"Yes," she murmured, and her face remained calm even as her thoughts ran wild. "He said she'd do it, but I don't think so. How could she accept me as one of her own? She should have killed me by now. Why hasn't she? If she doesn't convert me and doesn't kill me, Owen will have to. I can't ever go back now. Never!"

Her thoughts sounded sincere, and I sensed nothing to contradict them, but I wouldn't know the real truth until we began. I just didn't want to begin.

"You'll have to declare it," I said as I made my way slowly around the room, running my fingers over the velour upholstery of the wingback chair Owen sat in, straightening the throw pillows on the unused bed, smoothing down the curtains as if to be sure not a crack of light came through. I didn't have this time to waste, but the thought of touching the vampire made my insides squirm. Vanessa's lips parted, as if to say something, but I stopped her. "Not now. Not yet. In a moment."

I was within touching distance of her now. I only had to reach out with my arm and place my hand on her skin to begin. She sensed my closeness. Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared at me with a faraway look.

"Do what you need to do," she said.

"It's going to hurt," I warned.

Her head moved slightly in a nod. "Owen told me it would be horrible. But this is what I want."

"Are you sure?" Again, I was delaying. Her answer didn't matter until I was feeding her Amadis power, when she'd actually feel in her soul everything her decision meant.

A single tear rolled down her cheek. Her voice came out in a weak whisper. "I want to be loved. Not hated."

Something happened in my chest. To my heart. A tiny crack opened. For her, for this vampire who'd always tried to kill me, who I'd sworn to kill by my own hands. An opening to allow my innate enemy in. A lump formed in my throat as the warmth of Amadis love and power flowed through my body. For some reason, this one statement from Vanessa affected my natural instincts more than anyone I'd worked with before, except Tristan. More love and goodness than I could hold built within my core, about to explode its way out. If I didn't maintain control, this could be disastrous.

Well, I might just love you to death. Then we'd both get our way.

I almost chuckled at my own thought, until I saw the look on Vanessa's face. She showed more fear at this moment than I'd ever seen in her before. More than when I'd almost fried her in Australia. More than when Tristan turned his power on her. She sensed the energy I was about to unleash and feared it.

But she also showed resolve. At this moment, she exemplified the definition of courage.

"Do it," she whispered.

I pulled in a deep breath, braced myself for the immense pain I knew would come and lifted my hand to her.

Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d. Please, Father, I beg for your strength.

The thought of touching Vanessa-Vanessa!-in any way besides a punch or a kick scared the c.r.a.p out of me. Or perhaps it was the growing power that scared me so much. I'd never felt this way before. As though something within my core wanted to reach into her soul and grab it, heal it, change her to be more like me. My heart jackhammered against my ribs. My chest swelled with so much power ... so much love! And I didn't understand it.

Why? Why did she, of all people, make me feel as though this really was my purpose? Why did something within me want this so badly when a big part of me wasn't even positive she wanted it? When my brain screamed trap, trap, trap?

My hand shook in midair, following my brain's orders to stay away. Don't do it, my mind said. Love thy enemy, my heart countered.

"Reach out to those who need you most," Ca.s.sandra added.

But I didn't have to reach out to Vanessa.

No longer able to contain the power within the confines of my corporeality, my body exploded. At least, that's how it felt. The energy of love and goodness erupted like a volcano, shooting out of me and pouring directly over Vanessa, a soft light bathing her as the lava of my power drenched her body.

Her ice-blue eyes popped open wide and so did her mouth, but no noise issued forth. She looked more shocked than anything, and I probably mirrored her expression. Where was the pain, for either of us? Why didn't she spasm and convulse as the others had? Why didn't I feel ... anything? The only sensation I had was that of Tristan's and Owen's eyes staring at us in awe.

"Vanessa," I whispered hoa.r.s.ely. Her stunned gaze fluttered toward me. "Say it now. Declare your motives."

Her eyes locked on mine. "I want this. I want to be Amadis."

"Why?"

"I want love," she said flatly, as if nothing could be more obvious. As if the words didn't come out of the most hateful mouth I'd ever heard speak. But somehow what she said made as much sense to me as it obviously did to her. "I want to love others. I want to be loved. I want to be the person I am meant to be. Not who everyone else thinks I am." She finally cried out, but still, not in pain. Not physical pain, anyway. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks as her head dropped and her gaze broke from mine. "n.o.body knows the real me. Only Owen has seen through my facade."

