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The only release from his torment would be to behead him. To lose him forever. In the hours after Charity’s attack, I’d been faced with the decision of whether or not to kill Lucas; now I had to face it again. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
I squeezed his hand tighter. Dana, who had begun to sob, reached up with one hand to wipe her cheeks. Lucas’s head, free from its cradle, lolled to one side. Blood from the cut on his forehead had oozed down to his throat, pooling just beneath his Adam’s apple. It reminded me of how he had 232 looked the first time I bit him.
Vampire’s blood, I thought. During the ritual, it had attracted me powerfully. As powerfully as if the blood were life itself. Then everything came to me at once: How drinking Lucas’s blood had been part of what maintained my life as a vampire, how I had felt more alive then than at any other time.
How wraiths joined with vampires to create vampire children like me, because wraiths and vampires were the two halves of life, able together to kindle a flame.
How Mrs. Bethany’s ritual of resurrection had been designed to break me down and bring me into a vampire, to merge us into one. How wraith blood was poisonous to vampires, but their blood was life to us.
How Lucas and I had become a part of each other from the very first time I gave in to my desire and bit into his throat. I was Lucas, and he was me.
And I knew what to do.
“Move back,” I said. Everyone sort of stared, but they did what I asked, shuffling backward from Lucas’s sprawled body. Dana laid his head down gently before rising to her feet, where Raquel hugged her tightly from behind. Ranulf had bowed his head, and Vic, holding Maxie’s hand, sniffled like he was on the verge of tears. My parents stood slightly apart from the rest, but I could see that the concern in their faces for Lucas was real. A few others had gathered, too — just a handful of students, both vampire and human, unsure what to think. Skye stumbled toward us, dazed and weak from her ordeal but unwilling to leave Lucas if he was in trouble. When she swayed on her feet, Balthazar quickly rose to steady her against his shoulder.
The snow around Lucas was stained crimson with his blood. New flakes had begun to fall. A sharp, cold wind gusted past us, ruffling his hair. I held my hand out to Maxie; after a moment’s confusion, she understood and handed me my jet brooch, so that I could be wholly solid once more. I needed that now. The sharp edges of the flower’s carved petals cut into my palm.
I thought of how much I loved him, how badly I wanted him to be a part of me. I dreamed of the richness of his blood, and how it had made me feel alive. I remembered being a vampire — and felt my fangs emerge once more, sharp against my lips and tongue. My vampire self remained a part 233 of me, despite my death.
Then I bent low and bit into Lucas’s throat.
Blood. Cold, but still his blood, still him. Vampire’s blood carried knowledge, and so I felt everything that he had felt, knew everything that he had known. I felt his love for me, and his fear, as he had stood in the tower trying to rescue me. I saw the fight through his eyes, a whirl of blades, blows, and driving snow. I swallowed more deeply, drinking as much of his blood as I possibly could, more than I ever had as a vampire before. Around me, I could dimly hear some of the others protesting, but they were too distant to heed. And then I knew him — Lucas, his spirit, his soul, here at the center of his being.
Bianca. Where are we?
Together.
What’s happening?
I’m drinking your blood. Making it mine. Lucas — drink from me.
I pushed my hand against his mouth, so that the tender flesh between thumb and forefinger followed the curve of his lips.
Trust me. Drink.
He was paralyzed beyond the ability to bite down, so I pressed the soft skin against the sharpness of his teeth until they broke the skin. I felt the pain as sharply as I ever had any mortal injury, but I never flinched.
Blood flowed down his throat. What would have burned him before didn’t now, because I had mingled his blood and my own. Now the corrosive power of wraith’s blood couldn’t touch him any longer. He was free to drink it in. Free to take in life.
I felt myself growing dizzy as the link between us deepened. We were one system now, one being, each of us flowing into the other. As I gave in to it, I felt the outlines of his body as much as I did my own; the cuts on the forehead and chest burned, and the snow was cold underneath. And I knew his dawning wonder as he felt what it was like to be me — the angle of my limbs, the taste of his blood, the nearness of my spirit.
The blood I drank began to warm.
Is this what it means to die? Lucas thought. Because I’m not scared of it anymore. Not if it means I finally get this close to you.
I concentrated all my energy on him, directing myself into the very core of him, into the redness of his heart. This isn’t death. This is life.
Lucas gasped in a breath, and I sat up. His blood was sticky on my mouth, and he looked gorier than before, but his eyes were wide open. He took 234 another breath, and another.
“What did you do?” Balthazar said.
Raquel, leaning around Dana, said, “Yeah, was that vampire CPR or something?”
I never looked away from Lucas. The cuts on his face were knitting together, faster than vampire healing, part of his ultimate restoration. He stared up at me, obviously weak from his injuries, but with an incredulous smile spreading across his face. “It’s impossible.”
“It isn ‘t.” I started to laugh from pure joy. “It’s real.”
“You’re healing up, like, crazy fast, but you’re still bleeding, man.” Vic held out a scrap of cloth.
