Navarre. I haven't survived this long by being foolish. Your powers are too strong."
"No." He stared at Adrianna. She was curled into a fetal position, her hands pressed to her head, her mouth open in a silent scream of agony. "Let her go."
"Does it bother you to watch her?"
"Shaylyn, I'll do whatever you want. Only leave her alone. She's done nothing to you."
"She took you from me."
"No." He closed his eyes, willing the darkness away. But he could feel himself growing ever weaker as the sun climbed higher in the sky.
"Stand up, Adrianna," Shaylyn demanded.
Adrianna tried to refuse, but her limbs moved with a will of their own. Her legs felt as though they were weighted with lead as she went to stand beside Shaylyn.
"Take this," Shaylyn said, and thrust a knife into Adrianna's hands. The handle was of thick wood, the blade was long and slender and made of pure silver. "When I tell you to, you will cut out his heart and throw it into the fire."
Adrianna tried to refuse, but no words passed her lips.
Shaylyn glanced at the blankets that had served as Navarre's bed, her nostrils flaring, her eyes narrowing. A moment later, the bedding burst into flame.
Navarre felt the heat of the fire at his back, but he didn't take his gaze from Adrianna. Powerless to move or speak, she stared back at him, her eyes filled with a silent plea for help.
Slowly, deliberately, Shaylyn took hold of Navarre and forced him down to the ground. Exerting her superior strength, she crouched behind him, her hands pinning his shoulders to the ground.
"Now, Adrianna," she commanded.
"Navarre..." His name escaped Adrianna's lips even as she moved toward him. "No," she whimpered. "Please don't make me."
But even as she begged Shaylyn for mercy, Adrianna was kneeling beside Navarre. She stared at her hand as if it belonged to someone else, watched in numbed horror as the hand lifted the knife.
Summoning every ounce of will she possessed, she dragged her gaze from the blade and looked down into Navarre's eyes. There was no condemnation in his deep gray eyes, only a deep and abiding expression of love and understanding. And forgiveness.
"Do it!" Shaylyn's voice cut across the stillness.
Tears filled Adrianna's eyes as she tried to resist. But she had no will of her own, no power to refuse. Her hand tightened around the handle of the knife as she prepared to plunge it into Navarre's chest.
"I love you, Annie," Navarre whispered, and closed his eyes as the knife arrowed toward his chest.
Time seemed to slow as the knife descended toward Navarre's heart. His voice, his words, rang in Adrianna's ears, stronger and louder than the screech of Shaylyn's command.
Drawing from the wellspring of Navarre's love, Adrianna launched herself at Shaylyn, shuddering with horror as she drove the blade into the other woman's breast.
Shaylyn shrieked with pain and outrage as the knife pierced her flesh. Cursing loudly, she grabbed Adrianna by the shoulders, holding her in a vice-like grip as she buried her fangs in Adrianna's throat.
Blood spurted across Navarre's face, hot and warm. His blood, he thought, and wondered why there was no pain.
It took all his strength to open his eyes, to drag himself out of the arms of the darkness.
Shaylyn and Adrianna were locked together in a violent struggle, each trying to wrest the knife from the other. Blood spurted from a deep gash in Shaylyn's left breast. A crimson tide gouted from a hideous wound in Adrianna's throat.
He knew in an instant that somehow Annie had found the inner strength to defy Shaylyn's command, that she had turned the knife on the vampire, and that she was going to lose her own life in trying to save his.
Feeling as though he were moving through thick mud, he struggled to his feet and lunged forward, his hand grabbing for the knife.
The silver seared his skin even as the blade sliced into his hand, but he ignored the pain as he wrenched the knife from Adrianna's grasp and plunged it into Shaylyn's breast again, cutting the heart from her body, flinging it into the fire.
A scream unlike anything he had ever heard filled the air, and then Shaylyn was falling, weightless, lifeless, to the ground.
With a feral cry of triumph, Navarre tossed the bloody corpse into the flames.
Staggering, he made his way to Adrianna's side. Dropping to his knees, he gathered her into his arms and pressed his hand to the wound in her throat. Her blood was