Disclaimer: All characters in this story are the property of Jeaniene Frost, I own nothing

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"Damn you, Mencheres, have you no mercy?" Her words were the venom-coated knife she'd meant them to be. I knew if I had been inside the hotel and she could see the damage her words had wrought, she would have smiled in triumph despite the fact that she was about to die. Patra had a greater capacity for hatred than anyone I've ever known, and I have lived for nearly five thousand years. Even though she had hated me for nearly a millennium, I wanted nothing more than to call a stop to this and save her. I could not, however, and for that I felt more furious and helpless than I ever had in my thousands of years of life. She would never stop, of this I was certain, until she had killed me and everyone I loved and was responsible for. Her hatred was a vast ocean; she could have saved herself thousands of years ago but she hadn't, and now it was too late.

Tears poured down my face. I thought it was bitterly ironic; I had limitless power as a vampire, had once been revered as a god, but I couldn't stop the tears pouring down like a rain of blood. It was fitting, I decided. Blood had been part of our lives and our relationship since they began, and now they ended with blood, the very thing all vampires held sacred.

Bones twisted the knife. I felt it slice through my own heart.

My love, I'm so sorry.