Through the stone itself. Through the ancient bones of the mountain. The stones... they remembered my light.

I placed my palms flat on the cold floor. I didn't try to summon power. I just... remembered, remembered the feeling of the bond when Rafe kissed me.

A soft, silver-blue light began to emanate from my palms, it seeped into the stone like water into dry earth. Then it traveled, racing along invisible veins in the rock, lighting them up like a map drawn in glowing ink.

Lines of light spread across the floor, up the walls. They showed the structure of the stone, the faults, the tunnels and there, like a pulsing star on the edge of my prison wall, I felt another presence.

A familiar, furious energy. Moving fast through a parallel passage.

Rafe.

He was close, separated by maybe ten feet of solid rock.

I scrambled to that wall, pressing my hands against it. "Rafe!" I screamed, knowing he couldn't hear.

But maybe the stone could hear.

I pushed the feeling of him, my need, my fear through my palms and into the glowing veins. The light pulsed brighter, carrying my desperation through the mountain's hidden pathways.

---

Rafe POV

I was at the tunnel mouth, watching the empty passage, the distraction had worked perfectly. Too perfect. The cavern had erupted in silver light minutes ago, then gone quiet.

Luca should have been here by now.

A cold fear settled in my chest, something had gone wrong.

I was about to run back when I felt it through the bond, a spike of pure terror, followed by a muffled silence.

Then, a strange vibration under my boots, I looked down.

A thin vein of silver-blue light was glowing in the rock, snaking along the tunnel floor. It was faint, but it pulsed like a heartbeat. His heartbeat.

I'd seen that light before, on his skin in the trial and on our bed.

The vein branched ahead, one path led back toward the main cavern, the other led down a dark, narrow side passage that smelled of old water.

The bond pulled me down the dark path.

I ran, following the glowing vein as it grew brighter, It was leading me. He was leading me.

The passage ended at a solid rock wall. But the vein didn't stop. It traveled right into the stone, pulsing urgently.

He was on the other side.

I threw my shoulder against the rock, but it never budged. I was searching for something to use as a weapon, when the vein in the rock flared suddenly, so bright I had to shield my eyes.

It outlined a section of the wall about three feet wide. And as I watched, the stone within that outline began to... soften, but grow translucent, like thick, glowing quartz.

Through it, I saw a dark room, and a figure, on his knees

My Luca....

"Rafe." He muttered and slumped..