He made himself do what needed to be done, watched her grow paler and paler, even as she bucked and writhed weakly in his arms. It sapped him as well , dizziness taking over, making the world spin around him. The sun dimmed. Was it never night here? What kind of hell would that be? The absence of nighttime, with ful moons, chirping crickets and those quiet, solitary moments in bed with his lady, just the two of them in the whole dark universe. There was a spiritual power to joining with her body then, becoming one with her. The universe stil ed under the cover of darkness, a time when everyone could experience magic.

Please, my lady. His gut was racked with pain. It was as if his heart had been ripped from his chest.

He didn't need to breathe, but he stil had the experience of suffocation. He broke free, turned away to retch, though he continued to hold her on his knees. It hadn't worked. That sense of separation was a brick wal coming down, strong and immediate. She was beyond his grasp.

The thought plunged him into pure desolation, worse than even this world. Worse than hell itself.

No, no, no, no . . . Kane. Was Kane somewhere, screaming and crying, inconsolable, because he could feel that broken connection that nothing could ever replace? Jacob knew that feeling all too well.

He wasn't there to comfort his son, just as his own father hadn't been, couldn't be, when he and Gideon lost their mother, lost them both.

Jacob wasn't sure he had the strength and will to give any comfort, regardless. He wanted to die. He knew he wouldn't, that he would get up, and he would do what needed to be done because of that child, her child. Their child. But in this horrible moment, he wanted to die.

He also wanted to stay curled over her. He would protect her from the sun and stay with her. Lyssa.

Sweet queen. Don't go.

“My lady,” he said brokenly, tears running over his mouth. He knew they were fal ing on her face, but he couldn't open his eyes to wipe them away, couldn't bear to see death at last come to rest on the face of his thousand-year-old Mistress. In the time he'd known her, she'd never revealed her exact age, maybe because she nursed a woman's vanity in that regard. That would be just like her.

As he pressed his forehead to hers, sobs racked him. His whole world was dark. He had no idea how he was going to find the strength to get up, leave this moment. Or keep himself from kil ing Rhoswen, which would earn him a death sentence, and prevent him from returning to Kane.

“Shhh.” Her hand curved over his skul , fingertips in his hair. “Sad Irishman. 'S all right. I'm here. Shhh . . .”

He lifted his head, disbelieving. She'd thought she was hal ucinating, when he was here with her in the bright light of day, and now he had the same incredulous feeling. He could feel that emptiness, that loss, pulsing through him like a terminal fever.

But she was looking up at him, stil weak but alive. It had worked. More than worked. His intuition, honed from vampire hunting, detected the vampire, knew that part of her blood had kindled once more. It was pumping like he'd tapped a well , bringing the waters gushing forth, rapidly fil ing a dry basin.

She had that stil ness in her gaze all vampires had, particularly the very old ones. He had forgotten how obvious it was, when she was truly, strongly vampire. The energy of it pulsed against him with that stil ness. She'd recognized it as well , was feeling her way through it. He could stil detect the Fae blood, a shifting balance. It wasn't a reversal, though. The Fae blood wasn't being obliterated by the vampire. It was as if they were . . . equalizing.

He felt the restrained strength in her fingers, in the way she touched him. She was reminding herself of the little things. Like that too tight a grip could crush a skul . A fragile, mortal human skul .

He realized it then, a shock that went to his core.

His fangs were gone, replaced by normal canines.

He was human again. But the emptiness . . . he scrambled through his mind, realized what it was.

The second-mark mindlink, the geographic first link, he stil felt those threads, but the third, the one that fil ed his soul with her, it was gone as if it had never been.

When he twitched his shoulders, he felt the physical evidence of the third mark, that serpentine impression. But Brian had said there were reasons for that mark beyond a vampire's ken, beyond what they scientifical y knew about the marks. Every time he and Lyssa had faced things that said they could go no farther— don't step past this line—they'd let their bond with one another lead them.

It wasn't a vampire bond. It was their bond, the one that would exist throughout the ages, no matter what. That was what that serpentine fossil mark meant, and that was why it was stil there.

Even so, he wanted that third mark back. It was as sacred as a marriage, holding the same meaning and then some. Though she was weak, he saw the same thing in her eyes. Its absence disturbed her as much as it did him.

She stiffened, her nostrils flaring. “They've found us.”

Fol owing the direction her head turned, he saw the smal shapes coming across the landscape.

