Chapter 2

The days that followed blurred into a routine of dread. Daylight hours were a hollow, silent purgatory spent staring at the cryogenic pod, her prison and the altar of her nightly sacrifice. The nights were a recurring nightmare made real.

He came every night. The same silent, overpowering presence in the dark. The same scent of whiskey and sandalwood. The same brutal, possessive claim.

Amelie's mind began to fray at the edges. She was a ghost in her own life, a body without a soul, running on a single, desperate thought: Leo.

On the fourth day, the afternoon sun was a distant concept when the great stone doors of the mausoleum were thrown open without warning.

Bright, painful light flooded the chamber. Amelie flinched, shielding her eyes.

A man stood silhouetted in the doorway. He was tall and handsome, dressed in a suit that probably cost more than her father's last car. A lazy, contemptuous smile played on his lips as he stepped inside.

She recognized him from the news clippings she'd been forced to study. Cal Hyde. Byron's nephew.

"So, you're the pretty little widow they buried with my dead uncle?" His voice was slick with mockery.

Amelie's hands clenched into fists at her sides. She pushed herself up from the bed, her back straight. "This is a private mourning chamber. Please leave."

Her coldness seemed to amuse and then annoy him. He closed the distance between them in three long strides, his hand shooting out to grip her chin. His fingers dug into her skin.

"A girl from a family that couldn't even file for bankruptcy properly has no right to give me orders," he sneered, his eyes raking over her body with a greedy, possessive light. "My uncle is dead. He can't enjoy you. Maybe I should... take care of you in his place?"

His foul breath washed over her face. Amelie twisted her head away, struggling against his grip. He was stronger than he looked. He laughed, a low, ugly sound, and shoved her back against the cold, unyielding marble wall.

Her resistance only seemed to excite him.

His gaze shifted from her to the cryogenic pod in the center of the room. A malicious grin spread across his face.

"You know, I've always wondered about the fail-safes on this thing," he mused, releasing her and sauntering toward the pod's control panel. His fingers ghosted over the emergency flush controls. "One little power surge, a miscalibration... it would be so easy to turn this high-tech coffin into a real one."

A knot of ice formed in Amelie's stomach. She hated the man in that pod, the man whose name belonged to her nightly tormentor. But this... this was a desecration.

"Don't touch that," she said, her voice sharp.

Cal glanced back at her and chuckled. "What? Getting attached already?" He shoved her hard, sending her stumbling to the floor. "So loyal."

He turned his attention back to the panel, his knuckles rapping against the sleek surface.

"Let's see what the great man looks like when he's truly gone, shall we?" he taunted, his eyes gleaming with a vicious light as he prepared to press a sequence of buttons.

Rage, pure and hot, burned through Amelie's fear. She scrambled to her feet, her eyes landing on the breakfast tray from that morning. She grabbed the metal butter knife, her hand shaking.

She pointed it at him. "Get out. Or I'll kill you."

Cal saw the knife and his eyes lit up with a perverse excitement. "Ooh, a little kitten with claws."

He moved with surprising speed, twisting the knife from her grasp and tossing it aside. It clattered uselessly on the stone floor. In the next moment, he had her, pressing her body back against the cold, metallic shell of the cryogenic pod.

His hands were on her, tearing at the simple cotton dress she wore.

"Let's see if you scream for me, little widow."

Despair washed over her. She struggled, kicking and twisting, but he was too strong. Her back was pressed tight against the pod, the cold seeping through her clothes, a chilling reminder of the dead man entombed within.

This was it. Trapped. Violated again.

But then, something changed.

A soft click.

It was quiet, almost imperceptible, but she felt it more than heard it, a faint vibration through the metal at her back.

Cal's movements paused. "What was that?" he muttered, his head cocked.

The ethereal blue light inside the pod, usually steady, began to flicker erratically. Once. Twice.

Then, a much louder sound. A clear, mechanical hiss, like the release of a pressurized seal.

Both Amelie and Cal froze, their eyes locked on the cryogenic pod.

In the suffocating silence of the tomb, under their disbelieving stares, the lid of the pod began to rise.