I swallow once.

No.

She’s wrong.

I tell myself that there’s no fire in my stomach.

I just didn’t drink quite enough. I wasn’t quite done when she walked in.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “You’re wrong. I just…I just need a little more. Watch. See.”

I stalk back to the human woman resting in the chair. She has a look of fear in her eyes for a moment that I completely ignore as I grip her shoulders. I sink my fangs into her neck.

And I drink.

Oh, it’s so good.

I pull. One deep pull. Another.

I feel the fire in my stomach and it grows smaller. I drink another pull, and the fire dampens a little.

My eyes open, and I stare with wide eyes at the stone floor.

I take another pull. I’m so close to putting out that fire. Just one more. I suck.

I just need one more. I draw again.

So close. My stomach only burns a little.

I pull again.

But nothing comes out.

I snap upright, letting go of the woman. She flops in the chair, hanging awkwardly over the side of it.

No.

My hands raise to my mouth, finding blood on my lips, dripping down my chin.

No.

No.

With eyes wide with horror, I look up at Cyrus.

I killed her.

I drained her dry.

But still there’s that little flame in my stomach.

Cyrus is white as a ghost. He stands rooted on the spot, he doesn’t breathe. Tears well in his eyes, and his lower lip begins to tremble.

“Cyrus,” I breathe, taking a step away from the body. I look down at her and shake my head. “No, I just, I just wasn’t paying enough attention. I…”

I look up, my brain stumbling over itself, going a million miles an hour, trying to come up with a solution, anything, to reason why I just did what I did, and why I’m still thirsty.

I meet my husband’s eyes again. His face breaks, though he tries very hard to keep control over it. He squeezes his eyes closed, bracing his hands on the back of a chair as he collapses forward, barely catching himself.

“No,” he whispers, so quiet my ears barely catch the word. He collapses down, dropping to his knees, even as he clings to the back of the chair for dear life. “No. No, no, no.”

It breaks me, and I completely forget Grace Stevens is still in the room. I’m at his side in the blink of an eye. I kneel down on the stone floor beside him. I take his hands in mine, but find him limp. I place my hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look at me.

“Cyrus,” I breathe. “Im yndmisht srtov. Cyrus, I…” But I can’t find any words.

I’m supposed to be strong when he is weak. I’m supposed to carry him. Because that is what marriage is—picking up the other when they’re down.

But I can’t find any strength right now.

“Cyrus,” I say as my voice cracks.

He opens his eyes. They’re bloodshot. They’re broken. Shattered.

He raises his hand to my own cheek, and studies my eyes. He searches deep, probing. He’s memorizing, I know it, learning every line and every curve.

He’s storing every detail for the time when he won’t be able to look at my face again.

He presses his lips to mine. The kiss is gentle, as if I’m instantly fragile. Like I’m about to break. His lips caress mine. They don’t move. He breathes a breath in, as if he can suck my soul into him and we can just inhabit the same body instead of mine wasting away before his eyes.

He pulls me into his arms, and he tucks his face into my neck. And here I can hold him. I can keep him upright. I can support him. I can keep it together as he falls apart in my arms.

I can’t believe it. After 286 years apart, we only got three months together. Seventy-nine days. Never has our time together been so short. Never have we been so robbed.

It’s not fair.

Not fair when this time was so different.

We should have had centuries together.

My shit luck continues, I think to myself.

Of course when I marry the perfect man for me I’d learn within hours that I would die soon. This is just my life. Everything is too good to last.

I lace my fingers through Cyrus’ thick hair, letting my eyes close.

Even if I had known from the start that this would be all we’d get, I wouldn’t change things. I would still have let myself fall in love with him. I still would have married him last night.

I love you, my heart beats, over and over and over.

Suddenly, Cyrus pulls away and turns back to Grace. “How long?” he demands.

She’s pinned to the spot by his smoldering gaze. He’s the ultimate predator and every nerve in her body knows it right now.

“I never know exactly,” she says. And to her credit, her voice does not tremble in fear. “But once I sense it, it’s never too long.”

Cyrus looks back at me, and we’re both thinking the same thing, doing the same mental calculations.

Once the unquenchable thirst starts, I’ve never had longer than three weeks.

