Maybe he should have jumped when he had the chance.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Please, stop apologizing.” He pulled me against him and hugged me tight to his chest.
“You are right about many things. It hasn’t gotten any easier for us. But I don’t wish I’d never met you. I cherish the moment you entered my life.”
I shook my head and couldn’t help but smile a little at that. “Then you’re even crazier than
I thought you were.”
“Perhaps I am.” He held my face in his hands and leaned over to kiss me chastely on the lips. “Now you must stop this so we can decide what must be done.”
“It’s simple. I’m going to sire Gideon at midnight so he’ll let Amy go.”
Thierry was quiet for a long moment. “That can’t happen.”
“What?”
“Last night you proved to me that your blood was strong enough to heal even the deadly injury that I sustained. What kind of a vampire will it turn Gideon into now that you’re even stronger? And what level of power will you transfer to him? It’s too much to risk.”
I licked my dry lips. “He gave me the impression he was looking at life a little differently.
That he might change.”
“And now what do you believe?”
“I believe he broke my chain and burned my grimoire. I hate him.”
“And yet you still want to help him tonight.” He glowered at me. “How curious.”
“This has nothing to do with having the hots for his body. He has Amy.”
A dark eyebrow raised.
“He has Amy,” I said, more firmly.
His face tightened and his eyes narrowed. “How do you know he’ll free Amy once you do as he says?”
“I’m not seeing any other choices here.” My bottom lip trembled and his hard expression softened significantly.
“I apologize for my frustration.” He exhaled. “I normally can find my way through unpleasant situations, and this—with Gideon, with your curse—it has me at a disadvantage.”
“I know.” I hugged him and he brushed his lips against mine again. I swallowed and looked up at his tense expression. “What time is it right now?”
“It’s seven o’clock.”
If I currently had a heartbeat it would speed up at that. Ditto breathing. “We have five hours until the ritual’s supposed to start.”
“There’s something else you need to know,” he said softly and wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“Please tell me I won the lottery. I could use some good news right now.”
He shook his head. “It’s… it’s the Ring. They’ve contacted me.”
“The pow-wow at Barry’s house the other morning?”
“They called me today personally. It’s about your curse. They know about it. They already knew about your reputation of being the Slayer of Slayers—”
“False reputation,” I corrected.
“Of course it’s false. But it’s lasting, and speculation is growing. They already considered you a potentially dangerous member of vampire society, but now, with the curse—” He looked at me then, a searching gaze over my face. “They’ve ordered your elimination.”
My mouth went dry. “But you convinced them that I’m not evil and everything’s okay now?”
“They wouldn’t listen. They feel I’m too close to the situation to give an objective opinion.” He looked away from me and at my full-length shard mirror that hung on the wall. The mirror able to reflect vampires showed both of us from head to toe.
I felt ill. “So what happens now?
“If we can’t find a way to break your curse—” His normally steady voice betrayed a hard edge of stress. “You’ll change. I’ve seen it. Your eyes—in the alley when you attacked the fledgling. It wasn’t you anymore.”
My jaw tightened. “You’re right.”
“Without the gold chain as protection that darkness will now begin to soak through to your true self.”
A chill went down my arms. “I can already feel it getting stronger.”
His eyes were filled with barely controlled anguish. “If you become like that permanently I know what I’ll have to do.”
“It’s obvious,” I said, surprised by how calm I sounded. “You’ll have to kill me.”
He shook his head. “No, there’s another answer. I can take you somewhere. Somewhere that isn’t populated. I can keep you safe and away from others.”
“Locked up in some castle like a hunchbacked monster?”
“It won’t be like that.”
The more Thierry spoke, the more distraught I saw he was becoming over the problem that is Sarah Dearly, the more I knew the answer to this situation—the only answer there was.
It was simple, really. Crystal clear.
“Listen to me, Thierry.” I placed my hands against his cheeks and made him look at me instead of at the floor. “I need you to make me a promise. If I become total Dark Sarah all the time and there’s the threat of my hurting anyone, I want you to stake me.”
“Sarah—”
I shook my head. “If I can’t live a long, healthy, happy, immortal life with you, then I don’t want to live at all. And I don’t want to be hunted down like a rabid dog by the