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“You’re wasting your time,” Alessi said. “You’re not going to convince him.”

Samuel wanted to strangle her.

“We’re not killing him,” Isaac said, running a thumb along the back of Samuel’s hand, as if to comfort him.

Samuel flinched away as best he could, and Isaac stepped back.

“Stop being weak, de la Cruz,” Alessi hissed. She lifted a wicked looking dagger, long with jagged edges, and placed it over Samuel’s throat. “I can do it if you’re too squeamish. I’ll even make it quick.”

“No!” Isaac grabbed her wrist, pulling her away from Samuel and shielding him with his body. “You will not do that.”

“He’s not going to join us!” Alessi wrenched away, jamming her blade back into its sheath. “And you cannot let him go—you’ve jeopardized everything for this Aberforth.” She spat his name like it was a curse.

“Let me take care of it,” Isaac said, his voice soft and heavy with a dark promise that Samuel didn’t want to see fulfilled. Even if his other option was facing Alessi. “When he sees what we can offer he’ll reconsider.”

Alessi studied him for a long moment. “You really think it will work?”

“I know it will,” Isaac said. “Let me prove it.”

“You’d better be right.” She stalked away, leaning against the wall to watch. “Do it.”

Isaac turned around, closing the distance between them. Samuel raised his head, trying to say his name, to reach him somehow, but it was only a slurred mess of sounds that carried no power or significance. Frowning, Isaac dragged the claw-tip on his thumb against Samuel’s throat, the skin splitting and hot blood leaking out.

Dipping his head, Isaac sank his teeth against the soft skin of Samuel’s throat, and he sucked hard enough to bruise. Samuel tilted his head back, his eyes fluttering closed, as both fear and pleasure coursed through him.

He would always be weak for Isaac, and it would be his greatest downfall.

Isaac pressed his lips to Samuel’s cheek—a promise, and then whispered, “I swore to help you, and I will. But this will hurt.”

A little blood glinted at the corner of his mouth, and his tongue peeked out, lapping it up. Then it began.

Fire.

It was fire.

Samuel’s whole body arched against the table as the heat raged through him. Somehow, Isaac was burning him alive, and he couldn’t even scream—couldn’t even breathe. Sweat broke out across his skin as his blood literally boiled in his veins, burning and healing and burning and healing.

Isaac took his hand, his fingers unnaturally cool against him, and he broke the skin at Samuel’s wrist. Lowering his head, he sucked the hot blood into his mouth, taking and taking and taking. Samuel watched, helpless, tears leaking from his eyes. He could feel his energy, his very life, slipping away with each pull of Isaac’s mouth, only to feed back into him in the form of fire.

He could see the effects of it in his hands, the way his very veins were darkening as the blood continued to burn, standing out in stark contrast to his pale skin. He could feel it working in him, as something deep within, as delicate and ephemeral as lace, was destroyed—burned away until nothing but ashes was left. The tattered remains of the power he had carried within him for so long.

Somehow, some way, he felt the brush of Shan’s mind against his—a faint and tenuous bridge. Her fear and panic seeped into him, but all he could hear was the roar of blood in his ears.

He wanted it to stop. He wanted to pass out. He wanted to die.

But Isaac’s grip kept him painfully, awfully conscious, until at last Isaac stepped away, snapping the bridge of power between them like it was nothing at all.

And Samuel collapsed back on the table as the last rush of Blood Healing flowed through him, leaving him whole but spent, broken by the sudden lack of pain, but consumed by the sudden aching emptiness of loss.

No one moved—neither Isaac nor Alessi did a thing. They just stood in silence. Watching. Waiting.

“Ungag him,” Alessi commanded.

Isaac swallowed hard, then did as he was told.

The mask fell from his face, and Samuel gulped down deep breaths of air. Isaac vanished, reappearing seconds later with a glass of water—it was warm, but it was clear and clean, and it felt blissful against his parched mouth.

“It’s okay, Samuel,” Isaac whispered as he carefully tipped more water past his lips. “Do it.”