Page 43 of Vampire's Breath

“You’re not helping your cause.”

“He’s going to the plantation because he wants the Cure. And if you have any feelings for Briar, you have to think clearly. She’s in more danger away from us than with us, where we can protect her.”

My heart slammed into my ribs as my stomach twisted. I groaned and dropped my head into my hands. “How can we protect her when he’s invincible? All it takes is one stake, andyou and I are both dead while he lives.” I raised my eyes to look at him, his face stone, a look I knew well. “Oh my God. There is more to this, isn’t there?”

I stood and walked to the side of the room. Stopping before the mantel, I gripped it. “What are you not telling me?”

Cormac sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “Aiden is not the only one of us who cannot die.”

The words knocked the air out of my lungs, and I struggled to breathe. “What are you saying?”

He was beside me in a flash, his hand on my shoulder. “To find the Cure, the spell Aurora had to complete needed the heart blood of an O’Cillian coating a stake of ash. I gave her mine.”

“Yet you are here, so you—”

“All of us, brother. There is so much our parents never told us.”

I wanted to scream and fight, but my insides fell. “More than this?”

He bit the inside of his cheek. “Our ability to walk in the sun was not passed to us from Runa. Someone supplies her with O’Cillian blood to allow her to be a daywalker. I’m starting to suspect that person is Aiden, but I cannot prove it.”

The laugh that escaped my lips was bitter. “But Aiden nearly ended the truce.”

“Unless it was all a setup, a ruse so the two of them could work together.”

“Do you have anything besides a suspicion?”

Cormac shook his head. “I don’t. But what I know is this. We need to find the Cure. And if you have these desires for Briar, you must keep her here with us.”

I searched his eyes. “What am I supposed to do about this feeling, brother? About her?”

He put both his hands on my shoulders. “Follow it. Embrace it. Fall in love.”

I wanted to protest and argue—put up a fight. I wanted to collapse under the weight of everything he just told me, to run and never look back as I had for the last one hundred and fifteen years.

“I’ll take that drink now.”

Briar

Tears streamed down my face as I sat on the settee in my room, the portfolio closed in front of me, Lord O’Cillian’s journal on top of it. I tucked my legs under me, trying to curl into a ball.

“Are you sure he feels nothing?” asked Amy, her face on my phone screen. Her look of concern masked her exhaustion from being woken up at two in the morning, her time.

I nodded. “I’m sure. How could I have been so stupid as to allow myself to fall for him? He was very clear that there was no future for us. And then I went and kissed him.”

Amy’s lips curled into a smile. “Was it at least a good kiss?”

A weird sort of cackle escaped from my mouth. “The best, the way I want to be kissed for the rest of my life.” I sniffled and looked around for a tissue, finding one in the bathroom.

“That place is amazing, by the way.”

“Quit trying to change the subject,” I said as I wiped my nose. “What do I do about this?”

Amy tilted her head. “Well, if he just walked out to find Cormac, what are the chances you’re coming home soon?”

“Probably pretty good. He’d have to arrange with his brother to fly us home.” I fell back into my seat. “That flight is going to suck. Twenty-four hours stuck in the air with him, and all I want to do is spend them in his arms.”

Amy laughed.

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