I never felt so... so wonderful. I felt as though I had come home. I was in the arms I had always longed for, with the man I had always wanted.

"I promised to protect you," he said sorrowfully. "And I failed."

"No," I said. "Never."

"I have cared for no one as I care for you. I do not have the words to describe how you make me feel. I never want to lose you, Eva."

"You won't," I said. Desire raged through me. I lifted his shirt and stroked his stomach.

"I would bind with you," he murmured against my lips. "For us, a hundred years would pa.s.s as if it had been a day."

"You're crazy," I said, but my heart jolted. Was Lor saying he'd marry me? He was such a poet. Such a lovely, sweet poet.

"Shouldn't we date first?"

"Anything you wish," he murmured.

He was kissing me dizzy. Really dizzy. I felt faint. Reluctantly, I pulled back. "Lor, I feel strange."

"Me, too. You drive me mad."

"Ditto. But this is something different." My whole body went cold, then hot. My stomach clenched and my head squeezed.

Darkness roared at me. I saw Lor's shocked expression right before I pa.s.sed out.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Jessica. Sheesh. This was really getting to be a pattern.

"I'm sorry, Eva. I'm so f.u.c.king sorry."

"What are you talking about? What's happened now?"

I saw Patrick next to Jessica, his gaze filled with sorrow.

"Oh, my G.o.d. Tamara."

"She's fine," rea.s.sured Jess. "She's in the kitchen with Durriken and Helene's sitting between them."

If my daughter was okay, then what was the issue? "Did the library burn down?"

"No. Ralph has that handled."

Well, then, if Tamara was safe and my home was safe, that meant I must be the cause of my friends' concern.

My heart squeezed. Had Charlie given me something that was worse than drugged blood? He was a human. I was a vampire.

Supposedly, as one of the undead, I had a G.o.dlike immune system.

"I fainted," I said. "Isn't that an odd thing for a vampire to do?""Well, yeah. Sorta." Jessica looked uncomfortable and twitchy. Patrick put his arm around her and drew her close.

I was torn between demanding the truth and delaying hearing the bad news. My stomach felt lined in lead. Whatever they had to tell me, I was sure it didn't involve winning the lottery or discovering a lost Shakespeare play.

My gaze swept the s.p.a.ce. This wasn't the same room I'd had before. I couldn't pinpoint why the decor, or rather the lack of it, bothered me.

The door clicked open, stalling the bad news. Lorcan slipped inside.

Lorcan's gaze captured mine. His eyes reminded me of storm clouds, especially with those raven eyebrows always dipped into twin frowns.

"Evangeline."

He adorned my name with such tenderness that I felt an unaccountable need to weep. I couldn't explain the feelings that overtook me. I was just so glad to see him, to know that he was near. He coasted to the other side of the bed, picked up my hand and kissed my knuckles. My skin trembled under the softness of his lips.

"A stoirin," he murmured. He glanced at Jessica and Patrick. "I will tell her."

Jess and Patrick nodded, their gazes filled with concern and, if I was any judge, fear. I watched them leave. As the door shut with a metallic thud, I suddenly realized why I had been bothered by the room's setup.

It reminded me more of Faustus's cell than of hospitable accommodations. I had no doubt it was locked from the outside. Were they protecting me from another kidnapping attempt? Or were they protecting others from me?

I didn't think I'd like the answer.

"I'm thirsty." I licked my lips. "Jess fed me, too."

"That was yesterday evening," he said. "You've slept through again, Eva."

"I seem to be doing that a lot lately." I sighed. "It wasn't the drugs that did me in this time."

"No. We took you to Stan and kept you unconscious to run tests."

Had it been capable, my heart would've leapt out of my chest. My mother, tired and pale for weeks, pa.s.sed out at work. I took her to the hospital emergency room. The doctor was friendly but patronizing, too. We'll keep her overnight, run some tests.

Probably just stress and exhaustion. Don't worry, Miss LeRoy.

When I returned the next morning, my mother told me the truth. Terminal cancer. No surgery, no radiation, no drugs could arrest the disease. Two months later, she was gone.

My eyes ached with the need for tears. Had someone taken a torch to my throat? It felt dry and crispy. I wanted liquid. I wanted blood. "Is there a donor available?"

"We cannot give you a donor." He cupped my hand in both of his. "But we are looking into an alternative food source for you."

My stomach did a slow dive to my toes. "Oh, G.o.d. Lor, what did Charlie do to me?"

"When you were taken from the hospital, do you remember anything prior to stumbling into the Roma camp?"

I nodded. "I had an odd dream that someone opened his wrist and made me drink his blood. It didn't taste right.""d.a.m.nu air." His grip tightened. "My darling Evangeline." He pressed his cheek against my hand. He looked at me, sorrow filling his gaze. "You have the taint."

Chapter 16

The prince walked west. In every village along the road, he asked about the beautiful maiden, but none had seen a woman such as he described. Weeks pa.s.sed and still the prince did not find either his soul mate or the help promised by the fortune-teller.

Finally the prince reached the edge of the continent. He could go west no longer-not unless he chartered a ship. That evening, he lodged at an inn built into a seaside cliff overlooking the gray ocean. From his balcony, the prince watched lightning dance among dark clouds. He knew the brewing storm would be a nasty one and he decided to sup early so that he could return to the safety of his room before the weather turned foul.

