she said, even though she herself did not quite believe it.
“Yes. I know. The whole Coven knows, Allegra.” Cordelia’s tone became cold. “You know I have not always agreed with Charles on his decisions over the centuries, and so I will grant you the same courtesy. I will not talk about the choice you have made. You of all people know what you have given up for this… relationship you continue to pursue with your human familiar. And I suppose since you already know why I am here, but you have not acted, then perhaps this is a waste of both our afternoons.”
“Yes,” Allegra said. “I’m sorry to waste your time, mother.”
Cordelia sighed. “I thought more of you. I thought you would care. I did not expect you to be so heartless, Allegra.
That was never like you.”
“I care for Charles—I always will,” Allegra pleaded. “But I can’t do it anymore. He understands that. I love someone else.
I don’t know how it happened, but I do.”
“Charles is dying,” Cordelia snapped.
Allegra reared her head back. “What?”
“I thought you said you knew why I was here.”
“Because I thought you were here to bring me back to New York.”
“I am.”
“I meant… to renew my bond….” Allegra said. This was a trick, a way to get her to return. Cordelia was lying. “We’re immortal. He’ll come back in another cycle.”
“You don’t understand. If you don’t renew your bond, he will weaken. He becomes half a person. The immortal blood—the sangre azul—will fade from him. I thought you knew that.”
“But if the bond breaks, then why am I not sick as well?”
“Not yet,” Cordelia said.
Allegra felt a piercing fear hold her. The bond would take them both. The blood would thin, and the immortal spirit she carried within her would be extinguished. No wonder Cordelia had come today. Allegra hadn’t known—or she did not want to know. She knew enough already and still she was going through with it. Her own
blood had shown her visions of the future. Comatose on the bed. Her child growing up without a mother. And Ben… who knew what would happen to Ben….
“I did not come all the way to San Francisco to judge you, Allegra, or berate you for your poor choices. But I do ask that you see him before the end. You owe him that much.”
Allegra told Ben there was an emergency back home, and that she would return as soon as she could. She left for New York that evening, and the next morning paid a visit to Charles in his grand new home on Fifth Avenue.
She had no memories of the past that did not have him in it. She had no life, no identity apart from the lonely figure sitting in the dark, in that palatial bedroom. This was the room she had picked out, had decorated, had lovingly imagined they would make their home. It saddened her to see him in it, so alone. She had done this. She was the one who had left him.
Charles Van Alen heard her enter, the soft tread of her feet on the felt carpet. “Cordelia sent you,” he said, closing the book on his lap.
“Yes. But I came on my own. I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t renew the bond. I didn’t know it would hurt you like this.”
“Why are you here?” Charles coughed.
Allegra sat by his bed. “I did not want you to suffer,” she said, taking his hand, which had withered since the last time they had seen each other. “I did not want you to suffer because of me.”
Her heart ached. Charles had given her the freedom she had asked for, and in return he had sacrificed himself. She had assumed she was free; but she would never be free; not with a Heavenly Bond at stake. The Code of the Vampires had been written for a reason—to keep not only humans but also vampires safe from harm. “There has to be another way,” she said.
Charles shook his head. “There is only one way.”
Allegra nodded. She thought as much and despaired. She could not love two men at the same time, and so she had chosen the one who made her happiest. But now, seeing the consequence of her actions, she did not know what to think, what to do. She hadn’t expected Charles to suffer. She had thought the risk was all her own. “You can stop this,” she said, putting her other hand on top of his. “You are stronger than any of us. You are Michael of the Angels…. You are stronger than the bond.”
“Return to me,” he whispered. It was a request, not an order. He was begging for her love.
“Then tell me what I want to know,” she said. “Tell me what happened in our past that we became so estranged. Help me to find my way back to you.”