Kira's breath whooshed from her lungs when Mencheres set them down in the parking lot. It took a second for her legs to stop trembling enough for her to let go of him, but the hospital gleaming so close ahead gave her the needed strength to start walking toward it.

"Why didn't we drive here?" she asked, her heart still hammering.

"It would have taken three times longer," Mencheres replied. "More, if we were caught in traffic."

Sure wasn't any traffic in the skies, Kira thought, still a bit dazed from her recent flight.

Mencheres had swept her up, hurtling them through the night skies, before she'd even realized what he was doing. The vampire's ability to fly in a dizzying blur of speed was both exhilarating and terrifying. She didn't think she would ever forget the sight of the buildings from her vantage point of being zipped along above them. Superman and Lois Lane, eat your hearts out.

But Kira pushed her residual wonder aside when she entered the brightly lit hospital.

Somewhere on the floors above, Tina was fighting for her life against a disease that left no survivors. The hospital attendant gave her a sympathetic look as she assigned Kira a visitor's pass.

"You're just in time. ICU visiting hours end in thirty minutes."

Kira shot a grateful glance at Mencheres even though the vampire wasn't looking at her. If they'd driven instead of flown, she wouldn't have made it.

"Only family members are allowed in intensive care. Is he family, too?" the attendant asked.

"Yes," Kira replied at once. She wasn't about to repay Mencheres's kindness in bringing her here by making him cool his heels downstairs.

The attendant gave a single, doubtful glance at Mencheres. Kira couldn't blame her.

She and Mencheres looked nothing alike, with her blondish brown hair and light eyes in striking contrast to his darker coloring and Arabian features.

"Driver's license, please," the attendant said to Mencheres.

He leaned forward across the counter, the flash of green in his eyes gone so quickly, Kira wasn't sure if she really saw it.

"Given. Now, hand me the pass," Mencheres directed in a smooth, low voice.

The attendant handed over the visitor's pass with a glazed smile on her face, not even writing a name on it. Mencheres took it and turned to Kira.

"Let us go."

Kira looked back at the attendant, who still smiled in a frozen sort of way, before she followed Mencheres to the elevators. Once they were inside, she finally found her voice.

"That's how easily you can control people's minds under normal circumstances? A one-second glance with a little bitty flash of green?"

Mencheres gave her a sideways look. "Perhaps now you can appreciate the rarity of your resistance to my power."

"Because you gave me your blood," Kira murmured pensively, looking at the floors light up as the elevator passed them. "And possibly my stubbornness," she added with a limp smile.

Mencheres almost seemed to sigh. "There is one more possibility. A very small percentage of humans are naturally immune to vampire mind control. In my lifetime, I've come across only a few dozen humans with that immunity, but there are those who must have a form of genetic mutation that prevents - "

"You never told me that before," Kira interrupted, dread filling her. "You knew this whole time that it might not just be your blood that's prevented you from erasing my memory?" Sick fear boiled up in her. Was this Mencheres's way of telling her he'd never let her go?

The elevator doors slid open, revealing the nurses' station to the intensive care unit.

Mencheres said nothing, which Kira took as a damning admission.

But she couldn't talk more about that now. She only had half an hour to see her sister, and that took precedence even over her fears of Mencheres's new revelation. Kira's gaze flicked around the clear doors of each room until she found the one marked Tina Graceling. Then she flashed her pass at the nurse before approaching her sister's room, not even looking to see if Mencheres followed her.

Tina looked to be asleep, her petite body connected to machines that seemed to dwarf her from their perches around the hospital bed. She was almost as pale as the sheets around her, dark shadows circling her eyes the only spots of color on Tina's face.

She looked so frail, so broken, like a beautiful doll some child had carelessly discarded.

A clear plastic tube was taped in place over Tina's mouth, the steady compression of the nearby ventilator sounding like a wheezing accordion.

Tears filled Kira's eyes, making her sister and all the machines blurry. Tina wasn't asleep; she was unconscious and on a ventilator. One of Tina's greatest fears was being on a vent. Her sister had often said that once her lungs deteriorated to that point, it was all over.

And Tina was probably right.

A sob escaped from Kira before she could stuff it back. She'd known this day would come. Thought she'd even prepared for it, but the sizzling pain that wrapped around her heart when she saw Tina alive only by the assistance of machines made her knees give out. She sat in the nearby chair, unable to tear her gaze away from her unconscious little sister.

"What disease does she have?"

Mencheres's soft, deep voice startled Kira for a second. She'd almost forgotten the vampire was here. He circled around Tina's bed, looking down at her sister with his usual hooded expression.

"Cystic fibrosis," Kira rasped. "She was born with it."

The irony of that stabbed a fresh spurt of pain in Kira. According to what Mencheres just revealed, Kira might also have been born with a genetic mutation, but though hers might steal her freedom, it wouldn't grow deadlier until it killed her, like Tina's.

"She is dying," Mencheres said, still with that same indecipherable expression.

"Don't say that."

