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his view of Kate’s body. Blake
was grateful for the respite, even if his Master was already
offering pain, grabbing Blake’s hair and forcing his head back with
a sharp jerk.
    “ Tell me something,” he
said, and the word hissed past his fangs. His mouth was still
stained with Kate’s blood. “Do you love her?”
    Blake tried to think—but oh,
it was so hard to think—about which answer would be best. There
never was a right answer to questions such as this one, but some
answers were worse than others. If he said he didn’t, his Master
would punish him for lying. If he admitted he did, he would be
punished for displaying emotions that vampires weren’t supposed to
feel.
    If he was to be punished
anyway, he finally decided, he wouldn’t betray Kate, not even in
words.
    “ Yes, Master,” he murmured.
“I do.”
    His Master’s grin was pure
savagery. His fingers tightened in Blake’s hair, wrenching Blake’s
head back further until his neck hurt. “Of course you do. I’ll
leave her with you, then. So you can be with your rotting love for
a few days. Or weeks.”
    Dawning comprehension
widened Blake’s eyes, and he stared at his Master in horror. His
Master was still laughing when he stepped out of the cell and
locked the door on the two of them.
     
    * * * *
     
    Blake awoke with a
gasp.
    Kate’s head still lay in his
lap, and for one awful moment he was sure, absolutely sure, that
she was dead. And it was his fault. And her body would be left to
decay in front of him.
    “ Blake? What’s
wrong?”
    His Master sounded worried.
It was so strange to hear worry in his Master’s voice. Scorn,
anger, taunts, amusement, yes. Not worry.
    But it wasn’t his Master,
was it?
    Blake forced himself to make
a demand even when everything he knew told him he had no right to
ask for anything.
    “ Stop the car.”
    Marc did so before turning
in his seat to look at Blake. Kate had awakened and she sat up,
yawning widely before she asked, “Are we there already?”
    Blake didn’t answer. His
fingers scrambled over the door, trying desperately to work the
handle. At last he managed to get the door open and stumbled out
onto the asphalt. His stomach was heaving as though the blood he
had drunk earlier was trying to come back up. Stumbling to the side
of the road, he took big, gulping swallows of fresh air and tried
to chase away the smell of rotting flesh that seemed so fresh in
his mind.
    He fell to his knees in the
grass, hands closing into fists over his thighs, and didn’t try to
stop the tears. They were long overdue.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4

     
     
    Several minutes passed
before the car doors opened behind Blake, and distantly he was
grateful they had given him a moment to himself. The footsteps on
the asphalt sounded far too loud, like the heartbeat he didn’t have
but that he could swear was thumping in his ears.
    “ Stay in the car,” Marc
snapped.
    For a second Blake thought
he meant Kate, but while a car door did slam shut, Kate soon
stepped around him and kneeled in the grass in front of
him.
    He hated seeing her on her
knees.
    Her expression was grim and
turned even more somber when she took a look at him. She started to
raise her hand toward Blake’s face, but he jerked back. Belatedly
realizing what he must look like with tears running down his
cheeks, Blake scrubbed at his face with both hands. Shame still
burned him, and he couldn’t look at her.
    “ I don’t care,” Kate
murmured. “I don’t think any less of you because you
cry.”
    Blake shook his head
jerkily, though he didn’t say a word. Of course she didn’t think
any less of him; she couldn’t. What could possibly be lower than
him, pathetic and useless and broken?
    At least, and it was a small
mercy, Marc hadn’t seen him cry. He walked to Kate’s side with slow
steps. He was always wary when Blake stumbled, no doubt remembering
that Blake’s mind was sometimes so muddled that he attacked Marc as
though he were the enemy.