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She loathed breaking the silence, but for this answer she could wait no longer. “Where is Kambyses?”

Dominique raised himself up far enough to peer down at her with sad human eyes. Even the gold flecks she so loved to watch dance with mischief were muted. “He lives.”

“Obviously. But he didn’t just let me go, did he?”

He tucked in his chin and looked away. “No. He did not.”

The building anxiety threatened to eat up all that precious fresh blood in her veins. “Jackson said…Jackson said you and Kambyses came to an…agreement.”

“Of a sort.” His mouth twisted with irony. His eyes glistened when they met hers again. “I…I have accepted what I am, Cassidy. I will fight no more.”

Chills raced up her arms. “What…what does that mean?”

“It means…that my place is with my sire. Allowing you to remain mortal is—”

“The bribe?”

“No. It’s…it’s his gift to me.”

“Allowing you to turn me was supposed to be his gift.” Her voice wobbled. Sobs gathered beneath a hard lump in her breast. “We were going to be together. Forever.”

“Oui. Forever with him. And he could have turned on us any time. We would have existed in constant fear of his whims. You deserve so much more.”

“Now I’m human and even more vulnerable.” A strange ringing filled her ears, along with the sound of her heart slamming hard enough to bruise her ribs. She almost didn’t hear him.

“Not if you never see either of us again.”

She moaned, a primal sound of denial. This could not be happening.

“You deserve a life, Cassie.” He captured her hand and squeezed, as if that would persuade her of his argument.

With her free hand, she grasped his forearm, the hard muscle and tendons achingly familiar beneath her fingers. She gripped hard, holding on to him, to life. “I can’t live as half a soul. I can’t.”

“Serge could com—”

“No, don’t you dare. If he makes me forget, all I’ll have is an emptiness in my heart I won’t even know can be filled. I’ll be hollow until the day I die.”

The shimmer in his eyes swelled and broke free into glistening tracks down his face.

Questions tore from her body in raw, bleeding chunks. “Why didn’t you give me the blood? Why didn’t you turn me? Why didn’t you give us the time to figure this out? Why?”

He drew an unsteady breath. “Because, mon amour. We were doomed from the beginning. An immortal and a human. It was madness. Madness,” he repeated in a terse whisper, his French accent thickening.

“It’s the only true thing I’ve ever known.”

He pressed his hand to the side of her face. “For all the rest of my nights, I will never forget the gift of your love, of this magical light you have brought into my lonely darkness. You, Cassidy, allowed me one final, precious glimpse of the life I loved. For this, I will be forever grateful. But I know now what I am, what I must do. Kambyses has shown me. There can be no going back.”

She sobbed without reservation now. Her entire body shook with grief. Her fingers clawed into his arms as though she could keep him there with her mere mortal strength alone. Forever. “You should have turned me. Why didn’t you turn me?”

He scooped her up, lifting her into a sitting position, pulled her close. Tremors chased each other through his bunched muscles.

His whispers brushed her ear, words from another reality. “You deserve to live the life I will never have, Cassie, mon cœur. That is my gift to you.”

41

Gray Reality

Jackson ate the stale muffin, drank the lukewarm coffee, and did his level best not to think about what might be going on behind the closed door of Cassidy’s room.