Chris was definitely being tortured.

There was no doubt about it in my mind now as I waited for Julian to pick me up at the wrought-iron gates of the Embassy.

My kidneys felt bruised as if I'd been repeatedly punched in them.

I groaned as another wave of nausea passed over me. Whatever they were doing to him, I could feel the effects of it across my entire body.

And apparently, my healing magic did not know how to fix telepathic wounds.

Just as a sleek, black Mercedes-Benz barreled down the road toward me, I doubled over in pain and vomited, missing my shoes by a mere inch.

Though it wasn't particularly warm out, I felt clammy and hot. But if I was being honest, I'd take this and bruised kidneys over another round of holy water any day.

The car screeched to a halt beside me and the window rolled down, revealing a put-together Julian on the other side.

"You look like crap, Ms. Matthews."

"Shut up," I grumbled as I threw my bag into the back seat and climbed into the passenger side. "Whatever your nephew's gotten himself into, I can feel every ounce of it through this stupid bond. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to help you find him but I'm going to need a blood contract first."

"Oh?" Julian said, eyebrows arching as he merged onto the highway, leaving behind the Embassy and most importantly Damian.

I hated how we'd parted ways but I couldn't allow myself to focus on that right now. Something good had to come out of this, otherwise, I'd just been cruel to my best friend, my childhood friend, over nothing.

"I want a blood contract that specifically states to you will force Christian to lend me soldiers in exchange for his rescue. I want one hundred men. No, one-fifty."

"Let's make it an even number. Two hundred men! Going once, going twice..."

"I'm not joking."

"Neither am I, Ms. Mathews. I'm certain Christian will have no problem agreeing to these terms. Once we can get him safely back to his rightful place on the throne, of course."

"Yeah, well, if you or Christian fail to deliver these men to me, I want it written in blood that I get to castrate you."

"You sadistic girl," He said, wrinkling his nose. "Fine, fine. I must love my nephew a good deal to put my gonads on the line."

"Great. You can pull over and draft the contract now."

"You offend me. I am a vampire, very capable of multitasking. Do you have something to write on?"

I fished through my bag until I found the envelope Christian's wedding invitation had arrived in.

I tried not to be affected by that.

Why I'd stuffed it into my bag at the last moment right before I called Julian instead of flushing it down the toilet with the rest of the invitation, I didn't know.

Maybe it was to remind myself that I was only going on this rescue mission because it was mutually beneficial to me. He was getting married, we clearly were never getting back together and I couldn't march into Blackrock Castle if I was being interrupted by bouts of fiery pain along the way.

And this had nothing to do with me being worried sick about him...

Julian used the steering wheel to scribble the terms of the contract over the paper. Using his vampire incisors, he drew blood from his wrist and signed using his fingernail.

"There," He said. "You should be happy. I explicitly, and in detail, described that you could take away my manhood in exchange for my nephew's safety."

"Thanks," I said, examining the writing.

It was just what I'd asked for.

No play on words, no tricks.

"For the record, I would have gone to rescue him anyway. But...I like this way better."

"You conniving little trickster, I--"

"Oh no," I gasped.

My fingers curled around the signed blood contract in my lap.

My mouth went dry just as fire clawed its fingers up along my spine.

I screamed.

Julian jerked on the steering wheel and the car careened onto the shoulder, the uneven dirt beneath causing my teeth to rattle in my skull.

In a second, Julian had straightened the vehicle, his eyes flying to my face.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Fire," I gasped. I gripped his arm and squeezed. "Holy water. They're using. Holy. Water. On. Him. Oh, God."

My eyes rolled into the back of my head, my body convulsing against the expensive leather seat.

It was that split-second feeling where you touched a curling iron except that this didn't last a second and there was no knee-jerk reaction to pull away.

No end to the pain.

The fire engulfed me, gave me tunnel vision.

I gritted my teeth so hard it felt they would shatter, unable to hear anything past the sound of my screams.

"I will apologize for this later," Julian said, before he struck me on the head, making my vision go black.

***

I came to with Julian shaking my shoulders.

"You...hit me." I protested.

The throbbing headache at the base of my skull was the proof of that statement. Shifting in the seat, my skin still felt raw but manageable.

In the back of my mind, I thought of Christian. If this is what it'd felt like for me, what was it like for him, experiencing it in the flesh?

I tried to remain objective...but my traitorous heart thundered in my chest.

It was difficult, even with the crumbled wedding envelope in my hand,  and the knowledge of what he'd done to my father, to not worry for him. To not, in a way that made me furious and frustrated, care that he was hurting.

"Well, it worked, didn't it? Are you alright?"

"I'm...breathing." I groaned.

"And thank God for that. Christian would have my head if you died on my watch. Is he...what kind of question is that? Of course, he's alive. You're bonded. You would know if he wasn't which means there's still hope. Let's go."

"Where...where are we?" I asked, my throat hoarse, probably from all the screaming I'd done.

Peering out the window, I saw that we were in a parking lot. Rows of vehicles in the middle of an urban city, surrounded by dense foliage. Between the treetops colored in burnt orange, green and yellow, were a scattering of buildings.

"This is VBI headquarters, as in, the vampire bureau of investigations."

