Maia. Please.

He couldn’t get to her. He couldn’t get to her.

“Maia,” he managed to groan. Was she even alive?

He could see little in the dark room, but when she shifted, lifting her head, hope rose in him. She was alive.

“Maia,” he called again, coughing a bit and when she tried to respond, nothing came from her mouth but a choking cough. “I’m here,” he said. “I’m coming for you.”

The flames roared closer, and a large beam tumbled from the ceiling, clattering to the floor next to him. It appeared that the fire had started from the perimeter of the building and was working its way in and up, crawling along the walls and across the roof. He knew Maia couldn’t last much longer with the thick, clogging smoke. While he…he could stay forever in this hell on earth.

Dimitri took another step and his knees wavered, then gave out. He tumbled to the floor and felt a wave of paralysis roll through him, constricting his lungs, leadening his muscles. No. He’d fight through it.

He had to get to her. He couldn’t—

There was a movement behind him, and he twisted his head to look up and behind. Lerina stood there, as unaffected by the fire as he was.

“I see you’ve found her,” she said over the roar.

Rage sliced through him and he tried to lunge to his feet, but the rubies did their work and made him clumsy and slow.

“Why,” he managed to gasp, curling his slow, fat fingers into the hem of her gown and dragging her down as he tried to pull himself up. But the rubies…they weighted him down.

Lerina pulled away and he tumbled to the floor, his hand landing on a piece of loose wood. “Because,” she said, pitching her voice to be heard over the roar in his ears, “I wanted you to watch her die. I wanted you to see what it’s like to lose what you love. And to live with that image for eternity.”

He closed his fingers around the wood, feeling its slender length, and felt the rage surge through him. Gathering up all of his strength, what little remained, he launched himself toward her ankles and captured them in the crook of his arm. He’d pull her down to the ground and use his weight to hold her until he could slam the thing into her black heart.

“You’ve…spent…” he gasped, trying again to get his muscles to cooperate, to upset her balance, “too…long…with… Cezar.” His grip was weakening as she fought to free herself, the desperation evident in her flailing movements and wild kicking. He was never going to let her go. She would die along with Maia. Even slow as he was, she was no match for him.

But then a noise, a great crash behind him had his rage disintegrating into blind fear. His grip lessened and Lerina pulled away as Dimitri turned back around with a weak lurch. A large flaming chunk of building had fallen between Maia and him, bouncing to the side. The fire leaped and danced, and he couldn’t see past it.

“Maia!” he shouted, forgetting Lerina, dragging himself closer to the blazing piece of wood and to the side. “Maia!” he cried again, desperate to hear her respond.

But he knew the closer he got to his goal, the weaker he’d become. Her hands were bound and she had no way to loosen herself from the rubies. There were too many of them.

It was an impossible task. Impossible.

Impossible for a vampire whose Asthenia was rubies.

A labored twisting on the floor to look behind told him that Lerina had gone, perhaps fearful that if he gave up on saving Maia he’d come after her.

He collapsed on the floor, his face and bare torso grinding into the grit even as he used his toes, his fingers, to try to propel himself closer. Just a little closer. The length of a fingernail. The distance of a flea jump. He dragged, writhed, heaved, trying to make himself move.

The power from the gems emanated from Maia more strongly than the flames and smoke, but at last he moved himself to where he could see her again.

“Maia,” he gasped.

“Corvindale,” she said, then coughed. She seemed to be more awake now, more lucid. She’d regained her strength, only to die?

“I…can’t…” he choked out, his throat closing with emotion. “I can’t.” His fingers dug between two wooden planks, but they were so weak that he could barely fit them into the groove. It was too much. Something stung his vision, gritty and bitter.

“I know,” she said, somehow mustering the strength to speak over the choking smoke in her lungs. “I know it.” Her beautiful face was streaked with black, her hair messy and sagging, her gown filthy and the malevolent rubies shining like dancing red beacons in the roaring flames.

“Maia. God, Maia…I’m…sorry,” he groaned, tears stinging his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she said, holding his gaze somehow through the smoke and darkness. “I love you…Gavril.”

I love you. The emotion flashed into his own mind, burning there like some great revelation. Truth.

