using words, so just as he was about to open the door, Ronan showed him his true self. “Look at me!”
It was like watching a horror film unspool and bleed out into the room, the unimaginable coming to life. His boyfriend, his absolutely beautiful boyfriend, was changing right in front of his eyes. His hands and his feet were growing, spreading out, the spaces between each finger and toe being filled in by the same kind of webbing that Michael had seen on his own hand in his vision just minutes earlier. His eyes that were so blue—Michael knew for sure that they were blue—were now like white-hot flashes of light, and his fangs, dear God, he had fangs, sharp, smooth, deadly. Michael couldn’t move. If he was breathing, he was doing so only because his body remembered how. His mind had forgotten everything, everything except what Ronan had said. He was a vampire. And if that was true, then so was he.
“Ro … Ronan … what … has happened to you?”
“Don’t be afraid,” Ronan said. “Please don’t be afraid.” He slowly moved toward Michael, who involuntarily cowered. “No, no, I would never hurt you.”
Michael closed his eyes. He wanted to run from the room, run as far as he could, back to the safety of his old bedroom, but he had no strength, so he shut his eyes and chattered like a child. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this is make-believe.”
“No, Michael,” Ronan said. “This is our reality. We are a special breed of vampire. We can walk in the sun, we can live normally, and we are immortal. You and I will be together, in love, forever.”
He couldn’t take it any longer. The fear, the anger, the betrayal couldn’t be concealed and controlled, so Michael allowed them to be unleashed. He kicked Ronan squarely in the stomach and sent him flying across the room, smashing into the wall. The stones shook and a spray of dust hit the air. Before Ronan hit the floor, Michael scrambled to his feet, grabbing the sunglasses that were lying next to the bed, and bolted out of the room. He didn’t know where he was running to, but he had to get away from that thing that pretended to be his boyfriend. Maybe if he ran far enough and fast enough, the horror of the morning would turn into a harmless memory, and his life would go back to being what it was just the other day. But the farther he ran, the farther he knew his life had already changed and not for the better.
Just as he entered The Forest of No Return, he heard Ronan running behind him. He was gaining speed. He knew The Forest better than he did, and Michael was sure he wouldn’t be able to outrun him here.
But Michael didn’t realize he had a protector.
“Michael, wait!” Ronan called out, his bare feet hardly touching the stones and ground beneath him, and Michael stopped, not because he was obeying Ronan’s command, but because he saw the fog.
The mist encircled Michael and for a split second he remembered something: He had been here before, lost, walking into fog, then when he woke, he thought he was being attacked by an animal with long fangs and white lights for eyes, an animal that turned out to be Ronan. “Oh my God, it’s all true,” he murmured. “It’s always been true.”
As the fog rose all around him, Michael turned to see Ronan standing only a few yards away, his chest covered in sweat and heaving, his face distraught. Gone were the fangs and the distorted hands. He was back to being the Ronan he knew and loved. And then suddenly all he could see all around him was gray smoke. He pressed against it, but it was hard as cement, impenetrable. “Ronan!” he cried, but the sound just echoed within his tomb. Falling to the ground, Michael cried out again, but this time his cry was devoid of any love and was filled with hatred. “Damn you!!”
On the other side of the fog, Ronan pounded against the barrier, but just as Nakano had come to realize, Ronan knew that it couldn’t be penetrated. Whoever was responsible for creating this protection made sure that its detainee was secure. Ronan understood how charms worked and why they were used, and he knew this one’s purpose was to separate him and Michael. He would leave for now and allow it to win, but he would be back to take his place at Michael’s side where he belonged. First, however, he needed to get advice from someone who was far more experienced dealing with the unknown.
“Why would someone want to prevent me from helping Michael?” Ronan asked.
“There are countless reasons, dear,” Edwige said. “Too numerous to mention.”
“I’m only asking for one!” Ronan’s voice bellowed throughout his mother’s apartment with such force, the painting on the wall shook, the waves moving as if alive. Edwige didn’t chastise her son for his outburst; she understood that he was distraught. His lover’s blood and soul were pulsating through his veins and what he thought would be a glorious morning spent offering himself and his betrothed to The Well had turned into a nightmare. But Edwige knew from experience that every nightmare, no matter how horrific, had an ending.
“Has this fog ever separated the two of you before?”
“No.”
“Has Michael ever mentioned it to you?”
“No, Mother, never!” Ronan rose from his chair and started to pace the room, the untied laces of his sneakers failing about at his feet. But before he reached the other end, he stopped. “Yes! Once, once he mentioned a fog.”
“Think,” Edwige ordered. “Think clearly and tell me what he said.”
Ronan closed his eyes and looked into his memory before conveying what Michael had told him. “He was lost; he was walking on campus at night looking for me and he got lost. I found him the next morning in The Forest. He said he had no idea how he got there, but he remembered seeing a fog and then getting very tired.”
Edwige glanced at her painting, which loomed heavily in the room. “He was out searching for you?”
“Yes, he was on his way to my dorm but lost his way,” Ronan said.
At another time, when matters weren’t so serious, Edwige might not have said what was on her mind, but this was no time for caution. “It sounds like Brania’s work. It appears as if They are desperate to prevent you and Michael from coupling.”
For once his mother was wrong. “No, that’s not it.”
Turning to face her son, she said, “I know you would prefer it be something else.”
“It is something else! That was the night Penry was first attacked … by Nakano. And Michael was only a few yards away. I never understood why Nakano didn’t attack him as well, but now I know Michael was being protected. Trust me, if I couldn’t break through that fog, there’s no way Nakano could.”
Her son made sense. If They didn’t want Ronan to transform Michael, why would They create an obstruction to stop Nakano from getting there first? However, They were a hideous race and their intentions were rarely compassionate. “Something isn’t right,” Edwige declared. “There’s a piece missing.”
“The fog is protecting Michael, but not from me. If it were, I would never have been able to transform him last night.” Edwige almost had to look away when she saw the veil of sadness cover her son’s face. “But now he’s out there alone. He has no idea what’s happening to his body and he thinks … he thinks I’ve tried to hurt him.” A mother never wants to see her child cry, even a mother as unskilled as Edwige. “Doesn’t he know how much I love him? Doesn’t he know that I can’t live without him?”
The last time Edwige cradled her son in her arms was when she told him his father had been killed, destroyed by their enemies. That was also the last time she felt tears sting her own eyes. She could sense that the pain Ronan was feeling now cut just as deeply as the pain she had felt that night. “I need to find him,” Ronan said, his voice cracking. “I need to bring him to The Well so he can feed before it’s too late.”
Edwige hated giving in to such human frailty, but maybe it was time to let go of some of the pain, some of the rage. “You have time, Ronan. You have until your next feeding.”
When Ronan looked up at his mother, it was almost too much for her to bear. She wanted to look away, she started to, but she compelled herself to look into the eyes of her son, just as she had compelled herself to look into the eyes of Saxon before he left this earth. “But what if he doesn’t want me? What if he hates me for what I’ve done and I’ve lost him forever?”
Edwige understood the need to ask such questions. She also understood that it was a complete waste of time because she had been asking her own useless questions for years. What if someone comes into your house in the middle of the night and takes your husband from you and your children? What if the last time you see the man that you love, love more than you thought you were capable of loving another being, human or otherwise, he is surrounded by a mob carrying torches, tied to a stake, covered in gasoline, begging for his life? What if you could erase all that from your past? “That will not happen.” Edwige cried. “Not again.”
She bowed her head and rested it against her son’s, fighting to let go of the image of one man, the first to