“Once again I have shit timing, don’t I?” I say, doing the only thing I can think of right now, trying to lighten the mood. “Deciding to die right as we’re about to go to war.”

Cyrus shakes his head. I knew he wouldn’t think it was funny, but I had to say something. “I’m so sorry, im yndmisht srtov,” he says, once more bringing his hand up. He brushes his knuckles against my temple, brushing my hair out of the way. “For doing this to you. That you have suffered for my greed, for my ambition, over and over again. I…” his voice cracks and he closes his eyes for just a moment. “I wish I could take it all back.”

For a second, I’m scared. I wonder what is wrong. Because his expression suddenly goes blank. His eyes widen. His hand freezes against the side of my head.

I can see it in his eyes, the gears spinning in his head a billion turns per second.

Finally, he takes a deep breath, and I see something spark in his eyes.

“Alivia,” he breathes under his breath. He takes my hand, and before I can demand an explanation, he’s on his feet, dragging me with him through the Great Hall and out into the hallways.

“Alivia!” he bellows, looking every direction.

“Cyrus,” I say, trying to pull him to a stop. But he’s determined and focused. With singularity, he follows his ears up to the next floor.

“Alivia!” he yells, his voice filling the entire castle with its power.

Down the hall, I see her step out of a bedroom.

She’s terrified. From head to toe, I can read the fear off of her. I can sense her flashbacks of their past, when Cyrus tortured this woman, when he left scars so deep they took sixteen years to heal, and now only two seconds to reemerge.

“Was it true?” Cyrus demands, stopping just three feet from her, his hand still held tightly around mine. I’ve never seen this kind of focus on Cyrus’ face. Such determination. “Did he create it? Was he successful in making a cure?”

More of my internal organs disappear.

Cure?

“Cyrus?” I breathe, fighting through the confusion raging through me like a panicked toddler. “What are you talking about? What cure?”

Alivia’s eyes flick from Cyrus’ to mine. And I see it there. Written all over her face, over every inch of her body language. She knows something. Something important.

Something life-changing.

“Alivia!” Cyrus bellows when she hesitates in answering. He releases my hand and suddenly grabs her, gripping her upper arms and shaking her. “Did Henry really make a cure?”

“That would be impossible!” she yells. And I see a spark in her eyes. She’ll fight back. She yanks back, out of his grasp. She glares at him, stepping out of his reach.

“Don’t toy with me, Alivia,” Cyrus hisses. He takes a step forward, glaring death and curses at my biological mother. “In this matter, you have never learned your boundaries.”

“Cyrus,” I scold, stepping forward and grabbing him by the back of his shirt as he stalks forward and Alivia slinks back. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re acting like you’ve lost your damn mind!”

“I am losing my mind!” he shouts, turning, his eyes igniting red as he looks from Alivia to me. “I’ve only just found you, Logan! I will not lose you. Not this soon. Not ever.”

Instantly, Cyrus eyes soften. They break with grief.

“What?” Alivia breathes. “Lo…Logan. What is he talking about?”

I look at her, and in my brain, I open my mouth, and I very clearly explain it.

The curse is coming for me. My time is up. I’m going to start getting sick. I’m going to starve, no matter how much blood I drink. I’m going to wither and die a painful death.

It’s simple.

I’ve done it eight times before.

But my lips don’t part. Instead, the bottom one trembles, just a little.

It’s answer enough. The entire world knows the story. Alivia knows it.

She understands.

Without a word, she reaches out, grabbing my wrist and Cyrus’ and pulls us into her bedroom.

“Come inside,” she says before she looks both directions down the hall and then closing the door behind her.

Slowly, she turns around and crosses her arms over her chest.

“What does a cure have anything to do with it?” she asks simply.

I go to the chair in the corner, because suddenly, I am tired. Maybe it’s mental. I pretend there’s no way it’s physical. Not this fast. Not this soon.

“She cannot die Sevan’s cursed vampire death, if she is not a vampire,” Cyrus says.

My brain trips. It falls smack on its face, bloody nose gushing, and wonders what the hell just happened.

“I need the both of you to explain what you’re talking about,” I grit out from between my teeth, looking from Cyrus, to a very guilty-looking Alivia.

