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“They should be arriving in just a minute or so, but Willem’s unconscious.”
Charlotte rose to her feet, then settled her beer on the end table. “Did I do wrong with Willem? The thing is, I really felt as though I was getting through to him.”
“My dear, you did extremely well and eventually your strategy would have worked.”
“So you didn’t intervene because you thought Willem would drop me?”
“No, he would never have done so. You know that. Time had grown critical on several fronts. You see, I was able to track your visions and I know we don’t have much longer to save this child.”
Charlotte felt the same thing, so she wasn’t surprised.
“But Willem is all right?”
“Yes, he’s fine.”
Charlotte moved to the large window that overlooked the ocean. She could just hear the surf hitting the shore below. “We need to save that boy.”
“I know. I was never more proud of you than when you stomached looking at Willem’s case file on the Infinity Killer.”
Suddenly, the reality crashed down on her that Davido had severed the blood rose bond. “It’s over. I can never be with him again.”
“I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I had to do this, for the boy’s sake.”
Though tears bit her eyes, she nodded. “You did the right thing.”
* * * * * * * * *
Willem woke up to water on his face, small flicks that he slapped at.
When he opened his eyes, he stared into the face of the ruler of Grochaire Realm. Willem glanced around and saw that he was reclining on his own bed.
“Quinlan, how did you get here? I mean, why are you all the way out here?” Maris Sol was at the far western edge of Grochaire Realm and a long distance from where Quinlan would be battling the Invictus wraith-pairs.
“I got an anonymous tip that you were about to drop dead in the ocean. Looks like the caller was right. And why all the shouting? I could hear you from miles away.”
Quinlan didn’t know about Willem’s history with the Infinity Killer. “I have issues.”
“Well, who the fuck doesn’t when you’ve seen what we’ve seen?”
Willem stared at him hard for a long time. He’d needed to hear those exact words. They’d all been through hell, those mastyr vampires who served their Realms whether as rulers like Quinlan or others in law enforcement of one kind or another, like Willem.
He scrubbed his face with his hand, wiping away what turned out to be a lot of water, then sat up. “I’ve really fucked up this time.”
Quinlan set aside the bowl of water he’d been using. “Looks like it. Actually, I sort of lied. It was Davido who asked me to intervene. Figured it had to bad if the old troll was involved.”
“It’s bad and I’m pretty sure I just made the worst mistake of my life.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I had a blood rose for a few hours, but Davido broke the bond and now she’s gone.”
“Uh, how is that even possible and why would Davido break the bond?”
“He thought I was going to kill her, to let Charlotte fall into the ocean. I was holding her suspended because she kept telling me she loved me.”
Quinlan chuckled. “Oh, well, now that you’ve explained things.” He then laughed heartily. “So, you’re caught in the blood rose nightmare?”
“You can taunt me later. Shit, what have I done? There’s a boy’s life at stake and all I had to do was bond with Charlotte and we could have found him.”
“What boy?” Quinlan’s expression sobered quickly.
“The Infinity Killer took another one.”
