Lena froze, the blanket draped around her shoulders slipping slightly. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
“Oh,” she finally breathed, voice caught somewhere between fear and… interest? She smoothed her hair. “Uhm. Hi. I’m Lena.” A beat. “Are all vampires this stupidly attractive or is this a family discount situation?”
Nadia stiffened beside me. Cassian’s smirk sharpened with delight. Predator entertained by prey that bites back.
Cassian’s attention drifted back to Nadia. “You’re still a human, I see.”
Nadia snapped her attention to him. “What did you expect me to be?”
“A vampire, of course.”
She let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “As if I’d ever become a vampire. Can you?—”
She stopped. Her gaze snapped to me. My expression must have betrayed more than I intended. Fury at Cassian, dread for her, guilt pressing against my ribs.
Her voice dropped. “What am I missing?”
Cassian’s smile widened. He was enjoying this far too much. “Oh,” he said, eyes glittering. “You haven’t told her what the bond is doing to her, have you?”
Silence settled over the hallway.
Nadia’s hand tightened around my arm. “Cristian, what is he talking about?”
I could have lied. Bought myself an hour. A day. The length of a breath.
Her heartbeat trembled against the bond, thin and overworked.
Enough.
I turned to face her fully. “The bond does more than pull us together,” I said. “More than share sensation and emotion.”
“What does it do?” Her voice sharpened.
I swallowed down my cowardice.
“Because my life force is… different from yours, the bond reaches for balance,” I said slowly. “Because you are mortal, the bond is too powerful for you.”
“In what way?” she demanded. “Cristian, dumb it down. Speak plainly. I deserve that much.”
“The bond is draining you,” I said. “Slowly. It will continue to do so until we break it. Or until we… equalize it.”
She stared at me. The color drained from her face.
“Equalize,” she repeated. “You mean?—”
“If we do nothing,” I forced myself to continue, “it will kill you. Eventually. If we get to that point, the only way to save you is to make you immortal.”
I let the truth hang there. She took a step back.
“So you’re saying,” she said carefully, “that the only way out of this, if you can’t break it, is for me to become a fucking vampire?”
“Yes,” I said. “That is one of two choices. The other is dying.”
She laughed brokenly, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I did not sign up for this, Cristian. I signed up to water plants and not get poisoned by weird old plumbing. I woke you up by accident. Now you’re telling me the options are eternal night or an early grave?”
“I am trying to find another way?—”
“How long have you known?” she cut in, voice shaking. “Exactly how long have you known this was killing me and not told me?”
