I touched his cheek and the skin slowly healing blackened under my touch. I jerked away. "I'm hurting you. My skin, it's glowing, I- I think it's sunlight."
At any other time or with any other vampire, sunlight seeping through my pores would be crazily fortuitous, but my voice was horrified. Eyes closed, his fingers searched for mine. Again his skin burned the moment he touched me, and I tried to pull away, not understanding why I was causing him more pain. There was no off switch, and though my light was dimming, I didn't want to risk hurting him.
"Don't pull away from me. I will heal."
My skin looked dark next to his. He looked deader than usual and it scared me. The glow of my skin had cranked it down a notch and he held on tighter.
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes," he said slowly, and sounded like if he had the energy to make fun of me, he would. "Rae, promise me something?"
"That depends. The last time I agreed to something before knowing what it was, it caused me a lot of trouble."
He coughed and laughed. It was a wet, horrible sound and I grimaced.
"Go ahead then, tell me."
His eyes sparkled like shiny rocks before the lights in them went out, and they slid closed. He died for the day.
"Tell me," I said loudly, panicked.
It was in vain. He was beyond me now and would not be within my reach until the sunset. I watched as my blood healed his body, faster than if it had been human blood. For once I felt relief that I was fairy, being this way had helped him survive.
I was tired and sad, but the silence and stillness was not welcome. I was worried about what would happen when I stepped from the living shroud. I ran my palm over the earthen roof above me, and blinked when dirt fell in my eyes. The walls and floor were soft and hard. A mixture of leaves, mud and bark. There was a root dug into my back and I shifted closer to my slumbering vampire-boy. He was cold again and though it made me shiver, I scooted closer and rested my head on his chest.
The best thing, I figured, would be to wait for sunset. Tomas would hopefully be better and he could have more of my blood if he needed.
Breandan was going to be mad.
The thought alone was enough for me to want to be entombed there for the rest of my days. In the end, he had helped me save Tomas, but I knew he was not happy. I could feel he was not happy. He was also close by, so close if I was to stand he would probably be sitting less than a few paces away. Guarding me. I was proud that he had chosen to do the right thing, even though he knew it might mean losing my love to another. It made me love him more. Gods, how selfish was I? I loved Breandan but was too afraid to tell him. He was already crazy possessive and I was not okay with that. I was bonded to him by magic and that was commitment enough as far as I was concerned.
A further problem was that Tomas was a part of my being now. As much as I needed air to breath, I knew I would need him around. Just being next to him was dangerous. He was a starving vampire who was disconnected from his humanity, and unscrupulous in his belief he had to kill to survive. Yet I found him endearing and worth saving.
Conall would be pissed too, not that he had a right. I was going to have words with that brother of mine and none of them were going to be nice. He had failed me. I could understand why he could not save Alex; his main concern was recuing Lochlann and Breandan so they could fight.
Tears I thought I had already cried out ran down my face as I thought of my friend. She had been so brave, in the end. She had not looked at me with hate and disgust, but told me she loved me. Gods, as much as I hated it, I could accept it because she did. I had tried to save her, to reanimate her body using the voodoo practices of her bloodline, but it hadn't worked. I'd been stopped. There was nothing else to do but take her body back to Temple and back to Ro. He would hate me too, for he was smart and would figure it out. The easy thing would be to bury her out here so no one knew of her death, but I couldn't do that. Her life deserved to be celebrated. All I could do was try to explain and hope Ro could forgive me, as she did.
