In fear for Derek’s life, Sheree sprang to her feet. Waving her arms, she ran forward, shouting, “Don’t shoot!”
The men hesitated at her unexpected appearance.
“What the hell!” exclaimed one of the hunters.
And then time warped and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
The werewolf sprang toward the nearest hunter. The man cried out as the werewolf’s jaws clamped around his throat. Shaking the man as if he were a rag doll, the wolf hurled him into the shadows.
At the hunter’s scream, the other two men opened fire, shooting blindly.
Sheree reeled backward as something slammed into her with the force of a sledge hammer. She stared in horror at the dark stain spreading across her middle. Had she been shot? Why didn’t it hurt, she wondered, as, fighting a wave of nausea, she sank to the ground.
Moments later, Logan and Mara appeared.
Mara jerked the weapon from one hunter. Logan disarmed the other. Not wanting to see the fate of the two men, Sheree closed her eyes.
Voices. Low. Worried. Frantic.
The sound of bones popping.
Derek’s voice, calling her name.
Why did he sound so far away? Why couldn’t she open her eyes?
“Sheree! Sheree! Dammit, Logan, she’s dying.”
Dying? Was he talking about her?
“Sheree, love, don’t leave me!”
It took every ounce of what little strength she had left to open her eyes. Derek was leaning over her, his beautiful dark eyes wet with tears. Mara and Logan stood behind him, faces grave.
“I’m sorry,” Derek whispered hoarsely. “I never should have asked you to come out here.”
She tried to say that it was all right, that she loved him, but she couldn’t form the words. She whimpered, her hands clutching at her stomach as the numbness wore off. Darkness hovered around her, beckoning her, promising peace, an end to pain. Her eyelids fluttered down.
“Sheree! Dammit, don’t leave me!”
“She’s almost gone.” Mara’s voice, tinged with regret.
“No!” Derek’s tears dripped onto Sheree’s cheeks. “No! I won’t lose her. I can’t.”
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Logan asked. “Have you ever discussed it?”
“Would she want this?” Mara asked dubiously.
“I don’t know. I don’t care!” Choking back a sob, Derek whispered, “Forgive me, love,” and sank his fangs into her throat.
He drank deeply. Torn by guilt, he drank it all—her thoughts, her memories, her hopes and fears. Her love for him.
When she was but a heartbeat away from death, he tore into his own wrist. Pressed the bleeding wound to her mouth. And pleaded with her to drink.
At first, there was no response. And then she swallowed.
Weak with relief, he closed his eyes and prayed.
Prayed that she would find it in her heart to forgive him for stealing her mortality and replacing it with endless night.
Chapter Forty
Darkness surrounded Sheree, deeper and blacker than anything she had ever known. Her body felt light, alien, as if she could, merely by thinking it, float toward the ceiling. Sounds assaulted her ears—familiar sounds, yet magnified until they were almost painful. Her hand moved restlessly over the blanket that covered her; without thinking, she counted each individual stitch while a distant part of her mind wondered how she could do such a thing.
There was someone nearby. His scent was all around her, comforting in a way she couldn’t explain.
“Sheree?”
“Derek? Where are you?”
“I’m right here. Open your eyes, love.”
She did as he asked, and quickly closed them against the candle’s brilliant light. “Hurts.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel so strange?”
“You were badly wounded last night. Do you remember?”
“There were hunters. . . .”
“Yes. What else do you remember?”
“You were shot. You called me to you.”
“That’s right. I was wounded. Hurting. I . . .” He swore under his breath. “I needed blood. I didn’t realize the hunters were so close, or I never would have called you.”
“It’s all right.” She smiled weakly. “I’m fine.”
“Open your eyes, love.”
Squinting, she glanced around the room. It was the bedroom she shared with Derek, yet it looked different somehow. She saw details she had never noticed before—the hairline crack in the ceiling above the bed, the individual threads in the hangings, each brushstroke in the whitewashed walls. Derek stood beside the bed, darkly handsome in a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt.
She sat up, her gaze fixed on Derek’s face. Even he looked different. “What’s wrong with me? Am I on drugs?”
He laughed softly. “In a way.”
Her gaze darted toward the door. “Your mother’s coming,” she said, and frowned. How did she know that? Mara walked without making a sound.
A moment later, Mara stepped into the room. “How are you feeling, Sheree?”
“I don’t know. Something’s wrong with me, and Derek won’t tell me what it is. Will you?”
Mara glanced at her son.
He shook his head.
“Well, then, I’ll leave you to it.”
Sheree’s eyes widened as Mara left the room. Never before had she been able to see the vampire vanish, but she saw it now. It wasn’t that she disappeared; it was merely that she moved too swiftly for human eyes to follow. Human eyes?
Feeling as though something had sucked all the air out of the room, Sheree looked at Derek. “What have you done?”
He clenched his hands. “I couldn’t lose you.”
“What have you done?” she asked again, her voice rising.
“You took a bullet meant for me. You were dying. I couldn’t let that happen. Hate me if you will. Destroy me if it will make you feel better, but I didn’t want to exist in a world without you in it.”
“You turned me.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded.
“Go away.”
“Sheree . . .”
“Get out!” She pounded her fists on the mattress. “Get out, get out, get out!”
Pivoting on his heel, he left the room.
Sheree stared after him. It couldn’t be true. She didn’t want to be a vampire. No matter how wonderful it might be to wish herself across the country or dissolve into mist or live forever, she didn’t want to be one of the undead. She wanted to spend summers at the beach working on her tan, and winters skiing in the mountains. She wanted a family, and . . . oh, Lord, what would her mother and father think? How could she tell them? They would be horrified.