Rada’s ghost haunted him. He’d returned to her at the end of her short mortal life, desperate to try anything to cure the cancer riddling her body. His own blood could not heal her. But he had tried everything to save her, including infecting her with Elixir. What he thought was a cure turned into a plague that eventually took her life.

And nearly took his.

“She didn’t choose you.” Saba turned to him. “Love her memory, but do not forget that truth. In the end, Luka, she chose a human life and a human death. Your true mate would have chosen you.”

Bitterness stained his tongue as images of his lost love flipped through his mind. Rada as a young woman, a gifted scientist struggling for validation and respect. The passionate woman who’d become his lover. The woman who’d said good-bye, leaving him to pursue human desires. She’d had a husband. Children. She’d had a good life that ended too soon.

“I loved her.”

“I know you did,” Saba said. “Would she have wanted this apathy from you? Would a fellow healer have wanted you to stay on this mountain, hiding your gifts from the world?”

“What does it matter?” Lucien asked. “I’ve lived thousands of years. Seen humans progress and regress. Nothing changes, and humanity is exhausting. Can’t the world wait for me to like it again?”

“In another age, I would say yes. But not this one.” She handed him a folded piece of paper. “A message from Ziri.”

The ancient wind vampire was one of his mother’s dearest friends, though far more politically inclined than Saba. He’d been intimately involved in the creation and the exposure of the Elixir that had poisoned Lucien and killed Rada. Only a complete transfusion of Saba’s blood had healed him.

And, for a time, he’d thought that would be the end of it. The poison had been exposed. Its creator had been destroyed.

But knowledge was the most pernicious virus.

Elixir hadn’t disappeared. The infection only seemed to be spreading in the human world, putting more and more immortals at risk along with the humans they drank from. Not that it was his problem anymore.

“What does Ziri want?” Lucien asked quietly, a sense of inevitability falling on him as he took the letter.

“He bears a request from Rome.” Saba pulled out another letter.

“And what does Emil Conti want?” Lucien asked, taking the second letter. “He controls Rome now. What more does he need?”

She pulled out another letter. “It’s a request from Giovanni Vecchio.”

Lucien closed his eyes and sighed. A request from Vecchio couldn’t be ignored. Not when it was Vecchio and his mate, Beatrice De Novo, who had hosted Lucien in Rome. Not when Vecchio’s ward, Benjamin Vecchio, had been the one to pull Lucien out of the sun and save his life. Whether he’d wanted the rescue or not, Lucien owed them—in particular the young human—an enormous favor, and Vecchio was far too calculating to forget it.

“Ziri. Conti. And Vecchio.” He counted off the letters. They were being far too formal for a small request. “What do they want?”

“The vampire who controls the Pacific Northwest is an ally of theirs. They have had an influx of humans whose blood is tainted by the Elixir.” Saba’s face was grim. “This Katya Grigorieva is keeping the women. Building some sort of research facility to study them.”

“Study them?” Anger was a faded emotion for Lucien, but he felt a flare at the word study.

“In a sense.” Saba must have seen the disapproval on his face. “What should she do? Leave the humans alone? These women will die. We both know it. Should they infect more of our people because of their ignorance?”

“Human beings are not lab animals to be experimented on.” He had taken an oath centuries before to do as little harm as he could. He was a healer and only a reluctant predator. “Why should I help this woman? Is she an ally of yours?”

“Her people will study the humans no matter what you decide,” Saba said. “Ziri and Vecchio want you there to lead the research team. Security is already arranged, but they need a healer with some history with the Elixir.”

He crossed his arms and looked over the cloud cover blanketing the valley below. The highlands rose above the valley, the stars a million points of light in the darkness as the clouds made islands of the mountain peaks.

“Why don’t you and Ziri solve this?” Lucien asked. “Find Kato and Arosh. Make them help. You and your friends are the ones who came up with this scheme in the first place.”

“I think you forget the inevitability of human curiosity,” Saba said. “Geber was the alchemist, Luka, not us.”

Lucien stared into the silent black night, but no solution came to him. In fact, his conscience began to nibble at the corners of his mind. “I owe Vecchio, so I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Do you want another healer—one who might not be as honorable as you—to be in charge of this research? A cure must be found, Lucien. My kind of healing has no place in that world, but you—”

“Fine.” He closed his eyes. “You knew I was never going to be able to say no, Saba. I’ll send the message to Vecchio. No need to go through all the political channels. Is the courier still here?”

“She is.”

“Tell her to wait. I’ll go and write the letter right now.” He pulled on his shirt and took off his shoes, sinking his feet into the earth he’d soon have to leave behind for the modern human world of concrete, constant noise, and wireless buzzing.