A Girls Guide to Vampires(128)

A terrible, high-pitched shriek ripped through the echoes, setting new ones bouncing off the walls, rippling through the air in one long, endless cry of death. When the noise stopped, I opened my eyes. Christian held Dominic a good two feet off the ground, one hand closed around his neck, his head tilted at an unnatural angle. With a flick of his wrist Christian sent Dominic flying. He hit the wall and slid down it like a soggy rag doll.

I gagged. Raphael tried to move, but I held him down.

"Don't move, my love. Oh, God, the stain is getting bigger. How long will it take the police to come around the other end? Raphael, please don't try to move!"

His hands were tight on my waist as he tried to shove me aside. A shadow fell over the two of us.

I looked up, tears streaking my cheeks. "Christian, can you help him? Please, will you help him? He's been shot, and I don't know what to do. Please help us."

Christian held his hand out for me, his face closed and impassive. I thought he wanted me out of the way so he could help Raphael, but when he pulled me to my feet, he didn't take my place. He just stood holding me.

Raphael snarled and tried to shift himself. "She's mine, Dante."

"No! Stop him! Raphael, you're going to kill yourself if you keep trying to move!" I struggled against Christian, but the arm he had around my waist was like steel. He looked from Raphael to me, his eyes deep wells of suffering. One finger traced the welt on the side of my face where Dominic had struck me with the gun, a drop of blood clinging to his finger. He looked at it for a moment, then brought it to his lips.

"I have allowed this to go on long enough. It is at an end."

I looked in his eyes and knew he would do nothing to help Raphael.

Unless I bargained for that help.

"Please help him," I cried, my lips trembling as more tears spilled down my cheeks. Raphael grunted with pain as he tried to get to his feet. I held my hands out to him, but Christian would not let me move. "Please," I begged. "I love him so much, Christian. Don't do this to me; please don't make Raphael suffer."

By some miracle of willpower, Raphael dragged himself to his feet, one hand clutching his side as he panted, leaning drunkenly against the cave wall. "You can't have her," he said, his voice low and rough. "She's mine."

Blood seeped up from between his fingers. I moaned at the sight of it, and willed Raphael to look at me.

"I love you," I told him. "I always will. Nothing will ever change that."

He lurched away from the wall toward us, but was slammed backward when Christian lifted his hand.

"Leave him alone, God damn you!" I shrieked, and turned to pummel Christian.

"He already has, Beloved."

I looked back at Raphael. He was slumped against the wall, bright red smeared against the light-colored stone behind him, his body shaking with the effort to stay upright.

"She's… my… love," he said, his eyes on me. "Not yours. Never."

"Come with me, Beloved." Christian's voice was like velvet sliding on my skin. "I will make you forget him. I will give you everything you want. I will be everything to you."

Raphael took a step away from the wall. With a flick of his eyes, Christian sent him flying across the room.

"NOOOOO!" I screamed. Raphael lay halfway across a bench, his belly and chest bright with blood. He raised himself up on one arm, his head hanging, blood dripping from a cut on his temple.

I closed my eyes, unable to bear seeing him hurt, then turned in Christian's arms. "I will come with you."

"No, baby."

I ignored Raphael's low cry, watching as Christian's eyes flared to life.

"I will come with you and live with you for however long you want me to, but you have to save Raphael first. You have to save him and let him go and promise never to harm him."

Christian's eyes searched mine.

"You have to save him now, and swear to me that you won't ever do anything to hurt him. Ever."

"Baby, don't leave me," Raphael called hoarsely to me, sliding down the bench to the floor. I sobbed while my heart shattered into little pieces, my nails biting into my palms as I watched the man that I loved die.

"You would do this for him?" Christian asked. "You would give him up?"

"So that he might live? Yes. I would do anything for that."

"I won't let you go." Raphael's words were the merest whisper, but they cut through my heart like a razor. I didn't look at him. I couldn't look at him. There was no way I could save him unless I gave myself to Christian, unless I bartered myself for Raphael's life.

Christian's eyes narrowed. "Everything you've said, every protestation and objection you've made—you say to Join with me will damn you; you would risk damnation for him? Would you sell yourself for his life?"