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“Michael—”

“Oh, it’s nothunteranymore, is it?” I demanded, desperate for any foothold I could find to push him away, so I wouldn’t have to hear any of this. My words came out harsh and scathing. “Gee, wonder why? Is it because we’re such good friends now?”

Thierry let out a bark of laughter, like I’d said something funny. “You know what, I think Idolike you. As strange as that is. I have a rather fellow-feeling for you, it seems.”

“Speak English,” I muttered, but without any heat.

It shouldn’t have helped that he understood my pain. But it did, a little.

I didn’t want it to, though.

The endless empty days yawned ahead of me, spent without Danny. I didn’t want anything to make that even a little more tolerable. Itshouldhurt.

“Michael, there was nothing human left in Nicolas.” Thierry paused. I could feel his eyes on me. “Just like there isn’t in Danny, anymore. He’s not who you loved any longer. The monster inside of him snuffed that man out.”

“How?” I demanded, my voice coming out raw. I met his gaze, feeling something in my resolve crumple and the agony was white-hot and searing, all over again. “I don’t understand howonefuck-up could do this to him!”

“We don’t know for sure why it works this way,” Thierry said, his tone mild. “No one does. But we do know that there is often a moment of anguish at realizing you’ve taken the life of another to satisfy your own hunger. When the totality of what you’ve done overwhelms you.”

He paused and the memory crashed back through me, of that awful moment of despair, when Danny had looked down at the young man at his feet and realized what he had just done. And I knew that Thierry was right.

He went on, “The vampiric instincts likely take over in that instant of weakness, when your ego has just fractured, and they override all of the human ones. The deepest most predatory part of being a vampire isn’t quite a separate entity in its own right, but it’s close enough.” He paused again, his words growing far softer. “I imagine it’s different for vampires who were cold and callous enough as humans to not mind killing someone else whenever it suited their needs. But for the rest of us, it’s no small thing to take a life. The first time you do it, it always breakssomething deep inside of you. Something that can never quite be fixed.”

Ice lanced through me at his words. Something about the final note in his words at that last part. And another explanation for why he had followed me out here slid into place.

Thierry wasn’t really here to comfort me, was he?

“What are you saying?”

“I failed Danny,” Thierry whispered. “And there’s only one kindness we can do for him now.”

I had killed dozens of monsters—hundreds, probably—but what he was suggesting still sent raw horror careening through me.

I shot to my feet without even thinking through what I was about to do next, already going for the gun in my holster. “No!”

I would stop him. I wouldn’t let him hurt Danny. I would—

The sun didn’t seem to have much effect on Thierry’s speed, because lightning-fast, he stood before me, his hands on my arms, pinning them to the sides of my body.

I practically snarled at him, meeting his too-blue eyes in defiance.

“Are you going to shoot me, Michael?” Thierry whispered, his voice going soft and dangerous. “You understand better than anyone what he has become.”

“No!” I hissed again, attempting to step backward, out of Thierry’s grip. But it was like trying to escape an iron vise. I couldn’t move. “I won’t let you kill him!”

“If Danny was still himself, I have no doubt that he would want us to ensure he couldn’t hurt any innocent people. And I suspect you know that. I swear to you, he will feel no pain. I will be very quick.” Thierry paused long enough for me to see the sadness in his eyes and register the complete lack of hostility in his words. “Think what you wish of me, but I will be merciful tohim. You have my word. I’ve already failed him once. I will not do so again.”

The memory of what happened in the mines shot through me again.

Danny, with his face dripping blood.

The body at his feet.

The coldest and most unfeeling part of him now fully in control. Icy rationality and logic. Hunger. And he had known that, unless I became just like him, I would stop him from having his fun.

He had been ready to finish me off, no longer seeing me as someone he loved. Instead, he saw me as a threat. He would have killed me, too, or else turned me into something just like him.

Except—