"That's a real thing?"

"Of course it is."

"And..." I peered down the parking lot at the nearest structure, its dozens of windows reflecting back the morning light. "It's located in the same building as Quantico's FBI headquarters?"

"Where else would it be?"

"I mean, how do you explain that to humans, who know nothing of our existence?"

"Well, we look human enough, don't we? This is the place we conduct our business. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. What better way to keep a lid on reports of supernatural creatures? Our guys on the inside make sure to scrub those types of reports. Can you imagine what would happen if humans got confirmation of our existence? Phew!"

As we entered the building, buzzing with mundane enough 9-5 business, the security guard at the front approached us.

"We are here for a meeting with assistant deputy director Victor Iacob. Our clearance paperwork...IDs...visitor's passes."

Julian handed the guard the paperwork which he skimmed before eyeing us both.

After a lengthy questioning and verification of our documents, we were led past a metal detector and given directions to Iacob's office.

"This is crazy," I said. "I figured if I was ever inside an FBI building, I'd be in handcuffs."

"If you insist, I'm sure we can find a pair around here somewhere." I rolled my eyes at him.

"We better be here for something related to saving Christian."

"Duh!"

Had...he really just said duh?

"These people are going to help us find my nephew. Whatever I say in there, do not question it. In fact, if you can pretend to be mute the entire meeting, that would be ideal."

Leaving the elevator, we went down a floor. Several cubicles lined the halls with agents working diligently behind their screens until we reached a set of stairs that led to Victor Iacob's office.

"Julian, I have questions," I hissed. "My facial expressions practically speak for themselves."

"Shh. A mute, remember? Only speak when spoken to and whatever you do, follow my lead. Oh, and put these on."

"Earrings?" I asked, eyeing the two pearl objects in my palm.

"They're charmed to make your mind unreadable. You ask too many questions."

Julian knocked on the door but didn't wait for a response. He went to the blinds and shut them and I followed after him.

Behind the desk, a man stood, the salt and pepper in his hair shining under the yellow glow of his overhead lights.

His eyes were reader eyes, brown and framed in thick lashes. He had a smooth, yet older face and was dressed like a librarian.

"Julian, whatever this is, it better be important. You know this place requires at minimum a 4 weeks' notice for any type of visit."

"Victor, my friend! You need some sunlight. You're looking exceptionally pale."

"Julian, to the point, please."

"Very well. I am here on sanctioned royal business. His majesty, Christian Dannek has reason to believe his brother, Vincent, is in immediate danger. I have Vincent's bonded mate here to testify. Please, Aimee, share with Victor the excruciating pain you have been in lately."

"Yes," I said, my mind whirring two hundred miles per hour. Christian had another brother beside Henry? And why the hell was Julian pretending I was bonded to him? This made no sense.

"I've been experiencing torture through the bond. He's in trouble."

"You see? And the King cannot allow his brother to be tortured, therefore, he is requesting your resources in locating his majesty, Prince Vincent Dannek."

"You are bonded to Vincent?" Victor asked.

"Yes."

His eyes scanned me from head to toe, zeroing in on my hands which I kept perfectly still.

"Very well. Then you won't mind if I verify this information with the King?"

"Oh, good luck," Julian said, with a nonchalant wave of his hand. "He is elbow's deep in wedding preparations and I hear his sweet betrothed is quite a bridezilla. Here is the formal request from his Majesty in writing. See his Dannek seal at the bottom. But, if you insist, you can call now. I'm sure it won't take them too long to track him down."

Victor took the parchment paper and reviewed it thoroughly.

"Fine, this will do," He said. "The sooner we get this over with the sooner I can return my attention to the murder investigations. What do you need?"

Agent Soderberg, holed up in his dim office which reeked of the nachos he'd had for lunch, typed madly at his keyboard.

Three screens illuminated his angular, human face, his glasses resting too far down on the bridge of his nose.

He pushed his glasses up and peered up at Julian and me.

"This is the last known tower your missing person's cell pinged off from."

He handed Julian a paper, fresh out of his printer, his Funko Pop stormtrooper still bobbling slightly on his desk from when he'd bumped it reaching for the printout.

"Bucharest," Julian mused. "Hmm...any way to get a smaller radius? Do you know how many buildings we'd have to comb through to find him with this? Computer boy, you can do better than this."

"I'm sorry, but I really can't. His phone has been shut off. If it was on, and we could keep him on a call for a few minutes, I'd be able to triangulate the..."

"Oh, for heaven's sake. Can't you tap into security cameras? Run him through facial recognition until we get a hit?"

I glanced over at Julian, confused. Did he forget we were pretending to search for "Vincent" and not Chris?

"We're talking about hours of data," Agent Soderberg said. "To comb through that would take time."

"How long?"

"It--it could be days."

"He doesn't have that sort of time," I hissed at Julian. The amount of downtime between torture was shortening and I was worried, fearful even, that torture wasn't the end game--that death was.

What would happen to my heart if Christian died?

Would I die with him? Metaphorically, if not physically?

But, because of the bond, maybe physically was a very real possibility.

Julian sighed long and hard. "Looks like we are going to Bucharest."