Free Immortal Love by Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban Page A

on the floor. “Why do you care so much for her?”
    “He doesn’t,” I said.
    In a flash, Beatriz was at my side. “Don’t lie to me.” With apparent ease, she lifted me from the ground and yanked me back against the bookshelf. “I know him. I know him better than he knows himself, and I know he cares for you.”
    “But it is not like that … He cares for me because he is … because I am his descendant.”
    Beatriz glared at me, her eyes a burning fire, and I felt the push of her mind entering mine, a harsh, painful thrust, like the prodding of a fingernail in an open wound. Then, she released me suddenly, and I hit the floor so hard my knees gave way and I fell down.
    “I see you’re telling the truth,” Beatriz started. “I wonder why — ?”
    She halted, and her eyes seemed to withdraw as if they were looking inwards. One moment she was looming over me, the next she was gone, leaving behind the echo of a latch unfastening and her unfinished sentence haunting my mind.
    I climbed to my feet and looked around, searching for clues of what had just happened. But for the sliding door opened to the night outside, the room was as it had been.
    For a moment, I considered whether Bécquer had stopped time again and left, taking Beatriz with him. But when I looked, I saw him, lying still on the floor. I rushed to his side. His eyes closed, his chiseled features paler than ever in the soft light of the full moon, Bécquer did not answer my frantic callings. Scarier still, he had no pulse.
    I panicked, at first, for no pulse meant death in my mind, until I remembered Bécquer was not human. Did immortals have a pulse?
    Grateful that Bécquer’s blood had made me immune to my usual blackout reaction at the sight of blood, I opened the collar of his shirt, drenched in blood, and checked his neck. A nasty cut ran from ear to ear. There was something bright inside the wound. A shard of glass.
    Just as I pried it loose, two hands grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me back.
    “What have you done to him?” Federico roared. His back to me, he bent over Bécquer. Then again, he faced me. “You cut him with a broken glass and took his blood,” he shouted.
    For the second time that evening, his strong arms held me in the air. “I told you I would not allow anyone to hurt him.”
    I tried to speak but his hands were at my throat. I closed my eyes, certain I was about to die for Federico’s thoughts screamed of murder. But another voice was in his mind, a tenuous presence, like a thought made out of mist, fighting his instincts.
    He put me down.
    “Leave,” he ordered. Turning his back to me, he knelt by Bécquer.
    I didn’t move. “Is he going to be all right?”
    Federico didn’t answer.
    “Beatriz cut him with a broken glass,” I said. “I never hurt him.”
    “I know. I can sense your feelings, remember? I know your hate for him is gone.”
    Gently, like a mother cradles her child, Federico lifted Bécquer and set him on the sofa.
    “Bécquer is my ancestor,” I talked to his back, simplifying the story. “He’s Ryan’s ancestor too. Not his lover.”
    Federico looked at me. “That is why he has his picture.”
    I nodded.
    “Is he going to be all right?” I asked again.
    “Yes. But he needs blood and soon.”
    He needs blood. I shivered at the implications of his words. With Beatriz his blood giver gone, I was the obvious choice to replace her.
    I could leave, of course, as Federico had urged me to do and for a moment I did consider leaving. But if I left, Federico would force somebody else to feed Bécquer. He had made it clear he would not let him die. I couldn’t let somebody else take my place. Besides, finding this other somebody would take time, and Bécquer didn’t look as if he could waste any more time. I chose to stay.
    “But first we must clean his wound,” Federico continued. “Any glass left inside would prevent it from healing.”
    I watched as Federico removed the red handkerchief