Christopher had lost his reasons for refusing, and all three of them knew it. Sarah’s blood was in the air, along with the tension from the fight. Christopher’s control was already weak, and now the predator had taken control.
Nikolas reached around Sarah and held her wrists, as Kristopher wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her still.
Sarah gasped as twin sets of fangs pierced her skin, Kristopher on the right and Nikolas on the left. Without her magic she had no further defense, and she collapsed beneath the combined pressure of their minds. With Nikolas and Kristopher still at her throat, she sank to her knees.
Both brothers pulled away after a few moments, and their gazes met for barely a second.
Nikolas turned away first, bent to retrieve Kristopher’s knife from where it had fallen, and handed it to his brother.
Kristopher took the knife as if he were in a trance and made a cut just below his own throat.
Sarah turned her head away, but Kristopher forced her to look at him—and at the line of blood that beaded on his skin. They had barely taken any of her blood, but even so she could feel the thirst that always fell on a vampire’s prey, and she could not look away.
“No.” Her voice was soft, almost frightened.
Kristopher touched his fingers to his own blood and painted her lips with it, forcing her mouth open. She tasted the blood of the damned, and she could not resist.
Leaning her head forward to the cut on his chest, she drank. The blood was sweet and thick and magical, and she wanted it so much—
He pushed her away after a moment, and Nikolas turned her to himself, drawing his blade across his own skin, a mirror wound to Kristopher’s.
Once again she drank.
Then Nikolas pushed her away too, and she felt her mind spin downward as the blood entered her system. Blackness finally swallowed her, and she fell into the oblivion of unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 28
ADIANNA HAD HER KNIFE in her hand as she shouldered open the front door, but she already knew there were no vampires within a mile of her. Her senses were stretched so far she could feel the heartbeats of the human inside and those of most of the humans on this block. Worse, she could feel Sarah, her aura muted from Dominique’s binding of her powers, and her heart beating frantically.
All this she knew before she even stepped into the front hall of the house. Her eyes took in, but her mind ignored, the artwork, the roses on the table, and the open box of chocolates on the mantel.
More vividly she saw the droplets of deep red blood, not yet dried, but scattered as if from a minor wound on a fighting person.
She should have guessed what Sarah would do. Adianna herself would have done the same, if somehow she had ended up in the same situation. Better to die than to face the humiliation of being disowned. Better to die with your pride intact than to live without it. They had both been raised that way, but Adianna had hoped so fiercely that Sarah would choose life. It had been almost two hours later that she had sneaked back to Sarah’s room, only to find her already gone.
Sarah’s spilled blood, blond hair, and flushed skin were the only color in the room. She lay on a plush black couch, where it seemed someone had gently set her down. Adianna could see the faint mark that attested to an almost-healed wound on Sarah’s right hand, though she knew there had been no mark there earlier in the night.
The fact that the new injury, no doubt the source of the blood on the floor, was nearly closed scared Adianna more than anything had since their father had died. No witch healed that fast.
Her power flared as she knelt by her sister’s side. She was dangerously close to losing control, but she knew of nothing on earth that would make her pause to regain it.
Sarah’s skin was hot to the touch, and Adianna clamped her jaws tight as she saw the faint blush of blood on Sarah’s mouth. Reaching out with a tendril of magic, she found the poison in Sarah’s system.
They had given her their blood. Whether they had intended to blood bond her or to end her life did not matter. Sarah was a Daughter of Vida; her witch blood would destroy the invading vampiric blood, and probably destroy the body it was inside in the process.
A healer might have been able to do something, but any healer would have consulted Dominique before treating Sarah, and Dominique would have told them to let her die. Adianna would have to try on her own.
She knew what the consequences could be. This had not been attempted since Jade Arun had tried to heal her young daughter thousands of years ago. Since then every witch in the A run line had been born with vampire blood. But if that was the price, Adianna would pay it.
She placed her hand over Sarah’s feverish brow, closed her eyes, and tried to sever the bonds the vampiric blood had already made on Sarah’s flesh.
She knew from the start it was a lost cause. The infection was too deep, and it had leached onto Sarah’s blood too firmly.
“Damn it, Sarah!” Adianna’s own shriek startled her back to the real world. “Don’t you
The effect was similar to jumping into freezing river rapids headfirst, bogged down by pockets full of stones, with salt in her eyes, and every inch of skin raw to the bone. First she severed the ties Dominique’s magic had fastened over Sarah’s, and then steeled herself for her next move.
Sarah’s magic was killing her as it killed the vampire blood. If Adianna could not pull out the vampiric toxin, then the only thing she could do was cut away the magic that was fighting it.
She was in Sarah’s mind as well as in her magic, and even though she did not want to hear, she knew the truth. She could save Sarah’s life by destroying her magic, but she knew quite clearly that her sister would rather die.
She held Sarah’s life and magic between two fingertips. She could snap each with a thought.
Instead, trembling, she withdrew, breath dragging through her lungs with difficulty. The sun had completely risen while she had been drowning in Sarah’s power, and she knew that the faint, cool sensation of someone’s aura brushing over her was not new. He must have been there for hours, kneeling silently, slightly behind her and to her left.
She turned slowly, drawing the knife from her wrist as she did so, and he did not move to stop her.
“How is she?” Christopher asked, his voice soft.
Her voice cut as sharply as could her blade. “How did you think she would be after you gave her your blood? She is going to die.”
Christopher’s carefully neutral expression crumbled. The vampire leaned back against the wall and his eyes closed for a moment.
“I didn’t think,” Christopher answered quietly, raising his black gaze to meet the hunter’s. “I lost control.”
Adianna was Dominique Vida’s older daughter. She had always been the strong sister, the one who honored the line, the one who made Dominique proud. She, more than anyone, knew exactly how much could be destroyed by losing control even for a few moments. She could also see how painful the confession was to the vampire.
Perhaps seeing Adianna’s reluctant understanding, Christopher added, “I love her, and I never meant to hurt her. And I
He stepped toward Sarah, and without thinking, Adianna moved between the vampire and her sister. “Get away from her.”
“You’re Sarah’s sister,” Christopher said, his voice tight. “Do you really want her to die?”
