Undeniable (37 page)

“And the craziest,” another added.

Sebastian chuckled. “Love can make even the strongest vamp
act crazy.”

Luna pouted. “I thought I was your favorite girl.”

“You are, Luna Moona. You’re my favorite little girl, but
Diana is my favorite big girl.”

Luna’s eyes lit up. “Diana? My Diana?” She grasped the
locket. “She gave me her heart,” she announce proudly to her friends. “It’s
special. She put all her love in it so the monster that got Daddy would know
she loved me and leave me alone.”

Sebastian’s guilt washed over him anew like waves crashing
upon the shore during a winter storm.

Luna’s face beamed. “She said she’d always come if I got
scared and called her. I did one day, when Mommy was sleeping. Diana said that
she’d kill the monster before she let it hurt me or my mommy.”

“A girl can’t kill a monster.” Fallon scoffed, then yelped
as he received a swift punch in his arm from Luna. She turned around and faced
the children. “Diana can, can’t she, Uncle Sebastian? She can kick even better
than that Chinese guy in the movies. She showed me once. Her leg swung over her
head and broke a big branch right off a tree!”

Sebastian chuckled.

Luna turned to glare at him.

He swallowed and wagged his finger. “Luna, what have we said
about telling fibs?”

She stomped her foot. “It is not a fib. She broke a branch
off a tree with just her foot. Mommy saw it too.”

Sebastian recalled how Diana had kicked his feet out from
under him when they were in her yard and all the trophies lining the shelves in
her room, the figures atop them always with a leg flung out. “So she was going
to kick this monster to death?”

“Yup. She’s the best kicker in New York.”

Sebastian drew in a hissing breath as a small finger from
the group gathered behind him poked the raw flesh on his back.

Rising, he gazed over the children’s heads to the group of
elders standing at the end of the hall. “I have to go. Now.”

They nodded. His grandfather took out a cell phone. After
mumbling a few words, he snapped it shut. “My helicopter is refueling. You’ll
be protected from the sun in it. I’m sorry, Sebastian. It seems your mother
took two women to the Isle of Fentmore earlier this evening in the other one
and hasn’t returned.”

Sebastian swallowed his rage. He had to stay in control, for
Diana’s sake.

His grandfather let out a long weary sigh. “Olympia thinks
that she is above our laws just because she is my daughter. She disrupted your
bonding and must be punished.”

“Banishment?” Luna asked, her voice sounding oddly relieved.
“You’re going to banish Grandma?”

Sebastian took the little girl’s hand. “It’s the law, Luna.
We can’t keep producing Slashers. They’re too dangerous to us. That’s why
anyone who purposely hinders the completion of a bonding ritual of a couple
must face banishment. They’re risking everyone’s life. Do you understand?”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “She hurt my Daddy.”

Sebastian shook his head. “A bad man hurt your Daddy. Not
Grandma.”

She dropped her head. “She did. I heard her.”

Sebastian glanced up at the elders. They seemed as confused
as he and slowly made their way through the children.

“What did you hear, Luna,” Desmond, the youngest of the
elders, asked, placing his hand on Luna’s shoulder.

“She told Daddy that the hunter was his brother. That he’d
never hurt Daddy because they shared the same blood. She told him to go to the
hunter and trust him.” Luna’s chin quivered. “Daddy was scared, but Grandma
swore she knew the man wouldn’t hurt him. She said she’d follow and told him
that he should do what the man said.”

Sebastian’s fists clenched. He glared at his grandfather.
“Has she no heart? She sacrifices her sons like we mean no more to her than the
vermin she crushes beneath her feet!”

“I hate to admit it, but we are all pawns in my daughter’s
eyes. She used my guilt against me when she convinced me to bind Damien to her,
even though he begged me to keep him free until his chosen could join him.” He
dropped his head.

“But to kill her own son?” Sebastian struggled to remain
calm. He knew his grandfather’s grief matched his own.

“Marek was adopted, Sebastian, you know that.”

“She raised him from infancy as her own. She must have loved
him.” He’d never forget the day his stepfather had brought the baby into their
house. He’d felt a bond with him unlike any he’d had before or since.

Until Diana.

He glanced up at his grandfather. “I always thought Marek
looked like Damien, but I assumed one of his parents was another vampire. He
was Damien and Angelina’s son, wasn’t he?”