I shook my head. "G.o.d knows. He sees your heart."

"Not Satan," she moaned. "He's caused all this. His deceit, his lies ... he caused all this pain I've suffered for so long."

"No, not Satan. The true G.o.d. You must accept our G.o.d as yours."

She lifted her head and looked at me again. Conviction swirled in her eyes as they held mine.

"I do," she whispered, and I didn't have to read her mind to know she meant it. Her desire for Him to enter her heart was palpable.

Without any warning, my body launched itself at her. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly against me.

And with the collision of good and evil energies finally came the intense pain.

The evil energy within her was so much greater and so much more powerful than I'd ever felt before, even with Tristan. Our high-pitched screams tangled together into an eerie song. I hung onto her in a death-grip as our bodies convulsed against each other's in a freakish dance. Tristan or Owen must have released her arms from their shackles, because they were suddenly around me, holding on as if I were her life preserver. Which, at this point, I probably was.

We collapsed to the floor, and the clash of the opposing powers rocked us back and forth. I pushed my Amadis power against her Daemoni energy and it pushed back. Hard. The iciness of the evil slid into my veins, but I willed the warmth of love to melt it, boil it, evaporate it. But just as I felt warm again, more ice p.r.i.c.kled its way in. I fought it, again and again and again. The evil only seemed to strengthen.

Tristan said-or perhaps simply thought-something about night. Had that many hours already pa.s.sed? Darkness would explain the increased struggle. If the sun had set, the Daemoni power in Vanessa would no longer be at its weakest. So I gathered my own strength and willed it into her, fighting, fighting, fighting.

Until I could fight no more.

What did Charlotte say about becoming too drained? I couldn't remember now. My brain was too fuzzy. Something about being drained of my energy was bad. Very bad.

I closed my eyes as I tried to focus on the goodness still within me and share it with Vanessa. Visions that weren't mine appeared in my mind. Images of corpses, pale faces with vacant eyes, savaged throats ... Vanessa's kills. With each flash of an image, she experienced a mix of remorse and glee. And then there was only blood. Blood, blood, blood everywhere. I felt her thirst, her present need to feed, her desire to feed on me.

No! I tried to yell at her, but it came out weakly. Vanessa ... you're stronger ... than ... the desire. You ... can ... fight it.

I felt her try, felt the thirst diminish a bit. Then a somewhat familiar vision popped into my mind, although I saw it from a different perspective-Vanessa's. We'd just flashed into the fight at the beach house right after I'd gone through the Ang'dora, and Vanessa got her first look at me after the change. Anger and hatred boiled up within her again, mirroring her feelings back then, but more than anything she felt envy. And not only because of Tristan.

"You have everything!" she'd thought. "Everything! How do you get it all and I get nothing?! I was supposed to have it all! ME!"

Her current feelings escalated to nearly pure hatred, and her mind filled with various ways to kill me. I fought back, pushing what Amadis power I still had into her, pulling the evil energy away from her. But my power was weak and the Daemoni energy too strong. The ice stabbed into my veins again.

The next thing I knew, I no longer held Vanessa in my arms. My head came back to the darkly lit room to find Owen holding her instead, securing her limbs tightly against her convulsing body so they wouldn't flail. I was across the room, in Tristan's lap, his arms around me.

"No!" I jumped to my feet, away from him. "Don't you do this! Don't you take the power."

"I'm not, my love. I'm not." He reached up for my hands. "I'm giving you what you need."

The energy of his love flowed through my hands and up my arms. When I didn't feel a pull, as I did when he'd tried to leech the Daemoni power out of me before, I relaxed and let him pull me back into his lap. He wrapped his arms around me again and pushed his love through every place where our skin touched. Under different circ.u.mstances, I would have been tearing our clothes off for the increased skin contact.

"Is it working?" he asked after a while.

"Yeah," I murmured with my eyes still closed as I continued to picture his naked body against mine. Even the thought of it seemed to build my power even more, so I had a good reason for the naughty vision.

"Good. She needs you," Owen said, and the image vanished. I reluctantly opened my eyes.

"Patience," Tristan told him. "You insisted on Alexis doing this by herself, so she needs to go slow. I won't let this kill her." When Owen opened his mouth, Tristan added, "Either of them, if we can help it. But you know my choice if one needs to be made."

Owen stared at us long and hard, then finally muttered, "Let's hope we don't have to choose."

