“Is he gone?” Overstreet asked.

Hewitt switched on the porch light, then peered out the window. There was no sign of the girl, or the vampire. “Looks like he’s taken her.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here while we can,” Overstreet said. “I don’t want to be here if he comes back tomorrow night.”

With a nod, Hewitt unlocked the front door and stepped outside. Overstreet joined him moments later, his eyes wide and scared as he glanced from side to side.

Sliding behind the wheel of his car, Hewitt switched on the engine, wondering if he had completely lost his nerve for the hunt. And what he would do if he had.

Cradling Shannah in his arms, Ronan transported the two of them to his house, materializing inside Shannah’s bedroom. He drew back the covers and put her to bed. She was pale, so pale.

And cold. He drew the covers over her, stroked a lock of hair from her brow. Her heartbeat was slow and unsteady, her face was deathly pale, her breathing shallow and labored.

Her time had run out.

Kneeling beside her, he lifted her head, then bit into his wrist and held it to her mouth. “Drink, love,” he coaxed.

She was too weak to argue.

He spoke to her while she drank, telling her that he loved her, begging her to fight, to tell him what he should do.

He felt the blood flowing out of him, knew she was taking far more than she ever had before.

He waited for her color to improve, for her breathing to return to normal, for her heartbeat to become regular. Waited, and then waited some more, but there was no change, no visible improvement. He recalled telling her that he couldn’t keep her alive forever, but he had hoped his blood would prolong her life for years to come instead of just a few months.

“Shannah. Shannah, love, what would you have me do?”

She moaned softly. Her lips moved, as if she was trying to speak, and then she was still once more.

Her heartbeat was faint, so faint that even with his preternatural senses, he could scarcely hear it.

“Shannah!” He was losing her. He could feel her slipping away with each labored breath. “I can’t let you go. I can’t, and I won’t!”

And yet, how could he bring her across? She had told him time and again that she didn’t want to be a vampire, that she didn’t want to survive by drinking blood.

“Do you want to die?” he asked, knowing she could no longer hear him. “Is that what you want?”

Rising, he paced the floor, his frustration growing with each step he took as her heartbeat grew slower, fainter.

How could he bring her across without her consent?

How could he let her go?

He tried to imagine his existence without her, but it was no use. She had become a part of him, as necessary to his survival as avoiding the sun.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he drew her into his arms. Tears stung his eyes as he murmured,

“Shannah, love, forgive me.”

And then he bent his head to her neck, his eyes closing as his fangs pierced the tender flesh of her throat. And all the while, he despised himself for the overwhelming sense of pleasure that spread through him as he drank her life and her memories, her hopes and her dreams. He drank it all, hating himself as he did so, praying as he had not prayed in centuries that she would forgive him.

He gazed down at her, fear striking his heart. She was on the very brink of death now. Had he left her enough to survive the change? With a cry of despair, he savaged his wrist again and pressed the bleeding wound to her lips.

“Drink, Shannah,” he urged, his tears dampening her cheeks. “You must drink. Now. Hate me if you must for what I’ve done, but please, love, don’t leave me to walk the earth without you on it.”

She lay still and pale in his arms, her heartbeat so faint now it was all but undetectable.

“Drink, Shannah! Dammit, you will do as I say!” he commanded, pleased when, ever so slowly, her mouth closed over his wrist. Smiling faintly, he stroked her hair. “Drink, my love. Drink, and live.”

He closed his eyes as she took what she needed. And there was pleasure in the giving, even more so than in the taking. If she needed every drop of his blood to survive, then so be it. He would gladly give up his existence to extend hers. He had lived for hundreds of years. She deserved as much, and more.

He opened his eyes when she pushed his wrist away.

“Shannah?” Her name was a sigh on his lips, a plea, a prayer for forgiveness.

“What happened?” She glanced around, her brow furrowed in confusion. “How did I get here?

What happened to Hewitt and Overstreet?” Sitting up, she stared at him a moment, her expression puzzled. “Why can I see your face so clearly when the lights are off?”

“Shannah…”

She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell? And that noise?”

