Demon in My View

She was trying very hard not to think about what this process was going to do to her. She knew only one story that involved channeling the vampiric aura: Midnight Smoke, mother of Ardiente Arun, had drawn the vampiric aura into herself to save a human from becoming one of them. Since then, all Midnight's ancestors had carried a vampiric taint. Ardiente and Midnight had split from the line they had been born in and become the first in the Arun line. Caryn was descended from their relations, who had continued the Smoke line.

Caryn was feeling light-headed. There was nothing more she could do for Jessica; if this wasn't enough, then nothing would have worked. She quickly closed off Aubrey's power centers, then her own, aware that if she passed out before doing so she would probably kill all three of them.

With her eyes closed, she focused on Jessica yet again, trying to ascertain what still needed to be done.

While most of her body had healed, Jessica was still all too human. The newly healed areas needed the support of more blood than she had. Fala had taken too much.

'We should get her to a hospital, or she's still going to die,' Caryn said, her voice uneven. 'She needs blood.'

For a moment Aubrey looked up, and his black eyes held no warmth as they focused on Caryn and then fell to her throat. She could see the effort as he turned his head away.

He was no longer the perfect, drop-dead-gorgeous immortal he had been. He was paler than ever, and his eyes were unfocused. He looked as if he had been drained as surely as Jessica had. Of course, when it came to his kind, power and blood were often all but interchangeable.

Caryn lay down as another wave of fatigue washed over her, and watched silently as Aubrey tried to rouse Jessica.

CHAPTER 31

Jessica could barely breathe past the pain in her chest. Every muscle in her body had cramped, and she was shivering with cold.

Jessica! She recognized Aubrey's voice in her mind, though she had never heard him sound so distraught.

Slowly she dragged herself into the waking world.

No, not dead …I wouldn't hurt so much if I was dead, she thought absently. It was difficult to form a coherent sentence.

Aubrey pulled her attention back to him. Not dead yet, he said quickly, bluntly. But you will be soon if we don't do something. He paused, shaking her a bit to keep her attention from drifting away.

Careful. I'm not sure that arm is still fully attached, she answered, her wry humor returning to her.

I can bring you to a hospital, and they can give you blood. There's probably still time, he told her. Or if you want it—I know you said before that you did—I can give you mine.

If she'd had the breath to do so, she would have laughed.

Did she want to be a vampire? To stay in New Mayhem, in the community that had been her life for years; to be with Aubrey, the only one she'd ever felt completely at ease with; to never be prey again?

Then there was also the bonus of immortality, and the tempting idea of pummeling Fala into a bloody smear on the wall.

You need to ask? she finally said, and heard Aubrey sigh with relief.

Of course, she would be the first of his line—her line, she amended, realizing she'd soon be a part of it—to have been asked. They had been changed for various reasons — on a whim, out of spite or hatred or love. But not one of them had had a choice in the matter.

Jessica smiled wryly as she realized the favor that Fala had unintentionally given. Jessica had fought for her life when Fala had taken her blood, and now had free choice as Aubrey offered his.

Aubrey drew his knife—the same one he had used to shed Ather's blood years ago, when he had been changed. He slid the blade across his skin at the base of his throat, and he pulled Jessica toward him to drink.

She had known this moment in the lives of each of her vampiric characters; had described it in words and tasted it in dreams. But never had she fully understood it.

As she drank, she closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the sweet taste and the feeling that came with it. The English language had no way to properly express this rolling power that filled her like blue lightning, slipping into every molecule of her body and changing everything it touched.

Jessica tried to cling to the sensation, but a gentle numbness began to ease across her skin and into her mind, like the first tendrils of sleep. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that her heart had slowed and stopped, and only distantly did she realize that she was no longer breathing. The inevitable blackness of death stole over her, and she succumbed to it willingly, trusting that she would wake shortly.

Jazlyn was in constant pain for the first few days, but even that pain served as a welcome reminder that she was alive.

The first thing she did was go to the church, inside which she had not dared set foot since the day she had been changed. The priest blessed her and listened to her confession, which she abridged for the sake of his sanity.

She thought she had been given another chance— a chance to leave behind the life of darkness and evil. When the child came — Carl's child, whom she should have had years before —she thought it was a sign that she'd been forgiven.

Instead, the child was a reminder of her past. Jessica was flawless, brilliant… and shadowed by the night. She looked nothing like Carl or Jazlyn; instead, she had Siete's fair skin, black hair, and emerald eyed.

Those eyes could look upon someone and see the darkest parts of their soul.

Jessica had spent more than twenty years in Jazlyn's womb, kept alive only by Siete's blood. She was more his child than Jazlyn's.

There was no way for Jazlyn to raise the child who brought back her every painful memory. No child deserved to have a mother who could not brush her raven hair, or look into her gemstone eyes, without shuddering.

Jazlyn put the child up for adoption, so that she could be given to caring parents who knew only of sunlight and laughter. Jessica deserved that life; she had done nothing wrong.

Jazlyn prayed that her child would never be touched by the darkness of her past.

CHAPTER 32

Jessica's heart had stopped. Her face was almost white, and as cool as the fall air surrounding her. She had died only moments before, as Aubrey's blood had entered her system. He left her side reluctantly to check on Caryn.

Caryn's breathing was slow and deep, and she seemed to be fine except for the cataleptic sleep she was in. At the moment Aubrey's hunger was more of a danger to the witch than anything else.

Almost without thinking, he brought both girls and himself to his seldom-used house in New Mayhem, where no one would bother them. The forest had far too many predators in it to leave them alone there, and he didn't know what Caryn would want him to tell her mother.