why?”
“No, damn it.” His hand fisted around a pen on the desktop. “It’s because once I kill Syre, your body and soul will be your own. You won’t feel evil around you anymore. You won’t sense beings that aren’t human. You won’t have physical attributes that you’ll have to hide. You can be normal. Lead a normal life. Enjoy all the precious mortal things you haven’t had time for.”
There was a long silence filled only with the sounds of their mutual labored breathing. He heard a door close on her end of the line. “Syre says he can fix this. He can make it right.”
Adrian leaned forward. “Don’t listen to him. He’ll tell you whatever he has to in order to get what he wants.”
“He says if he completes the Change, you can have Shadoe back. Forever this time. Immortally.”
“Fuck no.” The room spun around him. “That’s not what I want.”
“Isn’t it? All those centuries… all those incarnations… You’ve found her and loved her. And lost her-over and over again. Now there’s a chance to stop all that.”
“He’s wrong, Lindsay.” Adrian heard the hoarseness of his voice, the brutal desperation, and wondered why she couldn’t. “He thinks Shadoe’s naphil soul-a soul that’s part angel-is stronger than yours. When she was alive, perhaps that was true. But she’s not. She’s a stowaway in
He heard a soft sob.
“Lindsay.” His eyes burned. His lungs were on fire. “Please. Please don’t do this. Let me come to you, talk to you. You’ve been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours. You’re reeling from your father’s death-justifiably so. You need time to think. Time to heal. Let me be there for you, as you’ve been there for me.”
“I don’t need to think about this. No matter which way things go with the Change, you’ll finally be free. Whether you’re free with her or without her, this horrible cycle you’ve suffered through will finally be over.”
The pen snapped in his hand. Black ink burst across the desk. “I can do the same thing by killing Syre. He started the Change; he’s the only one who can finish it. Let me do it my way. Let me take care of this.”
“Adrian-”
“I love you, Lindsay.
“I believe you love me,” she whispered, so quietly he barely heard her. “As much as you’re able. But that’s just another reason to finish this. As long as I’m out there somewhere, you’re never going to be able to let me go-I can hear it in your voice. You’re going to bash yourself against the rocks over and over until you’re completely broken. I can’t let you do it. At least once I’ve Changed, you’ll let me go. You won’t want me as a vampire.”
Adrian shoved to his feet, his BlackBerry cracking under the strain of his grip. “Lindsay!”
“I love you, Adrian. Good-bye.”
Lindsay stepped out of the bedroom, freshly showered and feeling cleansed inside and out. Syre waited patiently at the dining table. She had the feeling he was the type of man who could sit absolutely still for hours, waiting, his patience infinite and unyielding. So much control and power-it radiated from him as it did from Adrian. Adrian, whose beautiful voice had slashed and whipped with the force of his emotions. She was making him more human by the day, weakening him when he needed to be the strongest. Seeing Syre face-to-face proved that to her more than anything else. The vampire leader was a formidable force to be reckoned with, and his second was a homicidal manic. In the days ahead, Adrian would have to be at the top of his game in order to survive.
“Are you ready?” He stood in a display of sleek fluidity and grace.
She nodded. “Yes. I’m ready.”
He gestured for her to return to the bedroom.
“Can you tell me what’s going to happen?” she asked, lying on the bed as directed. Her heart was racing so violently she thought she might have a heart attack.
The vampire leader sat on the bed beside her and took her hand in his. He met her gaze directly, his perfect features soft with affection. Just looking at him told her what a stunner Shadoe must have been. An exotic beauty whose love had enslaved Adrian forever.
“I’m going to drink from you.” His voice was as warm and intoxicating as heated brandy. “I’m going to drain you to the brink of death. Then I’m going to fill you back up with the blood from my veins and it’s going to Change you.”
“My soul will die.”
He looked for a moment like he might lie to her. Then he nodded. “Mortal souls don’t survive the Change. But if it’s any consolation, I think Shadoe will have absorbed some of you over the time you two have been together. You might continue to exist in that way. I don’t think you’ll be completely lost.”
“But you don’t know.”
“No,” he agreed. “You are unique.”
She exhaled a shaky breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Syre brushed the hair back from her forehead. “You really love him. I wish I understood why. Every time you come back, you love him all over again.”
Her eyes closed. “Please. Just get this over with.”
She felt the humidity of his spice-scented breath against her wrist, then the sharp sting of his bite.
Lindsay floated in an oddly warm miasma. Like a swimmer on her back, she drifted languidly, all sense of time and urgency gone.
Around her, waves of memories rose and crested. Some were hers; most were not. She sifted through them with a lush fascination, watching reels of events like movies. So many versions of herself, as if she were the only actress in an endless play with multiple characters, settings, and time periods.
In the back of her mind, she registered a distant burning. Around her, smoke and fire licked along the shores of her memories, making the water boil until it was uncomfortable against her bare flesh. She tried to twist away, then to dip beneath the waters, but below the surface there was no bottom. There was only an endless void and the tickling sensation of that abyss suckling at her toes, luring her downward.
She broke the surface and returned to her horizontal position, keeping her legs away from the seductive pull below.
There was no escaping the growing heat.
Turning her head in search of the speaker, Lindsay discovered a woman floating nearby. An exotic and breathtaking woman. A woman whose rich beauty would make a stunning pairing with Adrian’s dark magnificence.
“Shadoe.”
Shadoe’s mouth curved. “Hello, Lindsay.”
She reached out and they linked fingers. A swift rush of cooling relief raced up Lindsay’s arm from the contact. Her mind filled with images of Syre and a beautiful Asian woman. They were laughing. Playing. Chasing two young giggling children through a field of tall grasses. Syre had wings. Great, magnificent wings of azure blue that perfectly matched the color of his irises. They spread and stretched in a visible manifestation of his joy. He lifted the little girl high and kissed her forehead. Lindsay felt the press of those lips against her own skin, felt the rush of paternal love that accompanied it as if it were for her.
Syre set Shadoe down and chased his son, an adorable boy with chubby arms and legs. Shadoe moved to where her mother was laying out a picnic. She sat on the edge of the blanket and tossed small pieces of some kind of vegetable near the edge of the clearing, where the grasses began their domination of the landscape.
A small rabbitlike creature appeared, soft, fluffy, and white. It followed the vegetable trail to Shadoe, who stroked its trusting head with her fingertips. When the creature grew bolder and reared up to set its front paws on Shadoe’s thigh, she laughed with delight and scooped it up like Syre had done to her only moments before. She
