Feel. Feel. Touch me and you will feel again. My skin is soft. lean bring you all the way to heaven. You have only to give me your body one time and I will give you the blood you crave.

Shadows moved all around him and the women came out of the vines and leaves, burst through the earth itself and reached for him, smiling seductively. He . . .felt revulsion and bared his teeth, shaking his head. «I would never betray her.» He said it aloud. «I would rather die of slow starvation.» He said it in a low snarl, a growl of warning rumbling in his throat. Meaning it.

«That death will take centuries.» The voices weren't so seductive now, more desperate and whining, more frantic than accusing.

«So be it. I will not betray her.»

«You have already betrayed her,» one cried. «You stole a piece of her soul. You stole it and you cannot give it back.»

He searched his broken memory. For a moment he smelled a wisp of fragrance, a scent of something clean and fresh in the midst of the decaying rot surrounding him. The taste of her was in his mouth. His heart beat strong and steady. Everything in him settled. She was real.

He took a breath, let it out, breathing away the shadows around him, yet more grief poured in. «If I have committed such a crime against her, then I will do whatever she wishes.» Had he committed so great a sin that she had left him? Was that why the unfamiliar grief turned his heart to such a heavy stone?

Around him, the faces slowly dissolved as the forms blurred even more, until they were only wailing shadows and the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach eased, even as his hunger grew beyond craving.

He had a lifemate. He clung to that truth.