Shakily, I laid one hand upon Lucas’s chest. I realized only then that I was waiting for a heartbeat. His heart would never beat again.

One of Lucas’s feet shifted slightly, and his head turned a couple inches to the side. “Lucas?” I whispered. He needed to understand that he wasn’t alone, before he realized anything else. “Can you hear me? It’s Bianca. I’m waiting for you.”

He didn’t move.

“I love you so much.” I wanted so badly to cry, but my ghostly body created no tears. “Please come back to me. Please.” The fingers of his right hand straightened, muscles tensing, then curled back in toward his palm.

“Lucas, can you — ”

“No!” Lucas shoved himself away from the floor, from me, stumbling to all fours. His eyes were wild, too dazed to truly see. “No!”

His back slammed against the wall. He stared at the three of us, his eyes displaying no recognition, no sanity. His hands pressed against the wall, fingers curved like claws, and I thought he might try to dig through it. Maybe it was a vampire instinct for digging your way out of a grave.

“Lucas, it’s okay.” I held my hands out, doing my best to remain completely solid and opaque. It was better to look as familiar as possible. “We’re here with you.”

“He doesn’t know you yet,” Balthazar said. “He’s looking at us, but he can’t see.” Ranulf added, “He wants only blood.”

At the word blood, Lucas’s head tilted, like a predator catching the scent of prey. I realized that was the only word he’d recognized.

The man I loved had been reduced to an animal — to a monster, I realized, the sick, empty, murderous shell that Lucas had once believed every vampire to be.

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. He bared his teeth, and with a shock I saw, for the first time, his vampire fangs. They altered his face so much that I hardly knew him, and that more than anything else tore at me. His posture shifted into a crouch, and I realized he was about to attack — any of us, all of us. Anything that moved. Me.