“Shannah, listen to me…”

She licked her lips, and grimaced. “And that taste…” She looked up at him, her eyes widening.

“You gave me your blood again, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s different this time.” She frowned thoughtfully for a moment, as if trying to put all the pieces together. “Why is it different? Why are you looking at me like that? Why…?” She clutched her stomach, a groan rising in her throat as she doubled over in pain. “What’s happening? I’ve never felt like this before. I’m dying, aren’t I?” She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fright and resignation. “In my room, letters to my parents…” She groaned again, an animal-like cry of pain and fear. “Ronan, hold me! Please, hold me. I’m so afraid.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, lightly stroking her cheek and the side of her neck with the backs of his fingers.

“It’s all right, love,” he murmured. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“But I am afraid. I don’t want to leave you…I don’t want to die.”

He should have told her the truth, but try as he might, he couldn’t form the words. She would know the truth soon enough. And she would hate him for it.

He held her all through the night, comforting her as best he could as her body cast off the last vestiges of illness and mortality and began to adjust to its new preternatural state.

At dawn, she went still as the daytime sleep of his kind claimed her. He put her to bed, then went through the house, making sure all the doors and windows were closed and locked. It was then that he saw the broken window in the kitchen. There was no need to wonder who had done it. Cursing softly, he went back upstairs.

He couldn’t leave Shannah in the upper part of the house, alone and unprotected, as long as Hewitt and Overstreet were in the area. He didn’t credit either of them with enough sense to leave town.

Lifting Shannah into his arms, he carried her down to his lair in the basement. Knowing it would frighten her to awaken in his casket, he lowered her into the chair, then went back upstairs to get the mattress, pillow, and blankets from the bed.

He held her in his arms until the Dark Sleep tugged at him, held her, wondering if he would ever have the chance to hold her in his embrace again once she realized what he had done.

Kissing her tenderly, he put her to bed, then climbed into his own resting place and closed his eyes, truly afraid, for the first time in his life, of what the night would bring.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ronan woke an hour or so before the sun began to set. Rising, he immediately went to Shannah’s side. His Shannah, now cursed with the Dark Trick because he had been too weak, too selfish, to let her go. Never had she looked more beautiful. Her skin was radiant, her hair more lustrous than ever.

He knew it would be another couple of hours before she woke. Fledglings required a great deal of rest. Only after a hundred years or so did they grow strong enough to rise before the setting of the sun.

Needing to touch her, he brushed a kiss across her brow, laid his hand against her cheek, then drew back.

The thought of facing her filled him with renewed terror. Would she accept what she had become? Would she refuse to accept it and walk out into the sunlight and end her new existence before it had truly begun? Or would she hate him for a thousand years and more?

Too agitated to remain still, he went upstairs where he paced the halls, his senses focused on the woman sleeping below—the barely audible beat of her heart, the lingering scent of her perfume, the remembered taste of her life’s nectar on his tongue.

Shannah.

She had been sunlight to his shadow, light to his darkness. She had brought him laughter and a joy in his existence that he had never known before. She had given him her love and her trust, and he had betrayed both in the worst way possible.

The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon when his senses told him she had awakened.

A thought took him to her side. He found her sitting cross-legged on the mattress looking beautiful and bewildered.

“Ronan, what am I doing down here?”

“I didn’t feel it was safe for you to be upstairs alone.”

“Not safe? Why not?”

“Have you forgotten about Hewitt and Overstreet?”

Her eyes widened as memory of the night before returned. “How did you get me away from them?”

“We made a deal.”

“A deal? What kind of a deal?”

“I promised not to kill them if they let you go.”

“That was very clever of you,” she said, smiling. “But surely you don’t think they would try to kidnap me again?”

“I don’t know what those two are capable of, but finding out isn’t a chance I’m willing to take.”

She lifted her arms overhead, stretching her back and shoulders, and then ran her fingers through her hair. “I must look a mess.”

“You’ve never been more beautiful. How do you feel?”

She canted her head to one side, taking mental inventory. “I’ve never felt better,” she declared.

“I didn’t feel this good even before I got sick. Why is that? And why can I see you in the dark?”

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