• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Hands touched my face, moved me to look at Jean-Claude and Richard. Their hands, one on either side of my face. Their hands were so warm against my skin. It took me a long second to realize that both of their hands felt warm. Had Jean-Claude gained so much power from feeding on Augustine, so much that he was hot to the touch?

I was having trouble focusing on their faces. I whispered, “Warm, you’re both warm.”

Richard spoke slowly, carefully, as if he thought I might have trouble understanding him, “Anita, you’re colder to the touch than Jean-Claude.”

I frowned at him, and tried to focus on his face. I could almost do it, but it was as if my attention kept wandering before I could make my eyes do what I wanted. “Wrong, something’s wrong.” Still a whisper, but I said it out loud.

“Yes,” he said, “something is wrong.” He looked at Jean-Claude. “I can’t feel her. She’s in my arms and I can’t feel her energy.”

“She is drawing away from us,” Jean-Claude said.

“Drawing away, what does that mean?” Richard asked.

“I believe ma petite is trying to break the bonds that bind her to us.”

“You mean break the triumvirate?”

“Oui.”

“Can she do that?” someone asked.

“Anita can do anything she wants to do,” Nathaniel’s growling voice said.

“I do not know if it is possible, but I know she is trying,” Jean-Claude said.

“It will destroy your power base,” Asher’s voice, though I couldn’t make my eyes search the room for him.

“So be it,” Jean-Claude said. I fought to see him clearly, watch him look to Richard. “Why the tragic face, Richard? You could be free of the triumvirate, Richard, free of me.”

“You know it’s what I want, but what would it cost us? She’s cold to the touch.”

Jean-Claude’s face loomed into view. “Ma petite, drop your shields. Drop them just enough for me to sense you. Let me share energy with you. You are unwell.”

I shook my head, and the world swam in streamers of color. I had a moment of nausea, and that was the moment that I realized I was sick. Sick at heart, sick of soul, sick of it all. Somewhere deep inside me, I was trying to undo all my decisions. I was trying to do a take-back, on a game that had played too far for a do-over. The front part of my brain knew it was too late, but it wasn’t the front part of my brain that was in charge. How do you argue with the subconscious? How do you argue with a part of your brain you don’t even know is there most of the time? The real bitch of the situation was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to argue.

I smelled the musk of leopard, and knew Nathaniel was beside me before his voice growled, “Damian.”

I opened my eyes, and found myself staring into a black blur of a face. Nathaniel moved back far enough for me to have a chance to focus on him. I repeated what he’d said. “Damian.”

“Damian will die,” Nathaniel said.

I blinked at him. I’d heard what he said, but it didn’t seem to make sense to me. It must have shown on my face because Jean-Claude said, “I do not know if what your despair attempts is truly possible, but if you succeed, Damian will die. His blood flows only with your power, Anita. Without your power, your vampire servant will rise no more from his grave. He will die, and remain dead.”

I stared at him, and again, it was as if his words didn’t truly reach me.

He gripped my arm, tight, and tighter, until it hurt, but even that was a distant hurt. “Anita, I will not be blamed for this. If you accomplish this miracle, and break free of all of us, then you will kill Damian. I will not have you later say you did not understand. I will not take the blame, not for this.” He was angry, but his anger could not touch me, and I was glad. His anger was no longer mine. I could cut him out, cut them all out of me.

Micah’s voice, from the other side of me: “Breaking the triumvirate won’t change the fact that you’re pregnant, Anita. You’ll still need to go to the hospital at two o’clock. That doesn’t change.”

I turned and looked at him, though it seemed to take a long time for me to do it. “The ardeur will go away.”

“Are you sure