Page 202 of Eternal Craving

“How long has he been like this?” I asked her.

“He came here soon after you left,” she said. “Marcus was right behind you.”

“Jacob was supposed to meet me at the theatre.” I pulled out the two theatre tickets and stared at them.

“He’s been asking for you.”

I touched his cheek and found it hot. “We have to cool him down.”

Sunaria’s gaze was insistent. “At least give him some of your blood.”

“I promised him.”

She sighed. “He’s dying.”

I stared back at her. “I need you to be strong for me.”

She stepped back and turned away, frustrated.

A rasp escaped Jacob’s lips. I pulled him to me and hugged him, rocking with him in my arms.

Turn him. Save him.

Jacob pushed himself away from me in a moment of lucidity.

What if there is no heaven?

“Do it.” Sunaria’s hushed voice willed me on.

Not ready to let him go, I bit my wrist and bright red droplets appeared.

Jacob’s eyes met mine.

He whispered into my thoughts.No, father, do not tempt me with this sin.

I ignored his accusation against me, that I was unholy.

I lowered my arm. The candlelight vacillated, as though with its very wavering it foreshadowed the unthinkable.

“Don’t leave me,” I whispered. “I can’t go on without you.”

Jacob’s eyelids fluttered and then closed. I clutched him to me, my sight blurry from tears, the anguish unbearable. “I love you.”

The words had barely left my lips when Jacob stopped breathing.

Finding no air in the room, I ran from it.

I lost all track of time.

Standing on the bridge of sanity, I felt it giving beneath my feet.

A flash of lightning lit up the night, and rain drenched everything beneath the heavens, including me.

Archer headed out of the house that had once served as his headquarters, and he caught sight of me.

I glared back at him full of rage.

“Don’t turn me!” Archer backed away. His eyes shone with terror. “I’d rather die.”