Page 41 of Incandescence

“I don’t want or need love,” the vampire snarled. “It makes a person weak, not strong.”

Alexander stepped forward. “And yet love is one of the reasons you brought me those other women, isn’t it?” Certainty filled his face. “You watched me fuck them, hoping I’d fall in love with at least one of them, even as you wished it was you who had the power to feel something...anything.”

My pulse skipped a beat. If what Alexander was saying was true, the vampire would have been elated at the instant connection I’d experienced with Alexander. The bastard had undoubtedly fed on their emotions as much as their blood.

Alexander took another step. “When you first brought Charley into your revolting nest and saw our chemistry, you craved it too, didn’t you? Except you’ll never have that. You’re not even human. You’ll never experience anything but emptiness, despair and hunger.”

My mouth dropped open. The vampire almost looked...beaten. Like every word wounded him deeply, infecting his power.

Alexander shook his head. “Good God, little wonder you only gave us drops of blood. You didn’t just want to keep us weak, you wanted us to also experience the same emptiness as you every single damn day of your cursed eternity.”

The vampire didn’t bother denying it. “Enough talk. If you think I need you, you’re wrong. It’s past time I killed you both...I’ll search the whole planet if I have to for new donors.”

He opened his mouth, his fangs lengthening, his eyes growing crimson.

The monster Alexander had known in all his forty-six years in the nest had probably never revealed this side of himself, his true side that he hid with such horrible ease. His whole face changed, from the almost cherubic placid man everyone saw, to a hard malevolence that made him look like someone else.

A someone who could almost have been handsome if not for the evil shining through, his corrupted soul that was beyond repair. A man—vampire—on the verge of a mental implosion.

A vampire so intent on finishing off his prey once and for all, he didn’t appear to hear the silent tread behind him. His eyes sharpened a microsecond before Newry cut the sword through the air. An expression of relief crossed the vampire’s face, before his head dropped and rolled along the floor, his body crumpling lifelessly alongside.

“The first time you visited my house you took my Nancy. Now it’s my turn to take from you.” Doctor Newry didn’t drop his long silver blade, which dripped with vampire blood. Instead he gripped it as if it was his lifeline, one that might appease his daughter’s death.

I stared at the vampire, whose body didn’t even twitch in final death throes, and whose blood was turning a sludge-black. It was odd, the sense of nothingness filling me. But then all my remorse and despair had been saved for those women who’d died at the bloodsucker’s hands.

Women like Sophie.

I turned to the doctor, nothingness falling aside for gratitude. Newry had made a life, a future between me and Alexander possible. I stepped toward the older man simultaneously with ferocious, stabbing pain lancing through my belly.

I fell to my knees with a strangled hiss.

Alexander shouted my name and I looked at him with wide, terrified eyes, before I surrendered to the darkness that took away all my pain.

I woke gagging on the blood streaming down my throat. I swallowed convulsively and pulled my head away, sucking in a startled breath. My agony was gone. My eyes flew open and I turned back, meeting Alexander’s stare.

My head was draped on his lap, and as he withdrew his wrist I saw the telltale crimson line, which told me exactly whose blood I’d been drinking. My eyes widened even as I glanced at Newry, who stood looking down at us on the floor. My horrified gaze returned to Alexander. “What have you done?”

He didn’t look even slightly repentant. “I saved your life.”

I shook my head. “I can’t drink human blood...can I?”

The doctor sighed. “Who said he’s human?” At my gasp, he added, “No human lives to his age without gray hair, wrinkles and health ailments.”

I blinked at Alexander, and he said, “I’m not a vampire, but I’m not a mortal anymore either.”

“So...what are you?” I bit into my bottom lip. “What am I?”

Alexander stroked my hair. “That’s what we’re hoping to find out.” As I struggled to sit, he put a hand between my shoulder blades and assisted me up, adding, “But not right now. Tonight we sleep, and tomorrow, in full daylight, we enter the nest and find out what we can.”

“The vampire’s library?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes. With luck we’ll find our answers there.”

He pushed to his feet before offering his hand to me. I accepted, noting his ease of strength, and my own surge of energy. I frowned. “How is it that your blood took away my pain?”

He looked at Newry. “To be honest, we had no idea if my blood would be an acceptable substitute. Turns out it was...not that I was left with any choice.”

I shivered with realization. I’d been close to death. Alexander really had saved my life.

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