Broken Heart 02 Don't Talk Back to Your Vampire (19 page)

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, God. 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."

"
Damnú 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."

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 passed 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
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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

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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 Kübler-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 pronounced 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 pissed 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."

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Thank God. 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.

"God! 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. I would be alive. I would be human. I was sure he had similar thoughts about all the Turn-bloods. Maybe their lives would be different, would be better, if not for him. As long as he held that belief about himself and others, there would never be any healing—not for Lor, and not for the rest of us.

"How long are you going to flay yourself for acts over which you had no control?"

His mouth dropped open. "What?"

"You were turned into a mindless, starved beast. You did what most mindless, starved beasts do—you tracked down food and you noshed. If you'd been in your right mind, you wouldn't have done it."

"It's not that simple."

"Yes, it is." I grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him close. "Forgive yourself."

"Eva, I can't just—"

I yanked him closer and he let me do it.

"Have you tried?" I asked.

He shook his head, looking bemused. I knew he was stronger and faster, but I didn't care. My immortal life was going to end. There was no more time for planning or worrying or contemplating. Before I
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passed on, I would help Lor through his razor-blade forest—whether he wanted me to or not.

He looked at me uncertainly, his lips twitching. Amusement flashed in his eyes, but was soon lost in the serious monk's expression he'd probably spent centuries perfecting.

"You're stubborn," I pronounced. Then I mashed my lips to his.

I kissed him desperately until I realized I probably shouldn't be kissing anyone. I let go. "The taint—I'm sorry."

"I can't get it again. My DNA was essentially changed by the radical cure. If the taint, in any form, gets into my bloodstream, my mutated antibodies will kill it."

"Okay then." I threw my arms around his neck and dipped my tongue inside his mouth. His arms went around me and he drew me from the bed, holding me against him as his tongue danced with mine.
I would
bind with you, Lor. I really would
.

"Eva," he murmured. "My darling Eva. Our binding would be lovely."

I realized he had responded to my thoughts. I pulled away, just a little, and asked, "Why can you hear what I'm thinking?"

I wished immediately that I hadn't asked. He gently put me on the bed and tucked me back under the sheet. He straightened his clothes, but he couldn't fix the tousled look of his hair or hide his swollen lips.

When he stepped away from the bed, away from
me
, I felt the loss keenly. Obviously, I had shaken him… but he had shaken me, too. To the core. I still felt internal earthquakes.

"I will not let you die," he said. "I owe you that much." I heard the grief and recrimination in his words. I wanted to hug him
and
punch him.