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Chapter Thirteen
~Victor~
I came awake slowly, as if from a dream. It felt as though I was aware of my body for the first time in centuries. Confusion clouded my mind and I had to force myself to open my eyes.
And then I remembered.
I remembered everything.
Drifting for almost two hundred years. Claire returning to me.
Claire!
I sat up quickly, looking around the dark tomb for my soulmate. She had been there. She had broken me free of the torpor I'd inflicted on myself all those years ago.
And then another memory. One that caused my heart to seize in my chest. I'd bitten her. Drank from her. Drained her.
I climbed out of my coffin and stared at the love of my life crumpled on the stone floor. She looked exactly the same as the last time I’d seen her in life. Beautiful, delicate with thick lashes and shining hair, But now she lay motionless and so pale her skin seemed to glow even in the darkness surrounding us. Crouching to my knees at her side I gathered her into my arms, weeping as I held her body close to my chest.
My hand slid over her throat, and I could feel a faint and stuttered pulse beneath my fingers. I jumped to my feet, holding her tightly as I ran out into the night, desperate to find someone that could help us.
The witches, the vampire or the shifter. One of them surely had healing powers that could rectify what I'd just done.
"Help me!" I screamed, running into the hotel with Claire still clutched in my arms.
For a moment, the man at the desk just stared at us, his mouth dropping open as his gaze raked over us. And then he picked up his telephone and yelled into it for further assistance.
In moments, the shifter I'd felt from the tomb ran into the room, skidding to a stop when he saw me.
"Victor Galt?" he asked.
"I am," I agreed. "Please, we need a physician. She's dying."
A woman rushed in behind him, followed by two more women and the vampire. They all stopped, as the shifter had done, but then one of the women, the one with fiery hair, rushed forward and pulled Claire from my arms.
I snarled at her, but the vampire sped forward and knocked me back, responding with his own growl.
"Back off!" he shouted. "We're helping her."
"Someone should get him some pants," the red-haired woman said, nodding toward me though her gaze never left Claire as she slowly hovered her palms over my beloved's chest. "And we're going to need blood. A lot of it. Trudi, get to the mainland hospital."
I watched in complete shock as one of the dark-haired women popped out of sight immediately. I'd heard of powerful witches that could travel at the speed of thought, but I'd never seen such a thing.
“Have I killed her?” I asked, frozen in place as I watched the witch stare down at Claire.
“She’s not dead,” the woman answered. “But it’s not good.”
“Sir?” I turned to see the man from behind the desk holding out a robe to me. I felt my brows furrow in confusion, then looked down at myself to see that I was standing in the room completely naked. The clothes I’d been buried in apparently having rotted away over the years.
“Thank you,” I said, taking the strange, white, towel-like thing and pulling it on, tying the belt around my waist.
The witch suddenly pressed her hands firmly onto Claire’s chest, causing the unconscious woman to begin coughing and spasming against the floor.
I moved to stop her, but was impeded by the vampire, whose arms closed around my waist and held me back.
“What are you doing to her?” I roared, fighting against the man restraining me.
“I’m duplicating the blood cells left in her body,” the witch explained. “If she doesn’t get more blood in her she’s going to lose brain function. What the hell did you do to her?”
