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“Well, good thing we know it’s his will to be brought back,” Benjamin said, kneeling down. He put a hand on mine, coated in Robby’s blood. His touch was gentle. His eyes, deep black, were also gentle. I wondered how often he gave this same exact expression to whoever he was trying to seduce under his power.
I couldn’t submit to his lies.
Even though I wanted Robby back.
I just needed Robby back.
“I just want him back.”
“I know,” Benjamin said, hand squeezing mine. “We spoke before the fight. He told me if something happened that I had permission to bring him back.”
That hit me like a hammer to the back of my head. Shock. I blinked through it. He could be lying. Could be trying to bring another vampire into his coven, one that would owe him a life debt. It wasn’t entirely unheard of.
But Benjamin had been right. Every second we wasted was another second we risked the vampire venom not being enough to bring him back. It could mend hearts, broken bones, torn limbs, but fixing a brain was near impossible.
“Do it,” I said.
Ben didn’t wait a moment longer. He bared his fangs and craned down, sinking them directly into Robby’s still neck. I couldn’t look at him. Not into those empty brown eyes, those eyes that had been so full of life. I would get lost in those eyes, trying to decipher every tiny speck, make out every distant dream. Another cry lodged itself in my throat, wrenching free. Dawn and Warrick were at my side. Xavier, Maddox, and Claire were all watching the other vampires warily, making sure they didn’t get any ideas. With their leader dead, many of them turned and ran, disappearing through large doors.
And here I was, a destroyed mess. My heart might as well have been the one that got stabbed. I’d never felt this kind of pain, this type of raw fear. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Benjamin stood back up and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, holding the dagger that had killed Robby. His lips were still bright red. “It’s done.”
I looked down, still seeing Robby’s lifeless stare aimed up at the domed ceiling. It made me want to retch. I held my stomach, stood my ground. As wary as I was of letting Benjamin bite him, I was now focused on willing it to work. He had to claw his way back from death. Please.
Please, Robby, please.
“It’s going to be okay,” Warrick said, rubbing my back. I must have been talking out loud.
But Robby wasn’t moving. “Why isn’t he coming back yet?” I asked. It seemed that was all I could do in this situation: ask stupid fucking questions that no one knew the answers to. No amount of magic or fire could fix this now. It was all out of my hands.
“The damage may have been too severe,” Benjamin said in a low voice as if the bad news would make me blow his head clean off.
I wanted to launch a fireball directly at him.
“No, no.” I had been given a raft, a way to hope, and it was quickly being yanked away from me, same as Robby was. I couldn’t handle this loss—it would break me. In ways I couldn’t recover from. I collapsed to my knees, the hard crack of the marble not bothering me in the slightest. I took Robby’s cold hands in mine and held them up to my lips, my cheek.
A breath. A twitch.
My eyes widened. Robby’s focused.
He gasped, gargled, coughed. I cried, shouted for Warrick. He could help the healing process with his magic. My hand tightened around Robby’s, and his tightened around me.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” I said to him over the sound of him coughing. His eyes were no longer glassy and distant—a sight that would undoubtedly haunt my nightmares for years to come—but they were still confused and panicked. He looked down at his chest as I helped him sit up, patting at where his shirt was sliced by the blade, his skin already mended together and not even showing a scar.
“Am I… am I dead?”
“You could say that,” Benjamin answered.
Robby’s jaw cracked open, eyebrows dipped downward. “I’m—a vampire?”
“Ben said you asked him… If that isn’t true…”
“No, it is, it is,” Robby cut in, dousing the rising fury. “I just, I can’t—this is so much. I’m… I can see. Like perfectly, and I can smell… everything. Everyone. And, Damien, I’m so thirsty.”
“He’ll need to feed,” Benjamin said. “We can get him on synthetic every other month, but he needs something now.”
I didn’t hesitate, taking off the sleeve of protective red scales I had donned. “Here, take it from me.”
Robby blinked, clearly still dealing with shock. Frankly, so was I. But having him back, having him speaking, looking at me, it made me forget about everything else and focus solely on the fact that we had a chance now. We could deal with the consequences of this later, together.
