Stefan didn’t understand. She’d been infected—turned. She didn’t look sick, and she still had her human consciousness when she changed. All of the beasts at the facility did. He’d never seen that behavior before. That didn’t negate the fact they were brutal dogs, but it did change how he’d deal with them in the future. Studying her, she still looked human. She looked like the same beautiful woman she’d been the last time he’d seen her, the last time he’d touched her. Except for her eyes—they were electric-blue shining out into the darkness—strangely hypnotic. I love you, she’d said. He could admit now he’d mourned her death. But here she was in the warm, living, breathing flesh claiming she couldn’t leave him—even after all he’d done. The guilt from earlier blossomed into something else, something he couldn’t name and didn’t want to give voice to. As the prince of his people, he had special magic he knew he could use to save himself.
