Daughter of the Blood. Nancy Holder

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      You’re on point, said the voice inside her head. Get up and kill Esposito. Do it. Now. Or others will die, and this House will fall.

      In a daze, Izzy stared down at Pat. His head was twisted to one side; his eyes were fluttering shut, and his face was a deathly white.

      “This isn’t happening,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening!”

      But it was happening.

      Do it.

      “I’m not leaving him,” she said aloud, putting her arms around his broad shoulders. He was gasping like a beached sea creature. His lips were cyanotic.

      Shoot Esposito or everyone will die.

      “I won’t leave you,” Izzy promised Pat, as she burst into hoarse, wild wails. “Pat! I won’t leave you!”

      Chapter 2

      P at can’t be dead. He shouldn’t even be here. He can’t be dead….

      “Oh, my God, he bit me, didn’t he! That freakin’ vampire bit me!” Sauvage cried.

      Izzy jerked awake, tears streaming down her cheeks. Sauvage, in her red-and-black goth attire, was sitting about five feet away on a white plastic chair in the corner of the OR, which was located in the lower depths of the House of the Flames. Ruthven, her boyfriend, knelt before her in black leather pants and a black T-shirt, scrutinizing every inch of her exposed flesh for vampire bites.

      “Pat,” she whispered, knowing already that he wasn’t there. That he wasn’t dead. It had been a horrible nightmare—horribly real, but just a nightmare—one of the many that had plagued her of late. New York, Sauvage and Torres, Pat and the apartment building—all that had been a dream—or perhaps another vision of things to come. Since arriving in New Orleans, she had been plagued by dreams and visions. But Sauvage had definitely never been in protective custody, and Esposito had never dragged her through the streets of East Harlem.

      But last night, on the verandah, Izzy had shot and killed Esposito. In the melee, Esposito had been about to slit Sauvage’s throat. Izzy had taken aim, and with one clear shot from her Medusa revolver—an enchanted .9 mm cartridge—she had shot him in the chest.

      And he had burst into purple fireworks.

      He exploded . Thinking of that, seeing it again in her mind, Izzy trembled. Two weeks ago people in her world didn’t die like that; there were no mansions filled with people with magical powers or werewolves or vampires.

      Two weeks ago her world had been the borough of Brooklyn, where she lived in a row house with her father and worked as a civilian in the property room of the Two-Seven. Gino, her brother, was studying to be a priest in a seminary in Connecticut. And the little family of three had shared the memory of her beloved mother, Anna Maria DeMarco, who had been dead for ten years.

      And then the real nightmare had begun. Izzy had learned that she had magical powers, and that she was the missing heiress of the ancient French magic-using family, the de Bouvards—the House of the Flames. Jean-Marc de Devereaux des Ombres, Regent of the Flames, had saved her life, told her who she was and brought her here, to New Orleans, to take over leadership of her family.

      Now Jean-Marc lay a few feet from her on an operating table, hovering someplace midway between life and death. He, not Pat, had been badly wounded during the battle.

      “Patient’s BP still in the basement,” someone muttered at the OR table. They moved inside a magical sterile field of white light. Within it, everyone was dressed in white—white scrubs for the surgical team and white gowns and veils for the Femmes Blanches, the legendary de Bouvard healing women, who were as silent as ghosts as they held each other’s hands. The two women on the ends of their line clasped Jean-Marc’s hands as well. They were transferring their magical energy to him.

      As the surgeon shifted to the left, Izzy caught sight of Jean-Marc’s sharp profile, and she drew in a sharp breath at the instant, riveting rush of…intensity overtaking her. Jean-Marc had searched for her for three years, and once he had found her, a link—physical, emotional, magical—had formed between them. One touch, one smoldering look, reduced her to a fine trembling. Her engulfing attraction to him frightened her.

      And then there was Pat. When Jean-Marc had barreled into Izzy’s life, she had only just built up the nerve to ask Pat over for dinner. Pat had been interested in her for months, but he had given her all the time she needed to respond to his patient, easygoing flirtation. It was the lack of pressure she savored most; he was a little older than she was, more seasoned, less inclined to see each opportunity that came his way as the last one he would ever have. He respected her boundaries. He never challenged her need to go slow.

      Before she left New York, fleeing for her life, she had slept with Pat. In some ways, it had been too soon in their relationship for sex. But Jean-Marc himself had explained that for magic users like themselves—known in their world as the Gifted—sex magic was the strongest type of spell they could employ. He had gone so far as to suggest that she go to bed with Pat, to protect him from harm.

      Death was all around them, people she cared about going down; Izzy had done it…and making love with Pat had rocked her to her foundations. Never in her life had she experienced such transforming pleasure, felt such joy and completion. She had seduced Pat to protect him, but her Texas cowboy had claimed her as surely as if he had roped and branded her. Pat was in her heart now.

      And yet, when she gazed at the unconscious man on the operating table, she knew that if Jean-Marc woke up, she would have to face a decision. Pat was Ungifted—not a magic user—and he was back in New York, watched over by Captain Clancy herself, who knew the score. Izzy had no idea what was going to happen to her old life—could she go back? If so, when? Would Pat wait? When he found out who and what she was, would he want to?

      Or did her heart’s destiny end in the path that led to Jean-Marc? He was her mentor, her guardian. She thought she felt his heart beating inside her own chest. Closing her eyes, she smelled the roses and oranges that signaled his working a spell of protection and comfort around her. She half-suspected that if he did die—and she could hardly bear to even think of it—their link would survive the grave.

      Jean-Marc , she sent out to him, I still need you here. You can’t go. You can’t die .

      She felt a tiny flutter against her mind. She gasped and shut her eyes, waiting for words, for thoughts, for heartbeats.

      It came:

      Isabelle .

      Her throat closed up with emotion as she replied, N’as pas de peur. Je suis ici . Don’t be afraid. I am here.

      She waited hungrily for more, listening to the shorthand of the surgical team, watching as they combined traditional medicine with strange magical incantations, powders and objects—crystals, a ritual knife called an athame and candles. Unmoving, the fully veiled Femmes Blanches held his hands through it all.

      Then the surgeon sighed heavily, and the women bowed their heads.

      “Oh, my God, what’s happening?” Izzy asked, half rising from her chair.

      The doctor looked at her over his shoulder. “Please, madame, stay where you are. We’re doing the best we can.”

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