Then he heard the dulcet tones of a woman singing. Entranced by the lovely voice, he flew from the inn to the beach below. There he found a young lady sitting on a rock, staring into the sea. Her dress was black and her blond hair covered by black lace. Her song was very sad and her tears fell like tiny diamonds onto the sand.

"Why are you weeping?" he asked.

"Our family has suffered greatly from the plague," she said. "My father and my two youngest sisters died this very week. I've been spared only because I've been away at school. My elder sister took care of everyone, though she is very ill herself Now she lies alone in our cottage, suffering greatly.

"A neighbor sent word about my family's deaths and my sister's terrible illness. I've been traveling ever since, hoping to reach home so that I may be with my sister. She is such a good soul, so beautiful and kind."

The prince took pity on the young woman. "I will take you to her. How far away is your home?"

"Two days' walk from the inn. I would go onward except that bandits and evil spirits roam the woods at night."

"Do not worry, pretty one. I will help you." The prince used his glamour to hypnotize the girl. He took from her neck only what he needed, then gathered her into his arms and rose into the air.

Thunder boomed as the storm drew closer, but the prince flew through the night, reaching the little farm just before dawn. He took the sleeping girl into the barn and settled her into a pile of warm, soft hay. She dared not enter the house yet, not until measures were taken to rid the cottage of the plague.

With only minutes until dawn, the prince entered the cottage and sought the bedroom of the dying sister. When he opened the door, he saw a woman asleep on her pallet, her skin pallid and her breathing erratic. She had hair the color of a raven's wings and lips as red as the rose. But it was not her ravaged beauty that called to him. It was the instant connection of his soul to hers. She was the one he had waited for-she was his other half, his truest love.

The prince dropped to his knees and wept.

He had found his maiden.

And she was not long for this world.

-From The Prince and the Maiden, an unpublished work by Lorcan O'Halloran

Chapter 17

When my mother was dying from cancer, I read everything about disease and medicine and psychology that I could get my hands on. I think, in some corner of my mind, I was hoping to find a way to save her.

On one of my many trips to the library, I picked up On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. In the book, the author described the five stages of grief. I read it hoping to prepare myself for losing my mother.

What I didn't know, or maybe what I didn't accept, was that nothing could prepare me for Mom's death. I had always turned to books, to knowledge, to help me get through everything in my life-and, sometimes, to escape it. But grief was a journey through a forest of razor blades. I walked through every painful inch of it-no shortcuts and no anesthesia.

My mother had taught me that life is about choices. Sometimes things go your way, and sometimes they don't. But you always have a choice about how to act and how to feel.

"Eva?"

I blinked. I had mentally wandered away from Lor the minute he p.r.o.nounced my death sentence. How would I tell Tamara?

Who would care for her if I... ? I couldn't wrap my brain around the idea of my own death. It was one thing to have the Grim Reaper sneak up on you and another thing entirely to get his engraved invitation.

Even as questions and worries battered at my mind, I thought about On Death and Dying. The first stage of grief was denial. I didn't have to argue with Lor or Stan or the science. I had the taint. Okay, then, I'd just skip denial and go right on to being gloriously p.i.s.sed off.

"Did Charlie give me the taint? Is that why I can't have a donor?" Anger made me feel stronger. I sat up in the bed. Then I realized I was wearing a hospital gown and nothing else. Zarking fardwarks! Just who had stripped off my clothes before allowing the scientist to poke and prod me?

"No human has ever been a carrier for the taint, but we aren't taking any chances. We don't know who kidnapped you and we don't know why he-or she-poisoned you."

"But whoever it is knows that I can communicate with lycans."

"Yes, that's very likely. But why would he give you the taint?"

"He wants to destroy the one person who could stop his evil plans involving vamp lycans." The mystery bad guy was also cruel.

Why give me a debilitating disease that would kill me slowly when removing my head would accomplish the same end?

"Lor, I drank from Jess yesterday. Is she... you know... okay?"

"She doesn't have the taint."

Thank G.o.d. I inhaled through my nose and out through my mouth. When I was human, deep breathing often helped me to destress and clear my mind. It didn't help this time. Breathing, deeply or otherwise, just felt weird.

"G.o.d! Why me? Why?"

Lor seemed to understand that I didn't need him to respond. I ranted and raved for a few minutes more, not even able to make sense of my own words. But my emotions I understood.

I didn't want to die. Not again.

"I was looking forward to immortality," I said, pressing my palms against my aching eyes. "I was finally getting used to a nighttime schedule, too."

"Eva, don't."

I heard the quake in his voice and my hands dropped heavily to the bed. I looked at him. "Don't what?"

"Don't be brave. Don't be funny. Or understanding. Or kind."

His silver eyes gleamed with emotions I couldn't define. His jaw clenched and his lips pressed together. Oh. I got it then. He wanted me to be furious. He wanted me to punish him with my rage. His guilt demanded it. I thought of him like a moth- attracted to the light, only to be harmed by its beauty, its heat. Did he want to be around me, only to be so eaten up by remorse and sorrow that he couldn't stand to be near me?

So what it boiled down to was that Lor felt responsible. If he hadn't drained me and left me to die, then I wouldn't have the taint.