Page 28

“So don’t.”

“It’s not so simple.”

“What—” She stopped. Dominique was ruled by his emotions, especially love—in all its forms. “You…you s-slept with her?”

“Sleep had nothing to do with it.” He paused before adding more quietly, “Not really.”

She bit down a fresh wave of disappointment, even jealousy, before anger seized her with a fiery heat all its own. There was no way she could compete with an inhuman lover, but there was far more to her relationship with Dominique than sex. So much that they treasured, and which had drained away on account of a vampire bitch who turned his head inside out. Were she to appear right then and there, Cassidy would have ripped her head off with her bare hands—or at least made a decent attempt at it before getting herself killed.

She took a deep, gasping breath that sounded more like the sob she had hoped to swallow. Wet, wintry air soaked her lungs. “How could you have let this happen?”

“Let this happen? I had no choice about it.”

“No choice? Really? Explain it to me. Right now. Just tell me. Everything.”

He scrubbed both hands across his face. How she wished she could see his eyes. Or sense his mind.

“She is stronger than I knew. Stronger even than Serge.”

“You’ve killed worse.”

“Oui. But none of them has ever deceived me like this. She altered her scent to make herself appear less of a threat. I was curious, and I let my guard down.” A passionate refrain followed in French, accompanied by a gesture of helpless disgust. Finally, he shook himself hard, spraying sand in every direction, and then sat on the driftwood log beside her. “She is toying with me. She could have killed me half a dozen times by now.”

Cassidy hoisted herself back onto the log and pressed her hands between her knees. “What were you curious about?”

“Blood-drinker things.”

“Tell me.”

“You wouldn’t—”

“You let me be the judge of what I can or can’t understand. I need to know what—” She heaved another involuntary sob. “I need to understand what is tearing us apart, because it’s tearing apart my sanity. Dominique, please. If you can’t show me, then tell me. I don’t care how. But please don’t disappear without an explanation. If nothing else, you owe me that.”

He looked at her for a small eternity. She refused to avert her gaze and surrender. She refused to give up on him, on them. It was getting damn cold out here in more ways than one, but hell was a long way from freezing over.

When he spoke, he sounded as miserable as she felt. “It was a beautiful dream, what we had, but I think we both knew it could not last.”

“That’s not an explanation.”

“Chère. I am a blood-drinker. A monster.”

“We’ve been through this. Stop hedging, damn you.”

“Your life is in danger every moment you spend with me.”

“You would never hurt—”

Suddenly, he was in her face, his nose smashing against hers. “I might. I would. I have.”

She pressed even closer, placed her frozen hands against his icy cheeks. “You would not. You love me.”

“I kill what I love,” he whispered. “One way or another, everything I love…I kill.”

She touched her lips to his and inhaled deeply. Calm settled over her, along with absolute certainty. There was only one way out of this. “Well then,” she said, preparing to leap into the abyss with him. “Don’t stop now.”

He struck so fast, if she hadn’t expected it, she would have missed the actual moment his teeth found her neck. A deep, potent bite, devoid of tenderness, and packing a massive quantity of serum. It reached her brain an instant later. After that, reality as she knew it vanished.

She didn’t have to reach for his mind; it rolled over her like a tsunami of rage, bitterness, and guilt. Her own anger, frustration, and sorrow rose to meet it. For one dark moment, he intended to take her life and rid himself of all that was still human in him. Then her soul touched his, and they were one again, a single being inhabiting two bodies, defining each other like light and shadow, each incapable of existing without the other.