I grabbed the glass of water I’d tried numerous times over the past couple of days to get her to drink, but she refused. “Abbs, drink. You have to drink.”
She ignored the glass of water and instead reached toward me, softly pressing her index finger to my lips. “Damien.” Her eyes closed for a few seconds and my heart beat erratically. “Thank you… for coming back and not… letting me die alone.” Her voice was barely audible, as if it was a struggle to speak. “I…want to die with you…holding me.”
“Christ, baby. You’re not going to die.” I rested my arm above her head on the pillow and stroked her hair with the tips of my fingers. “Ride this out a while longer. I won’t leave you again. It was stupid. I freaked out for a few hours. But you have to drink something.” I held the glass up to her lips, but she turned her head away. “Fuck, baby. Please.” I set the glass of water on the nightstand when she refused to even look at it.
She squeezed my hand. “It was fun, you know. Us.” She stopped to take a deep breath then coughed and blood misted into the air. I grabbed the cloth off the nightstand and wiped away tiny specs that had landed on her chin. “The shower was…” she coughed again and this time a trail of blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth, “hot. Against the window… better.”
“Everyone for miles saw your ass pressed against it,” I said.
She tried to laugh, but it came out a choke instead, and I cursed myself for making her laugh. She closed her eyes and readjusted her grip on my hand. “Don’t let go of my hand, okay?”
“This is not happening.” I shook my head. “Don’t even think about dying.”
A tiny smile came to her lips. “I really like you, you know. You’re… cute when I know you… want to be tough.” Her grip faltered. “It was my fault. This. I thought I could destroy them, but… I didn’t know the bloodlust was so… strong. The baby…” She closed her eyes, head rolling to the side with a long drawn-out sigh. “It’s better… this… way, Damien.”
“Abbs! Abbs. Goddamn it, Abby. Look at me.” I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her once. Twice. Her limp body remained unmoving. I frantically looked at her chest. No movement.
A strangled cry left my throat like a horrid screech of an animal in unbearable pain. I pulled her to me and her head fell back.
“Nooooo! No, Abbs. I won’t let you go.” I kissed the top of her head. “No. I won’t let you go.” I was not going to carry her death on my shoulders for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t survive it.
Her words repeated over and over in my head. A promise I’d refused to give her and this was why.
I gently laid her back on the bed, sweeping her hair back from her face, then reached into my boot and pulled out my blade. With one swift cut, I sliced my wrist just enough for the blood to rise to the surface. I never hesitated before, but I thought about the consequences of what this meant. Abby would live, but as something different, something I hunted and killed.
The blood dripped from my wrist to the bedspread and soaked into the material. My eyes watched as Abby’s lips turned blue and her eyes remained open—lifeless.
“I’m sorry, babe, but I won’t let you go.” I held my wrist over her mouth and a drop of blood slid down my skin, inches from her mouth.
A sudden blast of energy hit me and knocked me away from the bed and into the nightstand. The glass of water went flying and the cheap lamp fell to the floor and shattered.
“Just in time,” Waleron said, his solid form emerging from mist. “Stay away from her, Damien. It’s too late to save her, and she must not Transition.”
I crawled to my feet, ignoring the pain in my shoulder. “I can’t let her die.”
“So you’ll make her something she’d hate you for?” Waleron nodded toward Abby. “She turned twenty-five yesterday. With her birthday came the ability to turn water into blood. A vampire with her ability is catastrophic. Liam must have known about it.”
“Fuck.” I glanced over at the cold, lifeless body I’d spent every second of every day for months with. That was why she always asked me the date. Why she’d refused to drink the water over the past few days. She knew what would happen if she drank water after her birthday.
If she had drunk the water, she’d have turned into a vampire, changing the water to blood. I wouldn’t have known until it was too late. She’d have killed me.
“So we just let her die?” I said.
“She is dead, Damien. There is nothing we can do.”
The words were too real, sinking into me like a lead weight, carrying me under until I could barely breathe. Never to see her smile, feel her touch, hear her laughter. No, she couldn’t be gone.
I inched closer to the bed, needing to feel her, to hear her voice, feel her hand resting on my chest like she did while we sat together every day. Once more. That was all I needed. Just one more time.
Waleron grabbed my arm and jerked me back. “No, Damien. Leave here. I will take her back to the coven.”
I pulled out of his grip and glared at him. I felt the heat of my Ink tingling on my shoulder. It was moving within me, needing vengeance—freedom. My Ink had a mind of its own, and I never called to it because it had more control over me than I had of it.
Waleron knew it too by the way his eyes swirled with power. “Unleash it and I will retaliate with its demise.”