He nodded. "But in the process, you may learn the exact method of how to change a human into Kyn."
"That's why we're not going to write down or otherwise share the information," she told him. "No more giving my research to the vampire king. And you're my failsafe. If things get bad, you're going to make me forget it."
The lines of tension around his mouth disappeared. "You would trust me to do that?"
"Baby, I'm counting on it."
John came out of the bathroom, his hands clapped over his ears. "Alex." He groaned and sank to his knees. "Something's wrong. Outside. Something's happening—you have to stop it."
"Stop what?"
His tormented eyes met hers. "Something terrible."
Liling felt Jaus relax beside her and go still as he fell asleep. She waited a little while, watching his face and wondering whether she had the strength to do this.
Love, she decided, would not be denied. Like Valentin, it demanded everything. And if she loved him, if she meant more than simply saying the words, she would have to give everything for him. If she didn't, he and his friends would die, just as all the people at the facility had.
She slipped out of the bed, arranging the pillows under the linens before she went to the closet. She dressed in the first things she put her hand on, a flowered, floaty shirt and a white blouse. She pushed her feet into a pair of pale green slippers and silently left the room.
She had felt his power growing steadily all night. Even when she was making love with Valentin, it had been in the back of her head, a silent invitation, tugging at her, trying to lure her outside.
Now it was swelling out of control, like his anger, creating a hum in the air inaudible as yet to everyone but her. If they had been far from water, it would not have frightened her as much, but Valentin's home sat next to one of the largest lakes in America. She knew that if she did not stop her twin, he would use the almost-endless supply of water to destroy the mansion. As strong as he was now, the end result might kill hundreds, even thousands of innocents and devastate the entire area.
She couldn't let him do it again.
No one detained her as she walked outside and down to the lake. She stopped only to stand for a moment in Valentin's gardens, to run her fingers over the pure white petals of his camellias and let the scent permeate her senses. It frightened her now to think that she might have gone her entire life never knowing him. But she had found him at last, and what they had shared had been real and enduring. Love worth protecting, love to stand and fight for.
If need be, to die for.
Valentin dreamed of the night that he had lost everything.
"Durand." He stepped into Thierry's path and raised his battle sword.
"Get out of my way, Jaus." The tall, angry man looked over him and then turned, breathing in deeply. "Jema. Where are you? Come to me now."
Valentin froze. Thierry called to Jema as if he had the right to her. As if she belonged to him. But she was his. "You cannot have her."
"She's already mine." Thierry lifted his sword. "Can't you smell her on me?"
He didn't feel his heart break. He felt his sanity snap. "No." He lunged.
Thierry parried the attack and returned it with interest, slamming his blade into Valentin's so hard that sparks flew between them.
Valentin had studied blade work his entire life, both as a human and as a Darkyn lord. He trained every single day. And so he attacked with every ounce of skill he possessed, determined to separate Durand's head from his shoulders, because that was the only payment he would accept for what Durand had stolen from him.
But the man he fought was not a practiced swordsman. He was the man who had been left behind to hold Castle Pilgrim until the last Templar had escaped. The man who alone had fought his way through a gauntlet of five hundred Saracens to reach freedom. The man who had left five hundred headless, armless, and lifeless bodies in his wake.
Durand does not dominate on the battlefield, the Kyn said of him. He makes it his charnel house.
"Jaus. Durand." Michael Cyprien stepped into the room, a human dangling between his hands. "Lower your swords. Now."
Jaus was in a cold, killing rage, and ignored the seigneur's orders. Thierry did as well. They circled the room as their swords clashed, slid, and danced, moving in patterns too swift at times for the blade to be clearly seen. They circled and sidestepped, gradually working their way into the ballroom, until they were battling in the center of the floor.
"Thierry, please stop this."
Valentin saw how Jema's voice had distracted Durand, and when the other man turned his gaze away from their blades, he took advantage of the opening and lunged.
"No!"
Jema appeared, seemingly out of thin air, directly between Valentin's blade and Thierry. There was no time or space to prevent what happened next. Valentin's rage became horror as he saw her step into the thrust, but it was too late.
His sword pierced Jema's abdomen and came out the other side of her body.
