“I cannot say, my lady.” Korvel turned his back on her to watch Neuf work on Simone. “I no longer serve the high lord.”

“You no longer…Wait.” She held up her hands. “Don’t tell me; I don’t want to know.” She turned to Nicola. “Can you give me a ride back to the airport? I need to fly to Ireland to kick me some furry immortal ass.”

“Scheiße.” Neuf drew back from Simone as the wound in her head began to glow with a faint green light. “What is this?”

Alexandra nudged him aside. “Korvel, you want to tell me why this girl is looking like a Lite-Brite?”

“She was struck with a Kyn artifact. A cross.” Korvel held Simone’s hand tightly between his. “It must have transferred something into the wound.”

As abruptly as it began the glow faded, and Simone began to convulse.

Alexandra held her head as she began issuing orders. “Nick, bring me my bag. Gabriel, call the airport and tell my pilot to keep the jet engines running.” To Simone she said, “It’s okay, honey. Hold on.”

The convulsions abruptly stopped, and Simone went limp.

As soon as Nick brought the bag, Alexandra reached in and took out a pair of suture scissors. “Did you clean out the wound before you stitched her up?” she asked Neuf.

“I did, thoroughly.” He frowned as she cut through the sutures and deftly plucked them out of Simone’s scalp. “What are you doing? She’s lost too much blood already.”

“She’s not bleeding,” Alexandra snapped. “Look at the wound. It’s been cauterized.” She leaned close. “From the inside.”

Korvel watched as Alexandra checked Simone’s pulse and used her stethoscope to listen to her heart and lungs. Once she had completed the physical assessment, she put her nose next to the wound and breathed in deeply, closing her eyes for several seconds before she straightened.

“All right, folks,” she said. “I need to know exactly what happened to this girl. Somebody start talking.”

“I will tell you everything I know,” Korvel promised. “Only answer me this: Is she making the change from mortal to Kyn?”

“No, Captain.” Something like pity came into Alexandra’s eyes. “She’s not changing into anything. Her organs are beginning to fail. She’s dying.”

Nick sent Gabriel to the upstairs bedroom where Alexandra had Korvel carry Simone. “I’ll look after the humans. If you need anything, just yell.”

“Will you tell them?” When she nodded, he kissed her. “I love you.”

“Back at you, baby.” She walked back to the sitting room, now packed with all of the men Simone had called her brothers. “Hey.”

The Dutchman with the foul mouth and the tattoos stopped whirling the knife in his hand. “Is she awake?”

“No.” Nick shoved her hands in her pockets. “Alex—Dr. Keller—is with her, and she’s making her as comfortable as possible. I need to, uh, talk to you guys about the situation.”

“We know the situation,” Tattoo Guy snarled. “She’s fucked all to hell. What are you doing about it? Why are you keeping her here when she could be in a hospital?”

The oldest man, the one Simone called Cinq, stepped forward and put a hand on Vingt’s shoulder. “She’s not going to wake up again, is she?”

There was no kind way to do this, so Nick went with direct. “Your sister is in a coma. Someone poisoned her, probably before she left France.”

The man with the laughing brown eyes looked ready to kill something. “Pájaro did this.” He glanced at Cinq. “You heard what he said on the beach.” He turned back to Nick. “What about an antidote?”

“She’s too far gone for that now.” She looked at the faces all around her. “The truth is, she’s not going to make it through the night. I’m so sorry, guys.”

“You’re sorry? That’s it? We should have taken her to a real doctor. You let her die, you fucking snow-haired bitch.” Vingt lunged at her, coming up short when Cinq grabbed him from behind. “Let go of me. Let…go…” He sagged, and covered his face with his hands.

Cinq turned him around and held on to him. Over the spiked blond head he said, “Thank you for telling us.”

“If you guys want to start going up to say good-bye to her,” she said, “Alex said it’d be okay.”

Sensing that they needed a little privacy, Nick went to the kitchen. There she found the big German brewing tea. “Got any wine?”

“In the fridge. There’s a case of some piss water the locals call beer, too.” He carried a cup of tea to the table and pulled out a chair.

Nick grabbed a bottle that had already been opened and an empty mug off the counter, and sat down with him. “Alex fill you in on what’s happening upstairs?”

