Dylan moved the light farther into the gloom, unsure what she was searching for, but too fascinated to leave just yet. The beam skidded over another set of bones - Jesus, more aged human remains scattered on the floor of the cave.
Goose bumps prickled on Dylan's arms from a draft that seemed to rise out of nowhere.
And that's when she saw it.
A large rectangular block of stone sat on the other side of the darkness. More markings like the ones covering the walls were painted onto the carved bulk of the object.
Dylan didn't have to move closer to realize that she was looking at a crypt. A thick slab had been placed over the top of the tomb. It was moved aside, skewed slightly off the stone crypt as if pushed away by incredibly strong hands.
Was someone - or something - laid to rest in there?
Dylan had to know.
She crept forward, flashlight gripped in suddenly perspiring fingers. A few paces away now, Dylan angled the beam into the opening of the tomb.
It was empty.
And for reasons she couldn't explain, that thought chilled her even more than if she'd found some hideous corpse turning to dust inside.
Over her head, the cave's nocturnal residents were getting restless. The bats stirred, then bolted past her in a hurried rush of motion. Dylan ducked to let them pass, figuring she'd better get the hell out of there too.
As she pivoted to find the crevice exit, she heard another rustle of movement. This one was bigger than bats, a low snarl of sound followed by a disturbance of loose rock somewhere in the cave.
Oh, God. Maybe she wasn't alone in here after all.
The hairs at the back of her neck tingled and before she could remind herself that she didn't believe in monsters, her heart started beating in overdrive.
She fumbled around for the way out of the cave, her pulse jackhammering in her ears. By the time she found daylight, she was gasping for air. Her legs felt rubbery as she scrambled back down the ridge, then raced to rejoin her friends in the safety of the bright midday sun below.
He'd been dreaming of Eva again.
It wasn't enough that the female had betrayed him in life - now, in her death, she invaded his mind while he slept. Still beautiful, still treacherous, she spoke to him of regret and how she wanted to make things right.
All lies.
Eva's visiting ghost was only a part of Rio's long slide into madness.
His dead mate wept in his dreams, begging him to forgive her for the deception she'd orchestrated a year ago. She was sorry. She still loved him, and always would.
She wasn't real. Just a taunting reminder of a past he would be glad to leave behind.
Trusting the female had cost him much. His face had been ruined in the warehouse explosion. His body was broken in places, still recovering from injuries that would have killed a mortal man.
And his mind...?
Rio's sanity had been fracturing apart, bit by bit, worsening in the time he'd been holed up alone on this Bohemian mountainside.
He could bring it all to a halt. As one of the Breed - a hybrid race of humans bearing vampiric, alien genes - he could drag himself into the sunlight and let the UV rays devour him. He'd considered doing just that, but there remained the task of closing the cave and destroying the damning evidence it contained.
He didn't know how long he'd been there. The days and nights, weeks and months, had at some point merged into an endless suspension of time. He wasn't sure how it had happened. He'd arrived there with his brethren of the Order. The warriors had been on a mission to locate and destroy an old evil secreted away in the rocks centuries ago.
But they were too late.
The crypt was empty; the evil had already been freed.
It was Rio who volunteered to stay behind and seal the cave while the others returned home to Boston. He couldn't go back with them. He didn't know where he belonged. He'd intended to find his own way - maybe go back to Spain, his homeland.
That's what he'd told the warriors who'd long been like brothers to him. But he hadn't carried out any of his plans. He had delayed, tormented by indecision and the weight of the sin he'd been contemplating.
In his heart, he'd known he had no intention of leaving this tomb. But he had