Silas took a deep breath and shuddered on the exhale. “When you came for the interview that night, I didn’t have any interest in a private nurse. Pritchard—that is my majordomo—was insisting, and so were the clinicians here. To me, though, it felt like I was giving up. Transferring into hospice too soon.” He shrugged. “I mean, that’s the final stage, you know. Someone coming to the house every night, plugging and unplugging the machines, working the drugs, waiting for the point of no resuscitation. I went through it with my father. I remember exactly what it was like.”

Ivie closed her eyes. She’d thought she’d gone to that mansion to see an old male.

Wrong.

And oh, God, his father had died, too? Was it of the same thing, she wondered.

Silas continued, “Pritchard argued with me, so I decided to go down and tell you to leave myself. She followed me, and you didn’t see us. You were looking at the painting of my great-granhmen. There was something…I can’t explain it. There was just something about you. I think Pritchard picked up on it, and next thing I knew, she volunteered to tell you to depart herself.”

“I know she disapproved of me. She said I was too young.”

“She told me that, as well.” Silas shook his head. “Anyway, you left, but you paused on the front stoop to make a phone call. I was in the window of the dining room, and I heard through the glass that you were meeting someone at that cigar bar. I decided to go see you there because…to be honest, at that point, I hadn’t been out of the house for two and a half months. I think you gave me a concrete reason to get motivated. I snuck out, got in my car, and it felt so good to be doing something. I opened the sunroof and turned the heater on and just enjoyed being free. When I got downtown, I almost kept going, but there was a spot open right in front of the bar.”

When he stopped there, she remembered Rubes’s enthusiasm that night. “You watched us and then came over.”

“And the rest is history.” He frowned. “I would have called you or texted you tonight. I wanted to, but I didn’t have my phone with me when I was brought in.”

The very practical part of her needed to put a name to the disease, a title to this war he was fighting. “I have to ask. I’m sorry, but I just have to.”

“It’s Cane’s lethargy,” he said in the Old Language.

Ivie closed her eyes and sagged. That was a death sentence, all right. In vampires, the autoimmune disease, which was similar to lupus and vasculitis in humans, affected everything from the heart and lungs to the stomach, kidneys, and liver, the body’s natural defenses in effect declaring an enemy of itself. Females did not get the disease, only males, and for a long time, it could lay dormant, a sleeping threat unknown to the individual.

What triggered onset was unknown as far as Ivie understood. What she did know was that once the disease became active, it could be chronic for quite some time, the inflammation and deterioration held at bay by steroids and other drugs that suppressed the immune system. But if it became acute? There was no going back.

All you could do was ease the patient’s symptoms with various surgeries to remove blockages and increasing doses of pain medication.

Eventually, kidney and liver function failed and the heart stopped from lack of circulation.

It was a gruesome death.

“Will you let me look at your medical records?” she asked.

“It won’t do any good.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But at least I’ll know where I stand.”

“Look, Ivie, I owe you an apology. Not just for the lying, but for my coming into your life at all. I had no business entering into any kind of relationship with anybody. I just…” His pale eyes lifted to hers. “You made me feel alive. With you, I felt like I had a future—at least during those moments we were together. And it wasn’t because you were some distraction for me, either. There’s just something about you, Ivie. I recognized it the moment I saw you.”

“I want to see your records.”

“I don’t want to be your patient.” He took another one those big deep breaths. “And I think it’s best if we just say goodbye now. The end is going be soon and it’s already getting ugly—”

“I’m not leaving you.”

Silas went quiet and still. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t,” she said in a bored voice. “And do us both a favor, cut the martyr act. I’m not looking to be protected by you, ‘kay? I’m an adult and I can pick what I do, and with and for whom.”

“Except what if I don’t want you to see me like this? Are you saying I don’t get a vote?” He threw up his hands. “No offense, but I’ve had to develop a core competency in being out of control and I fucking hate it. At least you can have the decency of allowing me to keep what dignity I have and remember you—and us—as we were for the two seconds we were together. That may be all I have to get me through what’s coming next.”

At that moment, a nurse came rushing in from the back entry. When she saw Ivie, she looked surprised, but then she focused on Silas.

“I’m sorry, but I’m late for your four-a.m. injection.”

“I’ll give it to him.” Ivie rose to her feet. “Is that the syringe in your hand?”

The nurse glanced back and forth between the pair of them. “Ah…I’m so sorry, but—”

“I’m taking over his care.”

As Ivie stuck out her palm and leveled a stare at the other female, Silas cursed. “You are not. You are going to say goodbye and we’re going to remember—”

Ivie wheeled around on him. “No offense, but shut. Up.”

Hard to know who was more shocked at that, Silas or the other nurse. But Ivie didn’t play, and she sure as hell wasn’t trusting him with anyone else.

“Give me the syringe, and I want access to his medical records. Have the nurse manager add me.”

“I’m sorry,” the nurse hedged, “but you’re not authorized—”

“I’m his private nurse. Just hired. I’ll let my supervisor know. I’ll be staying with him here until it’s time for us to go back to his house.”

The nurse’s brows went so high, they played tag with her hairline. “Ah, sire?”

Ivie shot a glare over her shoulder. “Listen up, Silas. I’m in love with you. I don’t care that we’ve known each other for ten minutes, that you’re dying, or that you don’t want me to be your nurse. Here is what I know for sure. One, this is my job. This is what I do for a living and I’m really frickin’ good at it. Two, if you think I’m going to trust any other person on the face of this planet to take care of you, you’re out of your damn mind. And three, if you have a problem with any of this, too fucking bad. I’m taking over, and that is that. You want to fire me, you’re going to have to carry me out of here kicking and screaming, and I doubt you have the energy for that.”

Silas blinked. And then he cleared his throat and looked at the nurse. “Ah…I think my, ah…she…will be taking over my case now?”

The nurse nodded. “As you wish, sire.” The female turned to Ivie. “I’ll get you permission immediately and also print you out a schedule of meds. This is the cortisol. He really should be back on the morphine drip, but he was insistent on removing it and checking himself out.”

When the other staff member ducked out, Ivie walked over to the bed.

Silas looked up at her. “Did you just tell me you loved me?”

“Yes. I did. And now I’m going to get really romantic. Bend over so I can stick you in the butt.”

There was a pause. And then Silas threw his head back and laughed that wonderful laugh of his, the deep, rolling sound bringing tears to her eyes, which she refused to entertain. Cutting them off, she put her hand on his shoulder.

“This is more like it,” she said with a smile.

But the levity didn’t last.

As Silas recovered from the gallows humor, he got serious. “I love you, Ivie. I really do. And if dying is what I have to do to deserve you, all I can say is, my life for knowing you is a bargain I’d pick every time. I’m just…sorry about how this is going to end.”