"I imagine that you are here collecting for the Church?" Her bitter tone told him that she knew how he had failed her when he left her to grieve for Ferenc alone, that she did not forgive him for deserting her in her hour of deepest need.

His mind screamed at him to run, but his body would not obey.

He stayed.

"Father Korza?" She leaned closer, her dark head tilted in concern, her heart slowing in sympathy instead of speeding up in anger. "Are you ill? Perhaps you should sit?"

She guided him to a straight-backed wooden chair, then sat across from him, their knees a mere handsbreadth apart. The fire's heat cooled in comparison to the warmth of her body.

"Have you been well, Father Korza?"

He roused from the song of her strong red heart. "I have. How have you fared, Widow Nadasy?"

She shifted at the word widow. "I have been bearing up-" She leaned forward. "Nonsense. We have known each other too long and too well to be untruthful now. Ferenc's death has been both a great burden and a freedom to me."

A freedom?

He dared not ask. He raised his head.

"You look as if you have been ill," she said. "So tell me the truth. How have the past months served you?"

He fell into her silver eyes, reflecting orange from the firelight. How could he be apart from her? She alone of all he knew he had trusted with memories of his mortal life, only keeping secret his unnatural state of being.

A ghost of a smile played on her soft lips. Her hand brushed water from her bare shoulder, then fell coyly to her soft throat. He stared at her fingers, and what they covered.

She stood and took his hand between hers. "Always so cold."

The heat of her hand exploded under his skin. He must move away, but instead he stood and put his other hand over hers, drawing more of her warmth into his chilled body. Just that. A simple moment of connection. He asked for nothing more.

Her heartbeat traveled from her hands through his arms and up to where his heart had once beat. Now his blood moved to the rhythm of hers. Scarlet stained the edges of his vision.

Her eyelids fell closed, and she tipped her face up toward his.

He took her flushed cheeks in his marble-white hands. He had never touched a woman before, not like this. He caressed her face, her smooth white throat.

Her heart sped under his palms. Fear? Or did something else drive it?

Tears coursed down her cheeks.

"Rhun," she whispered, "I've waited so long for you."

He traced the impossibly soft redness of her lips with one fingertip. She shivered under his touch.

He longed to press his lips against hers, to feel the warmth of her mouth. To taste her. But it was forbidden. He was a priest. Chaste. He must stop this at once. He drew his hands a finger's width away from her and toward the silver cross that lay over his cassock.

She cast her eyes on the cross and let out a quiet moan of disappointment.

Rhun froze, fighting the warmth of her skin, the scent of snowmelt in her hair, the pulse of her heart in her lips, the salt smell of her tears. He had never been so terrified in his mortal and immortal life.

She leaned forward and kissed him, her lips light as the touch of a butterfly.

And Rhun was lost.

She tasted of grief and blood and passion. He was no longer a priest or a monster. He was simply a man. A man as he had never been before.

He pulled his head back and stared into her shadowed eyes, dark with passion. She pulled off her cap and black hair tumbled free around her shoulders.

"Yes, Rhun," she said. "Yes."

He kissed the inside of her wrist. Her heart pounded strong against his lips. He unfastened her sleeve and kissed the crook of her elbow. His tongue tasted her skin.

She buried her hands in his hair and pulled him closer. He chased her pulse up her bare neck. As she swooned in his embrace, he tightened his arms around her back. Her mouth found his again.

God and vows fled. He needed to feel her skin against his. His hands fumbled with the lacings of her dress. She pushed him away and undid them herself, her mouth never leaving his.

Her dress fell heavy to the stone floor, and she stepped out of it, closer to the fire. Orange flames shone through her linen chemise. He released her long enough to tear the garment in half.

And she stood naked in his arms. Skin soft and warm. Her heart racing under his palms.

Her hands flew across the impossibly long row of buttons on his cassock. Thirty-three, to symbolize the thirty-three years of the earthly life of Christ. The cassock fell to the floor atop her dress. His silver cross burned against his chest, but he no longer cared.

He swept Elisabeta up in his arms, crushing her against him. She gasped when the cross touched her bare breast. He reached up and broke the chain. The cross clattered to the stone next to his robes. He should care, he should gather up its holiness and hold it against his body, hold it between them like a wall.

Instead, he chose her.

Her lips found his again, and her mouth opened under his. Nothing separated them now. They were two bodies craving only union.

She called out his name.

Rhun answered with hers.

He lowered her to the fire-warmed floor. She arched under him, long velvet throat curving toward his mouth.

Rhun lost himself in her scent, her warmth, her heart. No man could experience what he felt; no Sanguinist could withstand it. Never had he felt so content, so strong. This bliss was why men left the priesthood. This bond was deeper than his feelings for God.

He joined with her. He never wanted to be separate again.

Red consumed him. Then it consumed her. He pulsed in a sea of seething red.

When the red cleared, both their souls were destroyed.

44.

October 27, 8:02 A.M., CET Harmsfeld, Germany A few feet away from Erin, Nadia knelt next to Rhun, whispering in Latin while he wept. Whatever happened when they drank consecrated wine, it was more unpleasant than being shot six times in the chest. She ached for Rhun, trapped in such a state for eternity, consigned to an unimaginable Hell for the sin of being attacked by a wild strigoi.

Erin walked back to the broken church doors and stared out at the early morning. Jordan joined her, leaned next to her. How did he stay so warm? She was freezing. First they had both been dunked in that snowmelt lake, and now they stood in an unheated church.

