Embrace the Night

Page 240



restless to sit still, and so she paced the living-room floor, wishing the sun would hurry across the sky, wishing for dusk so she could be with Gabriel. She needed to feel his arms around her, to hear his words of reassurance chasing away her fears.

As the shadows grew long, she went out to stand on the veranda, watching the sun make its downward climb.

It had not yet disappeared when she sensed his presence behind her. With a glad heart, she ran into the house and flung herself in his arms.

"Hold me!" she cried. "Hold me and never let go!" "Sarah, what is it?"

"I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

"I don't know. Don't go tonight. Forget about the cure. Stay with me." "Cara…"

"Please."

"I have to try it, Sarah. If there's any chance at all, I have to try it." He tilted her head up. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

"Not anymore."

"Then it's what I want."

"I don't believe that. You're doing it for me, I know you are."

"I want us to be together, not just at night. I want to live as a man again, to walk in the sun with you at my side."

"But what if it doesn't work?"

"Then you must go on with your life. Find a man who will love you and give you children."
"No."

"You found me in this life, cara. If it's possible, I will find you in death."
His mind was made up, and there was nothing she could say to change it.

He carried her upstairs and made love to her, slowly, deliberately, savoring each sensation, storing them in his mind. If the cure proved ineffective, he would have only these last two weeks to live. To a man who had survived over four and a half centuries, two weeks seemed but a moment.

And now the hours sped swiftly by.