And when he glanced at his brothers, he saw that they felt it, too.

“Con!” Sin screamed his name over and over. Her throat hurt and her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her head from the pressure of her shrieks, but all that mattered was getting to him. She jerked out of Lore’s arms and ran to Con’s side, her foot slipping in blood that had pooled on the floor. “No, Con, no!”

Dazed, terrified, and desperate, she grabbed Lore’s hand. “Bring him back!” She mashed Lore’s hand onto Con’s thigh. It was still warm. There was a chance. There was! “Do it.”

“I can’t, Sin.” Lore gently peeled her fingers off his. “The blade… It’s your Gargantua-bone dagger.”

Impossible. Her hand went automatically to the empty sheath at her thigh. Oh, God. That son of a bitch had lifted it off her somehow.

Luc cleared his throat. “He made me use it. Said that way Lore couldn’t bring him back. Something about the dagger having magical properties that would thwart Lore’s gift.”

Sin barely heard Luc’s explanation, barely heard anything but the silent screams in her ears. “You bastard!”

She launched herself at Luc, but Shade caught her before she reached him. Still, the intent to harm Luc was there, and the Haven spell kicked in, making the writing on the walls pulse as pain ripped into her skull like claws shredding her brain. Agony blacked out her vision, and she hit the floor with a crack of kneecaps and a cry. Shade’s arms tightened around her. And then, through the pounding in her head, she sensed the others, Eidolon, Wraith, and Lore, ease onto the floor around her. Someone took her hand. Someone else palmed her shoulder. And then someone else… Wraith, she realized, tucked her head against his chest as her world shattered into a million pieces.

Twenty-six

For a thousand years, Con dreaded the three nights of the full moon that turned him into a creature feared by humans and demons alike. It wasn’t that he’d hated being the creature, or even that he hated the agony that accompanied the transformation—it was that he’d despised the thirty seconds of vulnerability that came with each change.

Now, as he opened his eyes to stare at the dark sky and rising moon, he offered a silent hello, because night was now his new best friend, and daytime was his enemy unless the ritual was completed. Instinctively, he took a breath, even though he didn’t need to. He put his hand over his heart, even though he knew it wouldn’t beat.

A boot nudged his hip, and he shifted his head on the ceremonial pallet to look up at his childhood buddy, a wiry male whose hair was covered by a blue do-rag. “Hey.” Well, at least his voice still worked.

Aed grinned. “How’s it feel to be on your second life?”

Wincing at the stiffness in his muscles, Con sat up. “Feels like I wasted the first one.”

“Better make up for it with this one, ayech?” Aed’s accent was a blend of Scottish, Danish, and something else that made half of what he said sound like gibberish to Con, who, unlike his old friend, had spent enough time with humans in the modern world to cultivate an accent that didn’t sound like it came straight out of Beowulf.

“Yeah.” Con tested his new limbs, stretching as he sat on the wood and deer hide pallet, but he felt much the same as he had before he’d gone to the night. “Luc. The warg who brought me…”

“He was given safe passage. He’s away.”

Good. Man, that damned warg had notwanted to do as Con asked. Con had been forced to remind him that Luc owed him after the avalanche save, not to mention that Con had been there to help at the cabin, saving not only Luc but Kar and the baby, as well. Still, Luc hadn’t gone easily into it. His last words had been I hate you for this, you motherfucker.

Con winced at a sharp hunger pang in his stomach. “And you were given the honor of seeing to my birth.” A vampire birth. And one that was required to take place on dhampire ground. If Con hadn’t been brought back here before nightfall, his life would have ended for good. No second chances. Which was what had happened to his daughter centuries ago.

With a grunt of assent, Aed crouched, drew a blade across his wrist, and the effect on Con was instantaneous. His fangs punched down, his mouth watered, and a low, famished growl rose up in his chest.

The blood of a dhampire was required for this part of the ritual, was crucial in imparting an extra layer of protection, something that would separate him from regular vampires—an immunity to holy water and the ability to walk in the sun, which apparently hearkened back to the oldest vampire legends. Con would still be susceptible to the other usual vampire threats—fire, decapitation, wooden stakes, but… yeah, who wasn’t?

Con gripped his friend’s arm and brought his wrist to his mouth. It was good, but nothing tasted better than Sin.

Damn.

What was she thinking right now? He wished he’d been able to tell her about the dhampire’s second chance, but all he could do was try to tell Sin, in those last seconds of lucidity, that he would be back. That she was his, but this time, there would be no bonds of blood or magic or chain-link collars.

Now, no longer dhampire, Con would be banished forever from dhampire lands, sent into the night like his brothers before him, like his cousin Aisling, who he was supposed to have replaced on the Dhampire Council.

He no longer had to serve the dhampires, and he felt as if some huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He palmed his chest, where his heart no longer beat, and smiled. Son of a bitch, this was what he’d wanted all along. Why he’d been so reckless with his life. Oh, he’d wanted to have fun, do everything he could do, but fear had never been in play.

Because deep down, he knew that death was only temporary. If he died, he could come back, and then he’d be free of dhampire life forever.

Excellent.

He would now be governed by the Vampire Council, his story that he was turned by a vampire, sire unknown. Even the vampires didn’t know about the dhampire’s second chance.

“That’s enough, there, boy.” Aed gripped Con’s hair and tugged him off his wrist. He licked his own wound to seal it, and then helped Con up. “What now?”

“Now,” Con said grimly, “I go to kill a werewolf and claim my woman.”

Sin felt like hell and didn’t look a whole lot better.

She hadn’t wanted to leave the hospital, and God, how crazy was it that not long ago she’d done everything she could to avoid the place, and now all she wanted to do was stay?

Her family was there. And it was all she had left of Con. Funny how losing him had made her realize that, bond or no, she was linked to him. He’d owned her heart, and now that he was gone, it sat like a useless lump in her empty chest cavity, a stray organ with no reason to beat.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was always revenge.

She didn’t know how long it would take, but she would make Raynor pay for her pain. The thought made her bare her teeth in some twisted, grim resemblance of a smile as she hoofed it along the inky streets on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. His summons had come in the form of radiating pain from the collar while she’d been in Eidolon’s office, where she’d spent the night. She’d never been alone; her brothers had made sure that one of them had always been with her.

It was Eidolon who had been there when the summons came, and he’d been furious, but as he’d walked her to the Harrowgate, his hands behind his back and his face pinched in concentration, she’d seen a spark of wickedness in his eyes that would have chilled her to the bone if she’d thought his mind was working against her.

“Let us know your location,” he’d said. “Take your time getting there, and get Raynor to lay out his genocidal plans.”