LITMIR.BIZ

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      “The Chosen?”

      “That is what we call those few, rare mortals who share some inexplicable bond with us. Only they can become as we are. We always know them, watch over them, protect them if we can. That is why I’ve followed your band. To protect you, because you are one of The Chosen.”

      She blinked very slowly. “What are you, exactly?”

      “My name is Bartrone,” he said. “I am a vampire.”

      She moved reflexively, and Will knew she would have made some protective magical sign if she could have moved her arms. But all she managed was a spasmlike tug on the chains.

      “Please, do not be afraid. You’re dying, Sarafina. Your mortal life is slipping away. The symptoms you’ve been feeling are proof enough of that. The Chosen always die young. You can let it go on and die alone, or you can let me share my gift with you and become what I am. Become…my friend and companion.”

       No, Will thought. Never!

      “No. No, you’re a demon, a killer. You murder the innocent. I’ll never be like you!”

      “Hardly innocent,” Bartrone said softly. “Your precious Belinda had grown tired of caring for her aging mother. She was poisoning her.”

      Sarafina went very still there in the darkness. “P-poisoning?”

      “Had you not noticed the old woman’s health beginning to fail?”

      “Yes, but…”

      “I’ve only removed the dregs from your band, Sarafina. Those who dearly needed killing, though I should have seen your sister for what she was and taken her long ago. I’m sorry I allowed her to betray you this way.”

      “What way?”

      He lowered his head. “Please-do not pretend you don’t know. You know about her and Andre. You must know.”

      She looked away from him, tears pooling in her eyes as her mind replayed her final conversation with the man she’d thought she would wed. Will ached for her.

      “He planned to marry you only because you were the wealthier of the two, and because he knew your gifts far surpassed those of your sister. Yet by night, he and Katerina slip into the forest, where they copulate on the ground or standing up against the trees, or on hands and knees, like animals. I’ve watched them. I’ve seen it all.”

      “You lie,” she whispered, though she could barely speak. Will knew she believed every word the monster said.

      “It doesn’t matter. You can’t go back there.”

      “I can. I must. Let me go.” Again she jerked and tugged at the chains.

      The vampire leaned over her, stared into her eyes as he lowered his body atop hers and clasped her wrists with his hands. “You can’t go back. My life has become unbearably lonely. You’ll only die, Sarafina, unless you accept the gift. And I’m afraid I have no inclination to give you a choice in the matter.”

      Releasing her hands, he cupped her face, turned her head to one side and moved her hair out of the way. Will attacked him, but his blows were like air. Holding her that way, the vampire pressed his mouth to Sarafina’s throat, and bit down hard, without mercy. His fangs stabbed deep into her neck-Will felt the pain she felt-and then the creature suckled her there, drinking her very lifeblood as she slowly faded into him.

      She felt as if she were hovering outside her body. Looking down at the monster feeding so hungrily at her throat. Then she shifted her gaze to Will’s, and he realized she could see him. She was panting, her chest rising and falling, and his was, too, as the two of them gazed down at the vampire feeding from the woman. It was erotic and exquisite and arousing. It shouldn’t have been. It should have been horrifying, but somehow, it wasn’t.

      Then the creature lifted his head away, staring down at her still, pale face.

       Has he killed me, then? Sarafina directed the question to Will, looking right at him as she spoke. Are you the spirit who has come for me, to take me to the other side?

       I’m not a spirit, he told her. I’m real. I’m a man, and I love you.

      She looked down at her body from the place where she hovered. Her eyes were wide and vacant. Her skin was whiter than it had ever been. I will never love anyone again. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. I think I am dead

      The vampire drew a dagger from a sheath at his side and pressed the very tip of the blade to his own throat. Sarafina watched, amazed at the action, and mesmerized when he drew it away and ruby-red welled up in the puncture wound.

      The vampire bent again, cradling her lifeless head, pressing her mouth to his neck.

      Suddenly Sarafina was sucked back into her body in one rapid flash that ended with the impact of a fist to the heart. She tasted the first droplet on her tongue, and every nerve ending came to quivering, hungering life. Will felt it. He felt it all. She closed her lips around the wound and sucked the blood from it, feeling stronger with every swallow.

      Finally the vampire held Sarafina’s forehead with his palm and jerked himself away from her hungry mouth.

      “Now,” he whispered, breathless, panting, his eyes ablaze, “you rest, here with me. Later, you can visit your clan and see them with clear eyes for the first time.”

      She looked at the cave around her. “It looks different. I can see every color dancing in the flames of the torch! And I can hear it. The flames have a song all their own.”

      “Everything is different now,” Bartrone said. “You are immortal. You need never die.”

      “You sound different, too, and you look-by Devel, my senses are heightened to a thousand times what they were before. It’s almost unbearable.”

      “You’ll grow used to it in time. You’ll have plenty of time. But now you must rest. And when you wake, you will be stronger, and I will explain things to you. You’re like me, now, Sarafina. You’re a vampire.”

      “I’m…a vampire….”

      “Now sleep,” he whispered. “Sleep.”

      She slept.

       5

       W ill opened his eyes, and the white sun was gleaming down into them, blinding him, so he closed them again. He tried to sit up.

      “Easy, easy now, pal. Don’t move too much all at once.”

      The voice was young, and male, and…and American?

      He tried opening his eyes again, just a little. As his vision cleared, he realized the blazing white light overhead was coming from a fluorescent bulb, not the desert sun. And the sand underneath him was a mattress, covered with white sheets that smelled of disinfectant. And the robes he wore were only a hospital gown and bedcovers.

      The young man was standing beside the bed. He had dirty-blond hair twisted into dreadlocks, and an eyebrow ring. But he wore the scrubs of a hospital staffer, and the tag pinned to his chest read Danny Miller, R.N.

      Will tried to talk but only rasped, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Where am I?”

      “Dude, look around. You’re in a hospital.” The kid pushed a button that raised Will’s upper body, then he picked up a plastic cup with a straw through the top and held the straw to Will’s lips.

      Will drank. The ice water felt good going down his parched throat. He noted the IV bags dangling from a pole beside the bed, noticed the tubes leading to his wrists, glanced down at his foot, but it was covered by blankets. Hell, how bad was it? He couldn’t feel much in any of his limbs just yet.

      “What hospital?” he asked at length, trying to move the foot but feeling no response.

      “Bethesda.”

      Will

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