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“Not all,” Serge blurted. “Not all are with him.”

“I know. One of his most powerful has joined forces with me. I know he will keep Adilla from serious harm as surely as he will keep me.” Or try to. For all his strength and skill, Isao was no match for either Adilla or Dominique.

The relief in Serge’s voice was obvious. “This is most fortunate.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“All those blood-drinker lives that will be saved when Adilla lives.”

Dominique rubbed at his forehead, trying to massage bits and pieces of information together in his brain. “Including…yours?”

Another weighty silence. He could almost see his friend pick at one of the Hawaiian shirts he favored.

“Adilla is your sire, is he not?”

The answer was long in coming. “Yes.”

“I can see why you would try to kill him.”

“Tried, yes. And failed. Good thing, that. I didn’t know what it would mean for me if he died. But he left me alone after that. Tiresome idiot, that one. Mad with greed and a glutton for power. Always was. Easy for him to make bodies over nothing.”

“He almost made a body of me. Still, I will do all I can to not make a body of him. I will not bring harm to you or Isao. Did you not see this in my light?”

“I saw only that you will confront him.” Serge’s voice dropped to an anxious whisper. “Beyond that…I saw nothing.”

44

Choices

Ashowerofsparksin the darkness. She watched them, mesmerized, a million tiny suns, falling into an infinite void. More came. More fell.

Drink, mon amour. Drink.

Was she drinking? Drinking the light? It tasted of rain falling on snow. Of nights frozen in time. Of love, and of tears.

She tuned into her body in stages. Her mouth was dry, her tongue sticky. A manic, thumping energy vibrated in her chest. Arms and legs lay still, heavy and glued in place. Her belly…

With a gasp, Cassidy came awake.

It took a moment for her eyes to focus, several more to recognize her dim surroundings as a hospital room. She had no trouble recognizing the man in black leathers sitting on the side of her bed, the hilts of his swords protruding over his shoulders. It was his light-shower blood that coated her mouth.

“What—”

Dominique placed a finger against her lips.Shhh. Let her sleep.He glanced at the recliner in the room’s corner. Stretched out in it, covered in a blanket, was Francesca.

Cassidy lifted her arm to reach for him, only to find tubes and wires running from her body into a wilderness of bags and carted equipment. So familiar, all this. She’d been here before, been near death before.

Her right thigh and hip buzzed with strange electricity, and her mid-section twinged and churned.What’s happening to me?

I gave you my blood. It is healing you and burning all the drugs out of your system.

Healing me? From what?

Dominique wove his fingers with hers, squeezing gently. Colossal emotions moved in the shadows of his eyes.What do you remember?

She dredged through her reluctant memory banks. When Francesca stirred in her sleep, she recalled being with her at the hotel. It was morning. Jackson came. And then…and then…

It all came rushing in at once. The attack. The fight. The blood. So much blood. Jackson told her not to move. She’d rolled her eyes down. Saw something protrude from her gut. Then nothing.