Stay the Night (39 page)

“My lady.” He groped for the right words. “I would not make you angry, but I cannot believe you.”

“I could show you my X-rays and my blood tests, but all you really have to do is smell me or bite me.” She pulled up her sleeve and extended her arm. “Be my guest.”

Phillipe bent down and inhaled.
“Mon Dieu.”
He straightened slowly, as if something had broken inside him. “What have you done, Alexandra?”

“I've found the cure.” Tears made it hard for her to see. “I always told you guys that I would. All I had to do was keep looking. I kept looking and looking, and then there it was. I'm a great fucking doctor, don't you think?”

Phillipe pulled her into his arms and let her sob. His big hand stroked over her curls as he murmured in French to her.

Finally Alex regained a grip on her emotions and pulled away. “I have to know some things now. Does Michael's talent give him access to all my memories? Can he look into my mind and find out what I know and what I've done?”

“
Non
. He must know what it is that you remember before he can make you forget it. But Alex, he will know that you are once more human the very first time he smells or touches you.” He hesitated. “He will never force you to become Kyn again.”

“Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing.” She unbuttoned the collar of her blouse. “That's why you're going to do it.”

Phillipe recoiled. “You cannot ask that of me.”

“I siphoned out two pints of blood from my veins this morning, so you shouldn't go into thrall when you drain me. You know what else you have to do.” When he made no move toward her, she nodded. “Fine, then tell me who else you or Michael turned from human to Kyn. For this to work, I have to be infected with the same pathogen you two carry.”

The seneschal sat down and rested his brow against his palms. “I cannot think. Wait.” He lifted his head. “What of Lucan's
sygkenis
? Samantha was changed with your blood.”

Alex shook her head. “My blood had already mutated before Lucan changed Sam; it would probably be lethal to me now. Also, she's a woman. For this to work I have to get a male Kyn with the same pathogen and re-create exactly what happened the first time, with Michael. Which means I have to be turned by someone who made the change with you and him during the good old days of the Crusades.” She saw his expression change. “There is no one else, is there?”

“The master and me,” Phillipe admitted. “Everyone else is dead.” He squinted at her. “These last five years, all you have ever wished was to be made human again. Why do you want me to force another change on you?”

“Because force won't be involved. I'm choosing to do it this time.” Alex knelt in front of him. “Phillipe, I love him, and I know he loves me. But he never wants to be human again. I didn't understand that until Robin was changed back. You saw how horrified Michael was when I told him, and how many times he asked me if I could make Robin Kyn again. That was when I realized it, and accepted it. Michael is Darkyn, and he'll never be happy being anything else.”

The seneschal nodded.

“Don't get me wrong; I want to stay human,” she continued. “I miss chocolate, and my patients, and getting a nice tan every summer. But there are a million human doctors in the world. The Kyn have only me.”

He eyed her. “You could still help us if you are human.” “That's the plan. And can you really see me living out a normal human life, growing old and dying while Michael watches?” She took one of his big hands in hers. “I love him more than I ever loved being human. If you don't change me back, he'll be alone forever.”

He met her gaze, his own haunted by fear and doubt. “Alexandra, you know what must be done. What I must do to you. You and I . . .”

“Kind of blows your mind, doesn't it?” She produced a single, dry laugh. “You're my best friend, Phil.” She didn't want to press the issue, but she had to make things clear between them. “If you're worried about a repeat of what I went through with Korvel, I don't think it'll happen between us. You have no reason to bond with a woman.”

“When did you know?”

“The night I left him the first time, and you came after me, and we danced at that bar.” She sighed. “I was pretty clueless until then. I'm just sorry you've had to put up with listening to Michael and me going at it like rabbits.”

“I do not always mind.” He smiled a little, and then covered his face with his hands and groaned. “What are we doing? This is madness. If you are wrong, I could kill you instead of changing you.”

“I wasn't wrong about the cure,” she told him, standing up and looking down at him. “I'm not wrong about this.”

Phillipe stood and put his hands on her shoulders. The scent of warm honeysuckle surrounded her and made her feel drowsy. “If you found the cure, then you must know what causes the curse as well.”

“I was hoping to skip that part.” She gave him a sleepy smile. “I had to know what made the change in order to reverse it. Stop making me tell you things that I don't want to.”

“Richard would do anything to know how to create more of us.” He put his arms around her. “We cannot allow him to discover what you have done, Alex.”

“We're not going to tell anyone. If things get bad, I can always have Michael remove the memory. But I don't plan to tell him, either.” She yawned and leaned against him. “Can you keep this a secret?”

He pushed her hair out of the way and bent down, his last word whispering against her skin: “Yes.”

 

“Alexandra.”

Alexandra Keller jerked awake and saw that she had fallen asleep at her lab table. She looked up and saw Phillipe's face and groaned.

“Nothing happened. It was only a shared dream.” He glanced at the empty syringe sitting next to the scope. “You have injected yourself?”

She remembered the smile on Chris's face when she had spoken of Robin. “No. There isn't any left. I gave it to Chris.”

A shadow crossed Phillipe's face. “But why?”

“Because she and Robin love each other, and they were meant to be together. Like me and Michael.” She gathered the slides, the syringe, and everything she had used for her tests, and placed tht entire lot inside a cardboard box.

Phillipe followed her through the halls and down to the basement level. He stood beside her as she used a poker to open the door to Geoffrey's furnace. Only then did he speak. “Could you synthesize more of the serum, Alexandra?”

“Maybe.” She tossed the box into the flames. “Let's not find out, okay?”

Cyprien's seneschal bowed to her, and then left her alone to watch everything burn until the evidence of her discovery was destroyed.