Once Rhun quieted, she heard Nadia gasp as she also consumed a draft of consecrated wine, but she did not weep as Rhun had done.

For a long moment silence filled the church.

"He is awake," Nadia finally called out, returned again to her calm, even state. "With luck, he will be fit to travel before nightfall. But he will be weakened for the next few days. Christ's blood does not heal us as quickly as human blood would."

"Why is the wine not as difficult for you to drink as it is for Rhun?" Erin glanced over at the priest, lying on his side, facing away from them, covered with the altar cloth.

Nadia stared over at him, too. "I did not have so far to fall."

8:22 A.M.

Jordan looked around the small room of the inn that Nadia had rented for him and Erin in Harmsfeld. The quaint residence stood across the town square from the church.

Nadia shared a room with Rhun, right next door, but Jordan still surveyed the room as if he were preparing for a coming siege. The hotel door was made of stout oak. A check of the window revealed a trellis below their second-story room. A difficult entry point. He did a quick assessment of the bathroom. The window there was too small to admit anyone. The rest of the space was typical of European accommodations: white tiles, a utilitarian shower, sink, toilet, and bidet.

When he returned to the main room, Erin hadn't moved from her spot on the bed, perched at the edge of a plump duvet. The space contained a double bed, two nightstands with lamps, and an odd metal contraption he thought might be used for cleaning boots.

Erin looked paler than he'd ever seen her. Dark circles shadowed her eyes; dirt smudged her face.

"Do you want the first shower?" he asked.

"'Shower,'" she said, standing and stretching. "Best word in the English language right now."

Jordan watched her leave, closing the door. He thought that the best two words in the English language right now might be shower together, but he knew better than to say so. Instead, he sat on the other side of the bed and opened the room-service menu.

He selected three breakfasts with coffee and tea because he had no idea what Erin ate or drank. He picked up the phone and dialed, but before anyone answered, Erin turned on the water for the shower. Jordan pictured her stepping over the tile threshold, her hair loose and falling halfway down her bare back, water tracing its way down the curves of her- "Darf ich Ihnen behilflich sein?" said the voice on the other end of the phone.

Jordan turned his back to the bathroom door and ordered breakfast in German.

While he waited, he spread their coats to dry over the radiator, trying not to think about Erin in the shower, face upturned to the water and steam rising around her.

He had to find something else to do. He sat on the bed and cleaned his weapons, one at a time, keeping the other always near to hand. After that, he cleaned Erin's Sig Sauer.

Nadia knocked on the door and thrust a paper bag into his hands without a word. As he closed the door, he opened the bag to find basic toiletries and a change of clothes for both of them.

Warm sweaters, so he guessed he wasn't flying back to Jerusalem.

Room service arrived, and Jordan started his breakfast before Erin finished her shower.

Moments later, the flow of water shut off with a clunking sound. He kept glancing at the door, trying his best not to picture Erin buffing her naked form.

He failed.

He waited for her to come out. When she finally did, she stepped into the room in a cloud of steam. She wore a white terrycloth robe she must have found in the bathroom and had rebandaged her hand. Her face and neck were flushed from the hot water. He wished he could see how far down her body that flush extended.

As she approached, Jordan adjusted the napkin on his lap.

"I tried to save you some hot water," she said.

"I ... um ... tried to save you some breakfast." Jordan took a big sip of his steaming coffee.

Erin walked over and looked down at the remains of the food. She smelled like soap and clean laundry. "Here's hoping I did a better job than you."

He kept his eyes studiously averted from the front of her robe and hurried to the bathroom. He showered and shaved quickly. After he brushed his hair and pulled on a clean pair of khakis and a long-sleeved shirt, he felt ready to take on the world.

Or at least to take a long nap.

Erin was just finishing up breakfast when Jordan came out of the bathroom. He lay down on the bed and sighed. A real bed.

"I could sleep on the floor," Erin said.

"Neither of us is taking the floor," Jordan answered. "I promise to stay on my side, if you promise to stay on yours."

Erin looked at the floor, as if considering the other option.

Jordan rolled back to his feet and retrieved his dry coat from the radiator. "During times of dire need, didn't maidens once sleep with a sword between them and their knight protector?" He spread the coat across the middle of the bed and held up three fingers. "Scout's honor, I won't cross this moat of leather unless you ask me to."

She eyed him skeptically. "Were you ever a Boy Scout?"

He flopped down on the side of the bed closest to the door. "Eagle Scout."

After a short time, they both settled to their respective sides of the bed. Jordan thought he'd be awake thinking about Erin lying inches away, but he fell asleep almost immediately, still in his clothes.

He awoke sitting up, one hand on his gun. He took in the sunlit room with a single glance. Nothing out of place. Door closed. Window closed. Bathroom empty. What had woken him up?

Next to him, Erin whimpered.

He turned to check on her. Still in her robe, she lay on her side facing him, her hands clasped under one cheek. She gasped in her sleep. He wanted to reach over the coat and touch her, but he didn't want to break his promise. One wrong move with Erin, and he would be finished.

"Hush," he whispered, as if she were his niece Abigail, famous in the family for her nightmares about giant tarantulas.

Erin let out one long breath and seemed to sink deeper into sleep.

She had plenty of food for bad dreams: strigoi, bats, and- With a scream, Erin sat bolt upright.

"I'm right here," Jordan said, sitting up with her. "We're safe."

She looked over at him, eyes wide.

"It's Jordan, remember?" he said.

She drew in a ragged breath and scooted back to lean against the headboard. "I remember."