"I'm so sorry," I sobbed, tears streaming down my face and falling onto his living, beautiful features. "I'm so sorry."
His fingers reached for my face, but his strength was fading. I leaned closer, pressing my cheek into the soft pads of his fingertips, unable to stop my crying. As life slipped from his body, something deep within me rotted and collapsed. In that moment, more than anything in the world, I wanted to follow him—to bargain with whatever waited for his soul at the gates, to trade eternity for even thirty more years of Mark's life. But I knew that whatever entity awaited us beyond did not bargain.
There was the sound of fabric tearing, followed by the sickening crack of breaking bones. My gaze darted over Mark's body in horror, trying to understand what had gone wrong, until a woman's moan reached me from the side.
Every muscle in Yesenia's body convulsed. A rippling shudder rolled along her back and arms, forcing her to clench her teeth and squeeze her eyes shut. She was changing before my eyes. Where smooth skin had been only moments ago, fur—black as the heart of night—pushed through, and the vampire in me bared its fangs.
A wolf's head now crowned her shoulders, long ears pricked high. Her eyes glowed amber, as though they were light sources themselves. A massive, tooth-filled maw—wide enough to swallow a human head—bared in a snarl as "Yesenia" bent forward. Where graceful hands had been, clawed paws emerged. The creature dwarfed even a bear.
A werewolf. So that was why she had smelled so violently of wet dog.
"Don't you dare, Yesenia!" Ildar warned—but she didn't care.
The wolf rumbled with a deep, primal growl and gathered itself. Its paws thundered across the floor, claws striking sparks. One leap—and the beast sailed through the barrier and into the mass of shadows, latching onto the hood of the nearest acolyte. The black wolf slammed its paws onto the victim's shoulders and began shaking whatever lay beneath the cloth from side to side. Screams of terror drowned in blood bubbling up from their throats. The hall dissolved into chaos.
Ildar stayed at the periphery, shouting warnings whenever one of the figures rushed her with a weapon, but the wolf was too fast, too massive, too ferocious to be stopped by something as trivial as a short dagger.
Whatever those people had planned, I believed that as long as the wolf raged beyond the dome, we were safe.
I pressed my forehead to Mark's, feeling his breathing slow. I gave myself entirely to the moment, committing these final minutes to memory.
I was powerless. If only my blood, as in all those novels, could heal—without hesitation, I would have slit my own arm and given him everything that flowed through my veins, everything that kept my heart beating, if it meant saving him.
"I'm bleeding out, and you're not even trying to lick it," he murmured weakly. "What kind of vampire are you, anyway?"
I pulled back and stared at him in disbelief, but he was smiling. Smiling with what little strength he had left—still managing to joke.
"That's not funny," I sobbed, breaking down again. "Not funny at all. If I could help you—if I could—please forgive me. Forgive me." I begged, and he quietly tried to soothe me.
"I don't want to remember you like this," he said softly. "In tears. In my blood. Stop."
It was easier for him to say than for me to do, but I forced myself to hold my breath for a few seconds, to still the shaking in my shoulders—just to grant him that final request. Eventually, I managed. I could mourn what I'd lost for centuries if I had to, but being with him was limited to this brief, bitter now.
"I was so afraid to tell you," I said once I could speak again. "So afraid to drag you into a world where everyone walks over one another, where people drink someone else's blood for breakfast instead of coffee."
"You've just described a normal morning in any office building."
"Mark," I shot him an exasperated look.
"What? Dying funny is less embarrassing."
"Stop trying to comfort me," I snapped, a flicker of anger breaking through. "I know therapy stopped helping you a long time ago. I know you're terrified right now. That you've been suffering all this time and said nothing—just to look strong for me. Why did you lie about the remission?"
He licked his own blood from his lip and stared ahead. For a heartbeat, my own heart stuttered, and I thought he was gone—but then he spoke again.
"Looks like we both lied to each other," he said quietly, "just to seem a little stronger than we really were."
I clenched my teeth, trying not to break down again, but it was more than I could bear.
"I suppose that's how it is," I added quietly, not knowing what else to say. A hundred words of love crowded my tongue, matched only by a hundred regrets—grief over the two years the clan had promised us, which we would never even reach; terror at the thought that Mark would never have another future, and that I would never get to watch him write the story of his life.
"I'm sorry we fought," he said softly. "Half a year together, and we never even learned how to argue properly. And now I go and decide to die."
"You just can't stand conflict," I began, "and you never know what to do with it except—"
"—make a joke out of it," he finished for me. His hand slid into mine, our fingers intertwining. His skin was noticeably colder now.