My lip quivered, air leaving them in the word “Okay.”

David nodded, accepting his fate.

Trying to steady my hands, I touched his neck, running my finger over the teeth marks there. Who did this to you?

He didn’t answer.

The trembling in my knees spread as my lips touched his skin and I drew a breath. “I can’t do it.”

“Do it!” Jason forced my head down, my cheek meshing against David’s jaw.

“Shh, it’s okay, Ara—it’s okay.” David turned his head slightly, kissed the top of my ear. “I’ll be waiting for you—okay? I’ll be waiting.”

The venom-filled hunger and lust took over; my lips parted, my tongue moved forward, searching his flesh, tasting him until a tight, bone-deep desire to bite tingled in my teeth. My jaw gaped and flesh fell under my tongue, wet with warm, sweet, sugary milk, filling my mouth.

It’s not enough.

His blood was thin and weak—he was ill, I could taste it. I tilted my head and rolled my shoulder against him, biting harder, deeper, as a cool rush of fluid shot out into his flesh from my fangs; my heart stopped, my lips froze; the blood spilled past and ran down my chin.

What have I done?

All sound in the world drained to silence as Jason ripped my hands away from the last grasp they would ever hold of this beautiful man. My spine cracked the window behind me with the motion of a slow replay, and I looked back to see David; his black eyes met mine for a moment before they closed tightly, the corners creasing as he stiffened all over.

“David?” I covered my mouth.

But he held back the terror of my venom for only a breath more before screaming out through his teeth, falling to his side. My fingers edged, desperate to hold him, to be with him, but Jason blocked my path—standing with his arms folded, smiling as he looked on.

Oh God. God, please don’t let this be happening.

I couldn’t move—couldn’t get to him.

Motionless, my lips parted as I watched him struggle—writhing in agony. There was no sound, no breath. I could not feel, nor hear. The emptiness of the fact that I just erased him from this life—that in only a moment from now he would cease to exist, destroyed me.

The world swayed in a dizzying silence. Nausea rose in my stomach, and the fuzzy sensation surrounding my eyes consumed my vision in a hazy swirl of white, clouded fog.

A rhythmic tune attached itself to my soul then; piano, a song—one I heard so long ago in a dream I couldn’t remember. It haunted my heart now as the words travelled onto my lips; “The world, she saw us loved and young—but tore us, worn and hung. We never will part, we never grow old—but spend eternity in our dreams, for the life we had is gone.

“You will never touch the light, I will never touch your skin, but I will keep you in my dreams, until we meet again.”

Jason stood stiff and stared through glazed, squared eyes, as I recalled the words softly. My lip quivered, and I watched the last of David’s life slip away from his unmoving body, then, as his pain receded to the bliss of the other side, he came back to this world for one, single moment. “I’ll see you soon.” He smiled, black eyes washing away with the green that could only belong to his soul.

He dropped his head and turned away—sparing me the terrible grief of seeing life leave his emerald gaze.

The tightness in my stomach forced me to fold over; I dropped a hand to the ground, holding the other tightly across my body.

My heart knows. It knows what I’ve done. I can’t take it back. I need to go back—just two minutes. Just two minutes and everything will be okay.

But I can’t—no matter how much I pray. I can’t.

David.

Jason towered over the lifeless corpse, smiling as he lifted David’s eyelids with his thumb. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

Pools of tears filled my eyes, refusing to spill—the ache in my heart wouldn’t allow me the relief. I wanted to scream, to run, to throw myself from a tall tower. My heart was gone—it stopped beating when David’s did, but my breath wouldn’t give me a chance to die, coming in gasps, forcing me to live.

“Jason.” Drake stood. “You know what to do.”

“What are you doing?” I reached out when Jason lifted David.

“Finishing what I started.”

“No!”

Jason turned and threw David’s lifeless body on the blazing heat behind him.

“Oh, God. No!” I gripped my hair, ripping at it. I need control, what can I do, what can I do?

The raging flames licked David’s skin, his clothes, melting his face, dissolving his hair as I watched.

Tears streamed then, and my chest felt so tight I could no longer feel my breath. “No,” the words trailed off. “No!”

He burned. He lay still—not breaking free, not running, not moving or thrashing about—just burning. Burning.

As audible gasps grated the back of my throat, Jason squatted beside me and turned my face away from the light—away from the image of devastation. “I will erase this from your mind, Ara. You won’t know him anymore. Then you will—” Jason looked up, over at the door, his eyes wide, when a deep, raging scream echoed from somewhere in the hall.

“Guards.” Drake pointed. “Secure the castle.”

Jason stood, and bodies moved everywhere, scuffling apart in all directions, fleeing the room.

“Wait here,” Jason said, then disappeared too, leaving me alone with the melting remains of my husband.

My chest shook; stillness swallowed the room—a ticking clock, crackling coals, and my breath, the only mentions of existence aside from the distant screams, resonating somewhere deep within this fortress.

Sobbing, I crawled to the fire. “David?”

His hand lay on the tiles by the gleaming embers, two fingers undamaged by flames—the last remaining sign that he was once alive, that he once held me, loved me. A reminder that I would never feel his touch, ever again.

My shaking hand moved slowly across the space between us, but the door swung open and banged loudly on the wall, Jason ripping me away before I had the chance to touch David. “We need to move. Now.”

No. I reached out, watching the distance grow greater between our eternal separations. No, I need to say goodbye.

But Jason dragged me from the room, leaving me with a broken farewell and a deep, burning desire to trade places with my dead husband.