Shattered Mirror

Evidently, Nikolas had the same thought, because Sarah saw instant hatred on his face. He stepped forward a pace and Adianna drew her knife.

“Come any nearer, and you won’t be pleased with the results,” Adianna warned.

“Tell you what,” Nikolas said slowly, glancing from Adianna to Sarah and then back. The other vampires had disappeared, leaving Nikolas alone with the two hunters and a scattered handful of groggy humans; Sarah could tell he was stalling for time. “Only Sarah is in my plan for tonight. I’ll let you leave safely, if you will do so now.”

Adianna did not wait for him to continue but attacked instantly. No hesitation, no thought, just pure Vida skill.

Nikolas dodged, but Adianna turned quickly, cutting into his side. Sarah had just drawn her knife to join the fray when something struck her from behind, sending her stumbling. More astonished than frightened, she twisted and detached the human who had attacked her, knocking the girl out with a small burst of power.

A quick scan revealed two more humans on their feet and ready to fight if necessary, but Nikolas did not need the help. Sarah heard something in Adianna’s arm snap as the vampire slammed her back into the wall.

“Nikolas, let her go!” Sarah shouted.

“Why?” he asked, his hand over Adianna’s windpipe, ready to crush it.

“Adianna isn’t involved in this—she only came because she heard I was here. Let her go.”

“Christopher wouldn’t have told her where I was unless she hurt him,” Nikolas growled.

Sarah advanced, careful to keep the humans from her back, and Nikolas’s grip on Adianna’s throat tightened. “The hour has fallen, Sarah—I could kill her before you could get near enough to hurt me, and you know it.”

“Then how about I leave now, while you are busy with her?” Sarah bluffed. “It would ruin your plans for tonight, wouldn’t it?”

Nikolas hesitated. “I suppose it would dent them a bit.”

“Let her go, Nikolas.” Adianna was turning blue from Nikolas’s grip, and it took all of Sarah’s will not to attack.

“You are in no place to make demands, Sarah, but I’ll make a deal with you anyway. Marguerite?”

One of the humans answered. “Yes?”

Sarah spared a glance and recognized the girl from SingleEarth. Nikolas’s marks on her dark skin looked like pearl inlays.

It was not these designs, though, that sent dread down Sarah’s spine. There were two more on her left arm, which must have been tucked under the girl when she had been brought to SingleEarth: one was a teardrop, and the other was a second signature.

Kristopher.

“Sarah,” Nikolas said, “Give your knives—all of them—to Marguerite so she can bring them upstairs, and I will let your sister go safely.”

She believed him. However warped, somewhere within Nikolas’s twisted mind was a sense of honor.

Of course, if she relinquished all her weapons, Nikolas would probably killher. And it wascompletelyagainst Vida rules to surrender arms to any leech.

“Fine,” she answered, drawing the first knife from her back.

Nikolas loosened his grip on Adianna’s throat enough that she could breathe, and Adianna immediately said through her teeth, “Sarah, what are youdoing?”

She did not answer.

Adianna had never broken the rules. She hadn’t befriended the vampires or made deals with them. She hadn’t revealed her powers to a human boy. Stronger and colder, Adianna was the one more likely to survive after this night, and so Sarah had to do what she could to help her. The Vida line had to go on, and Adianna was a better Vida than Sarah could ever be.

It seemed to take a long time before Sarah had finished stripping herself of weapons, but it was all too soon that Nikolas asked Marguerite to bring them upstairs, and Sarah was left standing before the vampire unarmed. Nikolas pulled Adianna away from the wall and disappeared with her.

He reappeared alone in an instant. With luck, he had simply put some distance between Adianna and this house. With less luck, she was somewhere in Europe, trying to find a phone to call Dominique to arrange a plane home.

CHAPTER 20

“NOW WHAT?” Sarah asked.

“No fight, Sarah? No bold words?” he asked, stepping toward her. “Are your knives all that give you courage?”

“My knives are necessary for me to kill your kind,” she answered. “But they aren’t my courage. I’m not begging for my life, either.”

“You never will, will you?” he asked, as he took hold of her right arm. He bent his head down to the rose and licked away the thin line of blood that had gathered on the stem. Then his lips moved to her throat.

Once again she started to pull away, but this time she had no knives to threaten with, and Nikolas’s grip was tightening. His fangs brushed across her throat and she braced herself for pain.

He raised his head to look her in the eye.

“It doesn’t hurt, Sarah,” he said, as if reading her mind. “And I’m not going to kill you. What are you afraid of?”

The unknown,Sarah thought. What exactly did this creature have planned? But she didn’t ask, because she didn’t really want to know. “Just get on with it.”

With his free hand he leaned her head back, his fingers running through her hair, strangely gentle.

“Nikolas, let her go.”

Nikolas raised his head, allowing Sarah just enough room to look to the speaker.

“Christopher.” Nikolas’s eyes lit up as he whispered his brother’s name. “Care to join me?”

“Let her go, or I will take her from you,” Christopher ordered, his voice unwavering.

“You can’t,” Nikolas answered. “Youcould,physically—you know I wouldn’t fight you—but you can’t by law.” Nikolas gestured to the thin line of blood on his side where Adianna’s knife had pierced the skin. “Her sister drew blood. I have claim on Adianna and her relations.”

Blood claim was one of the few laws vampires regularly followed. In return for the blood Adianna had drawn from Nikolas, no other vampire was allowed to interfere if he wanted to harm her or anyone in her family.

Christopher closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Don’t hurt her.”

“Whoever said I was going to hurt her?” He sounded so innocent, it made Sarah nervous.

“Iknowyou, Nikolas,” Christopher argued.

“Once you did,” Nikolas said quietly, sadly. “We—not I, butwe—were the most feared of our kind. Rome, Paris, New York—every city in the world was ours. What happened to Kristopher and Nikolas, who would hunt side by side, sharing the blood, dancing in the streets?”

Nikolas gestured to the wounds on Sarah’s arms. “These marks wereours,not mine, and everyone knew it. Now, even the hunters have forgotten you. When was the last time I saw you place your mark on your prey?”

“Marguerite,” Christopher answered, lost in memory. He stepped forward until he was standing in front of his brother. “She was the last.”

“Why?” Nikolas asked, voice barely audible.

“Let it go, Nikolas,” Christopher ordered, his voice shaking slightly. “That was fifty years ago.”

“I can see it in your eyes, Christopher,” Nikolas whispered to his brother. “You remember. Why did you leave me?”

“I stopped killing, Nikolas—”

“You stopped living!” Nikolas shouted, his emotion breaking any control he had. “I look at you, and all I see is