Free Blood Infernal: The Order of the Sanguines Series by James Rollins, Rebecca Cantrell Page A

. . .”
    Dear Lord, what have I done?
    Leopold fled away, down the only path still open to him for a few breaths more, down that fading link.
    5:31 P . M .
    Cumae, Italy
    Sprawled in a pool of his own blood, Jordan stared up at the cavern roof. Baako kept his large hands pressed onto Jordan’s wound, while Sophia tossed aside the long blade. Jordan had barely felt the impaled sword being yanked free. A strange numbness kept his belly cold, making the bloody pool under him feel hot.
    Baako knelt over him, offering a reassuring smile. “We’ll get you stabilized and back to Rome in no time.”
    “You’re . . . a bad liar,” Jordan grunted.
    He would never survive being dragged up that tunnel with his stomach sliced open. He doubted if he’d even make it across the room.
    Knowing this, a vision of Erin’s face shimmered in his head, her brown eyes laughing, a smile on her lips. Other memories overlapped: a lock of wet blond hair falling across her cheek, her bathrobe falling open, revealing her warm body.
    I don’t want to die in a hole, away from you .
    For that matter, he didn’t want to die at all.
    He wished Erin were here right now, holding his hand, telling him it would be all right, even if it wouldn’t. He wanted to see her one more time, tell her that he loved her, and make her feel it. He knew she was afraid of love, believing it would melt away like snow, that it couldn’t last.
    And now I’m proving it to her .
    He clutched Baako’s iron-strong arm. “Tell Erin . . . I’ll always love her.”
    Baako kept pressure on his wound. “You can tell her yourself.”
    “And my family . . .”
    They would need to know, too. His mother would be devastated, his sisters and brothers would mourn him, and his nieces and nephews would barely remember him in a few years.
    Should’ve called my mother more often .
    Because whatever malaise of emotions that had afflicted him of late extended beyond Erin to his family, too. He’d cut himself off from them all.
    He clenched his teeth, not wanting to die, if only to make amends to everyone. But the spreading pool of warm blood told him that his wounded body didn’t care about his future plans of babies and kids and sitting in rocking chairs on a porch, watching the corn grow.
    He turned his head, as Sophia checked on his attacker.
    At least, I don’t look as bad as that guy .
    The strigoi didn’t have long to live, either. Strangely, the creature’s eyes stared directly at him. Those cold bloodless lips moved, as if speaking.
    Sophia leaned closer, one eyebrow arching high. “What was that?”
    The strigoi drew in a deeper, shuddering breath and, in an accent that Jordan knew well, it spoke. “Jordan, mein Freund . . . I’m sorry.”
    Sophia pulled her hand back from the creature’s body. Jordan was equally shocked.
    Leopold .
    But how?
    The strigoi shuddered and went still.
    Sophia sat back and shook her head. The beast was dead, taking with it any further explanation.
    Jordan struggled to understand, but the world faded as he bled away the last of his life. He felt himself falling away, the room receding, but instead of into darkness, it was into brilliance that he plummeted. He wanted to raise his hand against it, especially as it grew brighter, burning into him. He screwed his eyelids closed, but it didn’t help.
    He had felt such a burning light only once before, when he’d been struck by lightning as a teenager. He had survived the bolt, but it had left its mark, burning in a fractal pattern of scar tissue across his shoulder and upper chest. Those strange vinelike designs were called Lichtenberg figures, or sometimes, lightning flowers.
    Now ribbons of liquid fire radiated along those scars, filling them completely—then stretching even farther. Tendrils of heat grew outward, rooting into his stomach, where a searing agony exploded. The fire writhed in his gut like a living thing.
    Is this what death truly felt like?
    But he didn’t feel