he was around her, or when they were apart, but some deep, primal part of him felt connected to her, and it wailed like a banshee inside him as he sat there watching her, unable to do anything.
Unable to save her.
“Go,” she whispered and her brow furrowed, her golden eyes holding his as tears slipped down her temples. “Please?”
“No.” He brushed her tears away with the pad of his thumb. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Not.” She sucked in a raspy breath. “I know it. Run. Now.”
Run?
Never.
He wasn’t afraid of these vampires. He wouldn’t flee from them. He wouldn’t leave her at their mercy. He would find a way to help her.
He gently held her, bent his head and pressed a kiss to her brow. “Fight, Mackenzie. Don’t give up.”
Because he couldn’t lose her.
Tears burned his nose and the backs of his eyes, closed his throat and choked him as he cradled her, as he kept his senses trained on her and felt her weakening. Her breaths grew further apart, each one a struggle that killed him.
Fear seized him between each one, gripped him so hard he felt sure he was dying too as he waited for her to breathe, willed her to draw down another one. He lifted his head and looked at the witch, silently imploring her to do something. Mackenzie couldn’t be dying. She just couldn’t be. He had only just met her, had only just realised he was desperate for more time with her, and now he could see it trickling through his fingers as he looked at her.
Her eyes slipped shut.
Pain swelled in his breast as he patted her face. “Don’t do this. You’re strong. Wake up. You have to wake up.”
That pain turned to desperation when she didn’t respond, when she sank against him, her body going limp. No. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, growled when she still didn’t wake. A void opened inside him, an abyss that pulled him into it, down into the darkness as anger poured through him, rage he couldn’t contain.
He lifted his head and pinned his gaze on the vampire.
“You killed her,” he snarled, shunning the guilt that tried to stir inside him, the whispered voice that said he was responsible for her death too.
He had injured her and left her alone, had weakened her enough that the vampire had been able to finish the task he had started, delivering her into Death’s waiting arms.
He growled from between clenched teeth, his fangs cutting into his gums as pain scoured his insides, hollowed him out and carved his heart into pieces.
He wanted to launch at the vampire, but he couldn’t bring himself to release her, couldn’t convince himself to let her go. She couldn’t be gone. He bent over her and clutched her to him, buried his face in her neck and clung to her as grief rolled up on him, tore him down and sparked a feeling in his battered heart that only pulled more tears from him.
He felt something for her.
Something deeper than lust.
The faintest shadow of something he had believed he would never feel again.
And now he had lost her and he would never know if it could have grown into something more than a shadow, something some secret part of him had been craving for centuries.
He sobbed into her throat, uncaring of what the witch and the two vampires thought of him as he sensed Night return, unable to hold back his pain as he realised she was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. The primal urge inside him howled in agony, ripped at him and tore him down. He had failed her, and in her final moments, she had thought only of him, had wanted him away from her to protect him.
Had she felt something for him too? Something more than simple desire, than mere attraction?
He would never know.
And that killed him.
He lifted his head and stared at Grave, knew how bleak he had to look as the vampire averted his gaze, closed his eyes and pulled down a breath.
“Don’t,” Hartt bit out, because he didn’t want to hear that the vampire was sorry. It wouldn’t bring her back. It wouldn’t fix what had happened.
His chest warmed, the pain that blazed in it so fierce he felt as if he was burning up.
When that heat scalded his hands and his thighs too, he looked down and his eyes widened.
Light glowed from beneath Mackenzie’s skin, shone through her closed eyelids, and as he stared at