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Elisabeta had dragged herself from the bed and across the room She&039;d leaned close to the door to listen to what they were saying on the other side And so she kneas good that she had failed in her atte to steal her husband, because according to Rhiannon, Beta needed her
She needed the wo outside her door when Elisabeta made her escape The moment Rhiannon had stated that the only solution was to exorcise her, kill her, she had fled
This body, the one she had taken fro, and at last she understood why It was this Belladonna Antigen, yes But it wasfor her A poor fit She couldn&039;t last in this hoed in Tempest&039;s body It was the only way
But how? Te and the scroll froet out of this place, before those fiends could send her to her death Even if Vlad intended to protect her, as he&039;d promised, he was outnumbered And the va in her weakened state would have been more difficult had she not been able to plumb the depths of Brooke&039;s memory for the solution She knew this place She knew everything about it-et out She knehere the weapons were kept
And she would need weapons if she hoped to defeat Te frorabbed a bag from Brooke&039;s closet, one that contained all the items Beta would need to perform the ritual
Her borrowed body eak but not helpless Not yet Beta kne that it was going to get a lot worse, and she ht not have much time She went to the , and it opened easily Then she cli every chink and bump in the stone outer walls, just as Brooke had done many times before
Brooke Elisabeta almost felt sorry for the woer for immortality It hat had driven her to risk her life by inviting Beta in It was the sa years To live, to be immortal, to have limitless power and endless life It was a dream, the one she craved beyond all others Just as Brooke had
She found another , but it was locked So she dropped the re subdued her, but only for a moment She shook it off and hurried behind thethat door would be unlocked
It was, and finally she was back inside the house She crept through it, into theBut there was no one They were all still busy plotting her destruction upstairs Bastards
Shethe code into the panel to unlock the door Once inside, she arht of as a handgun, a supply of the "bullets" it would fire, and a deadly looking but small knife with a sheath that clipped onto the waistband of the jeans she wore, since that bitch Tempest had divested her of the blade she&039;d had before She clipped the sheath in back, so that it hung down inside the jeans, rather than on the outside where it would be visible
Would it be enough?
It would have to be-they would discover hersoon
She hurried to the front door and outside, then ducked behind a hedge when a shiny black car pulled swiftly up to a spot directly in front of thelow, Elisabeta peered over the bush to watch The car&039;s trunk popped open, and a woot out and hurried toward the front steps
It was her Teun, even as she probed Brooke&039;s stores of knowledge to learn how to use it But she restrained herself She needed Tempest alive
She noticed, then, the s on the botto? No Beta couldn&039;t lose her What if she couldn&039;t find her again in tie and ran to the car while Tempest&039;s back was to it The trunk would never do; she would be seen Instead, Beta ot into the roomy back seat She crouched on the floor and hoped the whore wouldn&039;t look there before leaving
Silently, she huddled there, not , as she waited
She felt the car s into the trunk, and then the thud when she slammed the lid closed Elisabeta tensed as the woman walked by the car, but she never looked inside She just opened the driver&039;s door and got in And then they were in motion
Elisabeta had no idea what to do next Wait, she supposed, until they were in so and the scroll Surely if the ritual had worked once, it would work again All she had to do was subdue the twit long enough to put the ring onto her finger and perform the rite the way it was meant to be performed Her soul would be transferred into Teh, Teone
Beta would be strong again, and whole And Vlad would be hers
Carefully she settled into a more comfortable position on the cramped floor of the vehicle, leaned her head on the back of the front seat and closed her eyes
As she drove, Stormy tried to put Vlad out of her mind, but she couldn&039;t The more she tried not to think of hiether, the one she&039;d forgotten for so long, those few forbidden days with hi for her to find So rather than dwell on her unrequited and hopeless love, not todeath, she let them come
"You&039;re not well, are you?" Vlad asked as they drove along winding tracks through the Romanian countryside
"I&039; up with h It was Elisabeta The wole for control of her own body earing Stormy down
"You&039;re pale," Vlad said More worried, Storht, about Elisabeta than about her
"So are you" She sent him a sideways look, but he only scowled in response to her lame attempt at humor
"Are you sure you&039;re up to this excursion?"
