Right.
They were prepared to face whatever consequences breaking the bond would bring. Mimi’s wrath. The wasting disease that would weaken him to the point of paralysis. They were up to the challenge.
But I’m scared, she sent.
I’m not.
In a way, their monthlong incarceration had been useful, as they had been able to articulate their fears and hopes for the future, testing the boundaries of their new relationship. They had been able to plan not only for the immediate situation, but for whatever dark destiny awaited them. Schuyler knew where she stood with Jack. And he knew where she was coming from. She had never felt more secure or certain about anything in her life than the depth and fortitude of his love. He had gone to Hell and back to save her, and she had given her blood to him to save his life.
But the bond . . .
We shall forge a new bond.
You don’t have doubts about relinquishing the old? Schuyler had never felt brave enough to ask him this question before, as she still feared his answer. She had never used their closeness in the glom to peer into his memories, to see if he had any regrets for the choice he had made. She respected his privacy, but she also knew she would not be able to bear it if she found that he carried a lingering yearning for his twin. She would die of jealousy to know it.
Not one. This is a bond we choose to make, not one that was decided for us. I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe that love is predetermined.
“We should get back,” Schuyler whispered. They didn’t have time for this. No time for love; for each other.
“Not yet,” Jack sighed, his eyes still closed, his warm fingers tracing a line down her naked stomach.
Schuyler smiled at him indulgently, letting her hair brush his cheek. He twined a fistful and pulled her to him so that their lips met again. She opened her mouth to his, and his hand reached underneath her camisole.
She bent down toward him, straddling his waist, then he flipped her over so that she lay supine underneath him, her white throat open and exposed.
He traced a finger on her neck, and she closed her eyes in anticipation.
She could feel him kiss her jaw, then underneath her neck, and she pulled him closer, closer.
Finally he let his teeth slide over her skin, and then in one quick thrust, she felt his fangs pierce her.
She gasped. It was the strongest he had ever dared, the deepest intrusion into her body, and one she had not been ready for, but it was glorious. She could feel his very life force intermingling with hers, could feel the beat of his heart in her heart—the two of them together, as he held her in his grasp. She felt light-headed and dizzy and drugged, and her arms clutched his back as she pulled him ever closer, ever nearer.
More, she thought. More.
In answer, Jack released her for a moment, then bit her a second time. This time, when he kissed her with his fangs, the piercing sweetness filled her with that same painful but wonderful ache.
She was his love and his familiar. They were attached in a thousand ways—tiny invisible hooks that bound them to each other no matter what Heaven or its former residents declared.
NINE
Ambush
By the time Schuyler heard the sound of footsteps it was almost midday. The group coming upon her and Jack thought they could take them by surprise, but in that they were wrong. She kept her eyes closed and her head on Jack’s chest. She had heard them from several hundred feet away, the crunching of twigs underfoot, their stealthy step across the forest floor, their hushed conversations.
Don’t move, Jack sent. Let’s see what they want.
Schuyler was not afraid, yet she was worried. The group coming upon them were not Venators, but she could smell their desperation and fear, and knew that they did not mean them well. What were she and Jack thinking, anyway, taking a languid morning for themselves? Thank goodness they had put their clothes back on.
She could feel Jack breathing underneath her, could hear his steady heartbeat.
“Get up,” a gruff voice ordered.
Schuyler yawned and stretched and pretended to blink her eyes. She rose and looked around. Jack followed her lead. With their tousled hair and red cheeks, they looked like two young people who had been roused from a nap.
They were surrounded by a group of men carrying rifles and handguns. From their bearing and their speech, Schuyler guessed they were peasants from a neighboring town, probably from Santo Stefano, which was the nearest. The countryside was filled with folk who had never left the villages, who carried on the traditions and trades taught and handed down for generations. The modern world had brought them cell phones and Internet cafés, yet they lived in several-hundred-year-old farmhouses with no heating, and continued to make their bread and sausages by hand.