“She did.” He stirred a spoonful of honey into his tea. “I should have realized what was happening. I have dealt with some accidental poisonings among children. The head wound distracted me.”

“There was nothing you could have done for her.” She uncorked the bottle, filled the mug halfway, and took a sip, grimacing at the undiluted taste of it.

“Here.” Neuf took out a penknife and began to roll up his sleeve.

“I’m good.” Nick watched him pull her mug across the table before he made a small incision in his wrist. “What are you doing?”

“Making your drink more palatable.” As he held his dripping wrist over her mug, he gave her a wry look. “If the green-eyed man were not with you I would permit you to bite me, but I think he would object to finding us having sex on the kitchen floor.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or slap him. “Maybe I’m not that easy.”

“Well, I am.” He handed her the mug before he pressed a napkin to the wrist wound. “We know what you and your friends are, lady, and you can trust us.”

“I’d rather do that than brain-wipe you.” She toasted him with the mug before she sipped the mixture of blood and wine. “Thanks for the donation.”

“My pleasure.” He sampled his tea. “You want to know why Simone and the rest of us came here.”

She moved a shoulder. “Would be nice to fill in the blanks.”

“We were trying to protect a cross that Simone’s ancestor buried on this island a very long time ago,” he said. “It was said to contain three flawless, priceless jewels set in the gold. Her father called them the Emeralds of Eternity. It’s the gems themselves that are said to bestow immortal life, but I don’t know precisely how. Only Helada is entrusted with that secret.”

“Explain something to me: Why do they always name priceless treasure something like that?” Nick asked. “I mean, if you want to keep them safe, why not call them the Worthless Fakes or Three Big Hunks of Cheap Glass? The Emeralds of Eternity. Please.” She made a rude sound.

“I wish we had found them.” He looked up at the ceiling. “They might have saved her life.”

“Emeralds don’t do anything but look great on red-haired chicks, my man. Doesn’t matter what you call them.” Nick heard a crashing sound from upstairs, as if large pieces of furniture were being thrown against walls. “What’s the German word for shit?”

Neuf got to his feet. “Scheiße.”

“Stay here and keep your brothers out of the way.” Nick ran upstairs to the bedroom door, ducking as part of a chair came flying through it.

“Korvel, calm down.” That was Alexandra, and she sounded pissed.

Nick stepped inside and saw her lover and the captain grappling on the floor. Gabriel came up on top, but not for long. Korvel threw him aside, rolling to his feet and going to the bed, where he picked up Alex’s case and shoved it in her hands.

“Do it, Alexandra,” he said. “It will save her. Do it, you heartless bitch, or I swear I’ll make you suffer.”

“Take your best shot.” Alex dropped the case on the bed and folded her arms. “Because I’m not doing it.”

“Whoa. Time-out.” Nick stepped into the room and helped Gabriel up from the floor. “Alex?”

“He wants me to inject her with my blood. Because Lucan used my blood to change Sam, the idiot thinks it will save this girl.” Her expression turned murderous. “But as I’ve explained to him—twice now—she’s not Kyndred. She’s a normal, garden-variety human. The minute I inject her, my blood will attack hers, eat it, and kill her.”

“You don’t know that,” Korvel bellowed.

“Okay, okay.” Nick stepped between them and pointed a finger at Korvel. “You. Stop tearing the place apart.” She turned to Alex. “Simone is dying. There’s no hope. No coming back from this. Are you sure about this?”

“She’ll be dead in an hour,” Alex said through her teeth.

“So inject her with your blood.” As Alex glared at her, she added, “If you’re right, it won’t make any difference.”

“Yes, it will, Nick. It’ll make a difference to me. I’ll be murdering her.” She took a deep breath and released it. “I’m a doctor. We take an oath to do no harm. I can’t inject her with toxic blood.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Nick studied her face. “What if Korvel’s right, and she changes? You’ll save her.”

“You had the change forced on you,” Alex reminded her. “You want to go thank Elizabeth for it? Oh, wait, I remember now. She’s dead. You had Richard kill her for doing this to you.”

“You finished?” Nick asked. When Alex looked away, she said, “Don’t use me and my shit to justify yours. My guess is you don’t want to inject her because you’re afraid it will work. If that happens, and the vampire king finds out? Your ass and your blood will be his.”