Amelia Atwater-Rhodes - Shattered Mirror

She held Sarah’s life and magic between two fingertips. She could snap each with a thought.

Instead, trembling, she withdrew, breath dragging through her lungs with difficulty. The sun had completely risen while she had been drowning in Sarah’s power, and she knew that the faint, cool sensation of someone’s aura brushing over her was not new. He must have been there for hours, kneeling silently, slightly behind her and to her left.

She turned slowly, drawing the knife from her wrist as she did so, and he did not move to stop her.

“How is she?” Christopher asked, his voice soft.

Her voice cut as sharply as could her blade. “How did you think she would be after you gave her your blood? She is going to die.”

Christopher’s carefully neutral expression crumbled. The vampire leaned back against the wall and his eyes closed for a moment.

“I didn’t think,” Christopher answered quietly, raising his black gaze to meet the hunter’s. “I lost control.”

Adianna was Dominique Vida’s older daughter. She had always been the strong sister, the one who honored the line, the one who made Dominique proud. She, more than anyone, knew exactly how much could be destroyed by losing control even for a few moments. She could also see how painful the confession was to the vampire.

Perhaps seeing Adianna’s reluctant understanding, Christopher added, “I love her, and I never meant to hurt her. And I will not let her die because I screwed up.” Though he spoke softly, Christopher’s voice was rich with self-directed anger.

He stepped toward Sarah, and without thinking, Adianna moved between the vampire and her sister. “Get away from her.”

“You’re Sarah’s sister,” Christopher said, his voice tight. “Do you really want her to die?”

Adianna flinched at the accusation; her nails bit crescents into her left palm as she clenched her hand into a fist. “How do you intend to help her?” she asked, but she knew the answer.

“I took her blood, and possibly her life,” Christopher said. “It’s only right if I give her mine.” The meaning was clear. He meant to change her, to make her into one of the creatures that Sarah had spent her whole life hunting. Christopher must have seen some sign of revulsion in Adianna’s face because he added, “She would be alive.”

“She would be a . . .”

“Yes, she would be a vampire,” Christopher snapped. “But she would be alive. Isn’t that all that matters? I would prefer to change her and risk having her hate me even more for it than to let her die without giving her a choice.”

Adianna could not agree. To allow her own sister to be turned into one of their kind would be worse than letting her die.

Before Adianna could raise the protest, Christopher calmed his voice and added, “If she wakes up and doesn’t want it, Sarah is strong enough to fall on the knife. At least this way she will wake up.”

Adianna choked on her own argument, and turned away from Christopher and Sarah. “Do what you have to do.” Her voice broke on the words.

She stepped aside, but could not force her gaze away. Her resolve almost broke as the leech bared Sarah’s throat; she leaned back against the wall and sank to the floor.

Get out of here, hunter. You don’t want to watch this. The vampire’s voice in her mind was loud, strengthened by the witch blood he had in him. Adianna felt the bile rise in her throat.

She stood, and turned her back on the pair. One step, two. She was almost at the door when, like Orpheus, she had to take one last glance—just in time to see Christopher draw his knife across his own skin, and to see Sarah latch on to the new wound like a suckling child.

Adianna lost control, and sprinted the rest of the way to her car. Twenty minutes later she convinced herself to slow down when she found herself pushing ninety-five on the highway; no matter how far or how fast she traveled, Adianna knew she would never outrun that last image.

From this night on, whether she chose to live as a vampire or kill herself, Sarah was as good as dead. Adianna prayed she would never see her sister again.

AT SUNSET, Kristopher still sat by Sarah’s side, waiting anxiously for her to stir.

Had he been too late? He cursed himself for wasting time arguing with the hunter, but he doubted that Sarah would have forgiven him if he had hurt Adianna. His system still hummed with the power of Sarah’s witch blood, and if he had fought the hunter he probably would have killed her out of reflex.

His brother was pacing in the back of the room, his power crackling around him like a net of sparks, and as always Kristopher could feel the connection between them. Nikolas had a right to be there; they were in his house. It had been the only location that Kristopher had trusted to be safe enough.

A less intrusive presence, Nissa waited calmly in one of the other chairs. He wasn’t sure why his sister was there—maybe to diffuse the situation if Sarah woke up hating him.

He brushed a long black hair from his face, the only movement he had made in almost twenty minutes, and glanced briefly at the abstract black-and-white clock on the wall. The sun should have set by now. She should have awakened.

Finally, Sarah moaned lightly, and Christopher’s guilt came around to hit him again as he heard the pain in her tone. He knew that a newborn vampire, before she had ever hunted, was wracked by bloodlust so strong it could drive reason completely from the mind. Without killing, it was almost impossible to sate that hunger.

Sarah moaned again and sat up slowly, blinking to clear her vision. They all knew her mind was foggy. Her memory might not even return until after she fed. Kristopher and Nikolas both reached to help her up.

Sarah could barely stand on her own, and she leaned on Kristopher as he held her. “I need to bring her someplace she can feed safely,” he told his sister. Once Sarah had fed she would probably hate him. Worse, she might put her own knife through her heart.

Nissa stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t let her kill anyone, Kristopher.”

Nikolas laughed, and Nissa flinched at the cutting tone. “That’s impossible, Nissa. She’s a new fledgling, and her change wasn’t nearly as easy as yours was—if she doesn’t take a life, she won’t be able to sate the bloodlust, and you well know it.”

“She’s a Daughter of Vida. She won’t take a human life,” Nissa argued.

Nikolas looked at Sarah doubtfully as Kristopher gently smoothed a hand down her silky hair, trying to comfort her as much as he could while his siblings argued.

“I’ll take her,” Nissa said, her voice strong. “There are people I know at Single Earth who will be willing.”

Kristopher mirrored his brother’s expression, doubtful. “Not willing to die.” Like his sister, Kristopher had gone through the change easily; only Nikolas had woken to the mind-numbing pain that Sarah was going through.

Nikolas and Nissa continued to argue, but Kristopher had already made a decision. Human blood was too weak to sate the bloodlust without a kill. Witch blood would have been best, since it was strong enough to quench the thirst without killing the donor, but every instinct rebelled against bringing Sarah to her kin. The witches answered to Dominique, and Dominique was the last person who could know what had become of her daughter.

There was only one choice left—had always been only one choice. Tilting his head back, he drew Sarah to his own throat.

GODDESS,IT HURT. Fire and glass were being forced through her veins and she could do nothing about it.

Drink, she heard in her mind, and suddenly she was aware of the sweet scent that filled her senses.