Taken by a Vampire (Vampire Queen) - By Joey W. Hill Page 0,202

people. To that magic.

She put her hand on top of Niall’s, the other aligned with Evan’s leg, just barely brushing his trouser leg, because she didn’t want to disrupt the artist’s flow of thought, but that connection was enough to steady her. She was done running. She would stand with them. She breathed in the moment, breathed deep.

Her heart stuttered, seized . . . and she screamed.

The deer bolted, her fawn right on her heels. The bear made a surprised growl, then she, too, disappeared into the darkness with her progeny. Evan and Niall never noticed, having caught her together, but Alanna saw it. She was arched up from the ground, agony jerking her head back at an unnatural angle.

Gasping, she clawed at their hands. She struggled to focus on their faces, wanting to hold on to them as long as she could. I’m sorry, so sorry, Master.

She hoped Evan knew she meant him. If Stephen was dying, she would go within moments of him. But maybe the blocker would give her a precious extra minute, and she could say something.

“Alanna, no. Hold on, lass.” She tried to reach up to Niall. He caught her fingers, and Evan overlapped them. The vampire had his hand on them both, and she could see it, how hard he wanted to hold on to them, to defy the terrible mortality vampires had to face. Not for themselves, but for their servants.

Alanna, you will not leave us. He knew it was a futile order. She couldn’t fight the biology of Stephen’s bond. But the saying of it meant everything, the expression in his face, the tension of his body that proved he would fight with everything he had to keep her here. Niall was a hard rope of muscle as well, wanting an enemy to fight, but he could only hold her hands. She saw the flash of it in his mind then, him holding his wife’s hands, telling her not to go, telling her he loved her.

He had, though it hadn’t been the type of love he’d discovered later. That nebulous feeling of something more out there would have been plowed down in his subconscious as he plowed his fields, except Evan had brought it to glorious life. She knew how he felt. Exactly how he felt, because their minds, for this painfully blissful instant, were held together inside Evan’s.

It’s all right to love him, Niall. There’s no shame . . . to loving. To wanting. No matter how little time there is left. Thank you . . . for letting me . . . love the both of you.

The Scot’s gaze became dark, anguished. “Damn it . . .” He snarled something at Evan, and Evan’s hand merely tightened on him, his gray eyes fastened on her face. He was watching for something, measuring . . . Something that suddenly gave her hope. He said something to Niall she was spinning too high in her mind to catch, but Niall lifted her. The two males were moving swiftly through the grasses, back toward the compound, so fast everything was a blur. Or perhaps that was her physical state, everything hazed by disorienting pain.

The agony was incredible, frightening, as she’d expected. How bad would it get before she actually died? At a certain point the soul finally leaped into the dreaded chasm of death because the pain afflicting the body drove it to leap. But her Master had forbidden her to go.

Her heart had to be exploding. She couldn’t breathe. Perhaps she’d passed out for a while, because when she became aware again, she was in the bedroom in the cottage. Evan and Niall were . . . they were outside, talking to someone. She felt disoriented, and had the strange sensation that she’d become disconnected from her body for a while, everything in a bright light, a peculiar drifting. Coming back to her body was like a wall meeting an oncoming car. The pain was back, in full force, radiating out from her stuttering heart.

Shadows were collecting around her vision. She sensed him there, the presence she dreaded more than any other. She tried to open her mouth, call out, but then there was one very large shadow, falling down over her now like a cloak. Pain exploded in her head, struck through that covering. She was plunged into darkness, the terror following her like maniacal laughter.

It had been a cloak, not death. Opening her eyes, she looked at the close stone