They hadn't suffocated as they'd risen because they now drew no breaths. Nor did their hearts beat.

The walking dead. Vampire. I am a vampire.

No! Malkom still hadn't accepted his fate, was ready to rage and fight it. Even as he recognized how much he'd been altered.

Though he wore no cuffs to prevent him from tracing, he no longer had that ability. His clammy skin felt as if a thousand spiders crawled all over him. His upper fangs had elongated and narrowed, throbbing painfully. Even in the low light, merely opening his sensitive eyes was an agony.

His very hearing was different, more acute. He could detect insects boring in the ground beneath him.

From the moment he'd awakened in the grave, the burgeoning need for blood had lashed him. Confusion and anguish roiled within him.

In Kallen, too. He stared at the filthy cell walls, hollow-eyed and unblinking.

"We will fight our way free," Malkom assured him now, "then return home."

"We are Scarba. Brother, no demons will ever take us among them."

He was likely right. The two were worse even than the vampires. They were defiled demons, cursed to feed off their own kind. They were the monsters of legend feared by all.

Kallen rasped, "There is no reason to go on."

"There is always a reason." How many times had Malkom had to convince himself of this? "If for nothing else, you can seek vengeance." He himself would not rest until retribution was meted.

He would slaughter the sorcerer who'd muttered his curses in the background, the guards who'd held them down, and the bloodthirsty Viceroy whose sick will had set them all into motion.

Then he would return to destroy Ronath.

Those who betrayed Malkom did it only once.