"If they die with vampire blood in their veins, they don't stay dead. But they don't come back the same," Darius says.
"And she can walk in daylight because of that?" Asher presses.
"She can do more than that, Colonel. Your essence twisted her. It took what made her life-aligned and turned it into death. She doesn't feel remorse. You saw it. She shot him and walked away smiling." He turns to the window like he's already eulogizing her. "And now the duty falls to me."
"Don't you fuckingdare," I snarl, pushing up again, but the pain rips through me and slams me back down.
Asher steps between us, palms up. "Whatever duty you think you have, she's not lost. Not completely. I know how to bring her back. I've seen it done. We can reach that part of her—the empathy, the love. It's still there."
Darius turns. He looks tired. Worn in a way I haven't seen before. For a split second, he actually hesitates.
"The powers that ordained this task are beyond you. Or me," he says.
"What about her?" Asher fires back. "Are those powers beyond Sage, too?"
That lands. Something flickers in the bastard's eyes. Doubt? Hope? Pain? I don't know. But it hits him.
"Show me where you placed her after you found her," he says at last.
"Help my brother first," Asher demands without flinching.
Darius's gaze shifts to me. The look he gives is like I'm a dog turd he stepped on with his thousand-dollar shoes.
I grin through bloodied teeth. "Come on, goat man. Show me your healing touch."
He kneels beside me and slams his palm into my chest.
The pain explodes like a goddamn supernova. I scream. I can't help it.
Green light surges through me, searing every inch of nerve and bone. It's agony, like my insides are being branded.
It lasts seconds. Feels like forever. Then it's over.
Darius rises, calm again, pulling a stupid little handkerchief from his coat and wiping his hands like he just took out the trash.
Of course he'd have a monogrammed hankie. Asshole.
"Now show me," Darius says.
Asher offers me a hand, and I take it. My chest still aches, but when I press a palm to it, the wounds are gone. Only faint scars remain, already fading before my eyes.
She tried to kill me.
Again.
Third time's the charm, huh?
The laugh that slips out of me is half-mad, but real. Asher shoots me a wary look. I shake my head, muttering, "Third time isn't the charm, after all."
I don't bother explaining. They wouldn't find it funny. I'm not sure I do.
The garden looks like hell. Blackened earth, flowers wilted into ash. The spot where she once sat and smiled, kissed us under moonlight—all of it scorched. The graveyard of a memory.
"This is what I meant," Darius says, motioning to the dead plants. "Her life-giving nature has inverted. Where she once brought growth, she now brings decay."
I eye the blackened petals, then glance at him. "So she's powered by sucking the life out of trees… and blood out of people? Sounds like every ex-girlfriend I've ever had."
Darius glares. "This is not a joke, vampire."