Thierry bellowed and brought his sword down on Valentin's arm. The razor-sharp steel sliced through flesh and muscle and bone as if they were made of butter. Valentin staggered, his eyes fixed to the stump that healed over as he watched. Thierry caught Jema's waist and pulled Valentin's sword out of her body. It fell to rest beside Jaus's severed arm.
Valentin opened his eyes, his hand moving to touch the scar encircling his arm. Carefully, so as not to disturb Liling, he got out of bed, pulled on his trousers, and went to open the curtains.
The moon's grin had widened, casting a wide net of ghost diamonds onto the lake. Just after the surgery Alexandra had performed to reattach his arm, he had stood here, in this very spot, watching the woman he loved embrace another man in the snowfall. It was then that his heart had turned to ice, and he had thought he would never warm again.
Until Liling, and her touch burned away all of his sorrowful yesterdays.
A part of Valentin would always love Jema. She had long been a dream that had made his lonely life bearable. Bui now that he had Liling, and real love that was not only welcomed but returned, sunlight filled his heart.
Full circle.
Storm clouds where there had been none before blocked out the moonlight. Jaus looked down as a small figure stepped over the seawall and walked down to the water. The lake began to churn in an ominously familiar way, and the air itself seemed to crackle as lightning began slicing through the sky.
Jaus pressed his hands against the glass, and then went over to the bed and jerked back the linens. Only pillows lay in her place; Liling was gone.
He went back to the window in time to see a column of water rising in front of Liling. It darkened and contracted and solidified into a man, the Asian man named Kyan who had attacked him at the cabin in Florida. He had the ability to control water as easily as Liling manipulated fire.
Valentin didn't wait to see what would happen next. He turned and simply ran.
Kyan gathered himself from the lake and rose from it, returning to the human form in which he had been born. The first time he had melded himself with his element, it had been such a glorious thing that he had almost not returned to his own body. But being water simply was, without thought or intention, and the order had taught Kyan that he needed more than that, that he had a responsibility to protect the helpless from the demons preying on them.
The girl stood on the shore, watching him change, seemingly as calm as he was furious. She smelled of sex and blood and flowers—the perfume of a demon's whore—but no fear colored her scent.
She needed to be reminded of who Kyan was.
He lifted his arms, drawing from the storm, luring and concentrating the water-laden clouds into the sky above him.
Around him, the lake water began to boil as it sent several whirling spouts up into the clouds, feeding them with water and power.
The girl mirrored his movements, and behind her the torches lining the seawall flared, shooting showers of sparks that fell like orange rain all around her. Some fell on the hedges of camellia at the edge of the garden, but she glanced at them and the embers died.
As before, the air between them began to ripple and stretch, changing as if in response to the two forces about to collide.
"You are not welcome here," she said to him, the air distorting her voice into a resonant echo.
The skin all over his body seemed to feel the words. "You speak Chinese."
"It was all we spoke for the first sixteen years of our lives," she told him. "They only used Chinese with us. They refused to teach us English so that we couldn't communicate with anyone outside the facilities. Or did they take that memory from you, too?"
Of course she would attack the Brethren. He should have expected it. "You are a liar."
"We were born here, in America." She said it in English, and then switched back to Chinese effortlessly. "That's why you can understand what they say, but you can't speak the language. We were punished if they caught us using any English words we overheard. Only rice and water for three days in the isolation room."
He shook his head. "The priests were kind to us. They brought us here from China. We would have starved if not for them."
"They took us from our mother. They may have even killed her in order to steal us. I have tried to find records, but there are none." Sympathy softened her eyes. "I will tell you everything I remember. They did not have time to tamper with my mind."
"You believe I would listen to your lies? Do you think you can control me so easily? I know what you have become." Rain began to fall, soaking them both. "How could you go to him? How could you let him put his filthy hands on you?"
She wiped the rain out of her eyes and glanced back at the golden-haired man behind the wall. "I love him."
He didn't need to use his mouth to speak to her. Then say good-bye to your lover. You can't run away from me this time.
I don't wish to. She moved toward him, and the space between them became crowded with seething shadows as the air thinned and seemed to tear. If you insist, we will end this tonight.
