"But it would be better to work on a living changeling subject, would it not?" When she nodded, Richard turned to Michael. "Sending me copies of the data simply isn't enough anymore, seigneur. I hope you understand." Before Michael could react, the high lord's voice swelled to a level he rarely used, the one with which he could control other Kyn. "You will not speak. You will not interfere." He turned to Lucan, who was rising from the bed. "Neither will you."
Michael could not resist the voice, and stood helpless as the dark lord took Alexandra by the arm and guided her out of the suite. The effect of Richard's voice disappeared a few moments later, but when Michael ran downstairs, Phillipe and Thierry stood paralyzed, and Richard was gone.
He waited with his seneschal until Phillipe emerged from his bespelled state. "The high lord took her with him, master. I could not stop him."
John Keller joined them. "Neither could I. What is he going to do to my sister, Cyprien?"
Michael stared at one of the golden banners hanging from the ceiling of the club. "He'll try to use her to find a cure for himself."
"Your blond friend said he killed half of his own servants." John turned to him, his fists clenched. "Will he do the same to Alexandra if she doesn't find this cure?"
"I don't know," Michael admitted. "I don't know what he's capable of anymore."
John considered that for a long moment. "All right. Where will he take her from here?"
Thierry answered for Michael. "To Ireland. To his kingdom in hell."
"You can't let him have her," John said. "What are we going to do about it?"
"We will go into hell." Michael looked into the dark, fierce eyes of Alex's brother, and saw a determination that matched his own. "And we will take her back."
Lucan lay next to the woman he loved. It had been six days now, and still she lingered, not dead or alive, but caught in some purgatory between the two. He had not left her for a moment since the night of the concert.
Samantha did not move on her own. She never woke.
Cyprien had come to see him before leaving Florida. They had settled many things, and while they would never be friends, the days of being enemies were over.
"I think Leigh must have been responsible for all of the crimes and deaths the Kyn believed you committed for your own amusement," Cyprien told him.
Lucan had long believed Cyprien guilty of similar crimes against him. "He was a victim of the Brethren."
Michael held out his hand. "So were you."
Each day Lucan washed Samantha and brushed out her hair and rubbed her skin with silky lotions to improve her sluggish circulation. He kept her naked but covered with the softest linens.
He talked to her for hours. He told her about Gwynyth, and his childhood at court, and how it had been to live in such dangerous times. How proud he had been to be selected to join the Templars, and how crushing the grim reality of living as a warrior-priest had been. He told her how he had learned to fight on the sands of ancient deserts, and the horror of the battles waged there. He even told her of the years after he rose as Kyn, when he had sworn his oath of loyalty to Richard, and carried out his orders, and how, gradually, he had come to know that he could not spend his life ending those of others, whatever their crimes had been. Most of all, he told her the truth about what he was, and what he had done.
Samantha never reacted, never showed a sign that she could hear him.
After the last of Alex's blood was gone, Lucan used saline solution to keep her hydrated. He feared giving her any form of human nourishment, but as her weight dwindled, he tried clear juices and broths. She instantly regurgitated everything he fed her. He was too afraid of poisoning her further to try giving her his own blood.
On the seventh day, Lucan left the bed to stand at the third set of windows Burke had installed. Alex's blood had healed the wound in her side, and kept her alive, but that was all it had done, and he did not have the knowledge or means to discover what else was happening to Samantha. For all he knew the blood could be slowly poisoning her from the inside out.
It was time to let her go, to put her back in the hands of her own kind.
Lucan had never wept in his life. Any show of tears before his mother had resulted in an immediate, vicious beating for him, and during his years in the Holy Land the sun, the hatred, and the merciless march of death across the sands had desiccated his emotions. Richard and the Kyn had finished the job, turning him into a killing machine. No, he could no more weep than he could bring life with his touch, but as he went to sit beside the woman he loved, he wished he could.
Lucan took her scarred hand between his, and bent over to kiss her lips and breathe in her scent. He would spend a few more hours with her, and then he would summon Rafael to take her away from him. He closed his eyes as their lips met.
"Mmmmm."
He jerked back at the sound, sure he had imagined it, and saw her eyelashes flutter. "Samantha?" He slid his hands under her shoulders, lifting her up. "Samantha?"
"Shhh." She groped until she could press her fingers against his mouth. She grimaced. "My mouth hurts."
Lucan tipped her face back and opened her mouth. Inside, two newly formed apertures made dark holes in her palate. "Those are dents acérées," he said, almost laughing the words. "You've grown fangs, my love."
"Sucks." She closed her mouth and glared at him. "Do I?"
He nodded. "I gave you some of Alexandra's blood. I didn't know if it would work, but I couldn't let you die. You're making the change from human to Kyn."
She thought about it for a while. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"I'm not Frances," she said suddenly. "I only look like her. I'll never be her."
He uttered a shaky laugh. "I don't want Frances."
"I'm a cop. I'm not giving it up." She shifted. "You are done being the Darkyn's cop."
"Yes." He thought of Richard and Cyprien. "I think I am."
"Do you love me?" When he nodded, she sighed and closed her eyes, snuggling closer to him. "Hold that thought, and me."
Lucan rested his cheek against the top of her head. "Forever."
THE END