Kira gave the vampire a look filled with all her impotent rage over her sister's condition as she stood up. She knew it was true. All her instincts warned that this time, Tina wouldn't recover. She'd felt that dread growing in her all day even though she'd tried to discount it.

His black eyes were hard. "As she is now, that is fact, but what are you prepared to do to change that fact?"

Did he mean . . . ? Kira looked at Tina, at Mencheres, then at the EKG machine monitoring her sister's weak pulse. A pulse that Mencheres no longer had.

"Nothing quite that drastic," Mencheres said, with the barest hint of a nod at the heart monitor. "My blood healed your injuries. It cannot cure your sister's disease permanently, but it could heal the complications that cause her to be in this condition." Hope smashed through Kira as she stared at Mencheres. His blood had healed her

- from a mortal injury, no less. Even if it didn't cure Tina's cystic fibrosis, could it heal Tina enough to get her off the ventilator? Maybe even out of the hospital?

"You'd do that?" It took everything Kira had not to beg as she waited for his response.

"Yes. For a price."

Her knees felt weak again, but this time, with a different sort of dread. Of course the price of Mencheres's help would be for Kira to accept the loss of her freedom . . . forever.

After all, he'd repeatedly said he wouldn't let her go until he could erase her memory of vampires. Six days later, he still couldn't manipulate her memories or hear her thoughts.

Kira didn't hold out much hope that tomorrow would magically make any difference.

Genetic mutation. Natural immunity.

She looked back at Tina. If his price for getting her to accept her fate as a permanent captive was to heal her sister enough to give Tina another chance at living, she'd agree.

She might not have a choice about losing her freedom, but she could see that Tina benefited from it. A thousand times, she'd wondered, "Why her?" about Tina's condition, and yet not once had she ever heard Tina echo that sentiment. Her sister had accepted her fate with an ice-cold bravery that Kira had long been in awe of. Now, it was Kira's turn.

"I can guess your price," she said, straightening her shoulders. "And I'll agree, if you heal Tina more than this one time. Do it enough times to give her a normal life span, and I'll stay locked up for the rest of mine. A life for a life."

Mencheres stared at her in silence for so long, Kira wondered if she'd dared to demand too much. Was he angry by the condition she had added to his price? Amused?

Scornful? None of the above? It was true Mencheres could just hold her hostage forever without helping Tina, but if wanted her to be as docile as Selene, Kurt, and Sam were, then this was what he had to do.

"Call the nurse," Mencheres said.

That wasn't really an answer, but Kira didn't press. She went to the nurses' station and within minutes returned to the room with Tina's nurse.

Mencheres looked up at the woman and his eyes flashed that bright emerald glow.

"Bring me a syringe."

The nurse's expression immediately changed into the same obedient, placid one the visitor registrar's had. Once again, Kira marveled at how effortlessly Mencheres could control other people's minds as the nurse left the room. Less than a minute later, she returned with a syringe and handed it to Mencheres.

"Leave now. You gave me nothing. You remember nothing about me," Mencheres said to her dismissively. The nurse walked away without a backward glance.

Kira would've commented about how eerie that whole exchange was, but she was too busy concentrating on Mencheres as he slid the needle into his wrist and slowly pulled the plunger out. Red liquid oozed into the syringe until it was full.

She glanced behind them at the nurses' station. No one was looking their way. Kira glanced back to find Mencheres staring at her. He now had the needle inserted into the IV line. She didn't look away as he pressed the plunger down, turning the tube that fed into Tina's hand red with his blood as it absorbed into Tina's vein.

Kira held her breath until the syringe was empty and out of the IV line. Mencheres capped it and slipped it into his coat pocket. The only trace that anything unusual had happened was the residual pink fluid at the end of the IV line where the catheter was secured into Tina's flesh with tape.

"Stay here," he said before walking out of the room.

She didn't ask where he was going. Kira sat by the bed and traced her hand along her sister's pale, motionless arm. How long would it take for his blood to counter the merciless damage Tina's disease had inflicted on her? He'd only given her one single syringeful. Maybe that was all he intended to give her to start, but then he'd inject another few syringes' worth of blood into Tina in the next day or so. Maybe he didn't have enough blood in him now to give more. That could be where Mencheres was headed; to find an unknowing donor and refil . . .

Tina made a gagging sound. Everything in Kira froze as she saw her sister's eyes open. Tina blinked several times before gagging again, her head turning. Her sea-green gaze met Kira's in question, but not confusion. Tina was awake - and lucid. Then the limp arm Kira had been stroking lifted, her sister's hand moving up to tug at the tube in her mouth.

That was all Kira saw before her gaze blurred, and she choked out a single word.

"Nurse!"

Mencheres watched Kira say goodbye to her sister. Her face was still flushed with happiness as she leaned down to kiss Tina's cheek.

"I'll try to come again soon," she murmured. "Love you, Tiny-T."

"Love you, too, sis," Tina replied, her voice soft, but lacking the scratchiness Tina should have had after her ventilator tube had been removed.

