Page 81 of Midnight Kiss

“Your love. How can I be your love when there are so many others … Others!” Jacques lifted both hands to his face and pressed them over his eyes. “They are everywhere. I can feel them everywhere. So many choices. So many potential bonds.”

“That doesn’t mean that they’ll follow through, Jacques.”

“It doesn’t? Is that what you think? Then you’re as much of a fool as they are,” Jacques said. “The Guardian bond is irresistible. And they have awoken dozens of them. They have found a way to make bonding irresistible to every vampire in Castlenou!”

Jacques roared and grabbed the side of his throne. He lifted it and tossed it across the room. It sailed past Sofia and struck the wall.

She shrieked and stumbled back, clutching at her throat. “Please, my love.”

“You,” he said, “you are weak.”

“Stop, please.”

“But you?—”

“Jacques, I don’t recognize you like this. You are not yourself.”

“Nor do I want to be myself when there is so much … potential around us,” he said. “They will bond them, and what then? Our power will be muted. They will take everything from us. I have no choice.”

“No choice?”

“I have to bond them myself,” he said. “All of them. All of the human Guardians.”

“No. No! We’re— You can’t do that. You have no idea what it might do to our bond,” she said. “To our love.”

But Jacques’ gaze was hot with something that was past anger. Hatred even. He marched down the stairs toward her, and I tensed. He stopped beside Sofia. “Nothing will stop me. I will not submit my power to anyone else. Do you understand? No one else. Not vampire or … Guardian. Especially not to you.” And then he pushed past her and strode out of the hall.

“Jacques,” Sofia whispered, touching her fingers to crimson lips. “Jacques.” But he didn’t return, and tears rolled down her cheek.

I gasped, plunged into darkness again.

“Interesting,” the raspy voice said. “Guardians. Is that what they’ve been looking for? This book of yours? Poor girl, you have no idea what you read in that book. You don’t even know how much it has become a part of you, do you?”

“I—”

That cold, dead finger pressed to my lips. “Again.”

My eyes opened to view the hall again, but this time it was … changed. Dark. There was no beauty. The marble floor was cracked. The thrones lay shattered on their sides, as did the table that had been next to them.

The tapestries had been ripped from the walls and shredded.

Again, I stepped out from behind the columns, my pulse racing. “Hello?”

Nothing but silence.

And then … Sofia stepped into the room. Her wig was askew, her dress torn and dirtied. She whispered through the space, moving toward the door at the opposite end of it and?—

“Sofia.” Jacques’ voice.

Her footsteps became hurried. She opened that far door, exposing a vast balcony that looked out on a city. A city that burned, sending plumes of smoke rising into the night sky. Screams rent the air, and horror took hold of me.

I couldn’t do anything but watch.

Jacques ran into the room. “Sofia, don’t!”

“I am nothing to you,” she said. “Do not talk to me. Do not think of me. Forget that I ever existed.”

“Sofia, I will die without you.”