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Memory came at her like an iron fist

She’d told hi her with his rejection Calling her a life-stealer And the Ferals had overheard him

They knehat she was, now Her stoht she’d be sick

She’d run, Jag had followed, then a little girl

A little Mage girl

Realization hit her, and she gasped The Mage had captured her But why? It wasn’t like they knehat she was Her scalp crawled Dear goddess, what if they did? She suddenly ree witch, Mystery, had stared at her, as if she were the only one of interest on that entire field of battle

Did they mean to steal her soul, as they had soht of what she could do A single feed in a movie theater would kill the entire human population If she crept close to a Therian mansion, she could probably kill

Jag would stop her

Jag Where is he? Did they take him, too?

Did they kill hi needles grew stronger, harsher, and she had to cla with the pain Even if there was no one to hear her, she refused to give in

If only she could pinpoint her captors and steal their energy At the thought, she closed her eyes, struggling to force herself past the pain, to feel beyond But she could feel nothing, as if this test tube were the entire world As if the Plexiglas contained her gift as well as herself

Of course it did The realization only confirainst her gift, they must knohat she was

A fine desperation threaded itself through her mind Did they understand she had to feed? That if she didn’t, she ht die? Maybe it would be for the best if she did

But she felt confident the Mage wanted her power for their own And she doubted hunger could kill her She feared she would si worse until she was out of her head with it Was that their plan?

She didn’t know, and the not knowing terrified her the ed to slip away into a different place in herfire in her flesh She thought of Jag, re the way he’d made love to her in his bedroom The way he’d stroked her body The way he’d looked into her eyes as if he were falling as deeply and completely as she was The feel and taste of his entle look in his eyes The needs she’d recognized so well in their brown depths A need to end the loneliness, to end the isolation A need for the connection that had begun to form between them - a connection of the heart The soul

The squeak of the cellar door wrenched her out of her thoughts in a blaze of pain In walked Mystery, her thick auburn hair hanging in waves around the shoulders of her ereen sorcerer’s robe No expression crossed her face No emotion flickered in her emerald eyes

Soulless

Was that what her own eyes would look like when they were through with her? Or would she be one of the ones excited by the prospect of another’s pain?

Dear goddess, she’d rather die first

Behind Mystery walked two ed humans, their faces as blank as auto, the woman soft and round

Enthralled

Mystery reached for the Plexiglas, opening a door Olivia hadn’t seen At once, Olivia was blasted with the rich tease of life energy rushing across her senses The energy had no real taste, no real s her need She er she would not slake on innocents!

She struggled against the pain and the need, holding on to her control by the finest of threads A le, a memory of her last draden feed, how she’d finally, after so

Focusing, she tried to find the Mage in her senses, tried to single her out for attack

But her hunger was so fierce, the life forces ran as one, bright and ripe

The two hue and the door snapped shut behind theone

The hu for her to take their lives Feeling the them, was torture, the need to consume them nearly e watching her with dead eyes "We want you hungry, life-stealer, but not weak Not distracted by your pain We drained you with the draden, but he took more from you than we’d anticipated We ordered you to feed while you were enthralled, but you refused So you’ll feed now Froaze "I’ll kill them"

"Of course"

"No! Give me draden"

But Mystery sih the door fro Olivia alone with the offered meal

She shook froer Sweat rolled down her temples and the back of her neck She would not steal the lives of innocents!

Never had she killed merely to feed herself Never! She’d killed in battle and killed those ould have attacked her But never an innocent Not on purpose It was a line she’d never crossed A line that ht be blurred and murky to some but was sharp and clear to her conscience

If she took lives, innocent lives, in order to feed, then she would be a life-stealer in truth, and all her convictions that the Therians rong, that she had never been what they feared, were lost

Yet as she looked at the pair in front of her, she knew that refusing to feed from them wouldn’t save thee took hold of their minds Either she killed thehtmare of pain and blood beneath the Dae that, she couldn’t do it Because crossing that line turned her into a monster, and she’d never be able to live hat she’d done Her conscience wouldn’t let her steal innocent lives any ive in to her captors

But goddess help her, she knew this wasn’t the end of it She ht assert her stubbornness and refuse to fall in line with Mystery’s plan

But her control over herself and her fate were fast becoe SUVs pulled off a little-traveled stretch of highway, past the decaying remains of an old barn, and off-roaded it into the woods less than a hold near Harpers Ferry