Page 23 of Burn for Her

“You’re changing because your body’s gone into survival mode, Dorian.”

“And it’s deteriorating.” He really hated this. To crumble and weaken so fast wasn’t something he’d truly been prepared for.

“No,” Lucian handed back the cell phone. “Your body and mind know exactly what it needs to survive. This was how it was with Luke too.”

Damn, but Dorian’s hearing could still pick up the heartbreak in his friend’s tone even if he couldn’t hear the street noises outside anymore.

“Can you see her?” Lucian tapped the phone screen to light it up again.

Dorian looked down and his heart slammed against his rib cage the second he saw her. “Y—” He cleared his throat. “Yeah. She’s crystal clear. But the words beneath her picture are too blurry.”

“But her face isn’t?” Lucian pushed.

“No, she’s…” perfect, gorgeous, breathtaking. “She’s crystal clear and vibrant.”

Lucian nodded. “It’s because she’s your chance at survival. Your body is caught in the crosshairs between the curse and the cure. Soon, your sense of smell will go too. You’ll be able to see nothing, hear nothing, sense nothing but her. And that’s only if she’s close enough to you.”

Dorian scrubbed his face with both hands. “I… I wasn’t prepared for this. I didn’t realize what it meant.” He was okay dying. Just like he was okay living without ever having seen her. But this in-between life and death shit wasn’t something he thought he had the capacity to handle. “I can’t chase her down and bind her to me. She deserves better.” Dorian dropped his hands into his lap and glared at Lucian. “But I don’t think I have the strength to stay away from her either.”

Hunting her down was suddenly all he could think of.

“I’m not losing you,” Lucian growled. “And it’s not up to you who she spends eternity with, Dorian. Fate has already set her up to be your destiny.”

“I don’t want her forced to be with me.”

“Then don’t force her. But give her the chance to decide. Find her, woo her, and then let her choose what she wants. An eternity with you, or a lifetime without you.”

It seemed so simple, didn’t it? Just court her, spoil her, worship her, annnnnd then leave the ultimate decision up to her on how she wanted to spend her days and nights.

All that was perfectly fine, except for one thing…

“What if I kill her?” If he died before she made her decision, there was nothing he could do about that. His fate was sealed the second her reflection was shown to him. But if he lost his mind—as all vampires in his position did once death drew near—he might accidentally kill her in a mindless rage, and that… was insufferable.

A shot at love wasn’t worth the risk of her death.

“You won’t hurt her,” Lucian growled.

“You can’t know that.”

“I can and do know that,” Lucian said, pressing his forehead against Dorian’s. “You would never hurt her, even if you go completely mad before she makes her decision.”

“I don’t trust myself.” This didn’t feel like a desperate need to survive, it was worse than that. More dangerous. “I feel obsessed with her already.”

An obsession, as he’d learned from his father, was a toxic and deadly disease.

“Let’s find her and see how far you can get with her.” Lucian backed away. “I think I have a plan.”

Chapter 8

As far as plans went, this might be the worst one Dorian had ever been part of.

“I’m going to stall Marius as much as possible while you go get your girl. When you come back, call me and I’ll buffer you.”

Buffer really meant monitor. Lucian was only being nice about his word choice. Eventually Dorian would need monitoring, whether he liked it or not.

“I may not make it back in time. You realize that, right?”

Lucian ran his hand through his dirty blond hair and kept his gaze cast to the ground. “You will,” he said solemnly. “You’ve been on the brink of death before and survived. No reason to think you can’t do it again.”

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