Emma hadn’t danced with many men in the past. The boys in high school had just linked their hands at the base of her spine and swayed a little. College guys had done the same.
Not Cliff though. Cliff entranced her. He made her feel special. Loved. It reminded her of the way her parents danced. Her mom and dad had been married for going on forty years. And no matter how busy or chaotic life got, they always danced together on their anniversary.
Cliff took Emma’s right hand in his left and pulled her close. His right arm slid around to her back, his warm hand delivering a soft caress. Emma slid her left hand up his arm to his shoulder, happy to discover his muscles still loose and limber instead of tightened into knots. And when only inches separated them, they began to move. To the side. Backward. To the side. Forward. Angling in such a way that they traveled in slow circles. Every once in a while he would step back and raise their clasped hands, encouraging her to walk a slow twirl beneath them before returning to his embrace.
And his gaze always held hers, making her feel as if she was the most beautiful and most loved woman in the world.
Tonight he even sang, his deep voice joining Nat King Cole’s in professing her unforgettable as they danced beneath the moonlight. It was magical.
He was magical.
“I’m so in love with you,” she murmured.
Smiling, he swiveled slightly and lowered her in a gentle dip. “You’re the love of my life, Emma.”
She had never been happier than in that moment.
Once the song ended, Nat King Cole began to croon “Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup.” Then “Pretend.” “For Sentimental Reasons.”
And when at last they abandoned the dance floor and went inside, Cliff made love to her with aching tenderness, then with a playfulness that sparked laughs and chuckles as well as gasps of ecstasy, then once more with a tenderness that stole her heart all over again.
Afterward, instead of spooning, they lay facing each other, their limbs entwined, and talked softly, laughing and teasing. Instead of tightening with tension, his muscles remained relaxed. Instead of darkening with frustration and anger as he struggled to combat the voices in his head, Cliff’s beautiful face lit with frequent smiles.
He was captivating. He was loving. He was everything she’d ever wanted.
Emma wished the night would never end.
Alas, dawn waited for no man. So they dressed quietly and headed for the door. Leaning into him, Emma touched her lips to his. “I wish you didn’t have to leave.”
Cliff kissed her again, pouring so much emotion into the contact that it brought tears to her eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, a gentle smile touching his lips. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Emma. Don’t ever forget that.”
A sense of foreboding infiltrated her.
He stepped back.
“Cliff?” she asked, afraid all of a sudden. Reaching out, she took his hand.
Still smiling, he brought it to his lips and kissed the back of it. “I have to go. The sun will rise soon.”
But when he turned away, she didn’t let go. She couldn’t. Her heartbeat picked up. “Cliff,” she repeated.
“Bastien’s waiting,” he reminded her as he carefully tried to extricate his hand.
Emma shook her head. Something was wrong. She could feel it.
Her mind raced, reviewing their evening together.
Everything he’d said. Everything they’d done. Every minute of it.
It had been perfect.
It had been too perfect.
When Cliff managed to free himself, she ducked around him, planted herself in his path, and refused to let him leave.
He closed his eyes. “Emma,” he protested softly.
And there it was, a flicker of finality in his expression that terrified her.
Raising her hands, she cupped his face. “Cliff, look at me.”
He opened his eyes.
Hers filled with tears, those born of both anguish and denial. “You’re telling me goodbye,” she choked out. “That’s what this has all been about. The flowers and the dinner and the dancing.” The aching tenderness with which he’d made love to her. “You’re going to die today, and you’re telling me goodbye.”
His silence betrayed his guilt.
Releasing him, she shook her head and backed away. “Why?” He seemed so well tonight. Like his old self. She knew it wouldn’t last. His lucid moments never did. But… if he could still have nights like this, didn’t that mean there was still hope?
She couldn’t give up. He couldn’t give up.
Sadness darkened his beloved features. “I wanted one more night with you,” he acknowledged. “I needed one more night with you and—”
“But you’re better,” she blurted. “You were smiling and laughing. You didn’t mutter to yourself or pace or shout at the voices once. And Todd said you did great the night of the battle, that you were a true hero.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make up for the fact that I almost killed an immortal female.”
Damn it. He did remember that. “But you didn’t kill her. And you saved lives the night of the battle. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
A weary sighed escaped him. “Sweetheart, you knew this was the way our time together would end. You’ve always known it. Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”
She stared at him. “Harder?” Anger rose, as did her voice. “You don’t want me to make it harder? I thought you died two nights ago! I thought you died and that I’d never see you again. Then you show up here, looking so damned handsome and healthy and are happy and charming and loving and we have the best night of my life and you give me this perfect memory, then tell me not to make it harder—” Her breath hitched as the truth dawned.
More tears welled in her eyes and spilled over her lashes. Pain inundated her. “You wanted to give me the perfect memory,” she whispered.
His throat worked in a swallow. “Yes.”
“Cliff,” she murmured, both a thank-you and a plea.
This hadn’t just been about what he needed. It had been about what he’d known she needed, too. He hadn’t wanted her last memory of him to be what it would’ve been if he hadn’t come tonight: him standing before her, eyes glowing, face full of anguish and self-loathing and—yes—suffering as he told her I can’t be like this anymore.
