Blue Moon   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I touched his forehead and came away with chill sweat. "How badly are you hurt?"

He ignored me, speaking very softly, "Know this, Anita, that seeing myself through your eyes has healed my heart."

My throat was tight with tears. "Please, Asher, don't."

A drop of pure blood slid out of his eye. "Be happy with your two beaus. Don't make the same mistakes that Jean-Claude and I made all those long years ago." He touched my face with a hand that was slick with blood. "Be happy in their arms, ma cherie ."

His eyes fluttered. If he passed out, we might lose him. There was nothing in the night but the sounds of cicada and the wind. Where the hell was everyone?

"Asher, don't pass out."

His eyes fluttered open, but he was having trouble focusing. I felt his heart hesitate, skip a beat. He could live without his heart beating, but I knew that this time, when the heart went, it was over. He was dying. Nikki had broken him inside too badly for healing.

I put my right wrist, encased in white bandages, in front of his mouth. "Take my blood."

"To drink from you is to give you power over any of us. I do not want to be your slave any more than I already am."

I was crying, tears so hot they burned. "Don't let Colin kill you. Please, please!" I held him against me and whispered, "Don't leave us, Asher." I felt Jean-Claude all those miles away. I felt his panic at the thought of losing Asher. "Don't leave us, not now, not now that we've found you again. Tu es beau, mon amour. Tu me fais craquer ."

He actually smiled. "I shatter your heart, eh?"

I kissed his cheek, kissed his face, and cried, hot tears against the harsh scars of his face. " Je t'embrasse partout . Je t'embrasse partout. I kiss you all over, mon amour ."

He stared up at me. " Je te bois des yeux .»

"Don't drink me with your eyes, damn it, drink me with your mouth." I tore the bandages away from my right wrist with my teeth and put my bare, warm flesh against his cold lips.

He whispered, " Je t'adore ." Fangs sank into my wrist. It was sharp and deep. His mouth locked against my skin. His throat convulsed, swallowing. I stared into his pale eyes and felt something in my head part like a curtain, some shield shattered. One moment it was one continuous ache almost nauseating, then there was nothing but the spreading warmth. I didn't even have time to panic. Asher rolled over my mind like a warm lip of ocean, pleasurable, caressing. It burst over me in a skin-tingling, breath-stealing rush that left me gasping and wet.