Blood Pact

fitting suit of clothes. Oh, shit. I can't feel anything. This sucks. This really sucks. I DON'T WANT TO DIE!

    Her eyes snapped open. She could see a familiar shadow bending over her. Her fingers trembled, aching to brush the curl of hair back from his face.

    "Vicki?”

    She pulled enough strength from him to form a single word. "Hen . . . ry.”

    The name pierced into Celluci's soul and ripped it to shreds with barbed hooks. She wanted Henry. Not him. Wanted to die in Henry's arms. He bit his lip to keep from crying out and tried to jerk his head away. He couldn't. Something in her eyes held him.
    Something that insisted he understand.

    She saw the sudden white slash of his smile and carried it with her into darkness. She'd done what she could. Now it was up to him.

    Henry had heard his name and was bending forward when Celluci lifted his head. He froze. He'd expected to see on the other man's face the pain of Vicki's choice written over the pain of her dying. He hadn't expected to see a wild and insane hope.

    "Change her!”

    Henry felt his jaw drop. "What?”

    "You heard me!" Celluci reached across Vicki's body and grabbed a fistful of leather coat. "Change her!”

    Change her. He'd fed from her deeply only a short time before. And fed from her the night before that. His blood held enough of the elements of hers that her system might accept it, especially as she had so little blood of her own left to replace. But considering his condition, did he have enough for them both?

    Change her. If he changed her, he'd lose her. They'd have a little over a year but no more before her new nature drove them apart.

    "Do it," Celluci begged. "It's her only chance.”

    Henry suddenly realized that Celluci had no idea of what the change would mean. That he, in fact, believed the exact opposite of the truth. Believed that if Vicki changed she was lost to him. Henry could read the knowledge of that loss in the other man's face.
    Could read how he was willing to surrender everything to another for Vicki's sake.

    You think I've won, mortal. You're so very wrong. If she dies, we both lose her. If she changes, I lose her alone.

    "Henry. Please.”

    And if you can give her up for love, wondered Henry Fitzroy, vampire, bastard son of Henry VIII, can I do any less? His heart would allow only one answer.

    Lifting his own wrist to his mouth, Henry opened a vein. "It might not work," he said as he pressed this smaller wound into the hole in her leg, forcing the flow of his blood to act as a barrier for hers. A moment later, he lifted his arm and threw Celluci back his shirt, the motion flinging a single crimson drop across the room like a discarded ruby. "Bind it. Tightly. This could still kill her in spite of everything I do.”

    Celluci did as instructed, lifting his eyes in time to see Henry open a vein over his heart with Vicki's Swiss army knife. Even with so prosaic a tool, it held the shadow of ancient ritual and he watched, unable to look away, as blood welled out of the cut, appearing almost black against the alabaster skin.

    Sliding his arm behind Vicki's shoulders, Henry lifted her and pressed her mouth to his breast. Her life had dropped away to a murmur in the distance; not dead, not yet, but very, very close.

    "Drink, Vicki." He made it a command, threw all he was into it, breathed it against the soft cap of her hair. "Drink to live.”

    He was afraid for a moment that she could not obey him even if she wanted to; then her lips parted and she swallowed. The intensity of his reaction took him completely by surprise. He could vaguely remember how it had felt when Christina had fed from him. It was in no way comparable to the near ecstasy he felt now. He swayed, wrapped his other arm around her body, and closed his eyes. This rapture wasn't enough to make up for the eventual loss of her, but, by God, it was close.

    Celluci tied off the makeshift pressure bandage, his hands operating independently of conscious direction. There was something both so blatantly sensual and so extraordinarily innocent about the scene that he couldn't have looked away had he wanted to. Not that he wanted to. He wanted every second of Vicki he could have before he had to face the rest of his life without her.

    The firelight turned Vicki's hair the color of spilled honey, danced orange highlights down the black leather enveloping her, and reflected crimson in the puddles of her blood spilled on the floor.

    Jesus H. Christ! The