“Alivia’s father and I were enemies for centuries,” Cyrus says, obliging in giving an explanation. “Bad blood over other issues aside, there were rumors about some research Henry Conrath was conducting. Research on me.”

My eyes widen at the words, and I look back at Alivia, whose expression darkens. But she doesn’t say anything. She just stares at Cyrus.

“He’d taken samples of my DNA without me being aware, and had built a laboratory of sorts for the age, and was studying what made me what I am.” Cyrus’ grip on my hand tightens and I can feel his hatred, his rage. Cyrus hates this man, my biological grandfather, Henry.

“My spies broke into the lab, analyzed what Henry was working on,” Cyrus says. “They were not men of science. But they had their suspicions.”

My heart pounds a little faster.

“They did not seem to be complete, however,” Cyrus continues. “So I told them to return again in a year and see what became of Henry’s experiments. But when they returned, they found that the lab no longer existed and Henry had moved. To America, with his brother Elijah.”

This is one of those beautiful and incredible parts about what we are. Our immortality. The time that can pass, and the changes that can happen in those large spans of time.

“We watched Henry for years. As he bounced around New England, and then finally settled in that swamp you call home.” A little sneer curls on my husband’s lips as he looks at Alivia and recalls the area she rules. “We waited to see if he resumed his studies. But we never found evidence of a lab. So, we came to the conclusion that he had abandoned whatever study of my DNA he had been conducting. And then he was killed, sixteen years ago.”

I’d never heard Alivia talk about her father. I knew he had to have died, or he would have been ruling at her side. But here I hear it. The quick summary of his demise.

“But you think he created something?” I say, my voice quiet. I swallow once. The burn in my stomach is a little hotter, a little more present. “You think he made some kind of cure?”

Cyrus does not look away from Alivia. He stares at her like he can see right down to her soul and read the truth off of her blood cells.

“We thought he had created two cures,” he says. And when I smell the sweat break out onto Alivia’s palms, I see the smile begin to curl on Cyrus’ lips, just faintly. “A cure for the Bitten. I have my suspicions he used it on his friend, Rath. The man is neither human or vampire. I think Henry altered him, somehow made him age slower. And then I think he made a cure for any kind of vampirism. Even mine.”

Shit.

Shit.

No. No way. Not possible.

Not freaking possible.

“I really did think Henry Conrath was dead,” Cyrus says. He takes a step forward, and Alivia takes an equal one backward. “And was relieved for it. But then ten years ago, word of someone curing Bitten circulated back to me, and I remembered my old enemy.”

The smell of Alivia’s fear doubles.

“You are quite the actress, Alivia, I know this from experience,” he says as he drops my hand and takes another step forward. I climb to my feet, ready to pull him off of her at any second.

I’m just waiting for him to pounce.

He’s utterly terrifying right now.

“But I know how to put on a face myself,” he continues as his voice drops in volume. “Elle told me a beautiful story about how a professor helped her create a cure for the Bitten, but I knew better.” Cyrus smiles. And I love his smile, but it is the most frightening thing in the world right now. “I let her think I believed her. But it sparked my doubt. As far as we suspected, Henry hadn’t completed his cure for the Bitten, only experimented on Rath. But then I learned the cure had been in use for several years. So either Henry hadn’t utilized it for a space of time before his death. Or he never really was dead.”

Alivia doesn’t say a word. She just stares darkly at Cyrus, as if willing him to stop reading her so easily.

I realize that Cyrus has been quiet for a long moment. I look up at him at the same time he looks back at me. There are emotions beginning to pool in his eyes. His breathing is shallow. He’s trembling slightly.

His emotion draws my own out.

I’m not ready.

I don’t want to die.

I want to live. I want to live with Cyrus and have a life together.

It’s not been enough.

Not even close.

And I’m only twenty years old, damn it!

Cyrus turns back to Alivia. And to my shock, he drops to his knees in front of her.

“I know you hate me,” he says. “I know you and your family have every reason to. We’ve been enemies for so long. But Alivia,” he reaches forward, taking one of her hands in his. He presses his forehead to the back of her hand. “I will forget it all. I will erase it all, somehow. Just please tell me. Did Henry succeed in creating a cure?”