When his grandfather sadly nodded, Sebastian snarled.
“Damien always treated me like his real son and my mother repaid him by sending
his only son to his death. Banishment isn’t good enough.”

“No, it isn’t. Now that we know about her crime, we must
take action,” Desmond demanded.

His grandfather turned, his shoulders slumped, and walked
down the hall. “So be it.”

The sound of an approaching helicopter drew everyone’s
attention away from the departing elders.

Chapter Fifteen

Doc Jenkins stood beside Diana’s bed holding her wrist
between his fingers. Shaking his head, he tenderly tucked her hand under the
sheets. “I’m afraid she won’t last through the day.”

“She has to. Sebastian can’t come until sunset.” Angelina
grasped his arm. “There must be something we can do to keep her alive until he
arrives. Why won’t feeding help? Why can’t I let her feed from me?”

He continued to shake his head, and patted her trembling
hand. “It won’t do any good. She needs a transfusion to replenish the massive
amount of blood she’s lost. Feeding from you would only satisfy the craving.”

“But it might give her enough energy to hold on until
Sebastian comes. We have to at least try.” She battled the massive lump in her
throat, the searing sting of tears in her eyes. “Please, let me at least try.”

“Angelina, even if Sebastian walked through that door this
instant, I doubt she’d make it.”

Angelina lost her battle to remain strong and slumped into
the chair, her racking sobs tearing at her chest. “This is all my fault. If I’d
kept her away from them like her father had wanted, she’d be home right now.
Not in this Godforsaken place.”

Katie, the nurse who’d remained beside Angelina all morning,
squatted beside her chair and wrapped her arm over her shoulders.

The sound of a helicopter hovering overhead drew everyone
but Angelina and Katie to the window. Angelina covered her eyes when they
shoved the drapes aside, allowing the bright rays of the midday sun to wash
over the room. Diana didn’t even flinch as a beam slashed across her face.

“Three in two days. If they keep this up we’ll be overrun by
Slashers,” Katie muttered, rising and drawing a curtain halfway around Diana’s
bed.

“They’re dropping a box in the square!” Doc Jenkins shouted.

“A box?” Katie peeked around the curtain.

“It looks like a coffin,” one of the orderlies uttered in a
hushed voice.

“Why would they be dropping a coffin on our side of the
wall?” Katie’s voice trembled. Her hands clenched the curtain. “What if it’s a
vampire? What if the one who brought you here heard we’re helping you?”

“Does that woman never give up?” Angelina searched the room
for someplace to hide Diana.

“John’s got an ax.” Doc Jenkins winked at Angelina over his
shoulder. “Looks like they’re going to bust it open. If it’s that Olympia,
she’ll fry before she reaches us.”

“Sebastian…” Diana whispered and sighed.

The doctor frowned.

“Oh, my God, he’s in the coffin!” Angelina glanced down at
Diana, then back at the doctor. “Sebastian!”

“Cover the windows,” Doc Jenkins yelled and flung open the
door.

Angelina squeezed Diana’s hand as she watched the doctor
race outside, heard his frantic demands that the coffin remain intact.

The orderlies closed the blinds and curtains. The two
wearing extra layers of clothing darted from the room. Katie took a step to
follow them, then turned and, raising her chin, returned to Diana’s bed.

Angelina brought her lips to Diana’s ear. “Your Sebastian’s
here, isn’t he, honey? Diana? Is it Sebastian?”

But Diana didn’t answer, didn’t move no matter how hard
Angelina and Katie nudged her. She looked so content, a soft smile curving her
pale lips.

Angelina’s throat constricted. “He’s here, Diana. You have
to hold on.”

A lone tear escaped from the outer corner of one of Diana’s
eyes. A long, barely audible breath was the last sound Angelina heard before
her own screams filled the room.

When the doctor and the men carrying the coffin entered the
room, they found Angelina sobbing on her knees beside the bed as Katie, tears
pouring down her cheeks, frantically searched Diana’s neck and wrists for a
pulse.

The men dropped the coffin and quickly left, slamming the
door behind them. Doc Jenkins patted Angelina’s shoulder.

“He’s too late. She’s gone,” Katie whispered.

An enraged, ear-splitting roar erupted from within the
coffin.

Hearing Angelina’s sobs and an unfamiliar voice say that
he’d arrived too late to save Diana, Sebastian roared in denial and burst free
from the coffin. Splinters shot out in every direction as the wooden box
shattered.