At the same time as that self-realization, that long-denied truth, a sharp slice arced through him. For a moment he thought something had fallen, landing on his naked back. Or that a stake had stabbed him, piercing his heart. But it wasn’t that, it wasn’t external. It was something inside, cracking, splitting. Pain blazed through him and his muscles collapsed at last, his face slamming into the dirt. He couldn’t lift his finger. Could barely blink. His breath was short and restricted, his mouth filled with dirt and ash.

Dimitri squeezed his eyes closed, the pain overtaking him. With one last breath, he heaved himself up, lifted his face to look at her once more. He had to tell her. He couldn’t let her die without knowing the truth.

He couldn’t even speak the words, but he thought them, sent them to her with his gaze. I love you. Maia, I love you. I have always loved you.

The pain snapped and sizzled, centered at his Mark and raging through his flesh, his muscles and organs, and down through his limbs, radiating torture like never before. He cried out in agony, seizing and shuddering, trying to throw it off, to escape.

Never. Never anything like it.

It burned like a thousand fiery whips laying into his skin until he thought he would explode, go mad, scream until his throat was raw. And then, impossibly, he saw Wayren…nodding, with a quiet smile.

Then…nothing.

Black. Darkness.

21

IN WHICH MIRACLES BECOME CURSES

Dimitri opened his eyes to darkness and a roaring that filled his ears. Heat. Roiling heat. His thoughts were confused, sluggish, and as he lifted his head, he remembered.

Pain. But it was gone now.

Maia. Oh, God.

Emptiness and fear stilled him for a moment, then he dragged his eyes back open and looked around. Golden and red flames swirled and danced, heat seared him. His lungs burned, his eyes were raw. Beyond the flames, darkness loomed.

He’d died. He was in hell.

Where is Lucifer?

He’d seen Wayren for that one, odd moment…but nothing of the fallen angel.

Dimitri found that he could move, and he rolled over, his body weak and aching, but mobile. And then he saw her.

Maia, impossibly, still there, still in the same place. On the chair, still bound in rubies, the flickering light illuminating her face.

How could she still be there? How could the fire not have swallowed her up, choked the life from her?

She was watching him with a horrified expression that, as he staggered to his feet, changed into one of bewilderment.

And then wonder.

The same shock and strength rushed through Dimitri, even as he coughed and choked, the black smoke swirling around him. The heat raged and he felt it on his skin as if it sat there, branding him.

But he was moving. Toward her. The rubies seemed to have no effect on him any longer.

Yet, Dimitri stumbled, clumsy, coughing and choking so hard that he doubled over, clutching at his middle. What’s happening to me?

And then, suddenly, he realized he felt no pain. No pain.

Not even from the Mark of Lucifer.

Just the blazing burn of flames roaring around him. The gritty heat of smoke and soot.

With a sudden burst of clarity, he touched the back of his left shoulder. Although covered with grit and sweat, it was otherwise smooth. Unblemished.

The Mark was gone. The shock stunned him, paralyzing him as he stood there, doubled over, panting. He realized all at once the blessing…and the curse…of his realization.

Wayren. That was why she’d been there.

His covenant with Lucifer had been broken.

He was mortal again.

Mortal.

He kept on, and then he was there, gathering Maia to him, that sweet, smoky, soft bundle. Tearing at the ropes of rubies, he flung them away and pulled her completely into his arms as the dark smoke choked and enveloped them.

“Maia,” he said in a rough, smoky voice, then his breath was cut off by the smothering roil of smoke.

She coughed, sagging against him, and he bore them both to the floor where the smoke wasn’t quite as thick, wrapping her close to his body, wishing he still had his damp shirt to put over her face. She was kissing him, kissing his jaw and along his bare throat, and he found her lips, sooty and salty, covering them with a desperate hunger. His face was damp with sweat and tears, relief and warmth. And something good unfurled inside him. It was going to be all right. He had her now.

He was mortal again. Human again. He loved.

Maia. Thank God I found you.

She was saying something, and at first he couldn’t understand it. But then he heard it, felt the shape of his name on her lips: “Gavril.”

I love you.

He felt, rather than heard her say the words. Her lips formed them against his mouth, and he bowed his head into the floor, trying to escape the smoke. “I love you,” he said into her hair. How could I have been so foolish?

An ominous cracking brought him back to reality. “We have to…get out of here,” he said, then was overtaken by a fit of rough coughing.

When he looked up, he saw the wall of flames in front of them. Everywhere he turned, there was fire, raging and snarling. The smoke rose and filled the room, thinner but no less potent near the floor.