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.”“She’s already whole,” Rhes said.He was resting his hand lightly on Sarah’s leg and could feel the tension in her body.“Is she? Think of how he would look, Sarah.Think of how it would feel to see him for the first time, to see his smile, to look into his eyes with your own.”“Don’t you fucking use me against her like that!” Rhes snarled.Aros glanced at him, then back at Sarah, unperturbed.“He is angry with himself because he can’t sacrifice his own happiness for yours, even though he knows that he should.”Sarah’s jaw was clenched tight, her head tilted down.“Baby, that’s not true.I’m trying to keep you from making a mistake,” Rhes said.Sarah took a harsh, shuddering breath, suppressing a sob, and said, “I want to see you!”Aros gave Rhes a savage grin and said to Sarah, “I can give that to you.”Sarah drew in another hard breath.She was visibly shaking now, and Rhes realized that in another minute at most, he was going to lose her.Sarah was going to give up, give in, accept the offer.He had underestimated just how thoroughly she hated her blindness and how desperate she was to be rid of it.He was going to lose her unless he did something, and so he did the only thing that he could think of, leaning in next to her and putting his lips to her ear.“He’s not telling you something,” he said.He kept his voice low and even, not trying to keep his words from Aros, but simply trying to help calm Sarah.“What?” she asked, her voice miserable.“There’s nothing at the end of his road but the dark.”“You know nothing abou—” Aros began, and Rhes whirled to face him.“Shut up!” he shouted.“Shut the fuck up and let me talk, or kill me now and see if she goes with you after that.”Aros glowered at him, and in that moment Rhes understood that there was no longer any possibility that the vampire would let them go.Unless Sarah chose to take his offer, Aros would have them killed as soon as he had Two in his grasp.This was certain, and their only chance for escape had just walked through the door and out to his seeming death.Well, fuck it then, Rhes thought, and turned back to Sarah.“I’m going to finish whether he likes it or not,” he said.“I love you.I love you more than anything else in the whole world, but I can’t follow you if you choose to go with him.I won’t.That road doesn’t go to our house.It doesn’t go to Molly or to raising a family.There’s no baby at the end of Aros’s road and no normal life.There’s just years and years of looking out into the dark.”“A prospect you’re faced with in either case,” Aros said.The black humor had left his voice, and he seemed to be growing tired of the game.“This is the last time I will offer, Sarah.I can fix you.He cannot.”Sarah sighed and leaned the side of her head against Rhes’s shoulder.When she spoke, her voice was tired and hoarse, filled with a terrible resignation.“Go away,” she said to Aros.“Just … go away.I don’t want to be fixed.I want to spend whatever time I have left with my husband, even if I’ll never get to see him.Go away and leave me alone.”It was Rhes’s turn to give Aros a savage, triumphant smile.The vampire’s eyes narrowed, but after a moment any emotion seemed to leave his face, and he shrugged.“Your loss,” he said with an air of supreme indifference and, with that, he turned and left the house.“Baby, I—” Rhes began, and Sarah turned and pressed a hand to his mouth, her jaw clenched tightly shut.Rhes wanted to tell her that he understood: she had done this for him.She had chosen him over the very thing that she wanted most in the world.He wanted to tell her that he knew what it meant, this thing she had given up, and that he was thankful, but Sarah didn’t want to hear it.Couldn’t hear it, he realized, not right now.Without another word, he put his arms around his wife and held her.Sarah pressed her face into his chest and stood like that for a long time, her breathing slow and deep.* * *The building in which Jakob had been housed had once served as a dormitory for soldiers, and it was approximately a sixty-yard walk from the row of townhouses where Rhes and Sarah had been stationed.Jakob made the walk from their house to his building with four of Aros’s soldiers surrounding him.Each carried a pistol, and two of them also had automatic weapons.He knew from experience that when they reached the building, the two guards with assault rifles would break off, heading back to positions along the outer wall.The two guards with pistols would bring him to his room, a small space that had once been an officer’s bedroom but now, with the addition of sturdy bars outside the single window, had been converted into an effective cell.Jakob did not know if any other people, prisoners or soldiers, were currently stationed in the building.If they were, he had not heard them.The entrance did not go as expected.When they reached the building, instead of unlocking the door the group swerved to the right, indicating to Jakob where he was to go by waving their guns.The two guards who normally left the group instead continued with them, and Jakob realized that he was likely in the presence of his execution squad.He felt mildly insulted that Aros could not even be bothered to oversee the event.“Have you ever killed an Ay’Araf before?” Jakob asked the nearest guard, a short, squat vampire with brown hair and dark eyes who walked with a limp.“Shut up,” the guard said.“But surely this must be exciting for you, no? The chance to off an aristocratic pig?”“I said shut up.You’re not talking your way out of this.We’ve got our orders.”“Orders.Yes, of course,” Jakob said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]