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One tiue licked my hand "You have a visitor," Aric said "Your favorite" Cyclops? He’d made it! "I’ve always appreciated the potential of the wolves, but I never thought ould owe our lives to theony hit My screams echoed I didn’t want to scare anyone, but I couldn’t choke theutted, as if his paincould be done And so, I had t an to turn And to extract a proainst the Eainst me "She returns"

Footsteps neared "Is thereany change?" randmother asked in a weak voice Were her words slurred?

She was ly close If only I could communicate with her Did she know that Haven was ash? That her daughter had died?

Aric answered, "The Empress will rally"

"Sir" Paul was down here as well? He did prettyall meals to stitches I didn’t envy Paul his job at Castle Death

Theto turn If you wait too long, she could bite another"

The idea of har someone else sickened me even more I whispered, "Kill ," Aric said, "until--or unless--she craves blood"

I shuddered

"Leave her with me," Gran said "You shouldn’t be in this bed with her, holding her like that She’s a girl of seventeen"

"She’s a millennia-old Empress"

"I should take care of her," Gran insisted

"You forget that this is my home, Tarasova I will do as I please"

I wondered why he hadn’t told her erethat fact to Jack

But that had been before I’d rejected Aric and his claim on me Before I’d broken this man’s heart

17

My eyes darted behind my lids as I hovered between sleep and wakefulness I was in a bed I sensed plants all around eable level, I cracked open my eyes Could only make out a white blank

Ah, God, why couldn’t I see? Would , htness blazed down Oh The sunlaan to take shape Why was there a bed down here? Vines and rose stalks traipsed over reen, I shifted s eak and sore as hell, but healing

I eased ainst the headboard, his eyes closed Vines and rose stalks covered him as well