“How did you save us? Leo and I were shot in the heart.”
“Unlike your friend Olive, the bullet damaged your heart but did not destroy it. Just as we can heal ourselves if given time, we can aid the healing of others. If we are willing to do so. You had fresh blood, but lacked the strength to fully feed due to your injuries. I mixed my own blood with that of the late Dr. Roseberry, to bolster your healing abilities. Thankfully, it was successful.”
“I didn’t know we could do that,” she said softly.
He nodded, looking down at his shoes. “This ability is not commonly known, and even less frequently used. We tend to be very solitary creatures, so the opportunity seldom arises. When it is used, it binds the injured party and the savior at a very deep level.” He sighed as if he could not believe it himself. “We are now bound in such a way. All of us.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
He shook his head. “I truly do not know. I have made the acquaintance of only one other vampire who ever used the ability. He refused to speak of it.”
“I don’t feel any different.”
“Nor do I, in any way that can be . . .” He smiled with ironic detachment. “Quantified.”
They stood in silence for a long moment. A pair of bats flitted from the warehouse into the sky. Behind her she heard movement as Mark and Leonardo stirred. The wind picked up, blowing a strand of hair into her eyes.
Finally Fauvette said, “So . . . you’re staying.”
He nodded.
She couldn’t hide a smile. “So what happens next?”
He plucked the hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “We move from the shadows into the light. We join the world. And we feed on it.”
CHAPTER 37
DANIELLE ROSEBERRY AWOKE encased in fresh cement, deep in the foundation of a new building. Above her, oblivious crews continued erecting the structure.
Her first sensation was of the confining, obscenely claustrophobic pressure all around her head. The wet concrete had sent tendrils up her nose, into her ears, and past her slack lips into her mouth, where they had solidified. When she tried to work her jaw her skin peeled free from the concrete surrounding it, and her teeth painfully struck the cement protrusion.
Next she realized she could not feel her body past her shattered neck.
And then she felt the thirst.
Trapped and paralyzed, unable to call for help, she managed a pathetic, gagged squeak of a scream when she realized she would now discover how long it took a vampire to starve to death.
Table of Contents
TITLE
Copyright Notice
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37