LITMIR.BIZ

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thing, but so distant as to depress rather than uplift.

      Experience told me the wind might abate with the sunset, a prospect I both welcomed and dreaded. It got cold when the sun went down, and Ivy was suffering, drifting in and out of consciousness. We were both thirsty, but she’d never said a word, happy that I was here with her.

      Vampires suck, I thought, not for the first time as I rested my head against her shoulder and closed my eyes against the upwelling grief. How had we gotten here, playing a deadly game of waiting where Ivy’s life hung in the chance between time and pixy wings?

      Black traces of smut ran over the gold glow of my aura hazing my protection circle, arching like electricity between poles. The surface demons were gathering outside, not so patiently waiting for my circle to fall. One of them stood so his silhouette would be obvious against the darkening sky. He was taller than the rest, and the way he held his staff made me wonder if he was the same one Newt had tormented last summer in her calibration curse.

      “You should go,” Ivy whispered, and I started, not having realized she was awake.

      I tugged her coat closer around her, careful not to hurt her. “No,” I said simply, and she turned her black eyes to me, unblinking and catching the faint light from the sky.

      “I’m going to die compromised,” she said, as if she were talking about cutting her hair. “Without medical intervention, I’ll wake hungry and incoherent. You should leave. I don’t want to hurt you.”

      My thoughts flashed to the one time we’d tried to share blood. She’d mistakenly taken her feelings of love from it and had nearly killed me. I’d seen the beast of hunger in her before, and she hurt me because I would hurt her to stop it. “No,” I whispered, and she sighed.

      Silent, I watched the tall surface demon elegantly swing his staff to drive another from his rock, and the smaller demon scuttled sideways. “Bis will be awake soon,” I said, but it sounded like a prayer even to me. Ivy wasn’t shivering anymore, scaring me. “It will be okay. Jenks went to get Bis. He can jump you right to Trent’s surgical suite. It won’t be long now.”

      But I knew she heard the lie as well as I did.

      “I’m sorry,” Ivy slurred, and a lump filled my throat. “I know you wanted things to be different.”

      I stared ahead, trying not to blink. They weren’t going to make it here in time. Forcing a smile, I adjusted her blood-stained coat. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

      “I’m scared.”

      I eased closer, not liking the chill she had. “I’m not going anywhere.” Damn it, I didn’t have anything to help her. Nothing. She was going to die, and all I could do was hold her hand. The tears slipped down, cold in the chill wind. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Sensing the end, the surface demon with the staff moved, easing down from his rock to hunch just outside the barrier. He looked like an Aborigine, wise, gaunt, and cautious where his kin were simply thin and hungry.

      “Promise me you won’t be my scion. I want Nina to do it.”

      Surprised, I stilled my hand against her hair. I’d thought she’d been sleeping. “Nina?” My voice had been bitter, and I couldn’t help but wonder if some of this was Nina’s fault. The young woman liked risks, was clever, and was in love with Ivy—and so addicted to the sensations that her master vampire could pull through her that she’d do just about anything to escape him even as she crawled back for more. If Ivy was an undead, she could claim Nina as her scion. At least that way, someone Nina loved would be abusing her instead of a half-mad, dying undead. Felix was insane from the sun already, and his children would soon be orphaned, vulnerable in the extreme unless another undead claimed them. No one would contest it.

      “I can’t do that to you,” she said, and heartache filled me when I realized she was crying. “I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life trying to keep me from walking into the sun. If you can’t end my second life, then promise me that you’ll walk away. That you won’t try to help me. Understand that I’m lost.”

      Throat tight, I held her close. “I promise,” I lied. The wind gusted and died, making the surface demon’s tattered clothes shift. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

      “I’m feeling better,” she said, her breath becoming shallower. “Really.”

      “That’s good,” I said, my hand moving against an unbloodied part of her hair. My throat was tight. She’d tried so hard to be the person she wanted to be. She’d given me friendship, kept me from pain, sacrificed her goals to keep me alive. And I couldn’t stop this. I couldn’t give her anything back. I could only hold her hand.

      Maybe it’s enough, I thought miserably. The smallest things meant the world to her.

      But then the head surface demon jerked straight. In a breath, he turned and vanished, rocks clinking to mark his passage. Another was an instant behind him. Tense, I pulled myself up, tasting the gritty night wind. Something had scared them off.

      “Bis?” I whispered, the sound of my voice echoing back off the flat, rocky earth. But the sun was still up.

      “I should have known,” a bitterly proud and slightly accented voice said. “How did you do it? Elf magic?”

      My pulse thudded. Breath held, I sent my eyes searching. A soft glow blossomed, and I found him. Just outside my circle and between me and the ruins of Cincinnati, Al stood in a soft puddle of light. His velvet frock coat was elegant, and his stance sure. The glow leaking from the archaic lantern hardly made it past his silver-buckled shoes, but I knew it was all that could get through the thick layer of smut on his soul—and I knew it bothered him, for once he’d been able to light an amphitheater to bright noon.

      “Do what?” I whispered, not moving—hardly breathing. Al had tried to kill me. Okay, he’d tried to kill me a couple of times, but this last time I think he’d really meant it.

      “My line is no longer in that stinking puddle of water,” he said, nose wrinkled. “I came to find out why before the sun set. It was you?” Lip curling, he dusted a nearby boulder with a silk cloth and set the lantern down. “Trying to curry favor makes you weak.”

      “Al …,” I breathed, and pain flashed across his face, ruddy from the setting sun.

      “Do not call me that. My name is Gally.”

      “Al, please,” I said again, carefully extricating myself from Ivy, hoping she would remain asleep. The heartache of his bitter abandonment hit me hard, my emotions already paper thin because of Ivy. I felt new tears threaten, hating them. “It was an accident. I was trying to …” My throat closed up. Ivy slumped behind me, but he wouldn’t help, and that hurt even more.

      “Oh-h-h-h,” he said in mock distress. “Your sad, sad little friend is dying.”

      He could save her with a word, but I remained silent, standing before him, hating his bitter callousness. He was better than this. I’d seen it in unguarded moments.

      “You smell like carrion,” he said, nose wrinkled. Behind me Ivy stirred but didn’t wake. “Butterflies like carrion.” He paused as if in speculation. “No, that’s elf. I can smell the stink from here, even over the putrid reek of burnt amber.”

      Nothing in him had changed. I knew it wouldn’t have. My finding love with Trent hadn’t hurt him this bad. I was a symptom, not the core of what brought this hatred out. The fear that he might kill Trent just to spite me was real, though, and I backed up a step.

      “Silent?” He sniffed, looking disgusted. “Miracles do happen.”

      Why is he still here? I heard the scrabbling of claws and I glanced at Ivy. “I could use your help,” I whispered, knowing he never would.

      “Demons don’t help,” he said bitterly. “Demons torment. Can’t you tell the difference?”

      “That’s

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