Free Shadow Keepers: Midnight by J. K. Beck Page A

then she hurried to Antonio. Tiberius lay there, content to watch her care for her brother and struck by the dichotomy between the loving young woman and the budding warrior. When she came back, her manner was subdued as she sat down next to him. “He’s ill, but I believe he’ll live. You saved him.”
    “I did not do it alone.”
    Her smile was both timid and proud. “Did I kill him? Is he truly dead?”
    “A silver dagger through the eye and into the brain? Yes, I think we can safely say that Baloch is now dead.”
    “Good,” she said, and he agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment. “It had worn off,” she said softly. “I didn’t feel stronger when I thrust the blade. Not stronger in that way, at least. I just wanted to destroy him, and that gave me the strength to thrust the blade in true.”
    “You have plenty of strength of your own,” he said. “You never needed to borrow mine.”
    He watched her face as he spoke and saw with a twinge of sadness that she did not meet his eyes. They hadn’t talked about what he had revealed to her in the tunnels—there had been no time. But now the truth was settling down around them, and there was no denying what he was any more than there was denying his fear that by revealing what he was to save her, he had lost her as well.
    “Tiberius …”
    He could hear the hesitation in her voice, and he closed his eyes against the words he knew were coming. Words of regret, if not fear. For whatever he hoped could exist between them, he had been of this world for too long not to know the way of things.
    “I’m to be married soon.”
    His heart twisted; this was more difficult than he could have imagined. “I know.”
    “You have told me that you’re sworn to protect my family.”
    “I am,” he said. “You, your husband. Your children.” He clenched his fist around a nearby stone,crushing it to dust. Just the thought that she could lie with another man …
    “Please don’t think that I’m asking you to rescue me from that. What I say now has nothing to do with Giancarlo. But, Tiberius, please. I don’t love him.” He watched as she drew in a trembling breath, hope sprouting within him again. “I love you.”
    It was as if the heavens opened up and sang. “What I am, it doesn’t scare you?”
    “The only thing that scares me is being away from you.”
    He couldn’t speak. Her words, her love, they filled him, and all he could do was pull her close.
    She melted against him, and he sighed with pleasure.
This
was where she belonged, at his side, in his heart. “Will you turn me?” she whispered.
    Her lips were pressed to his chest as she spoke so that the question reverberated through him, bringing equal parts pleasure and pain. He wanted to be strong and tell her no; he feared he would tell her yes.
    Now he only kissed her hair and told her that he loved her.
    She lifted herself up onto her elbows and peered into his eyes, the question so clear it didn’t need to be spoken.
    “I fight the evil inside myself every day. There is pain. There is anguish and rage and blind fury. And, Caris, my love, there is an overwhelming urge for blood. To feed. To kill. I hate to think of you consumed by that.”
    “You bear it,” she said.
    “I have no choice.”
    “I love you,” she said, pressing her lips to his. “So I have no choice, either.”

    Caris jerked awake, then realized with horror what had yanked her so rudely away from the pleasure of sleeping in Tiberius’s arms—the sound of her father.
    “You get away from him, you filthy little trollop,” he roared, his face mottled with anger. “Did I raise a whore?”
    Tiberius was on his feet now, and she clung to his side, her eyes darting from her father to Antonio, who had awakened and was struggling to sit up.
    “I suggest you watch your tongue, sir,” Tiberius said.
    Albertus snarled. “You vile creature. I knew I couldn’t trust you.”
    “Father,” Antonio said, his voice little more than a