Alivia stares down at Cyrus, and I see tears gathering in her own eyes. She’s shaking. Like she’s holding something in. Like she’s not quite strong enough to keep it all.

Her eyes rise, and meet mine.

I feel tears break free from my eyes at the same time they break from hers. We’re staring at one another, trapped in this suffocating bubble of fear and uncertainty and secrets and lies. And lives are on the line. Hers. Mine. Henry’s, possibly.

The flames jump from my stomach up into my throat, and instinctually, I raise a hand to it, swallowing twice. But it doesn’t help.

It cracks her.

I might not love Alivia yet. But maybe she loves me.

Because she closes her eyes, forcing out a whole stream of tears. She covers her mouth with her hand, silently crying for a full minute. Her shoulders shake. Her hand, still in Cyrus’, trembles. But not a sound comes from her lips. Her crying is silent.

Just like mine.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want Alivia to have to betray her father’s secrets.

“He did,” she says. “He made it.”

I hear the air suck into Cyrus’ lungs once more. I feel his relief flood into the room. And it loosens my own lungs. I take a step forward, but I don’t know where I’m going or what I was going to do, so I stop, clutching my hands hopefully at my chest.

“Tell me where it is Alivia,” Cyrus begs. He presses his lips into the back of her hand, begging. Pleading. “Tell me where it is and I will give you anything in the world you want. Anything.”

Alivia’s lip continues to tremble, and even more tears streak down her face. Her eyes rise up to meet mine. “I don’t know where it is.”

Cyrus’ head drops. It hangs in defeat, and I feel it, too.

So close.

But we’ll never get what we want.

It’s part of our curse.

“While I was here a few weeks ago,” she continues, to my surprise, “Henry came to the House.”

At that, Cyrus’ head snaps up.

“He is alive,” he says. A statement. Not a question. Not a growl. Just a statement. A hopeful one.

Alivia nods her head. “He went to the House while Ian and I were gone. He had a lab, it was hidden, you’d never, ever find it. And he cleaned it out. When I got home from here, Henry was gone, and everything he’d ever created was gone with him.”

“Where did he go?” Cyrus asks with hope as he climbs to his feet, like he’s going to run out the door the second Alivia tells him Henry’s location.

Alivia shakes her head and shrugs. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Henry has come and gone the entire time I’ve known he was still alive. I think in part so you won’t ever find him and kill him.”

Her dark eyes tell me she isn’t happy about that fact.

Alivia never knew her father, had no idea who he was until he was supposedly killed and left his house and estate, and vampire heritage to her. So her time getting to know the man has only been since he was found to not be dead.

“Do you think you would be able to track him down?” Cyrus asks hopefully, ignoring her last statement. “Do you stay in communication with him when he is gone?”

Alivia sighs and turns away from Cyrus, taking a few steps away, as if she’s trying to collect herself. And I can’t blame her. This was massive, what she just revealed.

The fact that she did isn’t lost on me.

“Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes he drops off the face of the planet. Other times he calls every day.”

“And this time?” I ask.

She looks back at me. “I haven’t heard from him since he took off.”

My brain, which has been in war and survival mode for thousands of years begins trying to sort through what his disappearance with all his research means. What he’s planning to do with the cure for vampirism, and who knows what else.

But that’s not my biggest concern at the moment.

“Do you think you could track him down if you tried?” Cyrus asks. Once more, there’s that begging, pleading tone in his voice.

An ember lands in the back of my throat. I try to clear it quietly. But it still sits there, just smoldering, being annoying.

I cough again. Cyrus’ head whips back, and I see panic and fear in his eyes. I hold a hand up, trying to reassure him that I’m fine. For now.

“I will try,” Alivia says. And her tone has changed. There’s urgency in it now. “Give me a few hours to make some phone calls.”

Cyrus crosses to my side, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Do whatever it takes. Any resources I have are at your disposal.”

Alivia looks at me with wide, sad eyes, and nods.

Cyrus takes my hand and heads for the door. “Let’s get you something to drink.”

It’s only been thirty minutes since I last drank. But I’m already so damn thirsty again.