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“But go he would,” the voice murmured. “He would have no choice. Unless . . .”

“What happened to him?” Gillian said, her heart in her throat.

“The same thing that happened to me. He shook off the flesh he had assumed, and let his essence merge with a tree on a nearby hill. Once he was bound to it, even Artemis’ power had no control over him, for he was of this Earth now.

“He became the first of us, and the fey taught some of the people how to talk to him.”

“Is he . . . here now?”

“No, for when he bound himself to a living thing, a mortal thing, he accepted that his life would end when it did. But I like to think that some part of him still resides with us. He loved this world so much—and he understood, as so few do.”

“Understood what?”

“That there is no love without sacrifice.”

* * *

Kit pelted through the woods in a state of blind terror, knowing that he had to stop but being physically incapable of doing so. The madness of the skies overhead didn’t help, nor the flickers of strange, unearthly colors glimpsed from the sides of his eyes, nor the wind’s ungodly howling. Which was why his headlong flight continued, right up until he dodged to avoid a tree and it dodged with him.

“Augghhhhh!” he screamed, flailing back from something that his overwhelmed mind belatedly identified as another vampire, but only after he had used his master’s power to punch a hole through the bastard’s face.

Or he would have done, had the blow connected. But the man somehow dodged despite being at point blank range, and Kit abruptly found himself on his back, with the tip of a strange looking sword under his chin. And a giant with auburn hair glaring down at him.

Kit’s eyes crossed and his scream cut off, mainly because he was afraid to move his throat. A flick of the bastard’s wrist could slice through his jugular, and they were in a forest. There was no lack of stakes around!

So, he stayed still, not even returning the creature’s glare because he was too busy sorting out a hundred conflicting emotions. But that was before a thread of scent reached him on the air, elusive, barely there, and yet unmistakable. And this time, the blow he sent at his captor not only connected, but caused him to go flying.

“Gillian!” Kit was on his feet, screaming her name in an instant, and listening with everything he had for an answer, but none came.

Not from her, at any rate.

But the giant had returned, and he was displeased. At least, Kit assumed that was why his back suddenly hit a tree, with his toes dangling several feet off of the forest floor and his neck captured in a grip of iron. But at least his legs were free, so Kit kneed the bastard in a vulnerable spot, kicking out with all he was worth, and heard him grunt.

But he didn’t let go.

He did, however, tighten his grip, to the point that Kit could feel his eyes bulging and was fairly certain that his head was about to pop off his neck, like a cork out of a bottle.

“Kick me again,” the creature growled, “and—”

Kit kicked him again, being too desperate for good sense, and the vampire cursed and released him. Only to bring that damned sword back into play the next moment, giving him a bit of distance from Kit’s boot. And this time, Kit felt a trickle of his own blood course down his neck as the blade bit into his skin.

“Are you mad or simply stupid?” the vampire demanded.

“Depends which day,” Kit rasped, and saw the creature frown.

“And which is it this day?” another voice asked, coming closer.

Kit almost flinched, because this voice he knew.

“Mircea?” He stared at the bastard who had been lurking outside the alehouse whilst the world went to hell, and doing fuck all about it!

“Yes, our apologies,” his fellow master said, moving the sword tip aside with a finger. “I did not recognize you.”

A torch was thrust into Kit’s face then, and the swordsman stared at him for a moment, before moving aside some of his curls. And then had the audacity to roll his eyes. “You might have warned me,” he said to Mircea.

“Ah, you know him, then.”

The giant cursed and released him, causing Kit to hit the forest floor like a dropped sack of sand. “How much information did you glean from that simple question?”