Standing amidst the remains of the coffin, he searched the
room for Diana. His gaze swept past a man in a white, threadbare doctor’s
jacket, past a desk, past empty beds, then came to an abrupt halt at a curtain
partially obstructing his view of the only patient. He took a step closer and
flung the curtain aside.

Angelina rocked on her knees beside the bed. Shaking from
the sobs racking her body, she didn’t even acknowledge his presence. The sweet
scent of Diana’s blood was so faint, he had to strain to separate it from the
stench of medicines and antiseptics and fear permeating the air. Straining his
ears, he sought some sign of life from the frail body lying in the bed but
heard not a wisp of a breath over Angelina’s blubbering.

He glowered at her until she stood, then brought his face
close to hers and growled. “Stop crying. You hear me? Don’t you dare give up on
her.”

A whimper drew his attention to the nurse standing on the
other side of Diana’s bed. Her hand trembled, making the sheet clutched in it
flutter above Diana’s face.

“What the hell are you doing,” he snarled.

The woman reeked of fear, a foul, pungent odor that made his
stomach roil. Her hand twitched. Her wide eyes darted from him to the doctor,
then back to him.

“I-I…” Crimson tears pooled in her eyes. She blinked until
they spilled over her cheeks. “N-no pulse.”

“Drop it.” He flexed his fingers against the pain of his
nails growing. Before she could cover Diana’s face, before she could utter
those two words again, he bellowed, “Now!”

The sheet fluttered from her hands as she crumpled to the
floor in a dead faint. Tossing a chair out of his way, Sebastian leapt across
the room and caught the sheet a hairsbreadth away from Diana’s face.

“She’s gone, Sebastian.” Angelina sobbed and buried her face
in her hands. “I heard her take her last breath. Our Diana’s dead.”

“She is
not
dead,” he stated, his voice, burning
glare and clenched fists daring anyone to disagree.

“Then save her. Bring her back to me.” Angelina pried open
one of his fists and pressed Diana’s wrist in his hand. “Like Mina brought back
Dracula, you bring her back to me.”

Sebastian refused to acknowledge that his soul mate’s heart
no longer beat. How could it not when his own pounded in his ears? He leaned
over and kissed her lips. “Come back to me, Diana.”

When her breath failed to touch his lips, he howled in
denial. “She has so little blood,” he breathed. They were one. Their hearts
would either beat as one or he would join her in death. A tear burned a path
down his cheek. Swiping it away, he licked the blood from the back of his hand
and vowed he would not shed one more bloody tear. Diana needed every drop he
had to give. “Mina help us, it’s the only way.”

Yanking the sheet from her body, he hissed. Gaping wounds
marred nearly every inch of Diana’s arms and legs. After he eased her out of
the gray hospital gown, he discovered that more covered her torso. Thick, black
thread sealed some, but others oozed with pus.

He tossed the sheet to Angelina. “Rip off a long strip.”
After shedding his clothes, he gingerly climbed onto the bed and lifted Diana’s
left wrist to his mouth. Sinking his teeth into her pale skin, he tore open her
artery. Seeing through a crimson haze of tears, he hesitated when a miniscule
drop of blood slid down her arm. When he opened the artery on his right wrist,
his blood spurted out onto the pristine sheets.

Moving so quickly his hands blurred before his eyes, he
pressed his open vein to hers then, using his mouth and other hand, bound their
wrists together. Then waited.

And prayed to God, the angels, Mina, Dracula and all who
might hear. He focused on her lungs, her heart, their connected wrists. The
tale of Mina’s miracle rang in his ears. How she’d bound herself to her fallen
love and begged the angels above for mercy. How a light brighter than that of
the sun shone down upon them, filling her with warmth, peace and hope. How
Dracula’s vein had felt as if it were suckling on hers, drawing in more and
more of her blood to replenish his.

“Please,” he whispered, gazing down on the face that had
bewitched him from that first night by the lake. “Don’t leave me.”

Sebastian saw no light, felt no warmth or peace. Diana’s
cold, limp wrist pressed against his. His lungs seized. He’d lost her. When he
opened his mouth to curse the angels and anyone else responsible for taking
Diana, he felt her vein adhere to his, felt her heart stutter. His blood surged
through his veins to his wrist, left his body with every beat of his heart and
flowed into Diana’s. He allowed his tears free rein when Diana’s blue lips
turned pink.