Page 78

Tobias and Bryan both wore matching expressions of alarm at my words. It would have been funny if the situation didn’t feel so deadly serious. They exchanged a startled, bewildered look.

“That’s hardly an option, hunter!” Thierry hissed, stepping further into the room. “What you’re suggesting is pure insanity.” He gestured to the young man on the floor. “Then I will havetwohungry newborn vampires to control.”

“When this guy wakes up, I can put him under a sleeping spell until we get him back to Seattle.” Tobias paused, then lifted his gaze to meet mine. And I saw from the grim set of his expression that he understood exactly what I intended. “I know a spell that can suppress your feeding instincts long enough to talk to him. I’d need to maintain line of sight and there’s an incantation I’ll need to chant, but it’ll buy you enough time to talk to him.”

I nodded. That was good.

Thierry gritted his teeth at that. He shot Tobias a dark look before turning back to me. “You’re talking about trading away your humanity on the insane belief that there’s anything you cando.But there’s not.”

“There’s still a chance,” I shot back, digging in my heels. “The thing wearing Danny’s face thought about turning me, back in the mines. And I heard Danny tell it no. Danny wouldn’t let it hurt me.” I turned away from him, fixing Bryan with a hard look. “He’s still in there. Please help me.”

“Michael, are yousure?” Bryan asked.

“I’m going to spend every single day of eternity fighting for him. It’s not even a question.” I flashed him a smile that feltghastly, with broken jagged edges. “It’s hard to believe, after the way you and I first met, that it’s going to go this way. But on the plus side, we’ll have a shit-ton more in common now.”

Tobias joined Bryan on his feet. He exchanged a long look with Bryan before turning back to me. “This is permanent. There’s no coming back from this.”

“I know,” I said. And somehow, in that moment, I had never been more certain of anything in my entire life.

Tobias seemed to see that written all over my face, because he nodded.

I turned back to Thierry, who was still watching me steadily, his expression now unreadable. And I said, “Do the right thing, Thierry. Turn me. Make me into a vampire. Help me. Because I’m not done fighting for Danny and I never will be. I know you understand that.”

“What if you lose your humanity too, hunter? What if your mate convinces you to kill, so you can join him fully?” He paused. “You’ll still be a newborn vampire, with the same instincts as his. The warlock will only be able to suppress your urges for so long. You might end up sharing Danny’s fate, rather than undoing it.”

I understood what he was driving at. What if I gambled away my mortality, only to become a monster every bit as dark as the creatures I had spent half of the last decade killing? I could become just as bad, if not worse, than the creatures who had murdered Joshua in front of me.

“If that happens, I suppose you’ll need to kill us both,” I said firmly. “But I won’t walk another day on this earth as a mortal man. And if you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who will.”

“You truly mean that,” Thierry stated, frowning. But there was a grudging sort of respect on his face. And something else, too. Something that looked almost like the first glimmering edges of hope.

Swallowing hard, I nodded.

“Well, fate always wins out in the end, doesn’t she?” Thierry said, still considering me. “She’ll get her way eventually.”

“What does that mean?” I demanded.

Thierry gave me a thin smile. “A friend once told me that a fated connection will be whatever it needs to be, in order to draw two souls together. And I pray she was right.”

Before I could reply, Thierry’s fangs dropped, and he bit into his own wrist lightning quick.

When he held his arm out to me, the wound was dripping black blood. His strange blue eyes were impossible to read. He paused, then raised his eyebrows and added, “It means I’m going to help you, hunter. Obviously.”

I blinked at him, my jaw dropping open.

Belatedly, I realized I had expected him to say no.

And though the situation wasn’t remotely funny, I still couldn’t help the startled laugh that escaped my lips. “Deep down, you’re actually kind of a nice person, aren’t you?”

Thierry scowled at me. “Drink up, hunter. Before I change my mind.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE || DANNY

Ididn’t go back to Ontario once the sun set.

I was hungry, so I went to Boise instead. There was a nightclub there, right in the downtown corridor, that I knew from previous trips to the area would be packed with people. It would be exceptionally easy to dance, perhaps have a cocktail, meet someone single and lonely, and lure them away from the others…

On foot, it took me well over an hour to make it there, even moving at top speed.