Dear god, she wanted it so much; she wanted to taste him—maybe just a little? Was that so wrong?
What was she thinking—no. No. She did not want this.
This was pure torture. She straddled the boy’s chest and bent down, putting her mouth on his neck, her fangs
out and saliv-ating. She was so very hungry.
But finally she pushed herself away and staggered against the opposite wall, half delirious and her face white as a sheet.
Charles wanted to turn her into a monster. Wanted to show her that her love was false. That it was a mistake and an illusion. He wanted to show her what they were: fallen angels, cursed by the Lord, feeding on blood to survive. How far they had fallen. How low she had become.
She would not do this.
“NO!” she said, more clearly now, as she stood up and crossed her arms. “Take him away from me.”
“Fine,” Nan said, shrugging. “If you don’t want it, I’ll have him.” The vampire dragged the boy to a far corner and kissed him with her fangs. Soon the loud slurping noise filled the room.
Allegra felt sick. She’d been in the room for what felt like forty days and forty nights. She had no idea what had happened to Ben, or what Charles was planning, but for now she was certain that Ben was still alive. She knew she would feel it if he were dead.
He was alive for now, but she did not know how long. Did she trust Charles enough to keep him alive? Or would the pain of her love for Ben be too much for Charles to bear? After all, it was only too easy to break Ben’s neck or drain him to death, or even make it seem like an accident so that she would never know for sure.
She thought of everything she and Charles had been through together, and wondered how it was that they had come to this. She had left him at the altar, she had humiliated him in front of the Coven—and even now she refused to return to him, as he held all the cards and she had no choices left.
Why did she resist anyway? What part of her heart believed that she would be able to make her own destiny? She was not meant to be with Ben, she could see that now.
She was only hurting everyone—her twin, her love, herself, her Coven—by refusing to acknowledge the truth: that she could not have this. There was no escape from an immortal destiny, and this, whatever this was, those golden months in the green valley living as a vintner as if she were nothing but an ordinary girl, was just as false as pretending she did not feel any vestigial love for her immortal mate. She loved Charles, but she could not deny that the love she felt for Ben was much stronger, and deeper to the core of who she was. It was as simple as that.
But alas, Allegra Van Alen was not an ordinary girl. She had to accept that, or Ben would die. She was sure of it now.
There was nothing that mattered to Charles as much as keeping the Coven whole. He would sacrifice anything for it, including the Code of the Vampires. There was no way he would let Ben live; for as long as he was alive, Charles knew Allegra would pine for him and she would never give herself to him fully.
She made her decision.
“I want to speak to my brother,” she told the guard.
Kingsley martin saluted. “I’ll get him right away.” Allegra felt grateful that it was Kingsley who guarded her prison and not any of the others. They had been friends once. In Rome she had helped him with the Corruption in his soul. Few trusted the reformed Silver Blood, but Allegra had always been fond of him. She remembered him as a young boy, Gemellus, the weakling.
When Charles entered the room, Allegra threw herself at his feet and bowed her forehead so low it touched the edge of his wingtips, and her tears drenched his shoelaces.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.
“Allegra, don’t do this, you don’t need to. Get up, please. I can’t bear to see you this way,” Charles said, kneeling down to her level and trying to remove her arms from his legs. “Please don’t.” His face was full of anguish, and she did not know who found this harder to bear—him or her. They shared this pain together, as they had shared everything else. He felt everything she did—of course he did. He was her twin, and her anguish was his own.
He was hurting to see her demean herself this way. But it was her love that was on the line, and she had no shame or pride anymore. “Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him, Charlie. Please.
I’ll go with you. I’ll say the words and we’ll be bonded. Just.
Don’t hurt him. Please.”
THIRTY-FOUR
A Righteous War
Jack noticed that something had gone wrong right away when he saw the lights go out at the temple. “Something’s happening. Let’s move,” he told the group. But the temple was empty when they got there, and there was no trace of the girls—or of any kind of scuffle. Even the candles were lit, and the place was quiet and peaceful. There was only the forebod-ing stare of the jackal god, looking down, as if mocking them.
“Where’d they go?” Sam said, raking his hair. “I can’t feel them in the glom.” The telepathic connections had been severed the moment the lights went out. Not a good sign.
“There’s got to be a hidden path somewhere in the temple. If we didn’t see them leave, then they had to go under,” Jack said. He knelt on the floor and began tapping it, but there was only a dull sound that meant it was solid rock. If there was a passageway underground, it must only open to a certain incantation or spell. He tried several, unsuccessfully.