He rocked her back and forth. “Josie, please—”

“He was Irish. Did you know he was Irish? Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. What a wonderful name. Not like Josephine. Who wants to read a story from a Josephine?”

“I do. I love reading stories by Josephine.” Her skin was burning.

“Why aren’t there more vampire stories? I wish there were. I wish I could have known him. My mother met him. They were… friends. Perhaps it wasn’t the footman after all. He only liked Poe. But who doesn’t like Poe, after all?”

She was rambling, her fever overtaking her reason. Tom stood and walked to the bed, stripping her out of her robe and ringing for the maid to bring some ice. Murphy kept a basement of it for blood stores, and Tom was tempted to take her down and hold her in the frigid walls of the cool room. He knew it wouldn’t help.

“Josie,” he said again. “Please, love. Take a deep breath. Try to calm down.”

The breath she took rattled in her chest and made Tom want to rip the sheets and punch his fist through the wall. He put more pillows behind her and stripped the heavy, feather-filled blanket that only seemed to make her cough worse. The maid came, along with Mrs. Porter, and they began to see to his wife.

His wife. The love of his life. Tom could smell it in the breath she coughed out.

His Josie was dying.

Tom turned away before the women could see the bloody tears that filled his eyes.

TOM received word the next evening that John Shaw had passed away in his sleep, but Josie wouldn’t hear it. Her eyes were half-open, and her breathing labored. She hadn’t woken since her rambles the night before. Tom had been forced to his day rest, raging in fear that his wife would slip away while he was dead to the world.

Her breathing seemed a little better when he woke, but her fever had not lessened. Mrs. Porter and Josie’s day maid had banished the doctor after it was clear there was nothing he could do.

Tom sat in despair, knowing she would never be well enough to travel to Belfast. He would lose her. But then he could end things. After all, he’d lived over seventy-five years, mortal and immortal life combined. That was a good run, he thought.

And Murphy?

Murphy could go to hell.

Tom lay next to Josie in bed, dabbing at her mouth with blood-stained cloths when she coughed. He paid no attention when he heard the door open or when Mrs. Porter announced Murphy and Anne’s presence. He refused to look at his sire. These hours were not for him. He would hold his woman as long as he could. And when the end came, he would follow. Loyalty to his sire be damned. After all his years of service, what had Murphy done but let the woman Tom loved die a painful death?

“Tom,” Anne called him. “Tom Dargin, look at me.”

He didn’t.

“Go away.” Tom didn’t want to leave her side, even to throw them both out. “Her father’s dead. She’s dying. Leave me alone. You won’t have to bother with me much longer.”

Murphy’s voice was stiff. “Tom, stop this madness.”

“Go fuck yourself.” He brushed her cheek. “Sorry, sweet girl. I know you don’t like rough language.”

Anne was there, clutching his shoulder. “Tom, please.”

“Won’t be the same. Nothing was the same from the night I met her. My butterfly girl. Only woman as ever saw the whole of me. Loved me, she did. It’ll be fine, Annie. No need to ask your sister for that favor. I’ll stay with my girl until she goes.”

“Tom, you can’t be serious.” Murphy banged his cane on the ground. “I sent Mrs. Porter away so we could speak freely. Stop this. This isn’t you.”

Anne was crying. “Tommy, please. We can’t do without you.”

“And I can’t do without her!” He pushed Anne away, baring his teeth at Murphy as he roared, “Get the fuck away from us, both of you!”

Josie started to cough, sitting up on her own, her eyes open and glassy with fever.

“Tom?” she gasped. “Tom, who’s yelling? What’s wrong?”

He turned, ignoring his irate sire. “It’s fine. It’s fine. Here, love.” He tried to get her to drink something, but the water only sprayed over the bed when she coughed again.

Murphy said, “She’s mortal. You knew this when you married her.”

“She’s my mate,” he said, not caring if Josie questioned him. She was already falling back into delirium. “Anne, get him away before I kill him myself. He don’t belong here. Leave me be.”

“You cannot mean to meet the sun,” Murphy said, stubbornly standing at the foot of her bed. “Tom, your life is more valuable—”

“My life is not my own,” he growled. “And hasn’t been since I agreed to join you in this one. I cannot save her without driving both of us mad, and you’ve made your choice. But I tell you, I can join her when she goes. That is my choice. And you don’t have any say in that.”

“I’ll lock you up.”

“You plan on doing that forever?”

That shut him up, and Tom was able to concentrate on Josie again. His poor girl. She sounded like half of what she was breathing was water, but it was the fever that scared him.

“You’re determined to die with her?”

Tom stroked her damp hair off her forehead. “I’ll be dead already when she’s gone.”

He paid no attention to whatever silent arguments his sire was having with Anne. He watched Josie, watched the rise and fall of her labored breathing. Watched the fine skin of her neck where her pulse beat faintly. She’d be admitted to heaven without a doubt. He wondered if he was clever enough to talk himself in.