Neither of us is strong enough to hold the seethe unless we could work together--but we will not.
There are no ties between us, no love, and that is the only way two nearly equal vampires can work together for long.
But you could.
I would serve you as faithfully as you have served all these years.
We need you if we are to survive." He had begun pacing again.
"Marsilia will see us all dead.
You know that.
She is crazy--only a crazy woman could put her trust in Wulfe.
She'll have the humans hunting us again, not just this seethe but all of our kind.
And we will not survive.
Please, Stefan." Stefan went down on one knee and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
He bowed his head and whispered to me.
"I am sorry." Then he stood up.
"I am an old soldier," he told Bernard.
"I serve only one, even though she has forsaken me." He stretched out his hand, and this time I felt him pull something from me as his sword appeared in his hand.
"Would you try me here?" he asked.
Bernard made a frustrated noise, then threw up his hands in a theatrical gesture.
"No.
No.
Please, Stefan.
Just stay out of it when the fight begins." And he turned and ran.
It wasn't like the way Stefan could disappear, but it would have pushed me to keep with him--and I'm fast.
It was fast enough that he probably didn't hear Stefan say, "No." He stood beside me and watched Bernard until the vampire was out of sight.
And he waited a little more.
I watched the female slip out of the trees and found another one as he left his cover.
That one Stefan raised a hand to and got a salute in return.
"It will be a bloodbath," he told me.
"And he is right.
I could stop it.
But I won't." I wondered suddenly why Marsilia had let him live.