With a loud, screeching laugh the ancient one flicked his wrist, Sorley went flying backwards and the cutlass clanged to the floor.

Ronan pulled out his weapon and started to aim for the heart, but the ancient one motioned at the gun and it came away from Ronan's hands and went airborne. Breathing deeply and seemingly unaffected by the smoke, the ancient one threw back his head and laughed.

"You will all burn in here with me." He pointed to Erin. "If I can't have her, no other man will! Thedarkest commands it!"

If they left now, ran to save their own lives, Clarissa knew the town was doomed. The ancient one would come back. Tears stung her eyes, smoke and terror and sadness mixing with the abrupt knowledge of what she must do.

Sacrifice,she projected in her mind toward her friends.We must be willing to sacrifice everything to stop him.

Without pause her friends took up the chant.Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice.

The shadow people filled her head.

Sacrificetosaveall.

Sacrificetosaveall.

Sacrificetosaveyourselves.

It was then she felt it, a strange stirring in her stomach. A blast of potency came from her solar plexus and washed outward like a shock wave as her hands pushed forward in a heaving motion.

She had maybe two seconds to register the unqualified shock spreading over the ancient one's face as her psychic force gathered up the silver blade. She motioned with her right hand to lift the blade and swung in a wide arc. With a single slicing motion the blade severed the old vampire's head. With a motion of her left hand she pushed his head and body until it sailed backwards the last few feet necessary.

To her horror, a shriek came from his disembodied head as he vanished into the consuming flames.

Clarissa didn't have time to rejoice or warn everyone to leave the building before it burned down around her ears. As Ronan turned toward her, only a few feet away, her vision started went black at the corners and her knees gave way.

Ronan's anguished cry was the last thing she heard. "Clarissa!"

Ronan thought his immortality would end and in that lonely instant he knew he would gladly give up his existence if only Clarissa would live.

Clarissa's face had gone paper-white as she collapsed and right away he felt her distress slice with razor-sharp pain. Unadulterated terror clutched his gut as he raced with supernatural speed toward the woman he loved. No time to assess her condition in this hellhole.

He hauled Clarissa up in his arms and sped toward the nearest exit. As he burst through the door, everyone followed close on his heels.

The wail of sirens filled his ears and the throng of noise and smoke, screams and shouts went across his hypersensitive nerves like a sharp object nailed into his head.

Without waiting for medical assistance to find him, he ran into the surrounding woods with Clarissa in his arms. When he reached an area where no one could see, he realized his friends weren't far behind.

He sank to the ground with Clarissa wrapped in his arms and tears soaked his cheeks.

"Clarissa, speak to me." He leaned toward her and detected instantly something horribly wrong. "She's barely breathing."

Few seconds went by but in those increments he suffered a thousand deaths. His woman had done everything she could to kill the ancient one and succeeded.

She sacrificed her life for everyone else's.

Sorrow belted him and he gasped with the pain. He'd thought Fenella's death had lacerated him to the quick, but nothing in his life mortal or immortal reached the purgatory he felt this minute. He cupped her soot-streaked face and saw the blood drying on her neck. No sign of life, her skin cold as the grave.

Jared dropped down beside him. "I've got a little medical training. Let me see her." He tested the pulse in her neck. "Extremely faint pulse."

A sob slipped from Micky's throat. "The ancient one took too much blood. He's killed her."

Lachlan reached them and put both his hands on either side of her head. He closed his eyes. "Ronan, concentrate with me and see if we can heal her."

Shocked out of his misery, Ronan closed his eyes and complied.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," he heard Sorley gasp. "Help her."

"It's not working," Lachlan said a few moments later.

Lachlan looked into Ronan's eyes and there Ronan saw a question form in his old friend's gaze. "You have to do it."

Silence passed, steady and growing. Ronan froze up. "No."

"You must," Lachlan said, his eyes blazing, his face stern. "We can't get her to a doctor in time. She's fading too fast. You have no choice."

"What?" Erin asked as tears streamed down her face. "What does he have to do?"

"Ah hell," Sorley said with a broken voice. "Bring her across. He has to bring her across."

Gilda groaned and put her hands over her eyes. Her voice came out hoarse and pained.

"Make her a vampire?"

Ronan hung his head. "She doesn't deserve this."

"No, but do you want her with you?" Lachlan asked, his deep voice full of sympathy.

"Of course I feckin' want her with me," he said through his teeth, tears flowing harder down his face as a sob left his throat. "I love her. I love her more than my own life."

Without another word he stood with her in his arms and looked at his devastated friends.

"I'll take her to a holy place where it will be pure."

He popped into invisibility and transported the woman in his arms to St. Bartholomew's.

It didn't matter what type of holy place he went to, nor did religious affiliation. Vampires were made in many faiths and he had once been Catholic. It seemed only right to give her the light in his undead soul and the small cathedral's cleansing power.

He made sure no one lurked in the building before he proceeded with what he must do.

He strode to an alcove which featured a large stained glass figure of Mary. A single bench stood in front of the window. Ronan sat down with Clarissa in his arms, and as her head flopped back on his cradling arm, he winced in mental pain. What he did next would break his heart, but if it succeeded it would also mend his torn soul.

Without further hesitation he bit into the left side of her neck and drank. As her remaining blood came into his mouth he felt the last of her life drain away.

Immediate and blinding ecstasy filled his head and temporarily obliterated his anguish.

He'd forgotten the untainted bliss that came from draining a mortal of their life's blood.

As the pleasure mounted it flowed from his mind to his body, reaching his cock and making it fully engorged within seconds.

Oh, feckin' hell. Yes!

As his cock grew tighter and harder he felt her go lax in his arms and knew she would now cross over. As he removed his teeth from her neck, he lapped at the wound and it closed. Ronan bent his head and nuzzled the very neck he'd ravaged. Then he allowed the sobs to come and the horror of what he'd done enfold him.