Alex turned away from the furnace. She put her hand in her pocket, curling her fingers in the emptiness there, and then headed for the stairs.

Epilogue

Luisa Lopez knew when the security guard outside her door dozed off. He took a nap every night just after midnight, when the lights were low and the nursing stations were quiet. At twelve thirty she eased out of the hospital bed, her legs shaking with the unfamiliar strain of bearing her weight, and reached for her wheelchair.

She didn't worry about falling. Her gift of foresight had shown her doing this a hundred times.

The year she had spent at the Lighthouse had also taught Luisa which corridors the nurses used most frequently, and when hospital security made their rounds. It had taken her only a few weeks to work out the best time and route to make it from her room to the gardens. Even so, Luisa could hardly believe it when she wheeled herself through the automatic doors at the back of the building.

The voice inside her, the one that spoke to her whenever her eyes turned white and the visions came, murmured in the back of her mind.
One day he'll come to you. He'll wear a black coat and gloves. He'll watch you from behind the camellias. He won't be afraid
.

Luisa ignored the voice and smiled when she saw that her friend Liling Harper had kept her promise to install lighting around the flower beds and pathways through the gardens she had planted. Liling would be coming tomorrow to read to her again.

She never doubted that the shadow prince would come to her someday. In the dreamlands they had become friends, true friends who could look into each other's souls. It was just hard to wait for him to accept his gifts enough to return to the mortal world. Luisa couldn't tell from her visions how old she would be when she finally met the shadow prince, but she had the sneaking suspicion it wouldn't be for a very long time.

He'll still be young and handsome, and I'll be a scarred, white-haired old lady
.

She found a spot under a trellis of moonflowers and sat there in the fragrant shadows to watch them bloom. After a few minutes her head nodded as she slipped into a light doze.

He came out of the night and into her dreams as he always did.
You're here
.

Where else would I be?
Luisa held out her scarred hand. When he made no move to touch her, she added,
I was right about the baby deer, wasn't I?

You were
. His big hand made a shadow over hers.

Still so cautious. She bridged the gap between them and stiffly curled her fingers through his. Unlike the others, his flesh was still warm.

I remember when you came to read to me. Even then, I could hear the pain in your voice
. She felt her eyes change as he knelt down before her wheelchair. Glowing light covered the hazel of her irises, until her eyes appeared solid white.
Someday we'll find each other, and then we can have a real visit
.

You'd want me to come to you?
Doubt still lingered on his face.
You're not afraid of what I can do?

She shook her head.
You only have to be careful not to touch me
. She saw his frown and rushed to add,
Only because Liling and Valentin will know. They'll smell you on me
. Her other hand was still bandaged, but she pressed it against his cheek.
I'd be glad for you to visit me any time
.

The shadow prince put his head in her lap, and they sat there like that for a while. She could barely feel his thick, coarse hair against her damaged fingers, but she stroked his head anyway.

The bright eye of the moon watched them as the crickets stopped chirping and the night held its breath.

He lifted his head, tried to speak, and then kissed her mouth.
Close your eyes,
he whispered.

Luisa did. His hands felt so warm, so gentle, and then the light she had seen in her dreams shimmered inside her, spreading and enfolding her in stardust and moonbeams. She had expected pain but there was only life, streaming into her until she thought she would burst.

She felt petals brush her skin as the moonflower began blooming and growing all around them, budding new leaves and flowers and twining around her chair. Luisa felt laughter bubble up inside her, and for the first time since they had hurt her, she set it free, along with every dark thought, every sorrow, every worry.

The shadow price kissed her again.
Be happy, Luisa
.

Luisa opened her eyes, waking from the dream. She still sat in her wheelchair, alone under the moon. She reached for the wheel and then saw her hand. The scars were gone; her twisted fingers were straight.

It was only a dream
.

She removed the bandages from her other hand, unrolling them carefully. The stitches from her last surgery fell into her lap, no longer holding her healed, flawless skin together. She felt the brush of them against the back of her hand, where all the nerves had been burned away.

Luisa gripped the arms of the wheelchair and slowly stood. Her legs held her easily, effortlessly. The constant, nagging pain in her arms and back no longer throbbed. The knee she hadn't been able to bend did so, smoothly and without a twinge, as she took her first step away from the chair.

Carefully Luisa walked over to the reflecting pool. There in the mirror of water and moonlight she saw her face, smooth and dark, and her eyes, bright with tears.

“All their hard work, gone like that.” She imagined going back to her room and letting them see her like this. But no, that would be a cruel thing.

Luisa glanced up at the moon. She knew what she had foreseen, the days and months and years and centuries and millennia of change ahead. But this one decision, at least, would not change anything for anyone but her. The path she chose tonight would either end with a peaceful sleep, or take her on a journey into eternity.

Be happy, Luisa
.

“I will, John.” Luisa looked back at the Lighthouse one last time before she walked away into the night.

Read on for an excerpt from
the first Novel of the Kyndred by Lynn Viehl,

SHADOWLIGHT

Coming in November 2009 from Onyx.

Jessa watched Matthias as he first sorted through and piled the warm strawberries into a crystal bowl, then began adding other things to them. After seeing him work out with his odd stone weights, she expected him to be clumsy. Instead he worked with a chef's confident skill.

“Do you always cook for your prisoners?” She winced as she saw him pour balsamic vinegar over the fruit. “Or is this your way of getting rid of them?”

“You do not eat as you should. That is why you are so quick to anger.” He added sugar and cream to the bowl before bringing it to the table. “An empty belly feeds only the temper.” He reached for the pepper grinder and twisted it over the fruit.

Jessa muffled a laugh. “Just out of curiosity, have you ever heard of using a cookbook?”