Vita mutatur, non tollitur.
Blood on the sheets.
Betrayal.
A severed heart.
The dead…
Holy shit.
Jaci’s eyes flew open.
That was it. The key to her binding spell. The missing piece.
Everyone always said the eyes were the window to the soul, and that was true. But the heart? The heart was the house. It held the very essence of the vampire—of any being. It controlled the flow of his blood as well as the path of his life. Every beat was like a note in a symphony, a complex pattern that recorded the patterns of his life, the silence of his death. It was the purest, most powerful thing about him.
The thing that truly could bind the powers of an ancient demon who’d cursed him.
Normally, removing a vampire’s heart was one of the most efficient ways of icing him. But when the bloodsuckers died, they turned to ash—their bodies, their bones, their blood, their heart. All of it.
Which is where Jaci’s resurrection magic came in.
Vita mutatur, non tollitur.Life is changed, not taken away.
Just like she’d done with the grays, she could postpone the moment of Gabriel’s death, allowing her to tear out his heart without turning it to ash. It wouldn’t even kill him.
She closed her eyes once more, an image of his face floating before her. That strong, stubbled jaw, always clenched, always tight. Those ice-cold eyes, always leering at her.
The quirk of a smile when she’d caught him off guard with a joke.
The mint he’d brought her. The gum.
Damn it.
Guilt knifed through her chest, hot and sharp, but she quickly smothered it. What did she have to feel guilty about? After those early skirmishes, she’d tried to be kind to him. Tried to be…well, if not his friend, at least his associate.
And all he’d ever done was complain. Criticize. Demand. Expect.
Jaci opened her eyes and blew out a heavy sigh. She was just about to reach for a new bottle of wine when a sense of dread skittered up her spine, a dark presence lurking behind her.
Spinning on her heel, she came face to face with a ghost. One she hadn’t seen in over six weeks.
She’d assumed—hoped—he’d been killed in the Bloodbath massacre.
But once again, fate was not so kind.
“Hello, butterfly,” the ghost said, his Russian accent as thick as his neck. Kostya wore the mark of Rogozin now, but Jaci knew him from his Chernikov days. Days when he’d sworn fealty to the old guard, trading favors with Renault.
Collecting payment from her.
Her body burned with old wounds. With all the scars you couldn’t see.
Another monster stepped up beside him. Jaci knew his face, knew his eyes, knew the cruel bite of his laughter, but not his name. Never his name.
He has no name, butterfly,Kostya’s old words echoed.We call him He Who Likes to Watch…
Fear paralyzed her, even as her heart damn near exploded in her chest. Her eyes darted around frantically, but no one was paying them any mind. The bar was too crowded, the music too loud, the other servers too busy.