He’d wanted her last memory of him to be a good one, a loving one she could hold close and cherish in his absence.
Biting back a sob, she spun around, yanked the door open, and left the house.
“Emma,” Cliff called after her.
Ignoring him, she hurried down the steps and stomped across the grass toward the car parked beside hers in the driveway.
The driver’s door opened and Bastien stepped out.
“Did you know?” she demanded. “Did you know he was coming here to tell me goodbye?”
His jaw clenched. “I suspected it.”
“Well, you need to talk him out of it. Whatever he has planned, you need to talk him out of it, Bastien.”
“I can’t,” he said, face grim.
“That’s bullshit.”
“I can’t,” he repeated. “It’s his choice, Emma.”
“A choice he made before he went into battle to rescue you.” She jabbed him in the chest. “You and Melanie and Aidan and everyone else who was captured. He went there to save your asses, and he did. He led all of your immortal brethren safely through those fucking booby traps, suffering injury after injury so they wouldn’t and could rescue you.” Again she poked him. “He saved you. Now you need to save him.”
Cliff spoke softly behind her. “He can’t save me, Emma.”
“Bullshit.” She shifted so she could see them both. “He can and he will.”
“No, he can’t.” The certainty in C
liff’s words pierced her like a knife.
She stood there in the silence that fell, her heart breaking, absolutely devastated. “So… what? You’re going to wait for the sun to rise and let it burn you to death?” Was that why he’d stayed longer than usual?
“No.”
She looked at Bastien. “You’re going to decapitate him?”
“If he asks me to, I will.”
She stared at Bastien helplessly. “How can you do that? He’s your friend.”
His throat worked in a swallow. “That’s why I can do it.”
“He isn’t going to decapitate me,” Cliff said. “He won’t have to.”
So Cliff intended to take his own life?
She didn’t know why that seemed worse, but it did. Emma took a step toward him. “Cliff, honey, you don’t have to do this. Look how much better you are tonight. If you just give it a little more time—”
“I don’t have more time.”
“I know you’re worried this lucidity won’t last, that things will get bad again, but—”
“I don’t have more time, Emma,” he repeated. “Even if I wanted more time…” He shook his head. “I’m all out of it. It’s over.”
He almost sounded as if he did want more time, that he wasn’t ready to give up the fight, that the choice wasn’t his.
“I don’t understand.”
Closing the distance between them, he took her hands. “Something happened at the base.”
She stared up at him. Something other than him nearly dying? “What do you mean?”
“When I triggered the fail-safes…” He squeezed her hands, then shook his head. “Some of the blades that cut me and stabbed me were coated with chemicals. Melanie thinks most of it was the tranquilizer. But they found poison on some.”
“Poison doesn’t affect vampires and immortals,” she said.
“This one does.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Bastien take a step toward them. “What?”
“Emma,” Cliff said, holding her gaze. “The poison cured me.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It took a moment for Emma’s beleaguered mind to catch up with what Cliff was trying to tell her.
She sucked in a breath. “You mean… you think the poison destroyed the virus?” she asked in a whisper. The fear that had consumed her the night Cliff had gone into battle returned full force. If what he said was true, then they were out of time. Everyone knew the vampiric virus came with a fucked-up catch-22: kill the virus and you leave the vampire or immortal who’d been infected with it with no functioning immune system.
“Yes,” Cliff answered solemnly.
Bastien took another step toward them. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure, yeah.”
“What did Melanie say?”
“I didn’t tell her,” Cliff admitted. “I wanted to spend whatever time I had left with Emma. And I knew if I told Melanie, she’d want me to stay at network headquarters so she could run tests and—”
“So she could stop it,” his friend said, looking as alarmed as Emma felt.
“She can’t stop it, Bastien.”
“You don’t know that,” Bastien nearly shouted.
“Yes, I do!” Cliff shook his head, then motioned to his face. “Look at me. Saying goodbye to Emma is wrenching my fucking heart out. Do you see my eyes glowing?”
Bastien scoffed. “That could be the sedative’s influence.”
“And the fact that I no longer have superspeed or strength? No preternaturally enhanced senses? No fucking fangs?”
His fangs were gone, too?
Despair filled Emma. Cliff hadn’t chosen to die tonight.
He had been dying ever since he’d returned to network headquarters.
He had simply wanted to spend his last moments with her as soon as he’d realized it.
And she’d yelled at him for it.
“Cliff,” she said, full of remorse.
Bastien pointed at her. “No. He isn’t dying.” Then he scowled at Cliff. “You don’t know that the poison killed the virus. What if it merely suppressed it? Or counteracted the most notable symptoms?”
Cliff gave him a sad smile. “You’re grasping at straws.”
“No. Those are valid fucking questions.”
Cliff held out his arm. “Do you smell the virus on me?”
Frowning, Bastien gripped Cliff’s wrist and brought it to his nose. He drew in a deep breath. Held it. Let it out. “No. But I’m not an elder. I can’t always smell the virus on vampires and immortals.”
“You can’t smell the virus because it’s gone.”
“You don’t know that,” Bastien insisted.
