Fuck that, a voice inside of me shouted, I don’t want to die.

“Calm,” Halcyon murmured and I felt that rising heat within me smooth back down like turbulent waters soothed. “It will be easier if you remain calm.”

“What will be easier?”

“Controlling the new demon nature you have acquired.” His demon nature. It had been Halcyon’s blood Mona Louisa had ingested. “How well you can control it will determine how long you shall live.”

“What do you mean, Halcyon? I’m getting pretty tired of asking all these questions. Why don’t you just tell me what’s going to happen?”

Like a symphonic swelling, that sadness came wafting out from him again. “It is something that is better shown,” he said, and like that the grief shut off. Completely this time, like a limb suddenly chopped off. And in that absence, my demon bloodlust came rushing back into me like a thirty-foot wave held back for a time but no longer contained. It smashed down on me. Drowned me in want and throbbing need.

“Christ!” I gasped. My nails sank down several inches into the tree trunk I’d unconsciously gripped, my fingertips aching and throbbing just as my teeth had before my fangs had erupted. I didn’t know if it was because I had shoved them through hard wood, or if it was because my nails where changing into sharp dagger tips like Halcyon’s. I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to see. So I kept them buried like an ostrich sticking its head in sand, and desperately fought that wild hunger, that bloodlust that was urging me to pounce on Halcyon and sink my fangs into him.

I would not be that stupid. Because if I was, forget eighty years, my life wouldn’t even last eighty seconds. No, no, NO! Do not jump him. But it was like trying to hang onto an oil-slicked ledge. My grip, my control, was starting to slip. I was hanging on only by my mental fingertips, slipping, slipping, starting to fall…