"It's just miraculous how fast she responded to the new antibiotics," the nurse marveled to Kira as she accompanied her out of Tina's room.

"Oh yes. Miraculous," Kira echoed, but she looked up at Mencheres as she spoke.

He gave her a faint smile. The healing effects from vampire blood - specifically blood as old and powerful as his - would indeed seem miraculous to the nurse, who didn't know better. Kira did, though. She took his hand once she drew near, then she brought it to her lips.

"Thank you," she breathed as she placed a kiss upon it.

Such a simple gesture. The same one countless others - human, vampire, and ghoul

- had made to him over the course of thousands of years, yet it seared through Mencheres with more force than a thunderbolt. All too quickly, the brush of Kira's mouth and the soft pressure of her hand were gone, leaving him feeling colder without her touch.

By the gods, this mortal was so dangerous to him.

"We need to return now," he said, relieved that his voice didn't betray the emotion raging inside him.

Kira glanced back toward her sister's room and nodded, some of the happiness leaving her face.

"I'm ready."

Mencheres didn't speak as they took the elevator to the ground floor of the hospital.

Neither did Kira. When they were in the darkened corner of the parking lot, he opened his arms, and she stepped into them, her warmth enveloping him as he catapulted them into the sky. In moments, they were high above the hospital, then high above all the other buildings, too, invisible against the night with his black coat wrapped around them. Kira's heartbeat drummed against his chest, her body molded so closely to his, he could scarcely think of anything else. The wind rushing around them stole away her lemony scent, but he knew he'd smell it on him later. He might not wash this shirt or coat again, lest he lose all trace of her scent from them.

All too soon, he saw the outline of their destination ahead. His mouth tightened. It was time to eliminate the threat Kira posed to him. He had no choice.

Mencheres set them down on the building and let go of Kira as soon as she gained her balance. She looked around the roof with confusion stamped on her lovely features.

"Where are we? This isn't where you live."

He steeled himself, locking down his emotions behind an unreachable wall. "No, this is where you live."

Kira glanced around again, her eyes widening as she recognized the cityscape surrounding her apartment building. "Did you want me to pick up some of my things before we go back?" she asked in confusion. "I don't have my keys with me . . ."

"You aren't going back," Mencheres said in a cool, steady voice as he handed her the keys she'd left in her backpack the day they first met. Then with a mental push, the roof door gaped open. "I still cannot hear anything from your mind or control it, so it is obvious you are naturally immune to my power. I told you at the hospital that my blood came with a price. My price for healing your sister is your silence on all things you've learned in the past week. Speak of me, and them, to no one."

Her mouth opened in disbelief, those naturally red lips taunting him with their full ness.

"But you said as long as I knew, I could never leave - "

"And you said I could trust you," Mencheres interrupted softly. "So I am trusting you, Kira, and letting you go despite your knowledge."

She had no idea how difficult this was for him. When Kira offered herself willingly in exchange for healing her sister, Mencheres had almost seized on it. The chance to see her each day, learn more about her - and seduce her to his bed - had filled him with a primal, hungry purpose. He wanted to show Kira things she hadn't even imagined, take her to places she'd only heard of, and lavish on her extravagances that would shame a queen. It made no sense; he barely knew Kira, yet something in her called to him in a way that almost overpowered him. The last time he'd felt this strongly about a woman, kingdoms had fall en in his wake.

But the darkness of the underworld loomed before him, mocking him that his time was almost over. Kira had a future. He didn't. He had to free her, both to let her live out her life and to let him finish what was left of his.

She came toward him with that strong, fighter's stride that was at odds with her feminine slenderness and grabbed him in a fierce hug.

"Thank you," she whispered. This time, she kissed his throat, not his hand, and the brush of her soft, warm lips there almost broke his control.

He had to leave. Now.

Instead of returning her embrace, Mencheres reached into his coat and pulled out a bag.

"Take this," he said, thrusting it toward her. "Undead blood will not degrade with time.

Use a quarter of each tube every time your sister's condition worsens. You can either claim it's an herbal supplement and inject it into her, or slip it into a beverage strong enough for her not to taste it."

Kira opened the bag, her eyes growing shinier when she saw the dozens of vials filled with his blood. He'd mesmerized a nurse to provide the tubes while Kira had been busy with her sister. The contents of the bag should be enough to counter Tina's disease to give her a normal mortal life span. As promised.

"Does this mean . . . that I'm never going to see you again?"

Kira's voice cracked faintly as she asked, causing pain to slice through him. Did she feel something for him as well? She'd admitted to lust before, but did her emotions run deeper than that? Would she have wanted to see him again, even though with those vials, she didn't need him in order to keep her sister well?

It mattered not, that black void whispered. Whatever might have been with Kira could never be. All he had left was to make sure his death best served those he was responsible for - and thwarted Radjedef.

"Goodbye, dark lady," Mencheres murmured. Then he flung himself up into the night.