Starlight(Pact Arcanum 4) by Arshad Ahsanuddin Read Free Book Online Page A

his eyes shift. “You’re mine.”
    After that, there were no more words.
     

C HAPTER 9
     
    July 2094; San Francisco, California; Three years later
    Lorcan was reading a book bound in blue leather, held in his right hand, while he absently stroked Rory’s hair with his left. Rory dozed under his touch, his head in Lorcan’s lap.
    Then a familiar voice spoke in their minds. “Rory. Ruarc. I need you to come to the main hospital at Anchorpoint, right now.”
    Rory sat upright on the couch. “Jeremy? What’s wrong?”
    “You have to take care of Nick. You’ll find him in the medical intensive care unit.”
    Lorcan dropped his book on the coffee table as he climbed to his feet. “What happened to him?”
    “To him?” The voice sounded amused. “Nothing.”
    Rory frowned. “Then what … Did something happen to you?”
    “I’m dying.”
     
    July 2094; Anchorpoint City, Colorado
    Rory gently shook Nick’s shoulder. The Daywalker shuddered back to wakefulness, and his head snapped up to stare at Rory blearily. “Rory?” He caught the movement as Lorcan flipped a page in the virtual chart that hovered at the foot of the bed. Nick got unsteadily to his feet from the hard plastic chair where he’d fallen asleep. “What are you doing here?”
    “Jeremy called us,” said Rory. He glanced at the still form on the bed, wired up to various machines, breathing through a ventilator. “What happened?”
    “Pandemic influenza,” said Lorcan, closing the pages of physician notes. “I didn’t realize it had spread this far west.”
    Jeremy’s voice answered in their minds. “A group of Sentinel refugees from India brought it into Sanctuary. We’re still in the process of setting up proper quarantine, so the disease spread throughout the city before we knew what was happening. I must have been exposed then, but it didn’t hit me until I came back here. It’s already too far advanced to do more than make me comfortable, but Nick insisted they do everything.”
    Nick sat back in his chair and grabbed the Sentinel’s hand tightly. “Don’t talk, Jer. Save your strength.”
    “For what? Did you think I didn’t see that conversation with the doctors in your mind? I don’t call a 3% chance of survival exactly good odds.”
    “We’ve faced worse,” said Nick. “We’ll beat this.”
    “Face facts. The virus is almost always fatal. I’m not young anymore, and I’m tired of fighting.”
    “Don’t say that,” said Nick, running his fingers through the damp strands of Jeremy’s gray hair. “You have to fight. You can’t just give up.”
    “Will you do something for me?”
    “Anything.”
    “Take care of Sanctuary for me. Make sure the community I built survives.”
    “Jer—”
    “Promise me.”
    “I’ll take care of it. I promise.”
    “Then there’s only one other thing I want. Swear to me that you’ll do it?”
    “Of course. Whatever you want.” Tears of blood poured down Nick’s cheeks and dripped onto the blanket.
    “I want you to let Rory and Ruarc help you.”
    Nick’s eyes went wide with shock. “What?”
    “Listen to me carefully, Nicholas. I am going to die. This is my time, and I’m ready. You will not ask Rory to turn me. You will not ask him to bring me back. What you WILL do is go stay with them until they think you’re ready to live on your own again, and you WILL heed their judgment on what you have to do to take care of yourself.”
    Nick snarled, his eyes going red. “What am I, a two-year old to be put in foster care?”
    “You swore you would do what I asked. You’ve never lied to me, not once in fifty-four years. Don’t start now, when it matters the most.”
    “Do you trust me that little?”
    “I love you, Nick. Give me this much, so I can die with a clear conscience, knowing you won’t immediately follow after me.”
    Nick struggled with his temper, but he managed to speak without raising his voice. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”
    “That’s what