Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

totally out of his mind. “She is mine. Mine!”
    Rynn Cormel’s jaw was tight as he raised a hand. His felt cap lay on the floor, and his coat smelled of cashmere and vampire. “Let go of the thought of her, sir,” he said calmly, and I pulled myself straight, grimacing. I’d filled the air with my fear—I’d known better. Jenks, hovering at the ceiling with a bloody, bared sword, was tense enough for both of us.
    “The demon witch encouraged my scion to defy me . . .” Felix’s voice was softer now, more calculating, scaring me.
    Rynn Cormel shook his head, his Brooklyn accent sounding odd as he firmly said, “This is mine, not yours. I punish her, not you.”
    No one was going to punish me, but I was smart enough not to say anything. My heart pounded, and I was glad Cormel was here. Felix was out of his mind.
    Felix’s angry pacing slowed, and Cormel’s outstretched hand shifted to one of welcome. “You are in need, sir,” he said respectfully. “Distraught, and drunk on the sun. Let go of this idea and turn to a new one before my ward kills you. She’s not for you. She’s not for me. She is for Ivy.”
    “Ivy . . .” Felix snarled, and I held my breath as Felix thought that over. His youthful face was twisted into an ugly mask of anguish and fear, his eyes black and showing a lack of control I’d expect from the newly undead, not one older than Cincinnati’s tunnels.
    “I am drunk on the sun,” he said suddenly, his beautiful voice cracking. “Oh God.” He said the words with anguish, falling back against the counter as if having abruptly found himself. “What have I done? What . . .”
    Jenks dropped from the ceiling to my shoulder, and I jumped.
    “What am I doing?” Felix lamented, his head bowed until his hair hid his eyes. He was shaking, and only now did Cormel glance back to make sure I was okay.
    “You think it’s wise to turn your back on him?” I said as Cormel came to me, a cold hand landing on my arm to push me into the hall. He was wearing a tidy suit that made him look like a middle-aged politician, and his smile that had saved a world was now focused on me. It wasn’t working. I was scared shitless.
    “I’m sorry you saw this, Rachel,” he said, and I slid out from under his hand on my shoulder. “The diseases of the undead are not easy to understand. Might I have a moment alone with him?”
    Head shaking, I backed up into the corner. “Not in my church, no.” My eyes flicked behind him to the undead vampire. Felix looked crushed, beaten as he slumped against the counter and threatened to slip to the floor. Was this what happened when vampires got old? They slowly lost their mind until they walked into the sun?
    Cormel’s eye twitched at my defiance. But it wasn’t until Jenks clattered his wings that he turned back to Felix.
    “I can’t,” Felix said, his voice wispy and beaten. “Nina showed me the sun, and I stared too long. I can’t bring myself to forget again, now that I know what that looks like.”
    I took a breath to say something, my words forgotten when Felix brought his gaze up and I saw the agony in him. He had come here looking for me to kill him. He wanted to end it, but walking into the sun took too much courage.
    “Let Nina be,” Cormel said, turning his back on me. “Let her have her time.”
    Felix was shaking like an addict in withdrawal, and maybe he was. “I can’t. I can’t,” he said, his voice broken. “The sun pulls me. God, it’s too easy to just . . . and then I’m alive through her. I am alive.” His face became animated, almost too beautiful. “Do you remember being alive? I do. I didn’t get enough when I was alive, taken too soon. Why are you stopping me? You don’t know! How can you?”
    Cormel had crossed the room, and I watched, unbelieving, as the younger undead comforted the old. “You know it will never be enough,” he said, a hand on Felix’s shoulder. “You’re lost to the sun. If you don’t let it go, it will kill you. Nina is too bright.”
    Felix licked his lips, confusion slipping into his eyes. “Nina loves me.”
    “You’re killing her,” Cormel said, and I wondered if I should have left when I had the chance. “Ivy is right in teaching Nina control. Let Nina live her time.”
    Felix took a huge breath. “I need her!” he shouted, and the hum of Jenks’s wings increased in pitch. “Who are you to say no to me! You are a pup!” He strode back and forth, never getting any