Vanessa's seizures had died down, but she began to moan.

"Seth," she cried, tears seeping between the lashes of her closed lids. Tristan's old name wasn't a cry of desire, though, at least not in a l.u.s.tful way. Longing filled the sound, and deep sadness. The image came to me clearly.

Through her eyes, I watched from a distance as Tristan took hold of my mom's hands. He gazed at her face with complete trust. Her lips moved and her voice traveled to our vampire ears: "You're sure this is what you want?"

Tristan nodded. And then they both disappeared.

"No!" Vanessa cried. "Don't leave me! Take me with you!"

Probably unintentionally, she shared her intense feelings of abandonment, loneliness, loss as "her" Seth went with my mom to be converted. "I want to go, too," her mind whispered. But then her anger overwhelmed her once again. Anger at Seth and even more at my mother for taking him away ... and for leaving her behind. Why would Mom leave her behind, though? If Vanessa really wanted to convert way back then, why wouldn't Mom do it? Vanessa's thoughts answered for me: she wasn't ready to voice it aloud then. She still hadn't been sure that's what she wanted. So, instead, she let anger and hate rule her life for another thirty years. That was her comfort zone.

I went to her again and took her out of Owen's arms and into my own. Another wave of pain engulfed both of us, but not quite as bad as before. As our energies fought, her memories continued to fill my mind, as though we moved backwards through her life. More kills, more dead faces, more blood.

And then ... in Vanessa's mind, we sat with a familiar person draped across our lap, holding his shoulders in our left arm, his head lolled back on a limp neck and his white-blond hair falling to the sides. Victor, Vanessa's brother, wore what seemed to be the fashion of early Victorian London, and he was dead. Tiny streams of blood leaked out of two puncture-wounds on his neck and the taste of it lingered on our tongue. Regret combined with the thrill of revenge filled Vanessa's thoughts as she gazed at her brother.

"How dare you!" yelled an icy male voice, the owner unseen in our vision. "Don't let him die! Turn him!"

Vanessa had changed her own brother? I couldn't believe what I was experiencing, but I could feel the truth coming from her.

A wave of pain wracked through us both, and the vision disappeared. We rode the crest, and as it receded, more memories flooded back. We lay on a bed in a room with brown, stone walls, where shadows danced from flickering candlelight. Or perhaps our vision made the room flicker as pain roiled through us. Not current pain-at least I didn't think so-the sensation was dulled by time. Vanessa's breaths labored in our lungs, and we felt weak, so weak. "I'm dying," she thought, convinced of it.

Then we must have been lying on a bed as another familiar face loomed over us-that of the vampire who had demanded I stop writing, the one I thought had been my own character Claudius when I had believed he was only a dream. But we weren't dreaming now. We were remembering.

"Your weakness is abhorrent! Now you will be strong and more suitable," said the same voice that had ordered Vanessa to turn Victor rather than let him die. The vampire standing over us hadn't spoken, though. The sound had come from our right.

Our eyes drifted over to a man's silhouette standing at a window. His back was to us as he stared into the blackness beyond, but Vanessa knew him, knew him well. Her father? No, I didn't think so. But somewhat of a father figure. At least, he might have been, but as the vampire's mouth clamped onto her neck, she only felt hatred toward the man at the window. He was taking everything she ever wanted away. She would have rather died.

With the renewed anger and hatred, the Daemoni power boosted once again. We fought it together, but Vanessa weakened to it quickly. I gave her all the goodness I could muster, but I, too, began to drain again. And once more, I found myself back in the present room, shivering in Tristan's lap.

"I'm s-so c-c-cold," I stammered between chattering teeth. The Daemoni power had come closer to overpowering me than I'd realized. Tristan rubbed his hands up and down my arms, trying to warm me. "K-k-kiss. I need-d-d a k-k-kiss."

I tilted my head up to lift my face to his, and his mouth pressed gently to mine, then harder as our lips separated and our tongues danced. Yes, exactly what I'd needed. The love was so much more powerful and so much more direct through the kiss than through the skin. He kissed me long and deep, and I pulled in his goodness.

"Don't take it," I said to him when we'd finally broken apart, knowing he'd understand what I meant.

"I won't," he promised. "The sun will be rising soon. It should become easier."

I remained in his embrace until we felt the evil power weaken in Vanessa from the sun's appearance outside. Then I sucked in a breath, let the Amadis power build up again and went back to the vampire's side.