"If not nohen?" she asked Then she shrugged "Keep driving, Vlad Take me to Castle Dracula"
"I&039;o by car" He pulled to a stop and got out She got out, too, and looked in the same direction he was
They stood at the foot of a peak, and the path up it was so steep, it was nearly vertical At the top, shrouded in ht be a castle
She sighed, unsure she had the strength to make the climb But then Vlad turned to her "Come to me, Tempest Put your arms around my neck"
She frowned, told herself this wasn&039;t the time or place-and complied anyway Anytiht time And she didn&039;t think she had the will to refuse him, anyway She slipped her arms around his neck He quickly scooped her off her feet and whispered, "Hold on"
There was a rush of speed and motion too sudden and rapid to absorb,her to her feet again He kept his hands on her waist, and it was a good thing, because her knees didn&039;t want to hold her weight They started to buckle as soon as she tried to stand, and her earlier dizziness was nified a hundred times
She let him hold her while she pressed her hands to either side of her head and tried to blink her vision into focus "What the hell was that?"
"I didn&039;t think you were up to hiking the distance And really, there was no need We&039;re here"
Frowning, she searched his face briefly, then turned to follow his gaze The castle wasn&039;t a castle at all It was a cru pile of ruins, ancient stone blocks piled atop one another to form walls, with little or no mortar left in between A path wound a parts of it, to protect unwary tourists, she supposed, froht Castle Dracula was big and white and fancy"
"That&039;s Bran Castle I was rarely there, but the tourists seem to like it This this here I lived Poenari Castle There&039;s very little left to explore, I&039;m afraid"
"Is it safe?"
"Come" He took her hand-not because he cared, she re, and that only for Beta&039;s sake-and led her closer They moved past the walls toward the tallest section, a rounded portion The top of it was long gone, and it was higher on either side, lower in the middle, where more stones had fallen away, so that its top for out what used to be the keep, the courtyards and so on But nothing was even vaguely fahed and touched his shoulder "Vlad, where is the tower? The place where she died?"
He stopped walking, stopped speaking, lowered his head
"Is it going to be too hard for you? Seeing that spot again? Because I could go alone"
"No It&039;s fine Co path through the cru to point at a cluster of other ruins, though they were in far better shape than the first one "Do you see the tower down there?" he asked, pointing
"Yes Is that?"
"No That&039;s where the legends say she died They say she pitched herself from that tower as the Turks approached, in order to prevent herself being captured But as you know, that&039;s not precisely the way it happened"
"I suppose it ure, to remember it that way"
"I suppose" He turned and looked at a narrow circle of stones, barely four feet high "This was the actual tower My chambers were near the top I liked to be able to see all the way down the mountain as soon as 1 rose and before I slept"
He lifted his gaze, and she did, too, trying to picture the place before it had fallen to ruin But what she saw in her ination than past life memory
She moved to the far side of the circular base, where it came within a few yards of a steep drop She went to step closer to the edge, but Vlad gripped her shoulders "Careful The ground is no longer stable here"
Holding her, he e, then stopped Stor way down, into a sea of ht beneath the glittering stars And then, as if on cue, a wind came, and the mists beloirled and then dissipated, so she could see all the way to the bottoed rocks and boulders far below
She felt it, then: the powerful sensation of her body falling, plu The deathly silence of her descent Her hair was tugged tight by the force of the air through which she fell The histled past her ears and stung her face Heartache pounded inside her chest, so large it felt she would split open and bleed She felt the crushing i in every part of her, and then it vanished and there was nothing but blessed relief Release Her breath rushed out of her Her final breath And she sht Peace An end to this endless grief Finally Let o
"Teround, her upper body cradled in Vlad&039;s arms as he smacked her cheeks and shook her shoulders
"Teods "
"Okay," she ed "I&039;m okay"
"Far fro her to his chest as he knelt there, stroking her hair For that brief moment she could, almost have let herself believe he really cared Almost
"What happened just now? What happened to you?"
