All Just Glass

safely say.”

Sarah was about to reject the idea again, but then she hesitated. Facing Kaleo the way Christine had was incredibly brave, considering her previous experiences with him. The seemingly frail human had been ripped from her own life as surely as Sarah had been, and this was the one comfort she asked.

Sarah realized, suddenly, that part of the sympathy she was feeling wasn’t hers. She was picking up on Kristopher’s thoughts again. She had forgotten to shield against him, and he had no ability to mask his mind.

She made an effort to block him out, but the damage—if that was what it was—had already been done. She could not be as cold and practical toward Christine as she wished to be.

She nodded. “We’ll just have to be careful.”

“Good,” Nikolas said. “Meanwhile, Kristopher and I should go and speak to our people. They need to know the situation.”

Sarah nodded, wondering with frustration, When can we kill Kaleo?

There. That was her cold practicality coming back to the surface. She wanted him gone, and making vampires gone was a task she knew how to handle. The ancient Roman had come to them this time looking for help to save one of his people, but that didn’t negate his history of destroying anything and anyone who got in his way.

She must have projected the thought, because the brothers responded to it. Kristopher nodded to Nikolas, who waited with Christine while Kristopher pulled Sarah into the next room. In the past Sarah had been able, with effort, to communicate silently with Adianna, because they were close and they had often mingled powers for a hunt, but full-blown vampiric telepathy was a talent she would need some time to get used to.

“Killing him would kill Christine,” Kristopher reminded Sarah, his voice every bit as bitter as she felt. Killing a bloodbond’s master was almost always fatal to the bond, as the vampire’s death was felt by the bonded human. The shock too often caused the body simply to shut down.

“I could protect her,” Sarah said. “It will take me a while to get the hang of using my magic again, now that it’s been changed by mixing it with vampiric powers, but I can feel it and I know it’s not just gone. I don’t know any magic that can break a bloodbond, but with effort, I should be able to block Christine’s connection to Kaleo long enough that she wouldn’t feel his death.”

Kristopher paused to consider, but finally shook his head. “Kaleo already knows what thin ice he’s on; that’s why he didn’t dispute our claim on Christine when we insisted on bringing her to stay with us. Nikolas and I would love an excuse to challenge him, but to do so now, especially when our actions have put his people in so much danger, would be seen by others of our kind as unprovoked.”

“I find myself hard-pressed to care about the opinions of other vampires,” Sarah said. “And even Nikolas said he would kill him. He said it to Christine.”

“And you’ve never said anything in a moment of anger that you couldn’t follow through with?” She didn’t know how to respond to that, but a moment later, Kristopher spared her the need. He ran a hand through his long hair, frustrated, as he said under his breath, “Of course not. Vida control. You never say anything you don’t mean, right?” He sighed and added, “I admire your self-discipline. It’s not a trait most of our line shares, which is why we tend to hold to certain understandings, including that we don’t kill each other over personal vendettas. If we did, we really would be the animals the hunters see us as … except there wouldn’t be any hunters, because we would have killed ourselves off long ago.”

Sarah was stunned, both by the bitterness in Kristopher’s tone and the notion of such “certain understandings.” She wasn’t fully convinced that Kaleo wouldn’t someday need killing, but she would hold her tongue on the subject, at least until the current crisis was dealt with.

Nikolas returned, expression somber. “Christine is activating one of the phones. It looks like it might take a while. Are we going to help Kaleo?”

“Will Heather help the hunters?” Sarah asked. Nikolas and Kristopher both shook their heads without even needing to consider. “Then they’ll hurt her. She’s old enough, and close enough to Kaleo, that if they decide she’s useless, they might even kill her to weaken him.”

“And we’ll risk our necks rescuing her in order to help that bastard.” Nikolas sighed. “Sarah, help Christine make her call, but get away from her before … Just get away from her.”

“I’m not sure she should be alone right now,” Sarah said.

“We won’t be long,” Nikolas said. “Trust me, Sarah. You don’t know what a newly made vampire’s hunger can be like.”

“We’ll help you feed safely as soon as we get the word out about the Rights,” Kristopher said. “For now, be careful.” He bent his head to kiss her, and whispered, “I love you,” against her lips.

The brief touch of lips to lips should have been comforting, but for some reason it gave her chills. How many times had Kristopher said he loved her? She had never said it back to him. Should she?

Kristopher paused, as if hoping for a response, but then drew away. She didn’t dare look at his mind; she didn’t want to know if he was disappointed or relieved.

She felt numb.

The brothers both left, and Sarah sighed as some of the hard questions were deferred. She went to check on Christine, who was still struggling to activate the cell phone.

The tears on Christine’s face made Sarah freeze in the doorway and think, I don’t know how to handle this.

While Sarah tried to figure out what to say, Christine abruptly threw the phone across the room with a frustrated shriek. “Why do people have to be so stupid?” she cried as the phone broke through one of the windowpanes.

She stood up, and Sarah’s first instinct was to tell her to sit down, shut up and cope. If anyone had a right to hysterics, it was Sarah, right? But Sarah was a daughter of Vida, and she wasn’t allowed such a luxury, even now. It didn’t matter that the sister who had once studied Vida law beside her was now using it to remove all barriers to killing her.

She found herself staring at the shards of glass hanging loosely in the shattered window. She wanted to convince herself that even if Dominique had called the Rights of Kin, Adia would never follow them, but no matter what Sarah wanted, that was too selfish a thought to contemplate. There weren’t that many Vidas left. Adia couldn’t throw it all away.

Sarah was standing there, immobile, when Christine flung herself into Sarah’s arms and began to weep, her sobs almost as loud as the heartbeat that suddenly seemed to ricochet through Sarah’s bones. She could feel Christine’s pulse everywhere they touched as Christine shrieked, “I’m so … so … tired of being helpless!”

Sarah shut her eyes, trying to block out the sensation of the human’s pulse and the scent of her skin.

“Robert tried to protect me. You protected me from Kaleo even though it meant trusting Nikolas. Nikolas and Kristopher try to protect me now, and I’m grateful and I do feel better, but I’m—” She broke off with a hiccup. “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry, Sarah, I’m so—” She choked back another sob, struggling to control herself, as she pulled herself back. At the same time, Sarah regained her own control, so she could meet Christine’s eye without tasting the human’s heartbeat on her tongue. “I’m so selfish. This has to be so hard for you. I wish, for once, that I could be someone who could fight, who could help, instead of someone you need to protect.”

Sarah didn’t think. She wasn’t good at giving emotional comfort, but there was one thing she knew, and knew well, that she could use to help Christine. She asked, “Do you want me to teach you how to fight?”

Christine looked up slowly, seeming bewildered by the offer. “What?”

“You said you felt helpless,” Sarah said. “I can teach you how to do things like protect yourself, and the people around you.”

Christine gave her an odd look, partly of longing and partly of skepticism. Sarah expected her to say something denigrating her own potential as a fighter. Instead, she said, “Umm … I don’t know how to put this, really, but … your family’s methods for teaching fighting are kind of …” She trailed off, considered for a moment and then concluded with “cold.”

Cold. That was one word for it. Sarah flexed her hand as the memory of her mother’s reaction to her father’s death passed through her mind again.

Nikolas and Kristopher had told her to get away from Christine because they worried Sarah would lose