did die, Temi. And then… I brought you back to life.”
“What?”
“I’m a vampire. You died, and I saved you by turning you into a vampire, too.”
She’s silent for a minute. We’re so quiet that I can hear the seconds go by.
Then, “Oh.”
“Oh?” I wrap my arms around her again. “I don’t think you understand.”
“No, I don’t.” Her voice is weak. “Am I dead now? Am I crazy?” She touches her chest again. “You’re saying things that don’t make any sense at all.” She hesitates. “There’s blood. And the brooch. But I’m alive.”
“You’re alive, but not human,” I correct. “It will take some time to accustom yourself to it.”
“I need to go to my Abuela. She’s in the ER!” She suddenly blurs into motion, rips away from my arms.
Startled at what she did, how she’s moving, she stops in the air. Falls to the ground with a thud. Blurs back up. “What’s happening?” Her voice is full of pain and confusion.
Then she runs, and it turns into flying. She screams as she flies around the room, her panic clearly increasing as she doesn’t know what’s going on. “I need to get to her!”
She knocks over chairs, vases, veers along the wall, tearing a huge gash into the drywall. Her words become nonsense, garbled sounds of passion and pain. “Aiiiieeee, aaaaaa, aiiiieieieieie!”
I blur over and grab her, using my superior strength to hold her back, but for a second she’s too much in her grief and rage; Lucius and Alain have to help.
When she’s pinned down, panting and glaring at me, I see her canines: she’s hungry, too. She needs to feed. She needs to learn how to tame her nature.
“There’s something that can help.” Lucius frowns. “Theo’s blood—it will help tame the bloodlust. We don’t know why, but feeding his blood to new vampires helps calm them. Eases the transition.”
“I heard about that. Can we obtain some?”
“He donated some for cases like this. I’ll go to him and get it.” Alain blurs away.
When he returns, I feed the blood to Temi, who sucks it down like a wild wolf, snarling. A second later, she sighs and closes her eyes, the fight draining from her body.
When she opens her eyes, she’s back. She’s Temi, the woman I loved, although she’s no longer exactly a woman. And in her gaze, I see a new recognition: she finally understands what she is. In an instant, she feels her new nature, like a hatched chick who starts running on ancient instinct.
Her human and vampire sides are starting to come together.
“Everything is different now.” Her voice is soft.
I nod to Lucius and Alain; they disappear. She’s safe, I can handle her. They’ll leave me alone as she gets used to her new life—with me.
“So it is.”
“Is Abuela all right?”
“Yes, Slash checked and texted me. She’s fine at the ER. She’s called a friend to sit with her. Alba.”
“Can I never see her again?” Her voice cracks.
I hug her close. “Of course you can see her. Just—only at night, Temi. We vampires can only come out at night. The sun destroys us.” I stroke her hair. “I’ll teach you all about being a vampire. It’s going to be all right.”
She grabs my hand. “Locke, she knew.” Her voice is thin. “She knew this was going to happen.”
I shake my head. “No, Temi. Nobody could see this coming.”
“She said my life would be different. She said we—” She sobs. “We could go see my art at night. She said night was okay, too. She took me to the café to see the light reflections I like. She bought me sunflowers. She knew, Locke.”
“Okay.” I don’t know that I believe it yet, but I’m not going to argue with her.
“She’s always known things.” Temi sighs. She touches the brooch, which is damaged and bloody. “She demanded that I go home and put it on. She was very specific about where.”
“She has the sight, then.” It becomes clear to me. “Rare humans do.”
“What happened to Eddie? To Cesar?” She shudders.
“Cesar’s gone.” My voice is flat. “My crew killed him. His body is gone, Temi.”
“Good.” She stiffens, then relaxes. “And Eddie?”
“We told him to leave town and get cleaned up. Sent him away to Alaska. He’s into some pretty bad shit here in town with a bad crowd. This might be his only chance for a new life too.”
“Okay.” She nods, processing this. “Okay.”
I personally wanted to kill the fucker with my bare hands, but I spared him because he’s Temi’s