Just before they reached each other, a vampire charged toward Kaderin. Sebastian met him, striking viciously, clearing the way for them.
When Kaderin stood before her sisters, at last, she couldn't find her voice. With a trembling hand, she reached out to cup Dasha's stubborn chin, then brush Rika's glossy dark hair from her eyes. "I-I missed you two so much," she finally managed to say as her tears began to fall.
"Missed us?" Dasha said. "When did you dress differently - and so strangely? And who's that male?"
"There's no time for that, Dash." Kaderin forced herself to be blunt. "The two of you die in this battle. In ten minutes, a vampire takes your heads. And it is my fault."
Dasha opened her mouth to interrupt her, but Kaderin raised her hand. "We must make this fast. I live one thousand years in the future now, and I'm taking you forward to my time tonight. And I'm so sorry, but you're going to lose those years. Forever."
Without blinking an eye, ever-practical Dasha said, "Seems to me that they will be lost as well if we are dead."
Rika put her hands on her knees, bending over and coughing blood. "Kader-ie, I don't understand." She'd already been hurt worse than Kaderin had ever known. "How is this possible?"
"You know extraordinary things happen in the Lore - we've seen them before. We've experienced much stranger than this," Kaderin said. "You're just going to have to trust me now because if we don't get through a certain door, very quickly, I could cease to be."
"If we leave the battle, how could we show our faces again?" Dasha asked. "We'd be known as cowards. You could think us cowards."
"No," Kaderin said. "You would be remembered as dying valiantly in battle."
"No one would curse our names?" Dasha asked.
"Never, I vow it."
Dasha turned her attention to Sebastian. "And the man?"
Chapter 24
"His name is Sebastian. I... I love him."
The sisters both tilted their heads, watching him fighting as bodies were piling up around him. He was outright glorious, powerful, everything any of them had ever dreamed of in a male.
And they had no idea they were ogling a vampire.
Dasha whistled. "There is much to love, sister."
Rika coughed more blood. "He is beautiful, Kader-ie." She leaned on her sword, the ultimate sign of weakness - something one simply did not do if one could possibly prevent it. "Then take us forward. Another adventure."
Dasha remained unconvinced. "There's no peace in the future, is there? We still fight vampires?"
"Yes, there are still bad vampires to fight."
"Bad vampires? As if there exist good ones? How strangely you speak."
Rika stumbled. "I'm dizzy. Call for your man."
Kaderin dropped her sword and scooped her up. "Just a bit longer, sweet."
When all around Sebastian lay an assortment of dead vampires, he spotted the past Kaderin fighting.
And stared transfixed.
She wore a golden breastplate and carried her sword and a whip. Though injured, she continued to fight savagely, shrieking her fury and orders over the deafening thunder.
Pointing her sword, she directed bowswomen with their flaming arrows and witches with their spells, as they hurtled their strikes in bright trails at the enemy.
She had blood running from her temple and the corner of her lips, and her blond hair was braided for battle. Her eyes were silver. She was absently marking the vampires she'd killed.
He was awed...
A massive vampire with a battle ax traced behind her. She hadn't sensed him in the melee. Sebastian tensed to trace -
"Bastian, no!" Kaderin screamed over the clamor from behind him. He turned, saw her handing the wounded sister into the other's arms. Kaderin ran for him. "I'll kill you!" He finally let her lead him away, though it went against everything inside him to leave her here.
When they met the sisters at the doorway, Kaderin said, "And believe it or not, I get out of that scrape. He ended up wearing that ax as a hat all night."
Sebastian yanked her to him and kissed her, pride filling him. "You were magnificent."
"Were?"
"Are. Always will be."
"Bastian, we're going back." She gave him a watery grin.
They'd saved them. He had them all here and felt twenty feet tall.
Yet then he spied her sword glinting twenty feet away. "Your sword? I can get it - "
"Leave it, Bastian. It's not important anymore! We have to go!"
No, she loved that sword. He traced to it, snatched it up, and traced back to them.
The injured sister weakly screamed, "Vampyre!"
A blade slipped between his ribs.
41
T old you they'd try to kill you," Kaderin whispered with a quirked eyebrow. She'd begun rolling a bandage around Sebastian's torso, now that Rika had been tended to.
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck as Dasha burned holes with her eyes. "I believe Dasha wishes she'd sunk the blade instead of Rika," he muttered. "And twisted it."
Kaderin knew she needed to separate Dasha and Sebastian, but she didn't want to let either of them out of her sight. Even as she bandaged him, she couldn't help glancing at her sisters - Rika lying pale on the couch, Dasha beginning to pace - as if they'd disappear.
Sebastian stroked her shoulder. "They're back with you," he murmured. "They're not going anywhere."
"I know. It's just so strange."
Rika and Dasha began speaking in a mixture of old tongues.
"What are they saying?" Sebastian asked.
"They think you have some kind of dark magic to make me want you. That undoubtedly I'm in thrall to you." Once Kaderin finished up with his bandage, she rose and said, "I'll just go put Rika in bed and talk with them in the back for a bit." And explain again that all of us would be dead if not for him.
She didn't miss that his eyes darkened. He thought she was already drawing away.
Perhaps that was the only thing she could do at this time.
She lifted Rika and motioned for Dasha to follow. Dasha did so - after casting Sebastian a savage look.
In the bedroom, Kaderin laid Rika in bed while Dasha resumed pacing. "You knew he was a vampire. And you still fell in love with him? He's fine, to be sure," Dasha added, moving from one foreign electronic object to another, tilting her head as she lifted a clock and then a stereo speaker. "But you risk his turning."
Kaderin sat on the bed beside Rika. "Myst's husband hasn't turned. It's only when a vampire kills as he drinks. So if he drinks an immortal who can't die like that, he'll be immune - "