"Egon... Is that truly you?"
Her husband's heaving back briefly stiffened, and then it resumed its rhythmic rise and fall, not a flicker of acknowledgment in her direction.
Adela's crimson-veiled vision gradually cleared, her throat parched from her rapid, anxious breaths as she tried to soothe her racing heart.
The man throttling the ancient vampire was another immortal, recently transformed into a vampire. His petrifying presence obviated the need for any army she might have marshaled to confront the being responsible for her son's entrapment.
"Is this how I'll end you, Andreas?" Egon groaned.
"Stop!"
In a strikingly unexpected entrance that rivaled the appearance of the two immortals in the cave, Noctavian de Lanark materialized out of the ether. He placed his hand on his father's forearm, making an honest attempt to halt Egon's stranglehold on their ancestor.
"I said stop this! I'm here now so you can release Alkadim!"
