“But now it’s gone, and without it . . . there’s nothing to keep her from showing up anytime she feels like it. And what if she feels like it all the time? What if—”
I stopped for a moment, because I didn’t do this shit. This touchy-feely, let’s all share our deepest fears shit. It made me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable and a bunch of other things I hated, made me want to run away or lash out at something, which usually worked pretty well to change the subject. But I couldn’t do that this time.
Louis-Cesare deserved the truth.
“What’s stopping her from just taking over my life,” I rasped. “All of it, all the time, and shutting me out? For good this time?”
Like I’d tried to do to her.
I’d always treated this as my life—all mine. Because of course I had; I hadn’t even known she existed until very recently. I’d spent years thinking that I just had fits sometimes, that it was the dhampir crazy coming out, and concentrated on finding ways to tamp it down, while hoping that someday, someone would find a “cure” for my “disease.”
Only to find out that I didn’t have a disease, I had a—
Twin.
The word floated through my mind suddenly, frighteningly, because I hadn’t put it there. Wouldn’t have, since I’d never thought of us that way. We weren’t twins, we weren’t sisters, I didn’t have a sister! I had a fucked-up mind thanks to Mircea and, yes, maybe it had been necessary to save my life, but I didn’t know that, did I? I’d been there, but I couldn’t remember any of it.
Like I couldn’t remember the last fifteen minutes.
Had I been asleep? Just nodding off in the warmth and security of my boyfriend’s arms, because I was that beat? Maybe. It had been a hell of a month, with things coming hard and fast, one after another, before I had time to blink sometimes, much less to heal. And although the family had some gifts in that area, with the war raging, most of them had been in need of help themselves. And, anyway, they could only do so much.
Sometimes, nature just had to take its course.
So, yeah, maybe I’d drifted off when I never did. But I didn’t know for sure. And neither did Louis-Cesar
e, no matter what he thought. He’d only met Dorina a couple of times, and both had been under duress. Would he feel that difference he talked about if she was just . . . there? If she was just . . . watching?
I shuddered, and didn’t manage to stop before he noticed.
Louis-Cesare’s hands stilled. “You truly think that is possible?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore! I just—” I twisted around, and my damned ribs rewarded me by shooting savage pain up my newly loosened spine. “Goddamn it!”
Louis-Cesare’s hands dropped unerringly to the source, sending warmth and relief coursing through me, despite the fact that I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted—
I didn’t even know.
Like I didn’t even know what he was still doing here.
“Why are you here?” I asked wearily, looking up at him.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because, when you hooked your wagon to the crazy, it wasn’t this crazy?”
He just looked at me.
“I’m a disaster,” I told him plainly. “I always have been, and things aren’t getting better. You ought to bail while you can.”
It hurt, even more than the ribs, but it was the truth. I’d always known it, but I’d hoped to hold on a little longer, to hold him. But things were starting to fall apart—I could feel it—and Dorina—
Isn’t here, he told me mentally, because he could do that sometimes.
All vampires could. Even babies could talk to family, and masters could communicate silently with almost anyone they chose. Except for me, who wasn’t a vampire and who’d had exactly zero mental gifts for five centuries, until that wall started to fall.
And all of a sudden, I was hearing voices.
But not hers.