Vanessa, I spoke into her mind. Do you remember love?

A new image popped into my mind-Tristan's face. But he looked a little different and it took me a moment to realize I saw him through Vanessa's eyes for the very first time, over two hundred years ago. Her heart swelled, and she knew she loved him at first sight. I squelched the jealousy creeping into my own heart and focused on my patient.

That's right, I said, my inner voice shaking. Remember love.

But the Daemoni power fought back and suddenly we were upset again. Seth had just rejected us. "But we're supposed to be together!" Vanessa cried silently as he walked away without a backward glance. Our heart ripped apart into pieces, shards cutting into our soul. But then resolve mended our wounds and determination to have him filled us. Her desire grew into more than love and l.u.s.t, but into a selfish need to prove herself right. I didn't understand what that meant, but knew, as the evil power started building again, I needed to get her back on track.

Love, Vanessa. Think of love-those you've loved, those who have loved you.

I thought it worked as an image of teenaged Victor filled our thoughts. Both he and Vanessa were pre-vampire now, yet ... not completely human. What were they, if not Norman before they were changed? A question I couldn't worry about now.

Vanessa had loved her brother, and I refocused my thoughts on him, but I also felt jealousy in her, especially as Victor turned and joined a man who was only a foggy figure at the fringe of our vision. As he turned, I thought it could have been the same man who'd been at the window, calling her weak and allowing her humanity to be taken away. A white-blond ponytail hung down his back, just as one did down Victor's. The man draped an arm over Victor's shoulder as they sauntered off, leaving Vanessa to feel abandoned, outcast, lonely, crying in the corner of a cavernous room with the only light flickering from torches on the wall. She only wanted to be loved and included, but neither of them seemed to care, strengthening my belief that the man probably wasn't her father. Perhaps a sperm donor, but not a father. Not to her, anyway.

Vanessa felt the hurt and jealousy again, feeding the evil energy. The Daemoni power within her took on a new urgency, growing stronger and more intense. I built up my own power, readying myself to fight it. This could be it. Final battle coming soon.

Vanessa's thoughts lost their cohesiveness. Images of living in a castle mixed with the wonder of being brought to live there dissolved into earlier memories of a crumbling cottage that had once been their home. The vision of a pretty woman's face-their mother?-filled our minds now, and I knew Vanessa did love her.

That's right. Focus on love.

A high shrieking sound pierced my ears as the evil energy protested, building and growing, becoming a gigantic dark cloud enshrouding Vanessa, trying to fill the entire room. The air froze around us, the chill seeping into my bones.

I'd been right-this was it. The final battle for Vanessa's soul.

Chapter 16.

That's right, Vanessa. Remember love. You can be loved! You can love again!

Vanessa's mom or caregiver or whoever she was spoke sweetly to her, and although I couldn't hear the words, I encouraged Vanessa's mind to latch onto the kind voice. I focused on my own love, my goodness, the Amadis power within me, creating that bubble inside me and growing it until I could contain it no more.

Vanessa shrieked as the evil energy exploded from her, and I cried out, too, as my Amadis power burst from me once again. The powers collided and fought around and inside us. Vanessa's body trembled and quaked and seized in my arms.

Fight! I screamed at her. If you want this, you'll fight it. And you'll win! Let goodness win, Vanessa. Release the evil. You can do this!

And she fought. Even as she drew on my power, my heart swelled with pride and conviction. My soul burst with love for her, for her determination, her perseverance to overcome what had dwelled inside of her for so long. I pushed as hard as she pulled. And we were winning. Winning! The Daemoni energy warred against us, but the Amadis power was stronger.

But she kept pulling with vehemence, strengthening her goodness with mine, until I had no more to share. And still, she tried to pull more, eagerly lapping it up like blood, draining me as if she were feeding off me. In some distant corner of my consciousness, which was fading quickly, I felt a stream of love pushing into me.

Tristan? What was he doing? I was still connected with Vanessa. The powers were still battling it out. If he held on, if the energies ... c.r.a.p. What did Charlotte say would happen? I still couldn't remember. Bad, though. Very bad.

The clashing energies suddenly withdrew and separated. They each built up, two clouds, one black and the other bright-white, growing, churning, intensifying. Electricity charged through every cell of my being. And as if they actually had minds and planned the a.s.sault, the energies charged at one another.

The crash of the collision pierced my ears and the pain rattled my bones.

Vanessa screamed. So did I.