Four or five of them.

“Get what you need, my lady. Keldwyn said a portal should open up once you had your hands on what Rhoswen wanted.” Glancing down, he was relieved to see his return to mortality had not brought back the desert brand. “I should be able to fol ow you out that door.”

She nodded. “The pack. Get the pouch Rhoswen gave me for the gemstone.”

When he did, instead of putting the gem in it, she positioned it beneath the canopy of the smal bush.

Curious, he watched her touch the closest branch. It dissolved, a cloud of misty ash that drifted into the pouch. She did it to the next branch and the next.

Whatever enchantment had held the plant together this long appeared to be directing the residue into the bag, not a single cloud drifting beyond the mouth.

Jacob kept his eye on the advancing attack. “Do you stil have your Fae abilities, my lady?” She nodded, stil focused on her task. “It feels as if I do. I don't know if they're the same magnitude or not, but it's a curious feeling, like things have . .. expanded inside of me. The vampire I was is all, fully there. But I don't feel I've lost anything of what I've discovered about my Fae blood. Whether or not that's the case, even with your blood and the restoration of the vampire side, I feel weak yet. I don't know how much I'l be able to do against them.”

“Well, a near-death experience can take it out of you.” He stroked a hand down her back. “We'l be fine. Please just hurry, my lady.”

The last of the plant dissolved into the pouch then, a fickle breeze blowing the sand off that glittering red gem. A tiny teacup rose appeared to be frozen inside it. When Lyssa picked it up, the stone was large enough to fit in her palm.

She clasped it to her breast, her face getting quiet, pensive as it had when she told Jacob she'd touched her father through that conduit. Jacob tied the pouch to the belt loop of her torn and bloody tunic, while she handed him the pack. When they met gazes, he knew she was giving him the supplies and weapons because her exit was more certain than his.

“If I don't come through with you,” he said steadily,

“Do what you need to do with Rhoswen, then come back for me.”

Shadows flashed through her eyes, and with that second-mark link he caught glimpses of the nightmarish memories of what she'd seen for the past two days. “I will not be leaving you behind,” she said flatly.

Since they were both wobbling, they helped each other to their feet. As one, they looked toward the approaching enemy. They were much closer. “When the portal opens,” Lyssa said, her voice even, deadly calm, “hold on to me, tight and close as you can. If she knows you're here, she'l try her best to shake you loose, leave you behind.”

“Like Tam Lin.” He looked down at her, stroked back a lock of her hair from her sunburned, bloody face. The bruises and scratches weren't healing. It might be the effect of the Fae world, but it wasn't.

Even second-marked, he knew her needs, the pal or of her skin. She needed blood. Lots of it. “To save Tam Lin, the girl who loved him had to hold on to him tightly, though the Fae queen turned him into a variety of frightening creatures to get her to let go.

But in the end, she held on, and Tam Lin and she lived happily ever after.”

“Al the more reason to hold on.” Her cracked lips curved, her attention shifting. “Murphy's Law. Looks like they're going to get here before Rhoswen gets around to opening a door.”

Jacob bent, found a mace and a short sword in the pack, along with several other knives. Clasping the handles of the mace and short sword together, he straightened and handed her the knives. “They say that things here are capricious, but they seem damn premeditated to me.”

“I'l miss eating food,” she said calmly. “I hadn't expected to like that so much.”

“Yeah. I missed that one a lot myself.”

“Well, you'l eat for both of us. But not too much. If you get fat and lazy, I'l have to find myself another . . .”

She stopped before she said it, that final word.

Because at the moment, he wasn't her ful servant, was he? God damn it, what a crazy thing to be bugging him right now, bugging them both, but there it was.

The oncoming five were less than a hundred yards away now. Carrying scraps of metal, beaten into crude weapons, they were like zombies out of a slasher flick, only with a far more conscious determination to overwhelm whoever stood in their path. They horrified him, even as it increased his admiration for her anew, thinking how many of these she'd defeated to get here.

He tightened his hand on the sword. When they shifted apart, shoulder to shoulder, she gave him enough room to swing the mace. On a second thought, he leaned down, yanked another weapon out of the pack, this one a wicked-looking machete, and tossed it to her. Dropping one knife, Lyssa caught the machete in the same motion. “I'l bet there's quite a story behind how Keldwyn got his hands on this.” She considered the blade, flashing in the sun.

“You could write a book of stories about that one, period. Here they come, my lady.”