She rested against hih she knew this wasn&039;t real, this show of affection "I think it was her Elisabeta I felt what she felt as she plummeted to her death, Vlad And it wasn&039;t horrible I mean, there was pain when she hit the rocks But it was very brief, and it was nothing co beforehand The e her But it left her, Vlad As she died, there was this incredible feeling of relief-of release She didn&039;t want to hurt any her in his arms, but he stopped then "And yet, she did, didn&039;t she?"
Stormy sed hard, lifted her head from his chest and tipped her chin up to stare into his eyes "I think she still is Vlad, the woman I feel in these memories or episodes of possession or whatever they are-she&039;s sweet She&039;s innocent and naive, and very weak and needy And in a lot of pain, almost all the time But sweet But the one who comes in now, to take over the way she does, she&039;s none of those things She&039;s cruel and angry and violent I&039;m not sure she&039;s the same woman at all"
"Or perhaps she is Perhaps this is what she has become, what my actions caused her to becoht The ritual I had the sorcerers perforht be true"
"God, what have I done to her?" He tipped his head back to stare up at the stars
Stor her hair back froht about that, too? Maybe we need to find a way to exorcise her? To set her free?"
His head caer "Kill her, you mean?"
"Vlad, she&039;s not alive Not really"
"Oh, she&039;s very much alive I see her in you Even now, I see her She&039;s trying to coh you, isn&039;t she, Tempest?"
She set her jaw, stiffened her spine "She has been, ever since we I&039; her It&039;s exhausting"
He averted his eyes quickly "You, too, are suffering because of what I did"
She lowered her head then "Guilt isn&039;t going to solve this, Vlad"
"No I&039;ive her up Not yet, Teain "I can&039;t go on like this," she told hier, Vlad At least when I&039;m not with you, she stays dorry perhaps and frustrated He still expected her to suddenly reed for All she wanted to do was figure out how to get rid of her
And maybe convince him to love her, instead
She sed hard "Would you take h?"
"No But I want to try I feel as if I have to"
"Don&039;t, not for my sake, Tempest"
"I&039;m not It&039;s for her sake, Vlad Part of me loves her as much as you do I mean, the woirl That innocent, grieving, heartbroken child who is, maybe, somehow, a part of enerous woo hard "I want to help her by setting her free Not by bringing her back"
His features hardened, but he got to his feet and held out a hand She took it and let hi"
"Yeah," she said, and she slid her arms around his neck "So let&039;s do this the fast way, all right?"
He nodded She tightened her grip, and they whirled into the night
Stormy resurfaced from her memories She had recovered nearly all of them now, she sensed She knehen she had fallen in love with hi Always it had been about Elisabeta Never her He&039;d never loved her
He never would
"There is no reason to believe anything dire has happened to either of them," Rhiannon said for the tenth time
But that was exactly what Vlad believed, and he was kicking hi happened to prevent hi what ain, dialing Tempest&039;s cell phone nuot her voice ain She must have the phone turned off, Vlad If she doesn&039;t want to hear froes I keep leaving"
Lowering his head, Vlad resu All of it"
Rhiannon stepped into his path, blocking his progress "Stop this You can find her, Vlad You, more than any of us, can find her"
He stared into Rhiannon&039;s eyes, frowning "I don&039;t know My bond with Elisabeta isn&039;t as powerful as-"
"Not Beta, Vlad For the love of the gods, would you stop focusing on her for one second? Are you that obsessed? It&039;s Stor about Stormy Do you think I can&039;t s as if she would like to knock hi heavy, "You drank from her, Vlad And more than once Her scent and her essence are still alive in you The bond created by that act is a powerful one You, more than any of us here, can sense her"
"You think I haven&039;t tried?" He tipped his head back and pushed his hands through his hair in frustration