Emma bit her lip as the two stared at each other, apparently at a stalemate. “Maybe we should call Aidan.”
Seconds later, a tall, dark figure abruptly appeared right in front of her.
Shrieking, Emma stumbled backward.
“What happened?” Aidan demanded. “Your watch called me. Are you hurt? Is Cliff okay?”
Shit. She’d forgotten they’d programmed her watch to call him if she ever spoke the words Call Aidan. “I’m okay,” she told him. “But Cliff needs you.”
Aidan turned to examine the scene.
Cliff stood placidly while Bastien gripped his wrist.
“What’s going on?” the ancient Celt asked.
Bastien thrust Cliff’s wrist toward Aidan. “Smell this.”
Aidan’s eyebrows flew up. “What?”
If Emma wasn’t so damn distraught, she would’ve laughed.
Even as upset as he was, Cliff cracked a smile.
Bastien’s face, however, remained dark and angry. “Smell him. Tell me if you smell the virus.”
His expression saying he questioned Bastien’s sanity, Aidan accepted Cliff’s wrist and sniffed it. His brows drew down. Then he sniffed again, drawing in a deeper breath. “What the hell?” he muttered. Palming a dagger, he sliced open Cliff’s palm.
Cliff hissed in pain.
Emma cried out and started forward, but Cliff thrust out his other arm and stopped her.
Latching onto his hand, she gripped it in both of hers.
Aidan brought Cliff’s bleeding palm to his nose and drew in another deep breath. His eyes widened. He looked at Bastien, then Cliff, his face full of… confusion? Fear? “I can’t smell it. I can’t smell the virus.”
Cliff tugged his hand free. “Because it’s gone. The poison destroyed it.”
“What poison?” Aidan demanded.
“The poison that coated some of the blades that cut me at the military base.”
Aidan shook his head. “Poison doesn’t affect us.”
“This one does,” Cliff snapped. He held up his hand. “The wound is still bleeding and is showing no signs of healing. My eyes no longer glow. My fangs are gone. And I no longer have enhanced senses, speed, or strength.”
Dread filled Aidan’s features. “If the poison killed the virus…”
“Then I’m dying.”
“Seth,” Aidan said.
Emma jumped when the Immortal Guardians leader appeared beside them. His hair was shorter than the last time she’d seen him, stopping above his shoulders.
Seth took in the tableau—the devastation on her, Bastien, and Aidan’s faces—then turned to Cliff, his face solemn.
“It isn’t what you think,” Cliff said. “They didn’t call you here to kill me. The poison already did that.”
Seth frowned. “What poison?”
Cliff sighed as though he’d grown tired of recounting it. “Some of the blades loosed by the fail-safes were coated with poison. I don’t know what kind it was, but it killed the virus in me.”
Aidan nodded. “I can’t smell it on him. I can’t even scent it in his blood.”
Seth met Emma’s gaze. “Release him.”
She did so immediately, hoping Seth could help him. If
Bastien was right and even a tiny shred of the virus remained…
Seth rested a hand on Cliff’s shoulder. A look of concentration overtook the powerful immortal’s features.
Emma’s pulse thudded in her ears as she awaited his verdict.
Seth’s frown deepened. Moving to stand beside Cliff, he released his shoulder, then rested one hand on the center of Cliff’s chest and touched the fingers of the other hand to Cliff’s forehead.
Birdsong twittered from a nearby tree, reminding Emma that sunrise approached.
“You’re right,” Seth murmured. “There’s no sign of the virus. At all. It’s been completely eradicated.”
* * *
Cliff felt no surprise at Seth’s proclamation. He hadn’t needed the powerful Immortal Guardian leader to confirm it. But the others had.
Bastien and Aidan looked utterly devastated.
And Emma…
He swallowed hard.
Biting her lip, she regarded him with glistening eyes full of anguish.
How he wished he could’ve spared her this. Cliff knew if he asked her what she would change if she could go back in time and do it all over again, she’d say nothing. Not one damned thing. But awareness of the grief she’d suffer after he was gone tore him up inside.
Heat arose at the points Seth touched him. When Cliff lowered his gaze, he discovered Seth’s hand on his chest had acquired a golden luminescence.
“It wasn’t the poison,” Seth murmured.
Emma blinked. When tears spilled down her cheeks, she absently wiped them away. “What?”
The golden glow faded, as did the warmth. Then Seth stepped back. “It wasn’t the poison.”
Cliff frowned, confused. “If it wasn’t the poison, then what was it?” It sure as hell hadn’t been the tranquilizer.
Seth glanced at Emma, then at Aidan and Bastien as if he wasn’t sure he should disclose it.
Emma sidled closer to Cliff and slipped her small hand into his. “Please. If Cliff is going to die, we should at least know why.”
Seth rubbed his palms together, almost as if doing so would magically conjure the answer he sought. When that failed, he sighed and placed his hands on his hips. “That’s just it. Cliff isn’t going to die.”
Shock rippled through him. “What?” How was that possible? “Why?” Network researchers unanimously agreed that the virus destroyed vampires’ and immortals’ immune systems.
Cliff's Descent Page 29
