Deep down, she hoped he hadn’t written her off. She just needed some space. Time away to think. But if she went back to him would he insist on turning her? What would he think about the prospect of becoming a father? Maybe vampire baby daddies didn’t like to be strapped down by kids, either. In which case, maybe all of this worrying was moot?
Claire wrapped her arms around her torso tightly, as though trying to hold the halves of her body together. She missed him so much that she hurt. Would it be so awful to let him turn her? To go back to him and beg him to forgive her for leaving?
Would he even want her back or had she burned the one bridge she couldn’t bear to set fire to?
* * *
Not since the slayer had left him to die had Mikhail felt such despair. The Collective assaulted his mind, memories that bled into his reality until he couldn’t separate the two. His throat burned with thirst and his heartbeat had begun to slow until he could no longer bear the sound of its strangled rhythm within his chest. He wanted to claw at his flesh, reach through muscle and bone, and rip the damned thing out once and for all.
The pain of losing her was unbearable.
“Five dead. Another twelve wounded.”
Ronan’s words faded to the back of Mikhail’s mind, incomprehensible and inseparable from the memory of a war long since fought and lost. Where was she? Why had she left? He couldn’t feel her presence, not even a hint of where she might be. As when she’d resisted his attempt to compel her, she was somehow blocking the bond created by their tether. It was obvious she didn’t want him to find her, and so for days he hadn’t even tried.
Anger at the way she’d left him welled fresh and hot in his chest. He had neither the time nor the patience for her games. If she wanted to go, fine. Wanted to shun the protection he’d offered, so be it. Mikhail had lived for centuries, survived a slayer’s killing blow and decades at the bottom of a tomb. He would not let her succeed where the others had failed. She would not be the end of him.
“Mikhail, did you hear me?”
He raked his hands through his hair as an enraged snarl worked its way up his throat. His fangs punched down from his gums as rage and despair settled on him like a heavy mantle he was helpless to cast off. Claire … Claire, Claire, Claire … Her name in his mind attacked his sense of sanity. The memory of her, willing in his arms, was the most unspeakable torture. She’d run away, hidden herself from him, and he had no doubt that somewhere the Sortiari lay in wait, their slayers poised to take her life, and he would be helpless to stop it.#p#分页标题#e#
“Mikhail!” Ronan’s shout rang in his ears. “Gods damn it, listen to me. We’re under siege and unless you do something about it we’re all going to die!”
Mikhail gave a violent shake of his head in a hopeless effort to dislodge his lingering thoughts of Claire. His emotional compass swung from north to south. At once he was enraged, vowing never to give her a second thought, and the next moment mourning her loss as though she’d died. He had to face the reality that she was gone. Hidden from him. Her presence no longer burned in his soul; it was nothing more than a pinpoint of light in vast darkness. And there wasn’t anything he could do about it. But standing before him, Ronan and a majority of the dhampir race beseeched him for leadership. He needed to focus on the crisis he could manage instead of the one that was out of his control.
“I’m sorry that Claire is gone.” Mikhail’s back was turned to his friend, but the words were like a slap to his face. “We found her once; we’ll find her again. Perhaps she’s safer on her own. If she’s hidden herself from you, then she’s hidden from them as well. Until we can contain the slayers’ attacks to a manageable level, she’s in less danger the farther away from you she is.” Ronan took a deep breath and threw his shoulders back. “But right now, Mikhail, you have to keep your word to me. Before you’re too gods-damned weak to do the deed. Our people need protection. We need to stand against the guardians of Fate and let them know that we will not be put down like feral dogs. Show your people that you’re deserving of their allegiance.”
It was a speech worthy of any general heading onto the battlefield. One Mikhail had given himself many times over the course of his long life. But without Claire by his side, all of it felt futile. A cause lost before it could ever be saved. She’d given him a gift of strength, however. And to let it go to waste would be blasphemy.
“Tell me more about this Jenner.” Mikhail kept his gaze locked on the garden, shrouded by night but no less vibrant to his gaze. Moonlight glistened in the fountain, the sound of the rushing water as clear to Mikhail’s ears as if he were standing beside the boiling geyser. He’d spent every night near the fountain since Claire had left. Reliving their moments together as his body yearned for more. One night had bound him to her. Eight glorious hours that her body had belonged to him and him alone. He would go after her. And when he found her he would do everything in his power to ensure that she never had reason to leave him again.